Speculative Optimism

Pessimism is very much in vogue these days. There are elections across the globe this year that each herald significant import around idea and functioning democratic governance. This coming year also promises to be the warmest in recorded human history. War in the Ukraine and Israel grind on and may spark further turmoil, especially with global tensions growing daily between western and eastern powers. And seemingly everywhere, internal strife and division. All of it is captured with an unrelenting sense of doom that underpins most news and media alike.

Clearly, obviously there are very serious matters at hand. And that’s underselling it by a mile. But at what point does all this doomsaying become a self-fulfilling prophecy? At what point do we actualize all the worst we are imagining because we can’t or aren’t able to imagine something different? Does a movie like Civil War, coming out this spring make our thinking more rigid instead or inspire us to be more plastic and malleable in our thinking and push us to contemplate something much better than that possible future? I don’t know. But I, for one, wouldn’t mind seeing things with more optimism start entering the conversation. History is littered with shitty times. But when people actually force themselves to think of possibilities where it’s less shitty, it can help spark change for the positive.