This essay is primarily in reaction to discussions around pessimism among climate activists, where due to the scale of the climate problem it is reasonable to be pessimistic towards any given strategy. However, the framework provided is written in the abstract and can be applied to how pessimism is approached more broadly.
Super interesting read that made me reflect on how i approach my own thought process/contributions!
I wonder how this intertwines with Mariame Kaba's assertion of "hope as a discipline". If we are all practicing maintaining and spreading hope, then we are also more insulated to this type of pessimism.
Also, is critique and pessimism the same thing here?
You know, I think we often get pessimism all wrong. We treat it like it's just a bad attitude or a cold, intellectual argument we have to win or shut down.
But honestly, it's so much deeper than that. Pessimism is often just a kind of grief. It's the heavy, aching sadness for all the potential we've lost, the things that failed, or the future that might never happen.
And when we leave that grief unspoken, when we push it down, it warps everything around us. It poisons our closest relationships, and it sabotages the important work we're trying to do as a group.
So maybe groups focused on a big vision don't just need sharp analysis; they need emotional honesty. They need designated moments where it’s actually okay for people to mourn and still keep building meaning.
Think about it: If we can’t stop and grieve together, optimism just becomes a frantic way to avoid the tough stuff. And if we can’t hold on to hope together, that collective sadness just becomes a permanent reason to give up.
The real challenge isn't about picking pessimism or optimism as a permanent side. It’s about building a culture that has room for both, where seeing things exactly as they are and staying emotionally strong aren’t fighting each other. They need to work together in the long, hard process of just keeping going. -Nasr
Do activity-based groups have the potential to constrain a group of people to do vision-based organizing on a subject that is tangential to the group activity?
Many activity-based groups can make people invested in the group, which constrains people to the group and could guarantee repeated interactions in the long run, a great raw material for organizing. This idea was brought up by a friend of mine (Caleigh), who has been invested in some online activity-based communities that have been somewhat stable for a long time. It resonated with my experience in the Iranian Biology Olympiad community, where the activity of designing and carrying out the Biology Olympiad has brought together a group of people with shared visions and somewhat predictable repeated interactions, which can sustain long-term cooperative actions on issues that are tangential to the Biology Olympiad, like educations equity in Iran, science promotion, and environmental issues.
I'm particularly interested in the potential of activity-based groups for constraining people to interact repeatedly, because these groups do not necessarily need physical proximity among the members. I think we live in a world where sometimes you have to move places, which can result in losing the repeated interactions that depend on place-based constraints.
The article suggests that pessimism is discouraged because climate action is 'difficult-to-achieve.' But this framing underestimates how many people actually believe the crisis is completely deterministic and unsolvable (due to systemic inertia, the overt focus on technological solutions, or assuming that collapse is inevitable for systems beyond some critical size). The real problem isn't just that optimism keeps people motivated—it's that some people feel there’s no rational basis for optimism at all. In that case, no wonder they would be reluctant to let the acid of thought touch their fragile (unfounded) hopes. The article glosses over the psychological and epistemic mechanisms that allow people to sustain hope despite overwhelming cynicism.
We say the obvious: "pessimism can result ... when attempting to achieve something difficult"
We then provide an analysis of what contexts discourage this pessimism and what contexts would promote it. Therefore the “because” falls on the context and not difficulty (the last section of the essay). For example in value based organizing pessimism may be encouraged.
Our whole essay is based around agreeing that it is "reasonable to be pessimistic". Which is equivalent to "no rational bases for optimism". Therefore I believe we agree there.
You’re right that we don't direct our analysis at the more extreme case. Where a person decides not only is there no reason to be optimistic based on current strategic options, but there is no reason to be optimistic about trying to find strategies that work. The idea that it’s already over, there is no reason to even discuss strategy. In those cases the concept of “hope” as you call it becomes important to define, clearly it can’t be a rational hope about solving the problem (what is this hope about then?). That was beyond the scope of this essay, but we do have an upcoming essay (one after the next) that comments on this.
Super interesting read that made me reflect on how i approach my own thought process/contributions!
I wonder how this intertwines with Mariame Kaba's assertion of "hope as a discipline". If we are all practicing maintaining and spreading hope, then we are also more insulated to this type of pessimism.
Also, is critique and pessimism the same thing here?
You know, I think we often get pessimism all wrong. We treat it like it's just a bad attitude or a cold, intellectual argument we have to win or shut down.
But honestly, it's so much deeper than that. Pessimism is often just a kind of grief. It's the heavy, aching sadness for all the potential we've lost, the things that failed, or the future that might never happen.
And when we leave that grief unspoken, when we push it down, it warps everything around us. It poisons our closest relationships, and it sabotages the important work we're trying to do as a group.
So maybe groups focused on a big vision don't just need sharp analysis; they need emotional honesty. They need designated moments where it’s actually okay for people to mourn and still keep building meaning.
Think about it: If we can’t stop and grieve together, optimism just becomes a frantic way to avoid the tough stuff. And if we can’t hold on to hope together, that collective sadness just becomes a permanent reason to give up.
The real challenge isn't about picking pessimism or optimism as a permanent side. It’s about building a culture that has room for both, where seeing things exactly as they are and staying emotionally strong aren’t fighting each other. They need to work together in the long, hard process of just keeping going. -Nasr
Do activity-based groups have the potential to constrain a group of people to do vision-based organizing on a subject that is tangential to the group activity?
Many activity-based groups can make people invested in the group, which constrains people to the group and could guarantee repeated interactions in the long run, a great raw material for organizing. This idea was brought up by a friend of mine (Caleigh), who has been invested in some online activity-based communities that have been somewhat stable for a long time. It resonated with my experience in the Iranian Biology Olympiad community, where the activity of designing and carrying out the Biology Olympiad has brought together a group of people with shared visions and somewhat predictable repeated interactions, which can sustain long-term cooperative actions on issues that are tangential to the Biology Olympiad, like educations equity in Iran, science promotion, and environmental issues.
I'm particularly interested in the potential of activity-based groups for constraining people to interact repeatedly, because these groups do not necessarily need physical proximity among the members. I think we live in a world where sometimes you have to move places, which can result in losing the repeated interactions that depend on place-based constraints.
The article suggests that pessimism is discouraged because climate action is 'difficult-to-achieve.' But this framing underestimates how many people actually believe the crisis is completely deterministic and unsolvable (due to systemic inertia, the overt focus on technological solutions, or assuming that collapse is inevitable for systems beyond some critical size). The real problem isn't just that optimism keeps people motivated—it's that some people feel there’s no rational basis for optimism at all. In that case, no wonder they would be reluctant to let the acid of thought touch their fragile (unfounded) hopes. The article glosses over the psychological and epistemic mechanisms that allow people to sustain hope despite overwhelming cynicism.
We say the obvious: "pessimism can result ... when attempting to achieve something difficult"
We then provide an analysis of what contexts discourage this pessimism and what contexts would promote it. Therefore the “because” falls on the context and not difficulty (the last section of the essay). For example in value based organizing pessimism may be encouraged.
Our whole essay is based around agreeing that it is "reasonable to be pessimistic". Which is equivalent to "no rational bases for optimism". Therefore I believe we agree there.
You’re right that we don't direct our analysis at the more extreme case. Where a person decides not only is there no reason to be optimistic based on current strategic options, but there is no reason to be optimistic about trying to find strategies that work. The idea that it’s already over, there is no reason to even discuss strategy. In those cases the concept of “hope” as you call it becomes important to define, clearly it can’t be a rational hope about solving the problem (what is this hope about then?). That was beyond the scope of this essay, but we do have an upcoming essay (one after the next) that comments on this.