I love her! I cited her when I first started noodling on this article (I posted a predecessor to this piece on Facebook weeks ago), but then I forgot to include her in the final piece.
Greatly enjoyed this piece. I came across a similar argument recently, albeit through a different disciplinary approach. You might enjoy reading it. The author, John Plotz, is a Victorianist with political side interests and what he and others call ‘B side’ texts, those texts ‘lost’ to readers because other, ‘bigger’ texts get all of the attention. His term for ‘doomerism’ is ‘anticipatory despair’, riffing on Timothy Snyder’s notion of ‘anticipatory obedience’. I do, though, really like ‘Futilitarianism’. Thank you for introducing me to that term.
I choose practical optimism!
Two of us for Team Practical Optimism! Our motto can be, "Probably we're not all going to die tomorrow so let's get to work."
I love this. Do you follow Rebecca Solnit? Her writing on hope is useful
I love her! I cited her when I first started noodling on this article (I posted a predecessor to this piece on Facebook weeks ago), but then I forgot to include her in the final piece.
I needed to hear this today.
Greatly enjoyed this piece. I came across a similar argument recently, albeit through a different disciplinary approach. You might enjoy reading it. The author, John Plotz, is a Victorianist with political side interests and what he and others call ‘B side’ texts, those texts ‘lost’ to readers because other, ‘bigger’ texts get all of the attention. His term for ‘doomerism’ is ‘anticipatory despair’, riffing on Timothy Snyder’s notion of ‘anticipatory obedience’. I do, though, really like ‘Futilitarianism’. Thank you for introducing me to that term.
Here’s a link to Plotz’ short ‘essay’: https://www.publicbooks.org/lying-in-politics-hannah-arendts-antidote-to-anticipatory-despair/
lol