Optimism
I’ve been reading a series of responses to this year’s Edge world question, “what are you optimistic about?” It’s a great question and the responses from some of the worlds smarter folks are illuminating.
On the one hand, I’m a bit of a newshound. I read at least one newspaper per day, and my feed list numbers well over 100, including Google News and Al Jazeera. Given the state of the world, this can make it incredibly difficult to be an optimist. Technology continues to empower the individual. At the same time, it has made us all more vulnerable than ever. Authorities around the world have used these facts to scare us into giving up our freedoms, while at the same time taking credit for the fact that we haven’t each been blown to bits on our way to work in the morning. They’re right in at least one aspect. It is remarkably easy to kill, maim, and generally ruin the day of large groups of people. Anyone can do it. Fertilizer bombs, toxic gas in the subway, exploding shampoo bottles on commercial aircraft. And here’s the dirty little secret that everyone knows - no amount of “security” is going to help.
On the other hand, given how easy it is to cause widespread pain and agony, I’m optimistic that it doesn’t happen more often. If only 1% of the population got it in their heads to stick a wrench in the cogs of society, things would be a lot worse than they are now. I don’t believe this has anything to do with fear of a vengeful god or the long arm of the law. I think it comes down to the fact that the vast majority of people are generally good.
Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi once said, “There is more good than evil in the world—but not by much.” I’m optimistic that’s all we need.
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