The bitter path of hard-nosed realism

In a recent-ish collection of essays, philosopher Scott Soames remarks that his discipline is characterized by “…the elevation of the goals of truth and knowledge over inspiration, moral uplift, and spiritual comfort.” (Hat tip to Brian Leiter for bringing this passage to my attention.) Let’s call this elevation hard-nosed realism. I think it’s something I aspire to, mostly. But of course because most people have their elevation the other way around, being a hard-nosed realist is a sure path to deep unpopularity.

Don’t believe me? Let’s look at some people expressing their “philosophies” through one of the world’s more popular social media and imagine first how a hard-nosed realist might respond to them and second, how well the tweeter might react. I swear I’m not really cherry-picking these — all but one are picked from the hashtag #optimism and I’ve tried hard to be representative.

Hard-nosed realist: Really? How has this claim been tested? What is your data, and how was it analyzed? Have you found a correlation between “optimism” and “good things happening?” What is the coefficient? And and even if you have found one (believe me, I’m not holding my breath), how do you distinguish between correlation and causation here? Has it occurred to you that perhaps people who are optimistic are really just lucky — that their positive world-view comes because good things have happened to them, rather than the other way around? We eagerly await the answer from distinguished scientist Mary Lou Retton.

Hard-nosed realist. You do realize that this claim applies equally to genocide, slavery, plagues, etc. as it does to “good” things, right? Right?

Hard-nosed realist. Is that so? So where is my harem?

Hard-nosed realist. How did that work out for Poland, Sir Winston?

Hard-nosed realist. Did you understand what I had to say about correlation and causation? Did you?

Hard-nosed realist. Here is a copy of historian Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands. Open to the preface and read along with me, please. “‘Now we will live!’ That is what the hungry little boy liked to say, as he toddled along the quiet roadside, or through the empty fields. But the food that he saw was only in his imagination. The wheat had all been taken away, in a heartless campaign of requisitions that began Europe’s era of mass killing. It was 1933, and Joseph Stalin was deliberately starving Soviet Ukraine. The little boy died, as did more than three million other people.”

holodomor-victims

This little boy was not a meme, or a story, or a fiction, or an abstraction. He was a real human being named Józef Sobelewski, and he starved to death along with his mother and five of his brothers and sisters. (One brother survived the famine only to be shot in 1937 during Stalin’s Great Terror.)

Please explain to me, Miss Sunshiny Optimist, what exactly it was that little Józef was obliged to be grateful for.

I could play this game all day if I wanted to. But it might be better to focus on two points. One is that the bathetic sentiments expressed in the tweets above express very common viewpoints, providing what I guess is spiritual comfort and moral uplift to lots of people. The other is that my responses, while I think them to be very much sound as objections or retorts to the sentiments expressed, would cause terrible offense to those to whom they are made. People would call me an asshole and a douchebag and a variety of other unpleasant if none-too-imaginative names. People don’t like having their optimism challenged by the pursuers of truth. If you happen to be a hard-nosed realist, then you must choose: be silent or be hated. If you don’t coddle their pieties, you’re seen as having a bad attitude.

Some of you may have had this experience — of arguing a point against someone only to be told, with some noxious mix of anger and smugness on their part “Well, it’s what I prefer to believe, okay?”

I can’t help but add a personal note here. The only romantic relationship I ever had that I think on balance made me happy was with a woman who clearly preferred spiritual comfort over truth. The relationship ended in large part because I could not muzzle my hard-nosed realism hard enough for her satisfaction. She wanted someone who would cuddle up to what she preferred to believe. I was also (eventually) left with the realization that happy relationships are very, very unlikely for me, because the pool of those who think like her is far, far larger than those who think like me. Thus did my bad attitude curdle into something even worse than it would otherwise have been.

4 thoughts on “The bitter path of hard-nosed realism”

  1. In fairness to Sir Winston Churchill and Brian Tracy their comments – true or not – are about optimism rather than optimistic in themselves.
    ” happy relationships are very, very unlikely for me, because the pool of those who think like her is far, far larger than those who think like me.”
    “Hard-nosed realists” probably can’t have happy relationships at all. Happy relationships probably depend on illusions about the people we have relationships with. The fact that people are – or believe they are – hard-nosed realists doesn’t mean they want to be – or always want to be – or that they can achieve that condition all the time, even if they want to be. Optimism keeps breaking through, though with hard-nosed realists just long enough to ensure there will be a miserable break-up.
    Relatioships between two hard-nosed realists are probably even shorter-lasting. Realism breaks through even more quickly – if the relationship can even start.

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  2. Señor Iago,
    As usual your post is enlightening. Yes, Bloodlands is a very sad book. It helps you clearly see how crooked human beings are. Take care. Raul from Paraguay

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  3. I’m an ex-“New Ager,” and what these shiny happy twitter idiots are espousing is something called “The Law of Attraction;” that is, “thoughts create reality.” Complete bullshit, but it’s seeped so far into mainstream culture that people who are otherwise unaware of new age doctrines are buying into the “optimism creates happiness” crap.

    I’ve made a clean break from new age/magical thinking; personally I’m glad I did. But I still debate expressing my true antinatalist views on my own blog, where I’ve waxed poetic about the increased amount of personal optimism I feel. Which is ironic, since my formerly slavish attention to the “Law” did nothing but make me anxious, paranoid, and suicidal.

    I have no guarantees about the future. Thanks to an avalanche of stupid decision-making resulting from following new age principles, my life is in the shitter. I am currently trying to lift myself out. The survival instinct stays strong despite the fact that life has been, on balance, frustrating, restrictive, boring, lonely, and painful.

    My optimism is denial, a coping mechanism for existential terror. The struggle is to keep going, despite knowing deep down that everyone dies ugly and alone, and all we can do is make the best of it until our number’s up. That, or take matters into our own hands and facilitate our own exit.

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    • In many ways I think I wear pessimism as armor, not just against the disappointments of life (if you expect bad things you’ll be unpleasantly surprised far less often) but also against existential terror. If life is awful, then death — which will come to you inevitably — comes to seem less as a horror and more as a liberation.

      That said, I really do hope things work out better for you. Everyone suffers, but at least in some ultimate sense no one deserves to.

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