Optimism, n; : 
The belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, good, bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by those accustomed to falling into adversity and most acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile. Being a blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof – an intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is hereditary, but not contagious.

Hmm…Wanda’s vision seems to fly in the face of the arguments promoted by Brother Amanuel Hidrat, an extremely readable and persuasive contributor to Awate.com. He, by way of responding to the other captivating writer Brother Ali Salim’s, ostensibly, skeptical outlook and interpretation of the current Eritrean realities, prescribed optimism, a weapon in the battle against evil.

In my understanding this seemed as unrealistic practice of extending and straining given practical facts to territories of irresolvable metaphysical hair splitting. What was under consideration, as I understood it, is that Ali has reported facts which you either admit and propose what to do towards contribution to resolving them, or deny these same facts and refute them promoting an alternative if there is. Prescribing pessimism in this context only leaves me with the wonder of Where to place this irrational symbol of the random and the arbitrary in such an arrangement. 

Ali’s arguments may, as well, have been based on false propositions and grounds, but the burden of proof in this case lies squarely upon the shoulders of the one who refutes his arguments and their bases. To serve optimism in the face of serious expressions is a no starter.

It may be unclear to many that it is not optimism which is at the root of human motivations enacting and building history and civilization even though this fact is as clear as day light. If you have doubts about this, try and examine yourself why religions are there? Is it not in apprehension of Man and his less desirable natural tendencies of preying on his neighbor, of stealing and murdering and breaking all the remaining do(s) and don’t(s) of the ten commandments, is this not a pessimist assessment and expectation of Man’s nature? Is it not all like saying:  this guy is probably crazy and may come up with the unfavorable and the dreadful, better scare him for controlling him? Why do you think states and governments are established if not in anticipation of the worst, is this optimism? Why are there Armies, Police forces, Fire brigades, courts, newspapers and all if not expecting the worst? Optimism would have been much cheaper!

The preaching of Optimism itself, it seems to me, is an essentially pessimistic stand on the preacher’s part, for is it not for apprehension of undesirable reaction that the appeal to optimism is invoked in the first place, is it not the scare of pessimism which invokes the preaching to optimism?  If that is so, then the idea of Optimism itself looks as if it is a false idea or a misnomer pointing to another idea, perhaps an allurement to a land of ‘Do nothing in the face of adversity’, which is the same message and judgment the extreme pessimist passes on life and existence.

True, all religions preach optimism and condemn pessimism, but that is because it (pessimism) being an extremism variety of skepticism admitting of truth as no less than what the senses and the mind attest to as such. Most religions offer a happy ending of this life by admitting an after world and heaven. It is only Buddhism which courageously walked straight into the lion’s den and declares that life and existence are pure evil, and that the final purpose should be the breakthrough into Nirvana, an absolute nothingness, through a cycle of reincarnations. This is a completely different platform when compared to most religions: Christianity and Islam, according to this logic, are proponents of optimism in spite of the fact that they stand in no lack  of the emergence of their pessimistic versions here and there throughout their histories, (examples, the pantheism of Spinoza in the Judeo-Christian world, and the pantheism of Averroes and Ibn Arabi in the Islamic world).

But, total pessimism is also exactly as unproductive as optimism and perhaps as unreal. In the short story by Franz Kafka , “The Great Wall Of China”, the narrator of the story, who also is the protagonist, says this of his visit to the office of the “high command”:

“in the office of the command – where it was and who sat there no one whom I have asked knew then or knows now- in that office one may be certain that all human thoughts and desires revolved in a circle, and all human aims and fulfillments in a counter circle”

This is a variety of an extremist pessimism, which, certainly and without any doubt, stifles and crushes the soul, and so is equally misplaced, as optimism is, when called for an answer to practical human condition questions. That is why, I think, that the responding to matters of practical life—problems should be oriented to the search for commensurable answers and not seek those answers within the fogs of Metaphysics. Why should that famous glass, for instance, be half full or half empty when we can say that there is so much cubic millimeter of water in it and thereby deduce if it is or not sufficient to quench the cat’s thirst?

Brother Amanuel has reinforced his point of view on optimism by appealing to one of the greatest thinkers of all time: the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz. The great man was a genius in many fields: Law, Religion, diplomacy, literature, philosophy, and mathematics, and he is, on top of all these, accredited with discovering differential and integral calculus, independently of Newton. His work was published three years before Newton’s treatise on the subject appeared. He also did significant work in combinatorial analysis and invented and stressed the importance of the binary system of numeration which modern Computers extensively use.  Nevertheless Leibniz is not that good of an authority whose advice should be sought for better judgment in matters pertaining morals. He was the one who coined the term “This is the best of all possible worlds” in expression of his optimistic worldview, which, in reality, he never believed. This expression is also clear in pointing to the nature of the optimistic philosophy he was advocating, it doesn’t shy away from being looked at as being apologetic to the status quo and the recommendation for its perpetuation.

It was on this and similar accounts that Voltaire caricatured Leibniz in the person of Doctor Pangloss, a character in the novel, Candide and made great fun of his optimism.

Another thinker of our time, Bertrand Russell, who spent a great deal of time studying Leibniz and his system of philosophy and came up with a great book[ii] “The Philosophy of Leibniz”, wrote the following :

“Leibniz was one of the supreme intellects of all time, but as a human being he was not admirable. He had, it is true, the virtues that one would wish to find mentioned in a testimonial to a prospective employee: he was industrious, frugal, temperate, and financially honest. But he was wholly destitute of those higher philosophic virtues that are so notable in Spinoza. His best thought was not such as would win him popularity, and he left his records of it unpublished in his desk. What he published was designed to win the approbation of princes and princesses. The consequence is that there are two systems which may be regarded as representing Leibniz: one, which he proclaimed, was optimistic, orthodox, fantastic and shallow; the other, which has been slowly unearthed from his manuscripts by fairly recent editors, was profound, coherent and largely Spinozistic and amazingly logical. It was the popular Leibniz who invented the doctrine that this is the best possible of all possible worlds, and it was this Leibniz whom Voltaire caricatured as Dr. Pangloss.”

Russell continues in another part: “Leibniz’s popular philosophy may be found in the Monadology, and the principles of nature and grace, one of which (it is uncertain which) he wrote for the prince of Savoy. The basis of his Optimism is set forth in the Théodiceé, which he wrote for Queen Charlotte of Prussia.”

Although the Jewish Philosopher Baruch Spinoza had a great influence on his philosophy, and in spite of the fact that he visited Spinoza in Holland and spent a month of frequent discussions with him and even secured part of the main book (Ethics) by the Jewish philosopher, Leibniz, nonetheless joined in decrying Spinoza, and minimized his contacts with him saying he had met him only once and that Spinoza had only told him some good anecdotes about politics.      

Before I close this essay I would like to add this: how different, do you think, the Eritrean landscape would have looked now, had Eritreans shown more pessimism and skepticism from the first day when the Eritrean State came about at independence! The Eritrean problem is, in fact and essence, a problem of naiveté, good will and misplaced faith through and through. In view of this I Second Voltaire in advocating Candid’s newly found enigmatic percept: “We must cultivate our garden”.