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Am I really that optimistic? I certainly am. Everyone has his bad days/weeks/months but I generally believe things are going in the right direction. Isn't optimism an unrealistic philosophy? Why should it be? It's based on a calculated appraisal of the world not on wishful dreaming. It shouldn't be confused with either positive thinking or hope, although it is closely related to both. Don't optimists ignore inconvenient facts? Quite the opposite. They face up to all the facts and decide what importance to give to each. Must have been hard work filling 250 pages with cheerful thoughts. Actually, what you read is a selection. I could have gone on. There are at least 20 more topics I would have liked to have tackled but the book felt long enough. Has it convinced any pessimist to change his/her attitude? Not that I know of. As I say in the book, some people enjoy wallowing in gloom and some people make money out of peddling bad news. All Ican do is present the facts and let teh reader decide on the truth. Is the book supposed to be serious or funny? A bit of both. Everything I have written is based on facts and I give some quite heavyweight sources but the style is supposed to be light and readable. How can you be an optimist when human beings are capable of such cruelty and destruction? Human nature is not a fixed quantity. I am certain that human nature has as much potential for good as it does for evil and that knowledge leads us to prefer the former over the latter. This is not to deny that bad people can gain sway over others but all systems of dictatorship and oppression are thankfully doomed to collapse.Some human beings are capable of committing atrocities but others are capable of altruism. If there is a message in the book which needs to be highlighted it is that if we cannot eradicate evil we can at least do our best not to provide the conditions in which it flourishes. |
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Last updated January 2008. |
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