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| So optimists are healthier. And more deluded, perhaps? So optimists are healthier. And more deluded, perhaps? | |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| Whether through luck or a great sense of humour, academics at Harvard chose the close of 2016 to publish a paper confirming the huge health benefits of optimism. In a widely publicised study of more than 70,000 women aged 58 to 83, they established that higher optimism was linked to a lower death risk from conditions including heart disease, stroke, cancer, respiratory disease and infection. “Given that optimism was associated with numerous causes of mortality,” say the researchers, “it may provide a valuable target for new research on strategies to improve health.” | Whether through luck or a great sense of humour, academics at Harvard chose the close of 2016 to publish a paper confirming the huge health benefits of optimism. In a widely publicised study of more than 70,000 women aged 58 to 83, they established that higher optimism was linked to a lower death risk from conditions including heart disease, stroke, cancer, respiratory disease and infection. “Given that optimism was associated with numerous causes of mortality,” say the researchers, “it may provide a valuable target for new research on strategies to improve health.” |
| Then again, news of their own, increased, mortality risk may well deepen despondency in people who are already struggling to see the cup-half-full aspects of Aleppo, of Brexit, of Corbyn, of Trump, of the losses, punctuating 2016, of individuals who made the world a better place, while the unspeakable went from strength to strength. It’s splendid, of course, for the Harvard researchers to bring news of the potentially life-extending effects of irrepressible jollity. But how, other than by using, say, drugs and alcohol to achieve a personal current affairs blackout, both retrospective and current, is this to be achieved? | Then again, news of their own, increased, mortality risk may well deepen despondency in people who are already struggling to see the cup-half-full aspects of Aleppo, of Brexit, of Corbyn, of Trump, of the losses, punctuating 2016, of individuals who made the world a better place, while the unspeakable went from strength to strength. It’s splendid, of course, for the Harvard researchers to bring news of the potentially life-extending effects of irrepressible jollity. But how, other than by using, say, drugs and alcohol to achieve a personal current affairs blackout, both retrospective and current, is this to be achieved? |
| Who but an idiot – or a Trump – could remain entirely cheerful, upon hearing, for instance, about Ivanka’s ambitions in the field of climate change, or that the word “bollocks” has a prominent place in our foreign secretary’s diplomatic repertoire? What kind of person keeps intact their positive thinking in the face of the BBC’s relentless, if mysterious, exaltation of its pet demagogue, Nigel Farage? Who would not feel their mood even marginally lowered when a woman MP is threatened, on social media, with meeting the same end as the murdered MP, Jo Cox? | Who but an idiot – or a Trump – could remain entirely cheerful, upon hearing, for instance, about Ivanka’s ambitions in the field of climate change, or that the word “bollocks” has a prominent place in our foreign secretary’s diplomatic repertoire? What kind of person keeps intact their positive thinking in the face of the BBC’s relentless, if mysterious, exaltation of its pet demagogue, Nigel Farage? Who would not feel their mood even marginally lowered when a woman MP is threatened, on social media, with meeting the same end as the murdered MP, Jo Cox? |
| True, the rehabilitation of Ed Balls appears to have lifted some spirits, ditto the joyful, Richard Curtis-scripted narrative that is Prince Harry and Meghan at Christmas time, accessorised with dogs in adorable knitwear. But it may take more than the above to alleviate, for those in the categories remoaners, sore losers and snowflakes, a low mood that is probably not confined to academics at Nottingham University, where counselling is on offer to sufferers from Brexit-related “stress and anxiety”. One suggested intervention being to work on “news addiction”. | True, the rehabilitation of Ed Balls appears to have lifted some spirits, ditto the joyful, Richard Curtis-scripted narrative that is Prince Harry and Meghan at Christmas time, accessorised with dogs in adorable knitwear. But it may take more than the above to alleviate, for those in the categories remoaners, sore losers and snowflakes, a low mood that is probably not confined to academics at Nottingham University, where counselling is on offer to sufferers from Brexit-related “stress and anxiety”. One suggested intervention being to work on “news addiction”. |
