The Need for a More Optimistic Worldview

It is often difficult, especially within geography, to find reasons to be overly optimistic about the state of the world and maintain hope in humanity. The extent and sheer number of problems faced globally and the seemingly immense and radical changes we’d need to make meaningful improvements make it all too easy to despair. Climate Change to Trumponomics, global conflicts to the cost-of-living. At times like the present, it's hard to shake the idea that humanity is selfish, greedy, violent and self-destructive. What use is there for optimism in this modern world?

For a long time, I’ve been a self-described optimist. Perhaps some would disregard my worldview as youthful naivety, however, I believe my optimism to be one of my strongest assets, both with dealing with and critiquing global problems as well as problems in my personal life. I’ll try and present my case as best as I can.

Human Nature

The problems we face as individuals, a species and a planet tend to relate back to ideas of human nature. It's commonly believed that humans are selfish, immoral and greedy creatures. We can point to countless examples, including wealth inequality, war crimes and even actions we see people perform in our own lives to back this up. Indeed, we cannot deny that humans do abhorrent and immoral things, at any scale. Though I’d argue we should not write off or inadvertently justify these behaviours as natural to human behaviour. Especially when there is evidence to suggest it is not.

I look to historian Rutger Bregman’s book ‘Humankind: A Hopeful History’, when examining human nature. Bregman sought to reexplore human history through the lens of human nature as fundamentally good, cooperative and compassionate. What he found was quite compelling.

Many famous psychological studies that are often used to naturalise human cruelty, including the Milgram and Stanford Experiments, Bregman found to be exaggerated, misinterpreted and invalid. Likewise, he analyses many historical events with an optimist lens and found that in times of disaster (take the Blitz or Hurricane Katrina as examples), contrary to popular belief, people often show incredible levels of solidarity and mutual aid.

Indeed evolutionarily, this makes more sense than a selfish assumption. As humans we are social creatures, we survive by cooperating and through acts of empathy and kindness that allows communities to be built and thrive. Bregman argues it is friendliness, not aggression that allow humans to evolve, with traits like empathy, communication and cooperation being imperative for us to make it to where we are now.

So how do we explain the abhorrent things humans do, if not for our nature? To me at least, it seems social-political structures are much more likely causes of our immoral actions rather than our nature.

As Bregman argues, it's our environment that distorts our behaviour. People will act selfishly when the system rewards and promotes it or under situations of extreme pressures. If we accept that it’s societal systems that corrupt individuals, then we can equally accept that this system can be changed.

Considering human nature is one of the largest debates within philosophy, there is no definitive answer as to whether nature or society plays into our cruelties. Indeed, the society which may perpetuate our cruelty is a human creation to begin with. From this, you might still be sceptical of my and Bregman’s viewpoint.

What I propose, however, is that viewing humanity as naturally cruel is unhelpful. We would all benefit much more from adhering to an overly optimistic view, both societally and individually.

A world-view makes all the difference

I ask you, what is the drawback of having an overly optimistic worldview? Is the risk of appearing slightly naïve really such a bad thing for having a bit of faith in humanity? What is there to lose? I would argue very little, but there is so much to be gained.

This isn’t to say we shouldn’t be critical. Humans are still imperfect. Bergman himself still calls out humanity’s egregious practices, like wealth inequality. Though we shouldn’t stay apathetic. These are socially constructed evils, therefore, there is always the possibility to deconstruct them. As cliché as it sounds, there is always hope.

Bergman finds that by implementing optimism in practice, we can build systems that expect the best, and in turn, produce the best in us. Systematic belief in people allows for policies like universal basic income, participatory democracy and restorative justice. All these have proven to be beneficial for quality of life when implemented.

Individually, as well, perhaps we should be asking ourselves if we should be more hopeful. The final quote of Bregman’s book reads: “To believe in the good of others is not naïve, it's courageous, and it’s a choice that changes everything.” From my own experience, maintaining an optimistic view of the world, though challenging at times, has brought me a sense of mental relief in both my everyday life and when observing the wider world.

My main issue with pessimism is that it appears as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Expect the worst and the worst is often what you’ll get. Bergman refers to this as the ‘nocebo effect’. Alternatively, if we assume goodness (as Bergman puts it, a ‘placebo society’ viewpoint), we’re more likely to get better results. As Bergman writes, “What we assume in others is what we often get”.

In a world where it’s all too easy to be cynical and pessimistic, I recommend giving optimism a try.