Friday, January 4, 2008

Cynical realism with a secret heart

The boldness of a noncynical approach to any of the modern afflictions of our weary hearts is in itself a striking issue. How is it that the unshorn optimism required of whole-hearted aspiration and care for the future world seems so pase and even a little naive? It's a scary thing to realize that the practicalities of the situation are that we are superfuct, and we might as well come to grips with it and get on with our bad selves; a sad and unsavory statement if ever there was one. I, myself, exist in a bi-polar rubberband that vears between an extreme idealism and the selfsame cynicism I have voiced in that last sentence, so I know the arguments on both sides.
In any science fiction-like discussion about the possibilities of future existence my father and I might have, I always have to remind him that the whole conversation is predicated on the idea that we excuse the low likelihood of survival for spaceship Earth, and yet the title 'The Audacity of Hope' was all the reason he needed to dislike Obama. I, of course, had to read 2/3 of the book before I got hip to what a slavish pandering the whole project was, especially after the insightfulness of his first book. It was such a shame. Anyway, there is value, I think, in both edges, and the future requires from us cynical realism with a secret heart if we want to make it past the probability of self-destruction we're staring down the barrel of.

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