There were two contrasting articles on optimism this weekend, both written by historians oddly enough. Firstly, David Olusoga in The Guardian (HERE) suggested it was optimism that had brought us to the present crisis and what we actually need is a bit of pessimism. Meanwhile in The Telegraph (HERE), Robert Tombs says it's the 'declinist Remainers, not the optimistic Brexiteers who are the irrational ones'.
I assume both articles stemmed from the interview BoJo gave to Andrew Neil last Friday (Full transcript HERE) where he talked of the "BBC-generated gloom and negativity that has helped to condition the mindset
of [..] people in this country"
Asked about his proposed re-negotiations failing, this was his 'response':
AN: Should they [the renegotiations] fail. It’s a precondition for you to negotiate them, and they won’t change their mind on that.
BJ: No. Well, that’s, if I may say so, more of the defeatism and negativity that we’ve had over the last three years –
Sunny optimism is Johnson's main selling point isn't it? His logical, rational arguments are missing or completely threadbare so his entire case rests on wings and prayers - and optimism that all will be well if we all just believe.
In The Guardian, Olusoga says:
"The Brexit project exploited our cultural predilection for optimism.
Leave was painted as the optimistic choice. Now, when the Brexiteers are
not promising us “adequate food”, they are peddling another brand of
optimism. No matter what happens at the end of October, they tell us,
we’ll be all right. After all, if we can make it through the Second
World War we can survive Brexit.
One of the many holes in this 'there’ll always be an England' line of
argument is, of course, that half a million British people didn’t make
it through the Second World War".
The opposite picture is painted by Robert Tombs who simply relies on all the old, 'It will be alright on the night' stuff. He also compares remainers defending the EU to those 'useful idiots' on the left who defended Stalin and the Soviet Union in the 1930s.
"Research and
rationality, those enlightenment staples, are effective antidotes to
pessimism. I was brought up in the gloomy age of declinism: Britain was
failing, its economy collapsing, its society and culture inadequate to
face the modern world, its system of government dysfunctional, its great
days past. This still seems to be a staple of Remainer thinking. But
when one examines the evidence, the vision fades into myth. What seemed
true in the Sixties and Seventies is clearly not true now. Indeed, it
was not true even then, as economic historians have recently shown".
The problem for me is that we do not see any 'research and rationality' on the Brexit side, just exhortations to be 'optimistic'. I have never seen any serious work done by the leave side which shows any benefits whatsoever from Brexit.
He finishes:
"I suppose my lack of despondency is due to the intellectual
insubstantiality of the Remain arguments. So many clichés, so little
thought. It is an example of the febrile politics of Twitter culture, so quick to whip up emotion, so weak to sustain it for the long-term.
"After a rational and coherent
Brexit (preferably a 'managed
no-deal' leading to a free-trade agreement), when the world has not
ended, and as the EU’s problems become harder and harder to ignore, it
is difficult to imagine more than a tiny minority backing a 'Rejoin'
movement".
Tombs seems to have forgotten the leave campaign was won by slogans (clichés) and intellectual insubstantiality.
There is nothing wrong with being optimistic. It's fine when you have no control over things like the weather for example if you're planning a wedding or barbecue next month or some other outdoor event. Optimism is hope, a sort of return to a theological past where everything was put down to the will of God. But prayers are not going to get us through Brexit.
When you can control things, pessimism is essential. It's what quality control is based on. Aircraft manufacturers don't rely on optimism to make safe products. They assume things will go wrong during assembly and that parts will fail in service. In other words they are pessimistic and they test, check and test and check again. Critical parts are duplicated or triplicated so that failures don't result in disasters.
Optimism is what gave us the Austin Allegro and the Mini Metro and the Sinclair C5.
I have worked in British businesses where anyone pointing out problems was considered 'too negative' and quietly removed from the project - which invariably (I choose the word carefully) went on to be the disaster predicted. European companies are far more open and ready to face and answer the concerns people raise. When most European packaging companies receive an order for a large, complex system they first have a launch meeting where everybody is encouraged to be negative, to think of all and any issues that might arise - so they can be addressed. In Britain this would be seen as being negative or pessimistic.
When uncomfortable truths are raised about Brexit we are simply told to be optimistic. Yet leaving the EU is far more complex and wide-reaching than anything we have ever attempted as a country.
It's success cannot rely on optimism in any way whatsoever. We need pessimism - and lot's of it.
