(Page 3 of 30) - The Anatomy of Pessimism: Outline of a Neglected Tradition authored by Dienstag, Joshua.

Dienstag 2 8/26/04

of pessimism (though he is often mistaken for it) and, were one to proceed in this way,
one could find just as many happy pessimists as sad ones. But I will not be examining
the relative cheerfulness of the philosophical pessimists in any detail; nor would I suggest
that anyone should do so on behalf of theorists of progress. It will, I hope, be enough to
point out here that philosophy and disposition should simply not be confused with one
another. The real question is whether I can demonstrate that a pessimistic philosophy, as
such, exists. If I do, I hope that its distinctness from depressive attitudes will be granted
as a matter of course.

A second reason that pessimistic theory has not been recognized as such is that it

is often lumped together with nihilism, cynicism, skepticism and other like philosophies.
Few writers, of course, adopt the label of nihilist or cynic for themselves (though there
are many self-proclaimed skeptics). But these schools of thought are nonetheless named
and studied by their critics, usually for their deleterious effects on the species.

Without

getting into these debates in any detail, I think it is fair to say that, in discussions such as
these, the word ‘pessimistic’ is one of a list of adjectives used very loosely to describe
any ‘negative’ philosophy, that is, any philosophy opposed to traditional attempts at
system-building or the defense of some concrete political order. While pessimism is a
negative philosophy, in this sense, with the goal only of fortifying us in a limited
existence, it is otherwise not directly related to skepticism or nihilism, which are
generally the true objects of attack by those suspicious of negative philosophy. That is to
say, insofar as pessimism has been considered at all, it has been rendered an adjunct to
skepticism or nihilism. If, therefore, my description of pessimism shows it to be
something genuinely distinct from these, then it will have to be considered anew, even by
those still inclined to be critical of it.

Finally, the dismissal of pessimism reflects the continuing grip that ideas of

progress retain on contemporary consciousness. Though supposedly slain many times
(Lewis Mumford called it the “deadest of dead ideas” in 1932), this beast continues to
rise from the ashes for the very simple reason that it helps us to make sense of the linear
time of our calendar and there is no easy substitute for it.

However much it may be

denied in principle, in practice the idea of progress is difficult to displace. And from this

Tallis is fairly typical here: “[T]he contemporary attack on Enlightenment values carries great dangers.

…[I]t is part of a process by which contemporary humanity is talking itself into a terminal state of despair,
self-disgust and impotence.” (Tallis 1999, xiv).

Lasch helpfully distinguishes the belief in progress from the less common, though also modern,

utopianism: “not the promise of a secular utopia that would bring history to a happy ending but the promise
of steady improvement with no foreseeable ending at all.” (1991, 47). His book usefully surveys the
irrepressibility of the idea of progress in Anglo-American thought in the last two centuries. For a longer
view, focused more on Europe, see Kumar (1978). The classical account is J.B. Bury’s The Idea of
Progress (1923). As a contemporary example of progress’s phoenix-like irrepressibility: Even such
apparently radical postmoderns as Derrida proclaim themselves “progressists” (Theory & Event 5:1, “A
Discussion with Jacques Derrida” (paragraph 31) “So we have to change the law, improve the law, and
there is an infinite progress to be performed, to be achieved in that respect. I love the process of
perfectibility, because it is marked by the context of the eighteenth century, the Aufklärung. It is often the
case that people would like to oppose this period of deconstruction to the Enlightenment. No, I am for the
Enlightenment, I'm for progress, I'm a 'progressist'. I think the law is perfectible and we can improve the
law.” http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/theory_and_event/v005/5.1derrida.html .