Here's Why I'm Optimistic
In response to Peter's query below, let me paraphrase something I wrote for Commentary a few months ago:
Optimism is the very lodestar of the American experiment. We are a nation of immigrants who left behind everyone and everything we knew to take a chance for a better future. Pessimists stayed home in Europe or Asia, pulled by a history of thousands of years of living in one place as one people. Those who became Americans leapt toward a dynamic society that rewards individual talent and hard work—not social class, religion, racial differences, or proximity to government power.
We as Americans have optimism programmed into our DNA. Where others might see cause for doubt, we see opportunity. Even as the economy remains mired in recession, entrepreneurs continue to conjure forth inventions that bring the knowledge of the Library of Congress to our fingertips, cure once deadly diseases, and deliver almost any product to our doorstep in days. Even as our elected leaders overreacted to the downturn with massive spending programs and the nationalization of financial firms, car companies, and the health-care sector, a great political movement rose up to shake the establishment with demands for a return to frugality and modesty. Even as our armed forces have encountered stiff resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have killed off the leadership of al Qaeda (including Osama bin Laden), midwifed an Arab democracy in the center of the Middle East, and hastened the overthrow of despots in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. Despite the rise of China and the return of Russia, the United States protects the peace among the great powers, keeps the channels of global commerce open, and spreads the freedom to think and worship to distant lands.
It is harder still not to be an optimist during this, the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. When president-elect Abraham Lincoln left his home of Springfield, Illinois, for Washington, D.C., seven Southern states had already seceded. Acknowledging that he “had a task before [him] greater than that which rested upon Washington,” Lincoln still declared, with the “assistance [of God], I can not fail” and called upon a thousand well-wishers to “let us confidently hope that all will yet be well.” Four years later, after a bloody civil war that cost 600,000 American lives, Lincoln was still an optimist. At his second inaugural, Lincoln could report his “high hope for the future,” though he would venture “no prediction” on the war’s final outcome. Still, he finished with an optimistic vision of the nation’s character:
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
After the most devastating war in our nation’s history, Lincoln could foresee the national greatness that lay just beyond the horizon. With this example before us, we the living can overcome temporary setbacks to continue the American experiment.
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Comments:
Jun '11
Re: Here's Why I'm Optimistic
There's life left in this Republic, thanks in no small measure to men like John Yoo. If he hasn't lost heart, how can we?
Mar '11
Re: Here's Why I'm Optimistic
Well said sir; I found the need to send links to this Ricochet post to all my mail circle.
I don't think I quite had the Independence Day feeling until I read this.
Dec '11
Re: Here's Why I'm Optimistic
*clap clap clap*
Nov '11
Re: Here's Why I'm Optimistic
*applause, applause* Thank you, Mr. Yoo!
Feb '11
Re: Here's Why I'm Optimistic
Somehow, this argument feels a little like the scorpion’s argument for killing the frog: I am optimistic because it is my nature to be optimistic. Like the scorpion’s sting, American optimism has served us well up to now. Etc.
That is the main problem I have with the argument.
I have another problem with the argument, too. It is of less pressing concern, but it takes me more words to explain. It is this:
I’m not convinced that the concept of the ‘American Spirit’ (or ‘our DNA’, which amounts to the same thing) can carry the sort of weight you are putting on it. I concede that there is such a thing as the American Spirit, because (for example), the attacks of September 11 were attacks on all Americans in a way that they were not attacks on all Canadians. And because (for example), it is possible to identify Americans in foreign lands by a certain walk and posture. But I do not know how to justify thinking of the American Spirit as the sort of thing to which one can attribute full-blown dispositions, such as optimism and pessimism.
Feb '12
Re: Here's Why I'm Optimistic
Optimism may once have been an essential part of being American, and still today we like to say we are optimistic (the slogan "Yes, we can!" being the most famous recent example). It seems to me that our words ceased to match our deeds some time ago, when we decided that we were victims in need of bureaucratic protection rather than dignified, self-reliant citizens, fathers, and mothers. Then there is the problem of not knowing anymore what optimism means, since we do not know what the best is, since we have no common conception of the good.
Prof. Yoo celebrates
This is knowledge we do not care to use; these are diseases that caused less harm than our diseases today.
But convenient home-shopping, well, that's lovely.
There is a balm in Gilead.
