Journeyman Philosopher

In my previous post I made the conclusion that even pessimism if acted upon could be a feasible belief. This itself creates a small side topic; if no belief is inherently unfounded how can we judge a successful use of a belief from an unsuccessful use?

I think, to explain this, a distinction needs to be made between a naive optimist & pessimist and a applied optimist & pessimist.

It seems that in my previous post I concluded that application was the problem. In a situation in which a pessimist was negative about a certain thing, but rather than be hopeless it inspired them to apply themselves it would be practical (Ie an individual of a zealous nature that made it their duty to fight the oppression of the littering nihilists!).

The only problem I can see with pessimism is usually it makes the individual who applies it feel hopeless. This hopelessness lead to a sense of powerlessness which in turn leads them to not apply themselves, thereby making change impossible. This problem fundamentally comes down to if you are applying it correctly or not.

However a naive optimist, I believe, is worse then a naive pessimist. Not only will they say ‘oh everything will be ok’ but they will say this in order to avoid there own responsibilities and obligations in the situation. They in a sense have blind faith that things will get better, and take the responsibility out of their own hands.

For example, we all know of someone who would say something similar to ‘Ya know I’m not gonna worry about x it’ll fix itself in its own time’ as they then contribute to the x through there own negligence. This is a problem.

In this light I rate the beliefs/viewpoints in the following order:

1) Applied Optimist 

2) Applied Pessimist (only in the secondary slot due to its self inflicting stressful nature)

3) Naive Pessimist (at least you’re being consistent with the false belief that individuals can’t make a difference)

4) Naive Optimist (due to the fact that an optimist turns his back on reality based on, seemingly, faith alone)

This brings to mind what I believe is the most dire constant individual mistake of mankind, the self inflicted belief that an individual can’t make a difference.