Pessimistic Optimism
A reflection of my personal political attitude, and how Jon Stewart's return is involved with this
Pessimistic optimism sounds like the greatest oxymoron of all time, it is, but at the same time, it is how I see the world.
It is a time when it is perfectly acceptable to be cynical. Wars in Ukraine and Gaza make you lose almost all hope in humanity, elections around the world are now becoming case studies in how groups of people mess up and make horrible decisions, and politics these days are just chaotic car crashes playing over and over again so frequently you get bored or you just feel tired watching it.
Am I a cynic? Despite my usually joyful and upbeat nature, to be honest, I would say yes. Self-interest is a key part of human nature, regardless if you want to pretend otherwise.
Behind the news are even more dire and important issues. Climate change, racial inequality, LGBT discrimination, the threat to media and journalism (which studying in journalism, makes things more personal than I thought before), refugees and migrants, how people are treated based on hateful and incendiary rhetoric, social media’s corruption of minds, misinformation and disinformation, AI and deep fakes, space exploration and how humans decide to explore other worlds and for some use it for profit, the list goes on and on and on.
What feels most discouraging, is the constant reminder in the back of my head that this is not normal. There are many times, looking at gruesome photos of war, reading feature stories, or just checking the headlines, where I just become numb at what I have been seeing every day. And there at the back of my mind, is a reminder that I am not crazy, and for a lot of things, they are not normal at all.
More discouragingly is reading through social media, it goes without saying the immense toxicity and level of resentful angst and cynicism that logic cannot explain. Just take online reactions to the Israel-Gaza war, and in both camps supporting Israel and Palestine, the reactions can be so negative and outreaching that it hurts your brain. I do feel for Gary Lineker, football pundit and culture war figurehead in the UK, who told this to the Guardian.
“Everybody I talk to, every single person I know, is going, ‘What? What is happening?’ But the minute you open your mouth – well, not my mouth, but the minute I tweet a little bit – it’s so toxic. If you lean to one side or the other, the levels of attack are extraordinary. How could it be controversial to want peace? I just don’t understand it. You don’t need to be Islamophobic to condemn Hamas, or antisemitic to condemn Israel. But at the moment it’s just awful. Awful.”
I do harbor a large pool of despair for humanity in my head, and reserve enough space mentally for the hole humanity has dug to keep digging deeper. After all, just using the most obvious case study, Trump is leading in the polls despite everything he has ever said and done over his life, people elected him president in 2016, and I don’t think my reservoir of distrust in collective humanity in screwing things will ever dry up.
But at the same time, I am hopeful. History is never a straight line, there are always setbacks and obstacles along the way. Yes, we live in a perilous era, with lots of bad people in charge or wanting to take power and use it for their selfish ends, while conflicts and firebrand issues have been more pronounced and alarming. However, as history suggests, things have always been this way, or at least the trend of bloodlust, incompetence, and ignorance. No matter how dark things get, there is actual progress being made everywhere from politics to science to culture. We may never arrive at the perfect world we dream of, but we can make it better, and it is already better than the people who come before us.
In the short term, I am more of a pessimist than an optimist. But in the long run, I do have some faith in humanity. That is why I am a pessimistic optimist, or optimistic pessimist come to think of it. I do believe in some hope but also acknowledge the deeply messed up parts that make us human.
With that, here is where I want to bring up Jon Stewart. He was the former host of The Daily Show before Trevor Noah from 1999 to 2015 and was wildly popular for his cynical yet humorous takes on the political world with comedy and humor. Stewart returned to the Daily Show after his “retirement” advocating for better healthcare and treatment to 9/11 first responders with his work relating to the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund and the PACT act, also with his brief stint on Apple TV with The Problem With Jon Stewart.
His first segment back on the air roasts both Biden and Trump regarding the age issue. Despite some criticism on social media for his bothsideist handling of the subject, I don’t think Stewart’s criticisms are invalid (and you know me, I am staunchly against bothsideism in the news media). Quite the contrary, his cynicism and wit on the age issue is exactly what people who don’t want to hear the issue need to listen to. Quoting Stewart through the New York Times’ transcription.
“We are not suggesting neither man (Trump and Biden) is vibrant, productive or even capable, but they are both stretching the limits of being able to handle the toughest job in the world. What’s crazy is thinking that we’re the ones, as voters, who must silence concerns and criticisms. It is the candidates’ job to assuage concerns, not the voters’ job not to mention them.”
Go watch Stewart’s 20-minute segment on the subject. It is very well-handled and the jokes are on-point, peak Stewart comedy and political commentary in my view.
Before I go, I want to point out that this quote from the final part of his segment is deeply poignant, and something very good to keep in mind as this year goes on. Transcribed by the New York Times.
“I’ve learned one thing over these last nine years, and I was glib at best and probably dismissive at worst about this: The work of making this world resemble one that you would prefer to live in is a lunch pail [expletive] job, day in and day out, where thousands of committed, anonymous, smart and dedicated people bang on closed doors and pick up those that are fallen and grind away on issues until they get a positive result, and even then, have to stay on to make sure that result holds. So, the good news is, I’m not saying you don’t have to worry about who wins the election. I’m saying you have to worry about every day before it and every day after, forever. Although, on the plus side, I am told that at some point, the sun will run out of hydrogen.”
Being engaged with the news only has two options. You are either fully engaged or not engaged at all, there is no in-between option for knowing the world.
Since I am deep into the world of news and politics, guess I have to be fully engaged until the heat death of the universe. Hopefully, my pessimistic optimism can keep me afloat amidst all the chaos in the world.