Feb '11
Re: Here's Why I'm Optimistic
Maybe there is a stronger case to be made, not against pessimism, but against fatalism. A fatalist might be optimistic or pessimistic about the future, depending on what he divines the fates to have determined. If you look at Lincoln’s words, quoted above, they don’t (to me) seem optimistic as such. If he ventures “no prediction” about the war’s outcome, then he is being skeptical. But what he advocates is striving, which presupposes that the effort is not vain — that by striving we can accomplish something. And Lincoln’s words ask us to put our trust in with the direct opposite of fate: providence.
There is a sense in which trusting in providence can be called optimistic, because it trusts in God’s ultimate victory. But divine providence must be consistent with every event in world history so far. And therefore, trusting in God’s providence would have to be consistent with expecting some very dark times in the near term.
Mar '11
Re: Here's Why I'm Optimistic
OK. I'll allow myself a little optimism for now, but if Obama is re-elected then it will be obvious to me that the people of this once great nation have lost their stomach for liberty and prefer to be coddled by the empty promises of statism. Today, I pledge allegiance to the United States of America. Once it becomes clear that the majority of her citizens has abandoned the desire for liberty, I will feel no duty to pledge allegiance to a memory.
May '10
Re: Here's Why I'm Optimistic
Leaders matter, and we're one great leader away from a course correction. Or maybe it'll be a group of leaders -- our governors, for instance. Just weeks ago it was "On Wisconsin!" for heaven's sake. Were we not optimistic then? Cheer up, dammit, and note that no one follows punt-on-2nd-down defeatists in any case.
Oct '10
Re: Here's Why I'm Optimistic
Great point about the governors. This nation has many potential leaders who believe so firmly in the idea of America that they won't sit on the sidelines to watch its decline.
I don't even think the country's in dire straits yet, if only because Romney seems so far from a Washington, Lincoln, or Reagan--the principled leader who appears in hard times.
When Ryan, Rubio, Paul fils, or Jindal come up on deck for the presidency, then I'll believe we're up against something big. (Or maybe, just maybe, Romney will turn out to be that guy.)
Apr '11
Re: Here's Why I'm Optimistic
Meanwhile, Victor Davis Hanson states the case for the pessimists:
"I have a confession to make: I don’t quite understand the jubilation among the conservative-Republican forces during the last two months of the Obama crack-up, and here, unfortunately, is why....
"Review Obama’s bad news of the last 90 days: the Scott Walker victory, the Obama gaffes (the private sector is doing “fine”), the Democratic defections (whether senators and representatives bailing from the convention or smackdowns on Bain Capital from Cory Booker, Bill Clinton, etc.), the Holder mess, the circumvention of Congress by de facto amnesty, the non-ending scandals (Solyndra, Fast and Furious, GSA, Secret Service, etc.), the Putin/Merkel put-down, our new Muslim Brotherhood friend and ally running Egypt, the supposed shortfall in campaign donations, etc. Yet this weekend Obama remains up in the polls and ahead in key swing states. If these 'bad' weeks have led to his rise in the polls, what might good weeks do?"
Jan '11
Re: Here's Why I'm Optimistic
Great sentence!
I find this particularly troubling and it wears on my optimism. I can cure the feeling by strolling over to CafeHayek and reading any of the posts categorized under the Standard of Living tag. But the good feeling only lasts so long -- litigation attorneys running ads and news stories regarding an ever increasing nanny state (with its debt load and unfunded liabilities) kill my mood. Also troubling is the amount of combined disdain from both the Left and some on the Right for competition in commerce (particularly from foreign sources but many times Wal*Mart) and the constant clamoring to solve the (supposed) income inequality problem.
How much longer will innovators and entrepreneurs be properly incentivized to do their thing in this kind of atmosphere? There are some legitimate things to be concerned (and pessimistic) about
Oct '10
Re: Here's Why I'm Optimistic
I'd disagree that it's only 2nd down, and further, that we even have the ball!
They have the ball (WH, Senate), they have the refs (media, academe, Hollyweird, SCOTUS), they have the home-field advantage (half the country pays no taxes, criminaliens voting, vote fraud, public education), and they're driving toward the goal-line...against our 2nd-string.
Nov '11
Re: Here's Why I'm Optimistic
I can't say I'm feeling too optimistic about Egypt or Libya.
Apr '11
Re: Here's Why I'm Optimistic
Thank you John for reminding us that as a nation we were born for greatness though try as we might to destroy that greatness we always seem to right ourselves and endure.
Mar '11
Re: Here's Why I'm Optimistic
But where would we have been if we elected Stephen Douglas (another Senator from Illinois)?