Don't laugh. Many [non-optimistic] people think of optimists as head in the clouds pollyannas, but the strongest statement on optimism ever written came from Dietrich Bonhoeffer after he
returned to Hitler's Germany from New York where he'd been studying. In the midst of that dark time, he intuitively grasped the Nazis vicious spiritual offensive to drive optimism and hope out of people who had a different vision for the next 1000 years.
He wrote:
Quote:
It is more prudent to be a pessimist. It is an insurance against disappointment, and no one can say "I told you so," which is how the prudent condemn the optimist. The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not abandon it to his enemy.
¶ Of course, there is a foolish, shifty kind of optimism which is rightly condemned. But the optimism of which is will for the the future should never be despised, even if it is proved wrong a hundred times. Some men regard it as frivolous, and some Christians think it is irreligious to hope and prepare oneself for better things to come in this life. They believe in chaos, disorder, and catastrophe. That, they think, is the meaning of the present events and in sheer resignation or pious escapism they surrender all responsibility for the preservation of life and for the generations yet unborn.
¶ Tomorrow may be the day of judgment. If it is, we shall gladly give up working for a better future, but not before.
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