How A Modern Intelligent Society Shifted From Optimism To Pessimism

This is an old Zoltar Speaks! blog post.

On August 5th I wrote a rather pessimistic comment on Ethics Alarms and the more I reflect on what I wrote the more I wonder why I wrote it.  There was a core to that kind of thinking and I wanted to find it.

Contrary to what some may think, I’m generally a rather optimistic person. Yes I’m a hard man, sometimes very hard, but optimism has always been a strong rudder through life; however, my view of the future of civility in the USA is overwhelmingly pessimistic these days.  What used to be an overbalance towards optimism in my life has shifted towards and overbalance towards pessimism and I’m acutely aware of this shift.  Is this new overbalance towards pessimism a projection of myself upon society around me or is it the result of a fundamental shift in society around me?  After considerable personal reflection, I’ve come to the realization that my pessimism is the direct result of a fundamental shift in our society towards pessimism that’s grown into outright paranoia for some and what’s driving my personal pessimism to the forefront is that the paranoia shown by so many has become acceptable in society and in some cases expected.

Today I began to seriously wonder how a modern intelligent society shifted from optimism to pessimism?  How and why did we as a society allow paranoia to become openly acceptable?  What caused society in general to set aside their once perceived intelligence and our core system of values, as it relates to general civility, and travel down the road of rationalizing everything?  Why did emotion start to trump critical thinking? Why is it now acceptable to actually hate those who opinions simply differ than yours. Was there a definable major turning point in the psyche of our society or is it the inevitable blossoming grandness of a mustard seed planting?

For me, optimism and pessimism are feelings associated with an proposed action based on the perceived possible results.  Optimism is a feeling that when a specific action is taken the perceived possible result will be something that is considered positive, pessimism is a feeling that when a specific action is taken the perceived possible result will be something that is considered not necessarily positive and maybe even very negative. I’ve always felt that there needs to be a healthy psychological balance between optimism and pessimism; pessimism guides me to always keep the doors and windows shut and locked to keep everyone safe, and optimism guides me to open them up so everyone can enjoy the sun and the breeze.  There really has to be some kind of healthy psychological balance between optimism and pessimism for people to effectively function in society and be considered “normal” and I believe that the healthy balance is achieved when our conscious thoughts are overwhelming balanced towards optimism with a healthy acknowledgement of the pessimism that is required to keep us safe.  When our conscious thoughts are heavily overbalanced towards pessimism paranoia will set in, “Paranoia, they destroy ya'”.

I asked earlier if there was a definable turning point or a mustard seed planting that caused us to changed, I think the answer is it was a definable turning point or in this case turning points one feeding the other until there was a turning point that put people over the edge of sanity.

Thinking back over the years I think something fundamentally changed in the overall perception of how politics works with the election in 2000 where the political left openly declared that Bush stole the presidency and the conspiracy theories began to take hold of major sections of the political left; a major, major wall was intentionally being built to divide the population and trust had completely broken down, and that folks was only the beginning.  Next came the major blow to the psyche of the United States and over the last 17 years that change is the major growth of pessimism, destruction of trust, hate and all that negativity has rolled over into paranoia. Then the last event, which in ordinary circumstances would have been a non-event, happened.

Back in the early 2000’s there was a growing recession creating pessimism about our economic future in the early 2000’s, the election in November of 2000 created terrible mistrust and pessimism about politics began to flourish,  and then <b>IT</b> happened a major blow to the psyche of the United States.  On September 11, 2001 our national “feeling” of invulnerability was absolutely shattered, our physical safety was directly threatened by those that have chosen to hate the USA for what we are and what we stand for and they found a way to sneak through our defenses, take advantage of what our society accepted as vulnerabilities associated with our freedoms, and struck us at our core without any any regard for human life thus attacking the core psyche of the United States and terrorizing the general population. Unlike the traumatic event that happened on December 7, 1941, what followed in the psyche of society after September 11, 2001 wasn’t the growth of national optimism that came from the awakening of a sleeping giant filled with a terrible resolve (Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto) but was the rapid growth of national pessimism and outright fear.  September 11th was a major traumatic event for the people of the USA causing wide spread PTSD from the direct and indirect effects of the attacks and that PTSD has not been properly addressed, instead we have the media and political apparatus in frenzy trying to feed the fear beast promoting social divisions any way that it can be promoted. Now we have a population that has been suffering from a form of untreated PTSD for 15 years and people are on the verge of a psychological breakdowns and no one is even noticing the trend toward paranoia because it’s seems so common place that it’s almost normal.  Now the straw that broke the camel’s back.  For 15 years the media and politicians have been poking and prodding you to mistrust anyone that differs from you, they are promoting mistrust, they are promoting pessimism, and then a Presidential election happened that completely broke the psyche of a huge cross section of the population.  People that once were intelligent people have resorted to conspiracy theories and are intentionally using those theories to drive a wedge between Americans that is as deep as the wedge of slavery was in the mid 1800’s.

It’s now 2018 and even as our economy begins to grow nicely, jobs are available, people are working, we have a President that is trying to do the things he promised he would do; optimism should be on the rise but still there is massive anxiety, lots of pessimism, and way too much outright paranoia driving our society down a black hole of despair.  On one side, there are Americans that oppose the President and are doing everything they can to destroy his presidency regardless of the anti-prosper consequences to the United States as a whole. On the other side, there Americans that want to give this President the same chance that other Presidents have been given and want the United States to prosper.  The anxiety on the side of those that oppose the President is obvious; however, the anxiety on the other side isn’t so obvious – why isn’t optimism growing in them and in me and in fact pessimism is growing instead.  I think I know why.

We are faced with brainwashed individuals.  It’s an onslaught of absolute negativity and paranoia that no matter how you approach it, no matter what facts you present to counter it, no matter what logic you present, no matter how civil you choose to be you are constantly faced with hostility and an intentionally impenetrable rhetorical barrier built specifically to keep any and all possible infections of real truth and intellect out of their echo chamber.  When that is constantly what you are faced with and nothing you do seems to change that, you lose hope that the brainwashed people are fixable therefore pessimism grows.

These people have been brainwashed on a massive scale and the method of passing this brainwashing has grown like a popular meme, in that it’s an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation.  To these brainwashed people, innuendo is now fact, accusations are now a guilty verdict, and those that have differing opinions are evil.  Period.

I do not believe that this is fixable in a civil manner.