by Ken MacVey
As a lawyer I know too well that lawyers are infamous for looking for the dark lining in a silver cloud. That outlook goes with the territory of trying to look for legal pitfalls and hidden trap doors. That’s part of the job of what lawyers do—trying to protect their clients from legal liability and unexpected detours and disasters that could have been avoided by careful drafting or strategizing. That doesn’t mean lawyers are pessimists but sometimes it is taken that way.
This takes me to the glass half-empty/half-full trope. I have a different take on that trope. I think with a little reframing it tells a different story, illustrating a problem optimists and pessimists can share, and what to do about this problem. Here is the reframing:
There is a glass of water filled halfway to the middle.
The pessimist looks at the glass and says it is half empty. The pessimist goes on to say this is not enough, it won’t get any better, it might get worse with evaporation, maybe the water is contaminated, and we can’t do anything about it.
The result: nothing gets done. The glass stays filled halfway to the middle.
The optimist looks at the glass and says it is half full. The optimist goes on to say everything is good, we should count our blessings for having this nice crystal-clear water, everything is going to be great especially when we’re thirsty, there is no need to do anything, everything will take care of itself.
The result: nothing gets done. The glass stays filled halfway to the middle.
The activist looks at the glass and says: Fill it up!
The result: the glass gets filled up.
You see the problem that optimists and pessimists can share is that they both may rationalize not doing anything when something could get done.
There are many reasons why this can happen. Doing something takes effort. It might not work. It might make things worse. It might be personally risky. Thinking about doing something itself is anxiety generating or a chore. We also have an arsenal of cliches to draw from to support our inertia (the cure may be worse than the disease; let sleeping dogs lie; it’s in the Lord’s hands).
This is particularly true today. Many of us are stuck in the politics of exhaustion. The most some of us can summon up is the hope that we will cope. Others may reach into their arsenal and comfort themselves by saying everything always works out or whatever happens is for a reason. And then others might just ask, what’s new on Netflix?
What I am suggesting is that being “optimistic” or “pessimistic” sometimes can serve the same end – justifying passivity.
None of this is irrational. After all, the word “rationalize” does have the word “rational” in it. Being a pessimist or an optimist may be a way to quell anxiety about matters you can’t control. Or it may be a way of letting oneself off the hook for not doing anything at all when you have a nagging “do something” whispering in your ear. I get it. I don’t pretend I haven’t been there.
William Butler Yeats in his poem “The Second Coming” lamented that “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.” That was in1919 but today sounds so 2025. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, it isn’t that way because it’s not true “the best lack all conviction.” It’s more a matter of taking stock than a matter of lacking conviction. Yes, part of taking stock can mean recognizing that in many cases it is true that the “worst are full of passionate intensity.” Indeed, the new DEI seems to be about the dangerous, erroneous and incompetent acting with reckless and wreckful abandon.
But at the same time, taking stock can also mean owning up to the fact that we DO have convictions, that we don’t have to be “passivists” with capitulation as our automatic default position. Instead, we can be “activists” in the best sense of the word. It can mean doing something you care about to make a piece of the world a little better. It may be as simple as giving a few dollars to a group you believe in. It might mean speaking up at a town hall meeting or calling a Senator or House Representative or attending a rally. It might mean volunteering for a group you feel compatible with. It might mean writing an op ed column while knowing it could make colleagues you respect feel uneasy. It can even mean saying “no”— like quitting or risk getting fired as a public official by refusing to do something you think is illegal or just wrong.
To quote another poet, TS Eliot, some lives can be “measured by coffee spoons.” Maybe that phrase from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is dated. Perhaps a more contemporary reference would be to say some lives can be measured by the number of Netflix movies watched. There is nothing wrong with coffee spoons or Netflix movies. But there may be more to life than such things.
So maybe it’s not so much a matter of being a pessimist or an optimist. Maybe it’s actually a matter of being a realist. Being a realist does not have to mean being cynical or dark. It can mean seeing clearly what counts and how life is best measured. It can mean seeing clearly that doing nothing means nothing gets done, that silence is itself a statement. In other words, being a realist can also mean being an activist.
And in fact we are seeing multitudes throughout the country deciding to take a stand, to speak up at town hall meetings, rallies, demonstrations, to air their views on podcasts, social media, television, newspapers, and websites. Activism is literally on the march. Scientists are standing up for science. Lawyers are standing up for the rule of law. Medical professionals are standing up for public health. Ordinary people are standing up for basic human decency and dignity. The word is now out, no one has to stand alone.
But being a realist can also mean honestly acknowledging how you really feel. Maybe you genuinely think it is not worth it to get involved – that the better way is to keep low or stay out. Such a divide between action and inaction is not new. In the era of Ancient Greco-Roman philosophy Stoicism and Epicureanism were rival schools which shared a few common themes but otherwise parted ways. They shared the premise that a good life rests more on our internal orientation and attitudes than on our possessions and other externalities. But they differed on which road to take regarding civic affairs. Stoicism was open to and even embraced civic engagement. In contrast, Epicureanism encouraged withdrawal from civic affairs and urged ensconcing into an isolated community of like-minded Epicureans as a way to get free from distress. The Garden of Epicurus was the model for such a community. These two rival philosophies developed during centuries of political turmoil that included the rise and fall of early versions of democracies and republics. Stoicism and Epicureanism gave two different answers on how to live in such times. Yet I do wonder, did the Epicureans in their gardens stay free from distress when Rome was in civil war or on fire?
The choice of which way to go is always ours. But it should not be made on the presumption that what we do or don’t do can never make a difference either because it is inexorably pointless or because everything will work out anyway. These are just two sides to the same counterfeit coin.