Enforced Idiot Optimism Is Worse Than Rational Pessimism

The New Republic: These three cases make one point—pessi­mism is bracing and often very funny. It is also consoling, in that it relieves us of the burdens borne by the optimist: the need to insist it’s getting better, the enervating search for good news, the rule-driven need to get the pointless job done (and, in the long run, every job is pointless).