Happy Talk
October 24th, 2006 | by Jersey McJones |There’s something to be said for optimism. It’s a great way of approaching difficult tasks, and it makes you feel good. Of course, there’s a time and a place for everything - optimism and pessimism, courage and fear, fantasy and reality. Of course, optimism, in and of itself, accomplishes nothing. You have to do something to make something happen. Sir Isaac Newton proved that. Smiling at a problem, if anything, will probably make a problem worse, rarely better. After all, there’s a fine line between Optimism and Fatalism. But sometimes optimism has a real physical value, and it’s not good. It is cynical optimism. The GOP uses these cynical optimisms, like patriotism and laizzez faire corporatism, to sway voters to their causes.
Spiro Agnew, the Nixon Veep who resigned in disgrace and yet is still regularly quoted by the Riff-Raff of the Right, once made this observation of those he felt were not cowing enough to the whims of the American Elite: “In the United States today, we have more than our share of nattering nabobs of negativism,” a Bill Safire line, yet another opining opprobior of optimism. Spiro was saying that opposition to the Vietnam war was a matter pessimism and negativism - fatalistic optimism if there ever was. Realism was not his strong point. By 1973 he was convicted of tax evasion and money laundering. I don’t think he was smiling when he plead guilty.
Now this fatalistic optimism has made a come-back. This time it’s within the ranks of the GOP leadership regarding the coming election. As November 7 looms, and the GOP glooms, and the poll dooms, Ken “The Mehlman Always Lies Twice” Mehlman gave a little pep talk to the controverted converted:
(From the NY Times)
WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 — The capital is filled with Republicans convinced that they will lose the House and maybe the Senate. So last week, the White House and party leaders convened a “friends and allies” teleconference to dispute what Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, considers flawed conventional wisdom.
For 20 minutes, Mr. Mehlman and the White House political director, Sara Taylor, tried to lift the cloak of gloom that has descended on the top ranks of Republican strategists, using what one of the dozens of lobbyists, donors, party aides and other supporters who listened in later called “happy talk.”
Of course, there’s something a little scary about “Happy Talk.” In the 2000 election, as the poll numbers were coming in, and Florida was looking like a shoe-in for Gore, Bush was seen on TV, sitting with the family in the Crawford ranch, smiling, and he said of the Florida situation, “I believe I will win, thank you very much,” and he did - sort of. Did he know something the rest of us didn’t? It seems like he did. What looked like optimism was probably insider trading, so to speak, one of the few things the Bushes seem pretty good at.
Let’s hope they don’t know something we don’t this time around. And let’s hope the GOP voters learn something - optimism, like everything else, has it’s place in time, but that time is not always.
JMJ
5 Responses to “Happy Talk”
By Craig R. Harmon on Oct 24, 2006 | Reply
I agree that optimism, in itself, accomplishes nothing. It is, however, an indispensible attitude for the accomplishing of anything. The Writes, believing flight possible, never would have flown had they not researched and experimented and stayed with their vision of what was possible. On the other hand, had they been pessimists, had they bought the conventional wisdom that flight is impossible, or given up with the first failure, they never would have flown. No one who does not believe that they can accomplish a thing will ever accomplish it. You must believe it possible before you will make it actual. In that sense, I disagree that optimism tends to make things worse. It tends to make the possible happen.
By Liberal Jarhead on Oct 24, 2006 | Reply
Practical or realistic optimism is good - delusional optimism is dangerous. So the tricky part is distinguishing between what really is impossible and what is possible despite conventional wisdom saying the opposite. Sometimes a person is so far on one side or the other of that line, though, that it’s pretty clear, and we’re seeing an increasing amount of delusional optimism. That’s scary, because these people do not handle it well when they don’t get what they want. They tend to look for an evildoer to blame it on and then go on a crusade to get even with him or them.
By Jersey McJones on Oct 24, 2006 | Reply
Well, Craig, I can think of quite a few examples of fatalistic optimis, or as LJ put it, “delusional optimism,” making things a lot worse. What I meant was that optimism, in and of itself, accomplishes nothing, unless it is cynical (”cynic” in this use is nuetral, not positive or negative in connotation) optimism, which is designed to get other people to do what you want, and what you want may well not be positive. And, also as LJ said, even when you do employ cynical optimism to get people to do what you want, and then the people relaize they haven’t gotten what they want, then you get nothing but trouble. That said, yes, there is a time and place for optimism, and, as I said, that time is not always.
JMJ
By manapp99 on Oct 24, 2006 | Reply
“delusional optimism” is thinking that raising the minium wage will help the poor, that social secuity is not in trouble, that increasing taxes on corporations will not result in a tax increase on the middle class, that bi-lateral talks with North Korea will do any good, that a government run health care system is a good idea, that the publice school system is still the best place to educate your child, that we can refuse to drill for oil we have, refuse to build new refineries, refuse to build nuclear power plants, and have energy independence. This is just a few examples and as the Liberal Jarhead says “That’s scary”
By Jersey McJones on Oct 24, 2006 | Reply
Mannap, last things first - if you think we can have “energy indepence” through fossil fuels, you’re just plain delusional - optimism would be an understatement. NO ONE thinks that. Heck, check out the Shell Oil guy at the National Press Club yesterday. Even HE thinks that’s goofy. And refineries and nuclear power plants and drilling leases are all out there for the private sector to take advantage of, yet they don’t. Why? Is it just NIMBY - even when the leases are already there? C’mon! They don;t build ‘em because they don’t want to. It’s not a sound investment. Until sequestrartion technology and investment has been made and implemented, coal fuel extraction and nuclear plants will be nil. And as for refineries, the oil people know full well that fossil fuels are a finite resource. No one is going to spend the billions to build refineries to refine something that won;t even be aroung a couple generations from now.
As for North Korea, I don’t think anyone is all that optimistic about that. People are just looking for the least bad outcome.
As for you other points, they are not matters of optimism, but of economic theory. That’s math - not wishful thinking. If you want to argue the math, that’s fine. But to take that math out of it? That’s just sleazy.
JMJ