Hope versus optimism

Thanks to David McWilliams, Dublin, Ireland for sharing the following insight:

"He (Seamus Heany, Irish poet)quoted Czech poet and former president Vaclav Havel on the distinction between hope and optimism.

Havel, a man who had plenty of time to think about these things following years of internal exile in Czechoslovakia – made the following distinction:

‘‘Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but hope is the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”'

Optimism is warm-fuzzy, group-therapy thinking without a basis in reality.

Hope is doing the right thing here and now. In doing the right thing today, we gain confidence in positive future outcomes.

Notice how the ruling vampire class in America peddles optinism through its mass-media shills and hack cheerleaders.

However, the vampires, in their greed, refuse to do the right thing here and now to create reasonable foundations, hope, for a better future.

America has lots of cheap optimism, but it more and more has no real hope.