Full Version: Eternal Optimism
It has been mentioned that one of differences between the US and much of the rest of the world is the American public's "optimism"...
Beware the bluewash
Who's optimism is unfounded here? Is American optimism a strength or naivete? What about Europe? Are Europeans overly pessimistic? How do these outlooks contribute to the social/political divide?
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The US government's problem is that it has built its foreign policy on two great myths. The first is that it is irresistible; the second is that as time advances, life improves. In Iraq it is trapped between the two. To believe that it can be thwarted, and that its occupation will become harder rather than easier to sustain as time goes by, requires that it disbelieves all that it holds to be most true.
But those who oppose its foreign policy appear to have responded with a myth of equal standing: that what unilateralism cannot solve, multilateralism can. The United Nations, almost all good liberals now argue, is a more legitimate force than the US and therefore more likely to succeed in overseeing Iraq's reconstruction and transition. If the US surrendered to the UN, this would, moreover, represent the dawning of a fairer, kinder world. These propositions are scarcely more credible than those coming out of the Pentagon.
But those who oppose its foreign policy appear to have responded with a myth of equal standing: that what unilateralism cannot solve, multilateralism can. The United Nations, almost all good liberals now argue, is a more legitimate force than the US and therefore more likely to succeed in overseeing Iraq's reconstruction and transition. If the US surrendered to the UN, this would, moreover, represent the dawning of a fairer, kinder world. These propositions are scarcely more credible than those coming out of the Pentagon.
Beware the bluewash
Who's optimism is unfounded here? Is American optimism a strength or naivete? What about Europe? Are Europeans overly pessimistic? How do these outlooks contribute to the social/political divide?
I'd say that optimism generally is one of the most enviable characteristics of Americans.
However it sometimes extends itself (in anyone relentlessly optimistic) into over-confidence in one's own capabilities. Past failures are ignored, or attributed to blame laid elsewhere. All successes are claimed as personal triumphs, though, with no sharing of praise elsewhere.
We see this everywhere in individuals - yes, even in Europe!
- and we see it sometimes in America as a whole. For example, many Americans, thinking about WWII, think that the "we" in "we won the war" is America, and not the Allies. We could not have done it without you, for sure, but neither could you without us. (The UK did exactly the same thing in the war against Napolean, even though the Prussians had at least as much to do with Waterloo.)
In ordinary society, failure is the only stigma. We go to huge lengths to avoid admitting to failure. Divorce is no longer a failed marriage, but we just grew apart. Or the other person turned into some horrible person. Bankruptcy is no longer business failure, just a setback on the road to success.
On the other hand, Europeans are unquestionably more cynical than Americans, if not more pessimistic (I'm not sure we are pessimistic on the whole, unless it is in comparison to Americans). There's an old expression that I think sums up most Europeans - "hope for the best but prepare for the worst". Centuries of wars and revolutions and empires have ingrained an expectation that no matter what the intentions are, failure or success happen almost at random.
In Kipling's If, often used as an inspiration to people on a downswing, disaster isn't the only "imposter" we are enjoined to treat with contempt - triumph is in there too. The implication is that it's less important whether you win or lose, but it's how you play the game. (This is very British, sort of European, and almost anathema to Americans.)
In other words, the ends have come to matter less than the means.
I think that this last point is why Europeans want to see the UN take over in Iraq. Not because they believe it has more chance of success than the same people in a coalition led by the US (although many of them do think that). Mostly I'd say it was because they think it is the right thing to do; the means being elevated above the end.
For the same reasons, they thought that the premptive war against Iraq was the wrong thing to do.
However it sometimes extends itself (in anyone relentlessly optimistic) into over-confidence in one's own capabilities. Past failures are ignored, or attributed to blame laid elsewhere. All successes are claimed as personal triumphs, though, with no sharing of praise elsewhere.
We see this everywhere in individuals - yes, even in Europe!
- and we see it sometimes in America as a whole. For example, many Americans, thinking about WWII, think that the "we" in "we won the war" is America, and not the Allies. We could not have done it without you, for sure, but neither could you without us. (The UK did exactly the same thing in the war against Napolean, even though the Prussians had at least as much to do with Waterloo.)In ordinary society, failure is the only stigma. We go to huge lengths to avoid admitting to failure. Divorce is no longer a failed marriage, but we just grew apart. Or the other person turned into some horrible person. Bankruptcy is no longer business failure, just a setback on the road to success.
