I have dark thoughts about the light. I read an article that by all rights should be a feel-good experience. Like this one about how to restore hope and optimism in the schools. I know many will disagree with the idea that the article is beautifully hollow. It is beautiful in that the assumption of optimisms is that without it we despair even if it seems hollow, even untrue. I explained this in my tweet about it.
Restoring Hope & Optimism in Schools https://t.co/PVdJqslNzG There is a very dark question hidden in this innocuous article: would the Uvalde school massacre have happened if the schools had tried harder to create a positive vibe? I don’t believe that I can blame the schools, but… pic.twitter.com/Za4c5ZeIWn
— Terry Elliott (@telliowkuwp) September 12, 2022
I am not making a particularly new argument here. The late Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a book about this– Bright-sided. Her piece in The Guardian is a better introduction to the idea.
Ehrenreich notes that, as an assumption, optimism ends up becoming victim blaming. If you are bright-sided, then the suggestions in “Hope and Optimism” are one step away from condemnation: why didn’t you (Uvalde Elementary stakeholders) practice relentless positivity if you know that it has so much going for it? We blame them. Why didn’t they do more? Is it that much of a leap? No. Ehrenreich saw lots of examples of that blaming behavior in cancer forums. If you read her Guardian article she demonstrates the casual and ugly cruelty of positivity as she worked her way through her own personal breast cancer struggle. One person blamed her for not believing that cancer was an opportunity in disguise.
The worst part of this is that the author of “Hope and Optimism” surely does not intend this, but ideas have consequences. When I taught university composition, the class was always as much about teasing out the assumptions hidden deep within the seeming ‘innocuous’. To uncover these assumptions was almost always a combination of close reading, face-to-face discussion, and further research. It was the most thrilling and sinister aspect of learning. ‘Thrilling’ because it is so emotionally satisfying to flip over a rock and find something you never knew before. ‘Sinister’ because once you know it, then that truth is like a check valve–you can never go back. I can never go back to “hope and optimism” alone as a tool for living in the world. So be it and don’t blame the messenger…or the victim.