Optimism

The author thinks it is appropriate to give an insight into his inner feelings. This is quite peculiar when it comes to a critical reflection on social issues, but in this case he simply makes an exception to the rule: he is very optimistic. Optimistic that this text will produce an avalanche of confidence, will trigger off the starting shot of imperturbable belief in the future, that half-empty glasses will turn into half-full ones to the strains of Beethoven's Ode to Joy. Well, at least his limited talent will get him unlimited fame, success and wealth. After all, this is what optimism as a social phenomenon is really all about. An individual mood concerning a positive anticipation is to expand and generate a general air. A chain reaction, a feel-good infection, we might say.
If there is one thing this country requires, it is optimism. This is what the economy says which is suffering from the so-called soft factors like moods, mentality, atmospehre particularly because it has confused the imponderable with the irrelevant much too long and now finally realizes it might have been luxorious to dismiss cultural and social issues easily as mere luxury problems. Rethinking is just about to begin - optimistically speaking.
From a gloabl point of viwe, economic optimism is pure carelessness. This is because the general mood is just relevant insofar as as many members of society as possible are meant to be driven to the markets and to be induced to spend money. Systemically, optimism is just an epiphenomenon; the economic principle makes no difference whether money is squandered or hoarded. After all, there is the Invisible Hand which emerges from mutual actions and regulates them at the same time. Mark you: The stock exchange does not care either if the prices are high or low. The bank always wins. One more time: The system needs no optimism.
However, it is the people acting within the system who are dependent on optimism. Unlike the economy as a principle they set themselves goals which are linked up with profit expectations. And therefore demanding other persons' optimism means just the hope to make some money of one's own. Financially speaking, an optimistic homeless person counts for nothing at all.
Nowhere the concept of autopoietical systems is as obvious as in the present entreaty of optimism. It cannot be ordered, quite the conrary, the more urgent it is needed the longer it will be in coming. The Invisible Hand will not be guided by decalarations of volition. And meanwhile it has becom eobvious that a general consent optimism is needed does not involve its creation. It is because optimism requires someone who makes a start and who would be so careless as to lead the way given the experience of the last four years?
The recent process of disillusionment has had its effects, for the pendulum of ambiguous optimism has changed from the mania of prophety to the mania of forecast. Quite a cyclical, even a causal moment. Just because one has lived in castles in the air before, one now wants solid ground beneath one's feet. So one has a very narrow look at who is preaching optimism - and why?
As we can see, the traditional strategy to write optimism as a PR campaign on the wall has not been successful yet. All what remains to be done is wait and see until the current winners, the pessimists, will have converted enough success into capital to invest the surplus. It is not till then that optimism might emerge, because the way the Invisible Hand works resembles a Stone Age man who keeps knocking the flintstone until the sparks begin to fly, blows heavily, thus letting the fire as an autopoetical system of its own crackle. Spark results from spark. We only have to make sure not to run out of breath.