Talking About Optimism

Recently, I passed a bench that was built by an ‘Optimist Club’. My immediate response to that was, “What would an optimist club actually do? What does that even mean?” before realizing that those questions probably explained why I was not in an optimist club and that I’m not an optimist.

But optimism is a hard word to define. Googling ‘define optimism’ returns “hopefulness and confidence about the future or the successful outcome of something”, but that doesn’t explain exactly how to apply it to every situation. For example, I have an outlook that tends to generate negative outcomes for most situations, but also a belief that humans as a species are ultimately a force for good. Am I an optimist, or a pessimist? Is it truly a dichotomy?

Perhaps the long enforced dichotomy of optimism versus pessimism, glass half full versus glass half empty, is not a dichotomy. Perhaps it is more of a spectrum, with a balance point in the middle, as most things are. The only thing to analyze then is why that’s true, and what that middle point is.

Why is a spectrum a better model for optimism than a dichotomy? It provides wiggle room. In fact, in virtually every situation a spectrum is better than a dichotomy. Politics, probability, temperature, etc. are all better as a spectrum. So how exactly does this spectrum function?

At one end of the spectrum, we have the pure optimist: Everything will go right and I will live forever. At the other end, we have the pure pessimist: I will die in the next second because something will go terribly wrong. The middle, however, is hard to define. Is it where you believe every situation is 50–50? Is it where you are accurate on the probabilities of every situation(e.g. realism)? And there are more questions. Why is the situation 50–50? Is it because this is truly random, or is it because everything is predetermined but we haven’t observed it yet? Is there a difference?

The spectrum also seems to leave a lot of questions. Thus, we move to another system: Types of optimism. We define three types of optimism addressed by the second paragraph. Case-by-case optimism, situational optimism, and cumulative optimism.

Case-by-case optimism is a type of optimism not generally included in the discussion of optimism. It is the belief that a specific project or event(case) will have a positive outcome.

Situational optimism is essentially the weighted average of case-by-case optimism, or how a person believes most cases will end. Weight comes in as more important or larger cases will be weighted more than small cases. This what most people refer to as just ‘optimism’.

Cumulative optimism is the type of optimism of the final outcomes. It differs from situational optimism as it is not an average, but essentially a combination of the case-by-case to determine the positivity of a person about life, the human race, the fate of the universe, etc. This is a form of optimism that is often discussed and is also in some sense a case-by-case optimism, with the case being the large topic. However, seeing as it is one of the ways modern optimism is approached, we keep this type.

These three types of optimism cover most of what is discussed in optimism, while not being a dichotomy. It is important to note that all three of these types are spectra but address most of the problems with just discussing ‘optimism’ as a spectrum. As such, the discussion of optimism should be more about this, as many people fall on different places in the spectra in the different types of optimism and this distinguishes and clears up confusion surrounding optimism. This classification of optimism is clear, concise, and a better alternative than just asking, ‘Are you an optimist or a pessimist?’