For those of you who know both of us, it will come as no surprise that Debra and I don’t always agree. As she points out in her article this month, she tends to be optimistic. I am not an optimist, but I do not think of myself as an pessimist, either. When it comes to optimism, I understand the sentiments expressed by the eighteenth-century poet Thomas Gray in Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College. You probably are a lot happier going through life being unaware of the suffering of others and the difficulties you will undoubtedly face in your own future. Gray closes his poem with the following lines:
To each his sufferings: all are men,
Condemned alike to groan;
The tender for another’s pain,
The unfeeling for his own.
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies.
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
‘Tis folly to be wise.
It is, of course, true that knowledge of the full extent of problems and misery in the world is a drag on human happiness. I can understand one aspect of Debra’s perspective: If a cloud shows up in your life, it’s best to look for the silver lining. That being said, my sense is that those who Embrace Reality have a better chance of finding the silver lining than those who simply notice the cloud and assume that it contains a silver lining.
Being aware of reality does, of course, have costs. Long after Thomas Gray, Jackson Browne said:
Doctor, my eyes have seen the years
And the slow parade of fears without crying
Now I want to understandI have done all that I could
To see the evil and the good without hiding
You must help me if you canDoctor, my eyes
Tell me what is wrong
Was I unwise to leave them open for so long‘Cause I have wandered through this world
And as each moment has unfurled
I’ve been waiting to awaken from these dreams
People go just where they will
I never noticed them until I got this feeling
That it’s later than it seemsDoctor, my eyes
Tell me what you see
I hear their cries
Just say if it’s too late for meDoctor, my eyes
Cannot see the sky
Is this the prize for having learned how not to cry
I have read a lot of history and heard a lot more through oral history. My dad and most of my older male relatives served in either WW II or the Korean War. I served in Vietnam. I know people who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have some sense of what combat is like for those who fight and civilians who are “in the way” of the hostilities. My sense of the Universe is that it is neither friendly nor unfriendly. It seems to me that the Universe is neutral and will become what we collectively make of it.
If you are old enough, you will doubtless remember when Tommy James and the Shondells celebrated “peace and good, brotherhood.” If you can remember “Share the Land, by the Guess Who, you may also aware that the “Peace and Love” movement and the “commune lifestyle”—of sharing the land and living together in peace and brotherhood—proved unsustainable. Although a few of the communes have survived, the vast majority did not.
The reality is that humans have conflicts. And, of course, humans aren’t the only species that have conflicts. In the nineteenth century, a poem by the British poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H., introduced the phrase, “Nature is red in tooth and claw.” Why should humans be an exception to the rule? The reality is that we aren’t. In Star Trek’s “The Wolf in the Fold” episode, Spock says, In the strict scientific sense, Doctor, we all feed on death, even vegetarians.
In spite of our daily headlines, it is hard to say whether we currently have more civil unrest than people experienced in the past. According to Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined we are experiencing less violence and conflict than ever before in human history. It seems possible to me that it seems as though we have more violence now than previously because we now have access to more information than has been available in previous times. That, in and of itself, is perhaps cause for optimism.
That does not mean, however, it should be seen as cause for unbridled optimism. Bad things still happen to good people, even if they aren’t happening at the rate they did in the Middle Ages. For me, the most important question is what can we do to contribute to a continued reduction in violence and alleviation of misery. Voltaire’s Candide: or, The Optimist is probably the best known example of optimism at the extreme. Candide would say, “this is the best of all possible worlds,” while walking past scenes of absolute misery. If everything is wonderful just as it is, why would we want to change it? Candide is the prime example of ignorance’s being “bliss.”
But almost everyone wants to experience more peace, love, and brotherhood. Even those who are really well off envision being better off, to be richer in one way or another. Some want to accumulate more money or more “things”; some want more knowledge; some want a richer spiritual life; some just want comfortable shelter for their families and enough food to eat. The question each of us has to answer for him- or herself is where we want to be on the spectrum of knowing what is real. In some ways, the more we know, the more aware we become of the misery in the world. I can understand those who simply don’t want to know about misery unless it influences them or their loved ones directly. I can also understand those who assume responsibility for misery wherever it occurs in the world. Doctors without Borders represents an example of that. Such doctors feel the need to do what they can to alleviate the world’s worst suffering.
It isn’t clear to me where the middle lies. Too much knowledge of too much misery would doubtless make for a sorrowful existence. At the same time, an “ignorance is bliss” approach doesn’t contribute to an increase in well-being for either ourselves or for others. In one way or another, whether actively and consciously or passively and unconsciously, all of us make that decision on a daily basis.