It does seem that the whole approach to alcohol problems, even AA is based on a disease model. However, a lot of the people with alcohol issues seem to be the ones who label themselves alcoholics, although I think that they are probably doing this to acknowledge that it is a problem.

I am vaguely aware of the SMART recovery goal approach. What is the more preferable term instead of 'alcoholic'? I know that there is a whole spectrum of dual diagnosis.Unfortunately, most forms of diagnosis come from a disease model. I do favour the recovery approach model in general.We could even ask to what extent psychiatry psychoanalysis and other psychological approaches begin from pessimism or optimism? As models they do begin from certain perspective about human nature.

Thank you for the warm welcome. Glad to have found this place.

The tree that would grow to heaven must send its roots to hell.

—Frederick Nietzsche

I've taken a liking to this metaphor, and working off of it, perhaps we can describe pessimism and optimism: optimism with little pessimism is like a tall tree with short roots, which will eventually fall down spectacularly in a storm. Pessimism with little optimism is like a short tree with many roots, safe and stable but perhaps lacking the light it needs to maintain itself properly.

I have not come across that particular quote from Nietzsche and it is a great quote. I also really like your images of 'pessimism as a tall tree with short roots'. I do believe that pessimism needs to be balanced with some optimism. It really would seem like a tall tree which may get blown down in the wind and storms.

No point clogging this thread with AA versus better models. 'Alcoholic' is a pejorative term that labels someone as one thing. It but It is also almost impossible to define what an alcoholic is. It means different things based on situational factors. 'Alcohol misuse' is a more useful term.

I was interested in your remark to Madfool about how clinical paranoia. I do believe that these are exaggerated defense mechanisms. It seems that people can develop fantastic stories in order to protect themselves physically, as well as psychologically.

I was interested in your remark to Madfool about how clinical paranoia — Jack Cummins

You're right, Jack. It's very easy to select a world view that helps you to survive but may also destroy your ability to connect. I have often thought of that famous Howard Zinn quote - “Pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; it reproduces itself by crippling our willingness to act.”

I think that we are all probably looking for a worldview that works for us. That is probably central to the whole philosophical quest and it is so interesting that what seems to work for one person doesn't seem to work for others at all.

True. My main concern is when people's world views are set to take over other's views.

Have you noticed however that the person with the carefully considered, coherent worldview, that seems to make sense of the world for them may not be any more tranquil? I remember a well known Buddhist teacher in my city some years ago who was a mess of anxieties and had a serious alcohol problem. This was generally kept from his students. The person with answers may also be lost.

@Jack Cummins From a purely empirical perspective we are inherently ‘optimistic’. Meaning we’re neurologically ‘wired’ (as a species) to strongly favour information that best fits our beliefs and adjust them, whereas if something defies our belief we’re not willing to budge anywhere near as much.

Loosely this points toward a more ‘optimistic’ outlook.

Seems instead only a more self-serving bias.

Actually, what this has made me wonder is how pessimism and optimism fit together with the whole life instincts. I am making the connection with Freud's emphasis on the life and death instincts, Eros and Thanatos. I am wondering to what extent are optimism and pessimism part of our innate tendency towards survival and how we develop cognitive tendencies, especially at different stages in our lives. Or, alternatively, perhaps the gravitation towards pessimism or optimism plays a significant determinant role in establishing aspects of our physical and psychological survival.

Good question. But isn't this just the tension of 'our demand for meaning / to be meaningful' ineluctably confronting 'this indifferent, or meaningless, reality' (Camus, Rosset)? Doesn't pessimism merely conform to the latter (e.g. nihilism, cynicism, "Thanatos", etc) and optimism to the former (e.g. religious faith, seeking power, amassing wealth, "Eros" etc)?

It is a complex area, involving the question about our basic nature and our quest for meaning. In some ways, it could be argued that thinking and philosophy are all part of the survival process. However, that would seem to be reducing it all to the perspective of evolutionary biology. Culture seems so important. Could the purpose of biology itself be the evolution of consciousness? If that view was taken, the whole process of finding our own gravitation on the pessimism and optimism spectrum, and forming worldviews would be seen as essential.

Meaning can be viewed as a problem, however it can also be viewed as a fact of human existence. The interesting question is, since meaning is a fact of human existence, it is likewise a fact about the universe in general? So does meaning have its own objective reality? If so, then maybe by the same token does consciousness.... It seems unlikely that meaning has only lately come into being.

I think that a lot of threads on this site ask about the cause of consciousness but we can also ask what is consciousness, and how it fits into the scheme of the universe. That is not forgetting the overall question of pessimism and optimism. At the moment, I am wondering if they may be the manifestation of the duality of life and death in the human psyche.

Could the purpose of biology itself be the evolution of consciousness? — Jack Cummins

No. Biology (i.e. evolution) doesn't have a "purpose". Certainly "thinking & philosophy" are not "part of the survival process" given that modern homo sapiens have been around for two hundred or so millennia before anything like "thinking" or "philosophy" were acculturated.

Yes, there is nothing wrong with the psychological gloss. I think a lot of people are dismissive of psychology as somehow unscientific. Clearly, consciousness has its own science which encompasses things like metaphor, semiotics and psychology. For my part, I assume that everything is significant. Since we have direct access to dreaming, for example, I don't try to analyze the phenomenon as much as to explore it. Certainly the whole eros-thanatos duality is meaningful.

