But optimism? What's wrong with optimism? Okay, the sickly "thinking positive" "anyone can do anything" maniacal optimism seems silly to me. And being optimistic with rampant mysticism and militarism is questionable too - as I rant, the Chinese are planning their Year of the Feather Duster manoeuvres and Russia is in on the act. But by and large, the alternative to optimism is false.
Nothing is wrong with optimism. There is nothing optimistic about demonizing a billion people at a time. You with the Chinese, the Neocons with the Muslims, the Evangelicals with all non-believers, and the Muslims with western culture. A billion here and a billion there, pretty soon you are talking about killing a lot of people.
There is a case for optimism. We know how to live without hate. We know how to live together with a lot of tolerance for different religions, types of people, and sexual orientation. There are lot of small communities in the United States where this is occuring.
They are usually small university towns like Ames, Ann Arbor, Berkeley, Bloomington, Boulder, Cambridge, Champaign, Ithaca, Madison, just to name a few.
Even some small countries do a good job, of at least talking about living with tolerence and without hate. I am referring to mostly the Scandinavian countries perhaps including Holland.
But, I don't see you fitting into that model when you demonize a billion people at a time. |
