Candide and Toxic Positivity
Voltaire’s classic work is rich in philosophical context
I have recently re-read Voltaire’s Candide. It is superficially similar to Gulliver’s Travels and the picaresque romances of the day but I feel it has a much deeper satirical element. Indeed, Voltaire intended that the story would be read by only “a few sharp wits”. The absurd humour is one of many highlights.
“Good God!” cried he, “I have killed my old master, my friend, my brother-in-law; I am the mildest man in the world, and yet I have already killed three men; and of these three two were priests.”
The 18th-century novella draws on many philosophical themes so it’s right up my street. The title is often presented as Candide, or Optimism, and for good reason; Voltaire uses the titular character’s travels to explore ideas of toxic optimism. This trope concerned him at the time due to the work of Alexander Pope and German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and the idea that this is “the best of all possible worlds.”
Toxic positivity is generally used as a stand-in for an attitude in which “no negative vibes” are tolerated and “everything happens for a reason.” Minimising the grief of another can lead to feelings of repressed shame. An antidote to this could be “tragic optimism”, exemplified by the work of concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl, who urges a search for meaning among life’s inevitable tragedies.
Robert Emmons, a gratitude researcher at UC Davis states:
To deny that life has its share of disappointments, frustrations, losses, hurts, setbacks, and sadness would be unrealistic and untenable. Life is suffering. No amount of positive thinking exercises will change this truth.
The titular character is sent into his globetrotting exile due to fraternisation with Princess Cunegonde, although no deep analysis is to be found, the individuals exist only to explore ideas and theories. Jolly Candide and his various fellow travelers experience woe upon woe as they zigzag across the world. Earthquakes, warfare, slavery, prostitution, and rape, it’s all here in a sinisterly comic frequency. Our cast are straw dogs on the wind, blown by the winds of fate.
Master Pangloss was the philosophical tutor to Candide when they remained within the safe confines of the Castle of Westphalia. His word is seen as ever-wise and profound. Pangloss tells everyone what a great philosopher he is, all the more comical given his ill-suited, optimistic responses to the pair’s many travails. Toxic positivity made flesh.
Pangloss is the espouser of the real-life Leibniz’s beliefs and primarily his idea that this is the best of worlds. His name has since become a dictionary definition for staying optimistic regardless of circumstances. He occupies a similar status to the character Pollyanna devised by Eleanor H. Porter.
Only outside of the castle walls can Candide undo his Leibnizian indoctrination. This will constitute a jarring adjustment to the grim realities of the world. This isn’t unlike Siddhartha and his confrontations with suffering once he leaves his royal palace, on the path to becoming the Buddha. The Garden of Eden is similarly lost to Adam and Eve in their pursuit of knowledge and subsequent banishment.
Significantly wiser than Pangloss is the pessimistic realism of Candide’s eventual traveling companion, Martin. He warns us that we cannot know the private suffering of an individual. Selected by Candide due to his tragic story (many of the characters report egregiously poor lives), he is a Manichean who rather than expecting the best is fully resigned to the evil and malevolent motives of any guiding force. Manichean dualism fascinated Voltaire, who felt that the presence of evil must take away from the possibility of there being a benevolent God.
[B]ut I must confess, when I cast my eye on this globe, or rather globule, I cannot help thinking that God has abandoned it to some evil beginning.
“But then why,” said Candide, “was the world formed?” “To drive us mad,” said Martin.
This is an eternal theme that philosopher Stephen Law notably laid down in his Evil-God Challenge, positing that any god would be just as likely to be evil as good. Law puts particular emphasis on the suffering experienced by farmed animals and the struggles of wild animals within the natural world. Why would any well-intentioned, omnipotent god demand or allow such a bloodbath?
Inspiring many dystopian visions of the future, particularly worrisome to Voltaire at this time were recent events such as The Seven Years’ War. Indeed after a tragic earthquake in Portugal, he authored the lengthy piece Poem On The Lisbon Disaster. He lists the many horrors and pushes back against the accepting platitudes of Pope et al. It begins:
Unhappy mortals! Dark and mourning earth!
Affrighted gathering of human kind!
Eternal lingering of useless pain!
Come, ye philosophers, who cry, “All’s well,”
And contemplate this ruin of a world.
Elsewhere Voltaire comes into conflict with Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his concept of the Noble Savage. Voltaire is a fan of civilisation and all its security, food, medicine, etc. He rejects the concept of returning to a primitive state of life. The character Martin remarks that there is only a negative state of human nature and we can’t expect these flawed beings to change much. This runs contrary to Rousseau’s naive ideas of a lost state of grace and freedom.
There are great arguments against the religious concept of free will and on behalf of hard determinism but Pangloss displays a much different type of “cause and effect”, where everything is as it should be for the best. This idea that all previous events were thus necessary echoes the attitudes of those who hold that “If it is, then it must be.”
Given the ills of the world, Voltaire might wish for greater human agency in breaking this chain of events. Perhaps his arguments can provide an environmental shift of sorts. However, Martin would remind us that we remain as powerless as the aforementioned straw dogs floating on the winds. Ultimately, there needn’t be any rhyme or reason, let alone a puppeteer, to this undesirable state of affairs.
Only a pious sense of duty to his love interest Princess Cunegonde will see Candide venture out from the utopian anomaly of El Dorado, just as the lust she inspired in him led to his expulsion from the castle. Foreshadowing later themes, the only way the people of the city can maintain their idyll is by cutting themselves off from the wider world. Likewise, Candide honours his offer of marriage despite the Princess turning ugly in both looks and personality. This will cause him further disillusionment and is a poor substitute for the joys he has sacrificed.
The motley crew who remain at the end of the book, seek out wisdom on how to live. Ultimately the indignant Dervish they consult doesn’t even understand their quest and gives them a dose of harsh reality. The pragmatic Turk suggests “cultivating your garden.” i.e. setting an example in achieving an ordered sense of harmony on a localised and manageable level. In contrast, The Garden of Eden found within the castle at the beginning of this tale was lost to ruin once they left.
As such, the characters begin to live an Epicurean lifestyle, cut off from worldly concerns and suffering. This will to escape to the country or stop watching the news remains a popular idea to this day, with many wishing to disentangle themselves from mass society. The rewarding and practical toil on the land might just keep the worst miseries and boredom at bay.
“Let’s work, then, without disputing,” says Martin. “It is the only way to make life bearable.”
I highly recommend this rapidly moving, short read with its matter-of-fact dark humour. Found within are a wealth of ideas that are still applicable today as we grapple with the same dilemmas and senseless tragedy, and ponder our existence.