On the other hand, Europeans are unquestionably more cynical than Americans, if not more pessimistic (I'm not sure we are pessimistic on the whole, unless it is in comparison to Americans). There's an old expression that I think sums up most Europeans - "hope for the best but prepare for the worst". Centuries of wars and revolutions and empires have ingrained an expectation that no matter what the intentions are, failure or success happen almost at random.
In Kipling's If, often used as an inspiration to people on a downswing, disaster isn't the only "imposter" we are enjoined to treat with contempt - triumph is in there too. The implication is that it's less important whether you win or lose, but it's how you play the game. (This is very British, sort of European, and almost anathema to Americans.)
In other words, the ends have come to matter less than the means.
I think that this last point is why Europeans want to see the UN take over in Iraq. Not because they believe it has more chance of success than the same people in a coalition led by the US (although many of them do think that). Mostly I'd say it was because they think it is the right thing to do; the means being elevated above the end.
For the same reasons, they thought that the premptive war against Iraq was the wrong thing to do.
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The implication is that it's less important whether you win or lose, but it's how you play the game. (This is very British, sort of European, and almost anathema to Americans.)
I'll agree with your assessment that "how you play the game" is a very British concept, but I disagree that it is anathema to Americans. It is very important to most Americans, one of the treasures of our Anglo-Saxon cultural heritage. As for the rest of the Europeans, lets simply say that the state of moral flux that permeates that Continent makes your assessment more charitable than mine. The key difference is that European pessimism embraces "rules" as a means of limiting the downside, The additional duty that rules often serve as strands in a Lilliputian net is not lost on many Americans.
What of the rest of the world? Is it simply arrogant Euro-centrism to limit the discussion to Western Europe and the US? Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, the Slavic cultures? Where do they fit on the scale? How does their cultural optimism (or pessimism) impact their personal and societal relations with others?
QUOTE(Julian @ Sep 1 2003, 05:24 AM)
Centuries of wars and revolutions and empires have ingrained an expectation that no matter what the intentions are, failure or success happen almost at random.
This, in my opinion, is one very powerful statement. The belief in the power of random chance to defeat the strongest combination of will, skill, and planning is not something I think most Americans identify with, particularly when it comes to will. The assumption (and I share it) is competence + determination + basic physical possibility = success. The believe one can be defeated through some stroke of luck is almost unthinkable considering "there is nothing new under the sun".
QUOTE(turnea @ Sep 2 2003, 09:57 PM)
The assumption (and I share it) is competence + determination + basic physical possibility = success. The believe one can be defeated through some stroke of luck is almost unthinkable considering "there is nothing new under the sun".
BD, it might be Euro-arrogance, but then I was just sticking to the thread topic, which only talks about American optimism and European pessimism.
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This, in my opinion, is one very powerful statement. The belief in the power of random chance to defeat the strongest combination of will, skill, and planning is not something I think most Americans identify with, particularly when it comes to will.
Yes, I'm very familiar with the concept of "if I want it badly enough and work hard enough, it will happen". It works a lot of the time. But it doesn't work every time, does it? For every success, there is a mystified failure who can't work out why, after all his (or her) effort and will, they "still" didn't reach their goal.
If the fundamental equation is as you suggest, then every waitress and bus boy in LA will be a movie star eventually. But, as we both know, most of them will not be. Luck plays the biggest part. Someone with skill and ability who is on the look-out for an opportunity will almost certainly succeed should that opportunity arise, but there is no guarantee that it ever will.
I think that these contrasting basic attitudes do lead to the worst extremes of both our cultures. The Europeans can be prone to fatalism and pessimism, and it can lead to a situation where somebody doesn't try, because even if they do, they might not succeed, which is a waste of talent and lives. It can also lead to a wish to hold back the high achievers. The founding motivation is usually noble - to help the unluckiest get to a point where they might be able to buck their bad luck - but often it comes across as the masses jealously trying to take away from the lucky few (especially to that lucky few, who usually assume that all their success is purely by dint of their own efforts).
On the other hand, the American attitude can lead to the kind of "end justifies the means" rapaciousness we often see, and that can lead to crime (as the shortest route to riches); or to a sense of entitlement that isn't justified by talent.
But both work most of the time for most of the people that subscribe to them.
More politically, I think that the European commitment to public support and welfare is rooted in the "hope for the best prepare for the worst" attitude. No matter how hard you work or how successful you are, illness or misfortune can happen to anyone, so why not put in place a safety net that takes no account of someone's level of success? Hence the publicly-funded healthcare and welfare systems that are almost universal in Europe and almost absent in the USA.
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