At APSA, Prof. Patrick Deneen had a critique of Prof. Dienstag’s Pessimism, which I have discussed many times before, and of philosophical pessimism itself. He said:
Memory and hope, Christopher Lasch argued – and not pessimism – are the proper antidotes to optimism.
I agree with this, or at least I almost agree. Pessimism seems to me to be the antidote to the poison of optimism, and then memory and hope function as the proper nourishment that human nature needs to flourish. Even if undiluted pessimism is a poison of its own, and I might grant that it is in its most extreme despair of any meaning in life, St. John of Damascus said of his heresiological work that it is necessary to make use of poisons to create antidotes.
I have said many times that the virtue of hope has nothing to do with optimism, and Christians who routinely mistake hope for optimism are very badly confused about what hope is and what they are supposed to be hoping for in this life. Indeed, to hope for salvation in Christ is almost the opposite of the optimist’s view. The optimist says, “I will be saved, and I can save myself.” The Christian says, “I may yet be saved, if it be God’s will.” Hope and optimism are in fact antithetical, which reinforces my sense that optimism is as vicious as hope is virtuous. Optimism is as demonic as hope is divine.
My own view is that the pessimists are as close to being right as secular philosophers are likely to be, but that in their denial even of the hope of salvation and their denial of all meaning they have missed the heart of why they are right about so many of their other observations. They have seen clearly through the vanity of this world and the promises of those who would seek to realise some kind of salvation here below, and we would all be better off if there were more people inclined to see these promises as the hollow deceptions that they are. However, the only possible pessimism that escapes the ultimate emptiness of this secular pessimism (the pessimists would see it not as emptiness, but as possibility) is a Christian pessimism that understands that redemption is still possible, but it is not one that can be fulfilled in this world.
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September 3rd, 2007 at 11:33 pm
empiricus
Eh, I’m rather less taken with Prof. Deneen’s critique, which seems to be attacking a strawman of Prof. Dienstag’s book (which I read a year or so ago, so it’s quite possible that I don’t remember it as well as I ought). But then, I’ve never found Prof. Deneen to be particularly worth reading, and the linked piece with its proofs by belligerent assertion does nothing to change that opinion.
However, I (a secular pessimist) have always found you tremendously well worth reading (and I thought your series on Dienstag excellent, more than fair to Diesntag’s argument). So I will ask you to expound further on your view of Christian hope.
I disagree with your characterization of optimism (which seems to me to be conflated with Arminianism, which is indeed an optimistic soteriology); an optimist thinks/believes/acts in accordance with the idea that the Cubs will win the World series, without regard for what reason or experience teach us about the likelihood of that outcome, but without a necessary belief that the outcome depends on the optimist’s actions. A fan _hopes_ the Cubs will win (which may require divine intervention).
So the position of your hopeful Christian, “I may yet be saved, if it be God’s will.”, is as far as I can tell consistent with all of said Christian’s presumed premises (with some semantic fuzz on the tense structure viz unconditional preservation of the saints for extreme Calvinists), but it seems orthogonal to the optimism/pessimism axis, which would relate to the Christian’s estimation of the _likelihood_ that he (or any given other person or persons, for that matter) is or will be saved. I had the impression that the theological virtue of hope is supposed to reside the Christian’s belief in the possibility of (his and others’) salvation in spite of the selfsame Christian’s awareness (see above, reason and experience) of death, sin, his own sinfulness, etc. That seems to be completely unrelated to optimism or pessimism - other than how Christian conceptions such as original sin _guarantee_ the impossibility of this-worldly “salvation”, whereas reason and experience just lead the secular pessimist to conclude that this-worldly “salvation” is wildly improbable, not a priori impossible. Is that the crucial difference?
By the way, speaking solely for myself of course, I do not “deny all meaning”. I do indeed consider the available evidence insufficient to infer a transcendental ground of meaning, at least for most common uses of “transcendental”. But you’re quite correct in that I don’t see my secular pessimism as empty. I’m not sure what you mean by “seeing secular pessimism as possibility”, so I can’t answer to that.
Again, many thanks for the kind words for us happy few, the secular pessimists.