Taking Misery Too Seriously

by Dish Staff

Maybe it’s time to rethink the idea that misery and profundity go hand in hand:

David Hume is without doubt one of the greatest philosophers of all time, yet even as he lay on his deathbed his friend Adam Smith observed that “his cheerfulness was so great, and his conversation and amusements run so much in their usual strain, that, notwithstanding all bad symptoms, many people could not believe he was dying”. Hume is not alone and even if it is true that there are more depressives among intellectuals and creative people than the population as a whole, the idea that gloom is a prerequisite for serious thought is patently false.

In contrast to the optimism bias that infects most people’s thinking about their own futures, we also seem to have a pessimism bias that lends more credence to miserable prognoses for the world. Those who claim that, far from going to hell in a handcart, the world is getting better are pilloried. Think of the scorn heaped on Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist and Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature.

The conclusion seems clear: gloominess may not help you think deeper thoughts but it could get you taken more seriously.