Revolutionary Optimism Takes Practice
Revolutionary optimism is a skill that you learn over time. Like any other skill, it takes practice to get good at it. Like any other skill, it can seem very difficult when you first start trying.
Before you’re well-practiced in the skill of revolutionary optimism, things can look pretty hopeless. The doors to revolutionary change seem to be closed and bolted shut on every front. Electoral politics delivers disappointment after disappointment. Our society is full of selfish, sedentary, propaganda-addled bootlickers who will defend the status quo even when it goes against their own material interests. The bread and circuses remain effective at keeping everyone just full enough and distracted enough to keep them turning the gears of the empire for their masters.
Nobody comes out of the box knowing how to maintain their optimism when all their efforts continue to fail. Nobody is born with the skill of keeping hope alive even as the planet dies, as everything gets shittier and shittier, and as our civilization gets more and more dystopian.
It takes practice. Like anything else, until you have practiced, you’re probably going to suck at it.
But as Jake the Dog says, sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something.
And you’re going to have to get sorta good at it, because the alternative is to lie down and let the bastards get their way.
They want us to believe resistance is futile. They want us to believe that change is impossible, that the fight is unwinnable, that the machine is unbeatable, that the AI surveillance data centers are inevitable, that the wars and genocides will continue no matter what we do. The easiest battle is one your enemy never attempts to wage.
We can’t just hand that to them. We’ve got to keep trying to find ways to win. And we’re not going to keep trying to find ways to win if we have been successfully seduced by the siren’s song of pessimism.
And its song can be seductive. Being pessimistic is pleasing to the ego because it lets you feel cool and right about everything, since things do tend to go the way of the ones currently holding the power. Being the dark, brooding know-it-all who holds all the correct opinions while scoffing at everyone’s efforts to win this thing is a lot easier than being the bright-eyed hope fiend who faces loss after loss and disappointment after disappointment. It’s egoically comfortable, like choosing to support the team you know will always win.
But all the best things in life sit on the other side of discomfort. This is true whether you’re talking about revolution, romance, healing, art, or enlightenment.
If you are feeling hopeless, that’s a skill issue. You just need to work to improve your skillfulness.
So practice optimism.
Refuse to be deflated.
Find reasons to hope.
Study history and learn about the many times revolution has succeeded and ruling power structures have been overthrown.
Study current events and learn about the many ways in which our rulers are losing their grip.
Find that spark within you that can keep pushing onward no matter what happens.
Discover that burning defiance which knows you fight fascists not because you will win but because they are fascists.
Do your inner work until you have enough spaciousness to maintain persistent effort.
Create internal stability so you can continue without collapsing when things get hard.
Set your intention to cultivate optimism, and then practice it every day.
The world depends on it.
No pressure.
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Here is a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His “Beyond Vietnam” address given on April 4, 1967, at Riverside Church in New York City. King’s identification of the systemic roots of racism, poverty, and war still resonate today:
“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
Be strong, comrades.
Chris Hedges frequently uses the same meme:, I fight fascists not because I expect to win, but because they are fascists. A big difference between him and Caitlin is that he, perhaps because of his Calvinist belief in original sin, is more pessimistic about human nature. Hedges says, for example, that, though he agrees with Marx's criticism of capitalism, he is not a Marxist because Marx is too optimistic and too utopian. As much as I otherwise admire Hedges, I prefer Caitlin's insistence on optimism.