| It may be yet another reason to despair, for those yet to complete news rehab, that the Nottingham programme has been ridiculed for suggesting that a country’s galloping descent into ugliness, insecurity and insularity – accompanied by democratic exhortations to “suck it up” – should be any reason for pessimism, that defining quality of losers. Optimism, by contrast, has emerged from a referendum campaign during which it substituted for argument among Brexit campaigners, as a superpower more awesome, even, than is being claimed by the Harvard researchers. | It may be yet another reason to despair, for those yet to complete news rehab, that the Nottingham programme has been ridiculed for suggesting that a country’s galloping descent into ugliness, insecurity and insularity – accompanied by democratic exhortations to “suck it up” – should be any reason for pessimism, that defining quality of losers. Optimism, by contrast, has emerged from a referendum campaign during which it substituted for argument among Brexit campaigners, as a superpower more awesome, even, than is being claimed by the Harvard researchers. |
| “I say knickers to pessimists” was the insight that ushered Boris Johnson into great office. His former ally, Michael Gove, urged Remainers to abjure pessimism and negativity. “The case for leaving is positive and optimistic.” Doubters were further assured, by Brexit’s details man, that Britain would “enjoy a relationship of free trade and friendly co-operation” with Europeans, whose continued pessimism on that score cannot, in this best of all possible post-Brexit worlds, be a matter for regret. | “I say knickers to pessimists” was the insight that ushered Boris Johnson into great office. His former ally, Michael Gove, urged Remainers to abjure pessimism and negativity. “The case for leaving is positive and optimistic.” Doubters were further assured, by Brexit’s details man, that Britain would “enjoy a relationship of free trade and friendly co-operation” with Europeans, whose continued pessimism on that score cannot, in this best of all possible post-Brexit worlds, be a matter for regret. |
| The only cheering news, for people still unable to see the bright side, would have been Harvard research demonstrating – along with the political risks of vacuous optimism – the proven health and social benefits of doubt; the superiority of ever-deepening dismay, to the Mediterranean diet, in conferring longevity; an association between sustained, demagogue-related horror and reduced cause-specific mortality. | The only cheering news, for people still unable to see the bright side, would have been Harvard research demonstrating – along with the political risks of vacuous optimism – the proven health and social benefits of doubt; the superiority of ever-deepening dismay, to the Mediterranean diet, in conferring longevity; an association between sustained, demagogue-related horror and reduced cause-specific mortality. |
| Instead, perhaps appreciating that to ask many 2016 survivors to learn optimism is like asking Michael Gove to develop a sense of shame, the Harvard researchers have been good enough to share some reprogramming hints. For instance, the study’s Dr Eric Kim suggests, think about what your “best possible self” should look like in key areas of your life. Or write down three things each day that you are grateful for. Before long, the trainee optimist should be quietly cultivating her Instagram account, totally #happy, #blessed #I’malrightJack, having acquired the resilience to block out any number of doomy thinkpieces. | Instead, perhaps appreciating that to ask many 2016 survivors to learn optimism is like asking Michael Gove to develop a sense of shame, the Harvard researchers have been good enough to share some reprogramming hints. For instance, the study’s Dr Eric Kim suggests, think about what your “best possible self” should look like in key areas of your life. Or write down three things each day that you are grateful for. Before long, the trainee optimist should be quietly cultivating her Instagram account, totally #happy, #blessed #I’malrightJack, having acquired the resilience to block out any number of doomy thinkpieces. |
| Should these arguably solipsistic exercises not do the trick, the modern pessimist is lucky to be living in a golden age for optimistic literature. Writers such as Steven Pinker and Matt Ridley invite her to reflect on the joys of progress – the authors understandably imagine that their reader is also getting the benefit – in comparison to the barbarism of the past, and to trust in mankind’s continued ingenuity. | Should these arguably solipsistic exercises not do the trick, the modern pessimist is lucky to be living in a golden age for optimistic literature. Writers such as Steven Pinker and Matt Ridley invite her to reflect on the joys of progress – the authors understandably imagine that their reader is also getting the benefit – in comparison to the barbarism of the past, and to trust in mankind’s continued ingenuity. |
