Murky_Caterpillar874 t1_j2yzh57 wrote on January 4, 2023 at 10:43 PM

Reply to comment by oramirite in Look on the dark side | We must keep the flame of pessimism burning: it is a virtue for our deeply troubled times, when crude optimism is a vice by ADefiniteDescription

Skeptical realism, or even merely not attempting to put a positive spin on almost everything, seems to look like dark pessimism to the frozen smile crowd, and that last is the stance the Big Corporate Media both fronts and encourages. That theirs is a command and control effort primarily is obvious. It is not pessimistic to observe that it is. It's objectively there.

oramirite t1_j2za2kc wrote on January 4, 2023 at 11:52 PM

It absolutely isn't objective at all. Your post is filled with personal judgements. "Frozen smile crowd"? That implies a lot, and is a sort of "I'm better than you" mentality that overall just seems to lead to narcissism. Overall there should be a balance. I think that trying to apply any of these thoughts patterns wholistically is wrong though. Ultimately, skeptical realism is mostly helpful in situations of repeated issues. One cannot predict the future, and one cannot truly know what's in the heart of anyone else. This is why, as a whole, trust is so important to maintain, because without trust in other people there is no life. We need other humans to survive, and that resource becomes unavailable the more cynical you are.