Thieves of Hope

An essayist argues that not every cloudneed have a somber lining.

By Harry Stein, published on September 01, 1992 - last reviewed on August 30, 2004

Which is hardly to suggest that in such a circumstance indignation is inappropriate. Gorby may not see it--let's face it, he knows little more about the subtleties of the American culture than we know about the rhythms of life in Irkutsk--but there is indeed much in our midst to worry about.

Nor have events in recent history--Vietnam, Watergate, racial conflict, the AIDS epidemic--been easy on the American psyche. Institutions that once constituted society's bedrock, from the presidency and law enforcement to the news media and the medical establishment, are now held in such general low repute that any claim made in their behalf is, by definition, greeted with widespread skepticism. At almost every turn, emotionalism competes for public favor with dispassionate analysis. For every situation that defies quick explanation, someone stands ready with a conspiracy theory. Thus ungrounded, it is altogether reasonable that the future would loom dark and forbidding.

But it's also too easy to lay off our collective pessimism on the anonymous forces of history. For if malaise has become embedded in the culture, it is also the sum total of countless individual choices; part of the way millions of us have unconsciously come to look at ourselves.

Clearly, there is no stigma attached to such a world view. To the contrary, it is those who fail to pay it obeisance who are far more likely to find themselves isolated, regarded as lacking insight or, worse, compassion. The current ethic equates gloom with profundity--even if it turns out to be replaced. To cite perhaps the most obvious example, the considerable reputation of Stanford's Paul Erlich seems to have suffered not at all by the failure of any of his predicted environmental catastrophes to have actually occurred; a record that would have put any bookie out of business years ago.

Not so incidentally--for it is part of the same phenomenon--we tend to credit individuals preoccupied with their own internal turmoil with greater emotional honesty than those who simply seem to go with the flow. These latter we're apt to regard as not just uninteresting but, more to the point, shallow. They're either hiding something from us--or themselves.

One certainly does not want to make light of the inner-child movement. Anyone given to even modest self insight recognizes the validity of its central premise; to a greater or lesser degree, most of us--perhaps even the more than 90 percent cited by the movement's more aggressive adherents--are still dealing with the effects of parental ministrations. But when such a recognition leads not to catharsis but to the paralysis of interminable obsession with old hurts, it is the opposite of constructive.

For we also have to get back in touch with something else: the definition of character, the meaning of (terrific old Horatio Alger) pluck.

The simple fact is, the unreflective pessimism central to the contemporary world view quietly undermines many of us on a daily basis. Absolutely, life is hard. Yes, inescapably, there will be times when we feel brutalized by it. Nor, indeed, are very many of us blessed with what might be called a spontaneously joyous nature. Those are rare, happy accidents of birth and nurture.

But each of us does have the capacity to recognize the prevailing mood for what it is, and to actively resist it. The fact of its sounding like a piety makes it no less true: a talent for joy, like any other, can be cultivated. In the end, those most generous-spirited toward others are those happiest with themselves.

That is what was so upsetting about seeing Aunt Ruth that day--she is one of that rare breed who'd always seemed to have instinctively known that.

But then, I needn't have worried. When I stopped by her place the following week, she was her old self. The medical test has proven negative. "It's only a hiatus hernia," as she put it, "and it's back on hiatus."

And the stolen wallet?

"Oh, didn't I tell you? It was returned--with everything except the folding money. Even thirty-seven cents in change." She beamed. "What an upstanding crook! I saw that thirty-seven cents and thought to myself, 'Now, here is a man with standards!'"