I am about to go out, but will have a think before I reply because it is a really big question.

No. Biology (i.e. evolution) doesn't have a "purpose". — 180 Proof

I can just as easily assert that "everything has a purpose." Rather than making pronouncements, I prefer to construct descriptions or models that fit with accepted facts as well as my own hypotheses. There is literally no way that you could know that biology doesn't have a purpose.

The same way I can't say there are no flying elephants either, huh?

The same way I can't no there are no flying elephants either, huh? — 180 Proof

Yes, exactly like that. :roll:

To reiterate myself with some eloquence I suppose, an exclusvie pessimist will live but will want to die and an exclusive optimist will die but will want to live. Hence, to live we must be pessimists and to want to live we must be optimists. To want to live, we must first live, ergo, we must be both pessimistic and optimistic.

Yes, I am glad for your little elegant post, to steer the thread back on track. I do think that the wish to live, or die, is at the centre of the consideration about pessimism and optimism. I think that an underlying aspect is that of will. I have seen people who have a great wish to live and that seems to provide the will to persist in spite of great obstacles. Also, I have seen people who seem to have given up, as if they have lost the will to carry on and, in some cases, it seems that they become more susceptible to severe organic illnesses. Of course, I am not saying that all people who become seriously ill physically have lost the will to live, as that would far be too simplistic.

Another aspect of the matter may be faith, not in the religious sense, but in the way the balance between pessimism and optimism are juggled. That is because there needs to be a certain positive motivating factor. Perhaps those who consider themselves pessimists or nihilists have faith in order to battle on in spite of living with an awareness of suffering, and death, hovering in the background.

Smile, things could be worse, so I did, and sure enough, things got worse.

Of course, we smile and things often do get worse. It is difficult to know how much is just us seeing patterns, or how much impact our subconscious wishes have upon us, for better or worse. So, you could ask to what extent does it matter whether we embrace a philosophy of pessimism or optimism, or certain psychological attitudes? Does it really matter, in determining experiences and how we interpret our experiences?

Well if you believe that "death comes to us all" you can't argue against the pessimist that argues that something bad is going to happen.
If you believe in an afterlife or some sort of defying death all the time then you are bound to be an optimist.

But it seems optimists do die, unless I am solipsistic and I am the only mind in existence; quite hard to believe in such an option.
Cheers!
A Realist

You may be mistaken in seeing the pessimism and optimism as a matter of believing in life after death or not. One of the main heroes of pessimism, Schopenhauer, pointed to whole philosophy of pessimism in Christianity, in the idea of sin. I would add to what he wrote in saying that Christianity has a whole heritage of belief in the fall of angels and the consequent fall of human beings. So, it is a fairly grim view of human nature. Also, the idea of life after death does have a potential sting, in the possibility of hell.

The art may be able to hold on to a slight glimmer of light amidst some form of bleak pessimism, in order to find ways of coping with the daily aspects of living.

It may look as if pessimism's roots can be found in unpleasant personal experiences but @180 Proof said, not too long ago, that given that there are more ways for things to go wrong than right and given that there's an element of randomness involved in human affairs, creating the perfect conditions for probabilistic outcomes, one should expect the worst and prepare for it if one so wishes.

Optimism, on the other hand, ignores this simple truth and insists that despite all the myriad ways one experiences disappointment, one should expect the best. There's a noticeable touch of irrationality in such a mindset but hey, to each his own, right?

The whole idea behind it all is to keep the world running smoothly - the pessimist, believing disaster is imminent and almost certain, recommends that there always be a plan B and the optimist's raison d'être is to cheer up the pessimist and together they manage to do something neither of them could've done alone. I guess what I'm saying is that if you're Bruce Wayne and you tell me, "I'm putting together a team..." I'd recommend and perhaps even vouch for at least one optimist and at a minimum one pessimist.

My own take on it is that it sometimes seems that there are so many potential obstacles that I am amazed and grateful that things go as well as they do. I am often busy making plan B and then the whole circumstances alter and both plan A and B disintegrate, with plan C appearing in the midst.

I am not trying to be complicated, but I find that the more prepared I am for certain eventualities, the more the picture seems to shift. But, in spite of the way life seems to come with plenty of harsh shocks, I find that there are usually some pleasant ones. But I am not convinced that what happens in life is random, and I do believe that on some level our consciousness has a key role, on some kind of subliminal level. It is probably for this reason, that I think that the whole question of pessimism and optimism is an important one for discussion.

"I'll tell you this ...
No eternal reward will forgive us now
For wasting the dawn"

It is a complex area, involving the question about our basic nature and our quest for meaning. — Jack Cummins

We are natural creatures. Nature lacks meaning. This natural lack we (mis)attribute to our nature as a basic need to find / make meaning. We, thereby, tend to confabulate either a self-positing (optimistic) or a self-negating (pessimistic) X-of-the-gaps stance. An absurdist stance, however, defiantly rejects both of these evasions from "giving all to the present" (Camus) by committing daily e.g. to creative pursuits & natural beauty or to solidarity struggles (or to both). Amor fati, Jack!

:death: :flower: