whineluvr

The early stages of the Iraq war may have been a
watershed in American optimism. The happy talk was so
extreme it is now difficult to believe it was sincere:
"we will be greeted as liberators"; "mission
accomplished"; the insurgency is "in the last throes."
Most wildly optimistic of all was the goal: a military
action transforming the Middle East into pro-American
democracies.

The gap between predictions and reality has left
Americans deeply discouraged. So has much of what has
happened, or not happened, at the same time. Those who
believed New Orleans would rebound quickly after
Hurricane Katrina have seen their hopes dashed. Those
counting on solutions to health care, energy
dependence or global warming have seen no progress. It
is no wonder the nation is in a gloomy mood; 71
percent of respondents in a recent Associated
Press-Ipsos poll said the country is on the wrong
track.

These are ideal times for the release of "Pessimism:
Philosophy, Ethic, Spirit," by Joshua Foa Dienstag, a
U.C.L.A. political theorist. Mr. Dienstag aims to
rescue pessimism from the philosophical sidelines,
where it has been shunted by optimists of all
ideologies. The book is seductive, because pessimists
are generally more engaging and entertaining than
optimists, and because, as the author notes, "the
world keeps delivering bad news." It is almost
tempting to throw up one's hands and sign on with
Schopenhauer.

Pessimism, however, is the most un-American of
philosophies. This nation was built on the values of
reason and progress, not to mention the "pursuit of
happiness." Pessimism as philosophy is skeptical of
the idea of progress. Pursuing happiness is a fool's
errand. Pessimism is not, as is commonly thought,
about being depressed or misanthropic, and it does not
hold that humanity is headed for disaster. It simply
doubts the most basic liberal principle: that applying
human reasoning to the world's problems will have a
positive effect.

The biggest difference between optimists and
pessimists, Mr. Dienstag argues, is in how they view
time. Optimists see the passing of time as a canvas on
which to paint a better world. Pessimists see it as a
burden. Time ticks off the physical decline of one's
body toward the inevitability of death, and it
separates people from their loved ones. "All the
tragedies which we can imagine," said Simone Weil, the
French philosopher who starved herself to death at age
34, "return in the end to the one and only tragedy:
the passage of time."

Optimists see history as the story of civilization's
ascent. Pessimists believe, Mr. Dienstag notes, in the
idea that any apparent progress has hidden costs, so
that even when the world seems to be improving, "in
fact it is getting worse (or, on the whole, no
better)." Polio is cured, but AIDS arrives. Airplanes
make travel easy, but they can drop bombs or be
crashed into office towers. There is no point in
seeking happiness. When joy "actually makes its
appearance, it as a rule comes uninvited and
unannounced," insisted Schopenhauer, the dour German
who was pessimism's leading figure.

As politicians, pessimists do not believe in
undertaking great initiatives to ameliorate
unhappiness, since they are skeptical they will work.
They are inclined to accept the world's evil and
misery as inevitable. Mr. Dienstag tries to argue that
pessimists can be politically engaged, and in modest
ways they can be. Camus joined the French Resistance.
But pessimism's overall spirit, as Camus noted, "is
not to be cured, but to live with one's ailments."

President Clinton was often mocked for his
declarations that he still believed "in a place called
Hope." But he understood that instilling hope is a
critical part of leadership. Other than a few special
interest programs _ like cutting taxes on the wealthy
and giving various incentives to business _ it is hard
to think of areas in which the Bush administration has
raised the nation's hopes and met them. This president
has, instead, tried to focus the American people on
the fear of terrorism, for which there is no cure,
only bad choices or something worse.

Part of Mr. Bush's legacy may well be that he robbed
America of its optimism _ a force that Franklin Delano
Roosevelt and other presidents, like Ronald Reagan,
used to rally the country when it was deeply
challenged. The next generation of leaders will have
to resell discouraged Americans on the very idea of
optimism, and convince them again that their goal
should not be to live with their ailments, but to cure them.