If you do not expect anything better, then: (1) you appreciate what you already have more; (2) you are not going to waste time and effort developing and implementing reforms that will fail, disadvantage and disappoint; (3) lacking potential for disappointment, and seeing that you cannot do much about your mortality, you will not worry about it so much, making you feel almost immortal; (4) you will be more realistic, and therefore, at least sometimes, more successful; and (5) you will be as happy as a lottery winner when you do witness some improvement. Also, (6) for those without hope, pessimism offers, not hope, but reassurance — those who value truth, accuracy and realism, will be rewarded by being right — that is, those who think being right is its own reward, will be rewarded by being right.
So perhaps we should all look at optimism a little less optimistically. I would then be more optimistic about its proximity to reality.
Of course, one should be careful not to expect too much from pessimism. It does, possibly, have disadvantages, but almost none that a fake smile, careful choice of words and a few lies can’t elude. If you want to, you can still “fit in” — that is, read newspapers, donate gifts that won’t be used, value or foster a good work ethic, fund a think tank or university that won’t listen to you, yell at a driver who doesn’t speak your language, lodge a vote that won’t make a difference, attend church, and take your kids to school. Pessimism can help you fit in, for mistakes and misunderstandings will not compromise relationships.
A pessimist is never frustrated, or at least sees that it is futile to express his frustration. He would consider the common resort of frustrated optimists, of voting for one party out of frustration with the other, to be as useful as bashing one’s head against a wall, breaking crockery or screaming.
Pessimism is not the opposite of optimism. It is a different attitude to hope. Optimism is mostly fuelled by hope. Pessimism is not. But pessimism can co-exist with hope; one can be hopeful yet pessimistic. Believing that something is likely is different to consenting, supporting, wanting, intending or causing it. Just because something is expected, it does not make it welcome. Just because something is greeted, it does not mean it is liked – for example, most civilian murderers are well-acquainted with their victims.
As an author, Mencken’s pessimism found a doubly relevant outlet, as he explained:
The world, to such a man, never grows downright unbearable. There is always a sheet of paper. There is always a pen.1
Being an author was not the only reason that Mencken could be pessimistic and happy. In fact, being an author, or of reflective mind, means that one’s own experiences can be observed from the perspective of a spectator. When a combatant is also a spectator a good show is much easier to arrange. It is the height of heckling.
That Mencken’s happiness was aided by his pessimism is evident from many of the passages quoted above. Here are some more examples:
Reconciling ourselves to the incurable swinishness of government, and to the inevitable stupidity and roguery of its agents, we discover that both stupidity and roguery are bearable — nay, that there is in them a certain assurance against something worse.2
Moreover:
Most of the sorrows of man, I incline to think, are caused by … repining. Alone among the animals, he is dowered with the capacity to invent imaginary worlds, and he is always making himself unhappy by trying to move into them. Thus he underrates the world in which he actually lives, and so misses most of the fun that is in it.3
And:
Despite the common delusion to the contrary the philosophy of doubt is far more comforting than that of hope. The doubter escapes the worst penalty of the man of faith and hope; he is never disappointed, and hence never indignant. The inexplicable and irremediable may interest him, but they do not enrage him, or, I may add, fool him. This immunity is worth all the dubious assurances ever foisted upon man. It is pragmatically impregnable. Moreover, it makes for tolerance and sympathy. The doubter does not hate his opponents; he sympathizes with them. In the end he may even come to sympathize with God. The old idea of fatherhood here submerges in a new idea of brotherhood. God, too, is beset by limitations, difficulties, broken hopes. Is it disconcerting to think of him thus? Well, is it any less disconcerting to think of him as able to ease and answer, and yet failing?4
Also:
One of the most curious of human delusions lies in the theory that cynics are unhappy men — that cynicism makes for a general biliousness and malaise. It is a false deduction, I believe, from the obvious fact that cynics make other men unhappy.5 But they are themselves among the most comfortable and serene of mammals … For what a cynic believes, though it may be too dreadful to be put into formal words, at least usually has the merit of being true — and truth is ever a rock, hard and harsh, but solid under the feet. A cynic is chronically in the position of a wedding guest who has known the bride for nine years, and has had her confidence. He is a great deal less happy, theoretically, than the bridegroom. The bridegroom, beautifully barbered and arrayed, is about to launch into the honeymoon. But the cynic looks ahead two weeks, two months, two years. Such, to borrow a phrase from the late Dr. Eliot, are the durable satisfactions of life.6
In the same way, Mencken is one of the durable satisfactions of life; as we have seen, he is still fresh, fierce, fun and instructive. After all, he is a conservative. His writing is fulfilling; it is the writing of uplifters that leaves much to be desired.
Footnotes- Minority Report, p. 20. [↩]
- H.L. Mencken on Religion, p. 39. [↩]
- Ibid., p. 38. [↩]
- A Mencken Chrestomathy, p. 89. On sympathizing or pitying God, see also H.L. Mencken, A Book of Prefaces (New York: Knopf, 1920), p. 17 — much of the essay on Conrad is also applicable to Mencken. [↩]
- A similar issue is that when those who are not cynical are upset by the lack of interest a cynic shows them and their interests, they false deduce that they are always like that. See, for example, George Jean Nathan, The Bachelor Life (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941), pp. 28-32. [↩]
- H.L. Mencken, Prejudices: Fifth Series (New York: Octagon Books, 1985), pp. 292-93; cf. A Little Book In C Major, p. 10: “The lucky man is one who is not even invited to the wedding.” [↩]