| Latest to counsel optimism is Johan Norberg, whose well-received book, Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future, recently arrived with a big smiley face on the cover and any number of pessimism-dispelling factoids. For instance, he points out, there hasn’t been human sacrifice for absolutely ages. Same with duelling. “More than a quarter of English aristocrats faced a violent death in the 14th and 15th centuries.” Just look at them now! And genocide: “It used to be so common that historians didn’t care much about it.” Plus these days, Norberg reminds us, there is better farming with combine harvesters, so no excuse for hunger. “A hundred and fifty years ago, it took 25 men all day to harvest and thresh a ton of grain. With a modern combine harvester, a single person can do it in six minutes.” Though before long, let’s not forget, what used to take the 21st-century optimist only six minutes to write, may become, if disintegration takes hold, not only exhausting, but impossible. | Latest to counsel optimism is Johan Norberg, whose well-received book, Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future, recently arrived with a big smiley face on the cover and any number of pessimism-dispelling factoids. For instance, he points out, there hasn’t been human sacrifice for absolutely ages. Same with duelling. “More than a quarter of English aristocrats faced a violent death in the 14th and 15th centuries.” Just look at them now! And genocide: “It used to be so common that historians didn’t care much about it.” Plus these days, Norberg reminds us, there is better farming with combine harvesters, so no excuse for hunger. “A hundred and fifty years ago, it took 25 men all day to harvest and thresh a ton of grain. With a modern combine harvester, a single person can do it in six minutes.” Though before long, let’s not forget, what used to take the 21st-century optimist only six minutes to write, may become, if disintegration takes hold, not only exhausting, but impossible. |
| Meanwhile, even after Trump’s victory (before which Progress was optimistically published), just thinking about all those combine harvesters, along with the universities in which today’s rational optimists are able to research their books without fear of becoming human sacrifices, should perhaps be enough to dispel political and economic pessimism. On climate change, we should remember, as Norberg says, that scientists and entrepreneurs are “hard at work” on new technologies. In Britain, it can’t be any time before they invent ways of stopping the banks leaving and getting the fruit picked. | Meanwhile, even after Trump’s victory (before which Progress was optimistically published), just thinking about all those combine harvesters, along with the universities in which today’s rational optimists are able to research their books without fear of becoming human sacrifices, should perhaps be enough to dispel political and economic pessimism. On climate change, we should remember, as Norberg says, that scientists and entrepreneurs are “hard at work” on new technologies. In Britain, it can’t be any time before they invent ways of stopping the banks leaving and getting the fruit picked. |
| And yet, remembering how Nora Ephron, though receptive to good news on the subject, found upbeat books for older women “utterly useless”, I don’t see how any of this stuff about the vileness of the past and the marvellousness of the future diminishes the impact of current reversals. If anything, it underlines what’s being lost. How do assurances about scientists work when Ivankas are experts? How does the obsolescence of the iron maiden make you feel better about the arrival of the US pussy-grabber, with his views on “enhanced interrogation”? As in: “Torture works. OK, folks?” | And yet, remembering how Nora Ephron, though receptive to good news on the subject, found upbeat books for older women “utterly useless”, I don’t see how any of this stuff about the vileness of the past and the marvellousness of the future diminishes the impact of current reversals. If anything, it underlines what’s being lost. How do assurances about scientists work when Ivankas are experts? How does the obsolescence of the iron maiden make you feel better about the arrival of the US pussy-grabber, with his views on “enhanced interrogation”? As in: “Torture works. OK, folks?” |
| Still, optimism is good for health; let’s be positive. The Harvard research is tremendous news for self-proclaimed optimists Gove and Farage, Cameron and Johnson, and anyone who wishes they would live for ever. It’s the impact of their optimism on everyone else that depresses me. | Still, optimism is good for health; let’s be positive. The Harvard research is tremendous news for self-proclaimed optimists Gove and Farage, Cameron and Johnson, and anyone who wishes they would live for ever. It’s the impact of their optimism on everyone else that depresses me. |