The Uses of Pessimism: And the Danger of False Hope

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The Uses of Pessimism: And the Danger of False Hope

3.25 of 5 stars 3.25 · rating details · 61 ratings · 8 reviews

Ranging widely over human history and culture, from ancient Greece to the current global economic downturn, Scruton makes a counterintuitive yet persuasive case that optimists and idealists -- with their ignorance about the truths of human nature and human society, and their naive hopes about what can be changed -- have wrought havoc for centuries. Scruton's argument is nu...more

Hardcover, 232 pages

Published October 7th 2010 by Oxford University Press (first published 2010)

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Aug 08, 2011 Juan-Pablo rated it 3 of 5 stars

Roger Scruton is a well-known conservative, and has a reputation as a "darling" of the right. His defenses of conservatism are powerful and thoughtful, with very interesting philosophical arguments. The book goes on exploring a number of fallacies that, in Scruton's opinion, explains why radical shifts from tradition are damaging for civil society.

The basic thesis and rhetorical element of the book are the 'I' versus the 'we' forms of behavior and its relation with freedom. This thesis, taken f...more Roger Scruton is a well-known conservative, and has a reputation as a "darling" of the right. His defenses of conservatism are powerful and thoughtful, with very interesting philosophical arguments. The book goes on exploring a number of fallacies that, in Scruton's opinion, explains why radical shifts from tradition are damaging for civil society.

The basic thesis and rhetorical element of the book are the 'I' versus the 'we' forms of behavior and its relation with freedom. This thesis, taken from Hegel and other philosophers, says basically that what makes human beings free are his interactions with the constrains of social institutions (government, religion, tradition, civility). He dismisses Rousseau's "mythe du bon sauvage" and argues that hunter gatherers were not really free men. This tribes were in a permanent state of war were compromise and dialogue didn't exist (the 'I' state). With the advent of the city-states men learn to compromise and all the constrains previously described slowly take place for the benefit of all (the 'we'). This is an interesting theses specially when explained in modern time when war requires a shift from the 'we' of bottom-up legislation and accountability to an 'I' of following the leader and top-bottom command as in our tribal past (Lincoln's suppression of Habeas corpus is an example).

The problem of the book lies in how the fallacies are applied. Some examples are obvious candidates; The Utopian Fallacy and the Soviet Union and the Third Reich (you can guess how this one works), or the Aggregation Fallacy and the Terror of the French Revolution, which says that it's impossible to aggregate liberté, égalité and fraternité (all good concepts that don't work together).

When the argument turns to gay marriage, Scruton falls in his own tramp. He accuses that gay marriage advocates use the onus shifting arguments: I want to change tradition and YOU have to prove that tradition is right. However, I clearly see here the Zero Sum Fallacy at work: gay marriage will "take away" something from traditional heterosexual marriage, he thinks.

In other instances, he just throws an opinion without really explaining it. Keynes is dismissed for his "in the long term, we are all dead" as a Best Case Fallacy. He mentions in a footnote that the state injection of money is only in emergency cases, but then fails to explain why the Keynessian theories are a case of this fallacy (to his favor, he talks about the indefinite borrowing, but I don't think this is really what Keynes theories teach). This goes on with a defense of completely unregulated markets where information on prices is organic. Any regulation will kill this "information database" (the Planning Fallacy). Of course he doesn't discuss monopolies or international corporation and how those, left unregulated, completely distort the market that he defends.

Another fallacious argumentation are his attacks on American intellectuals (Chomsky at al.) for exactly the same reasons that he defends the American system. America, he says, is a free society were dissent is part of the system and helps improve it from "below". But then, he attacks Chomsky exactly for that reason, he is critical of the system and policies in the US. Isn't that suppose to improve it, in Scruton's opinion? There are many other instances that can be found in the book (divorce, abortion, single moms families, equality in schools , etc).

In any case, the book is well written and has some very interesting insights on the mechanisms of civil society, but it's important to have in mind his political agenda (he dismissed second hand smoking throughout the book, just do some research on his relation with the tobacco industry).

The lack of index is very frustrating.(less)

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Dec 02, 2012 Philip Cartwright rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy, politics, society

Scruton's defence of conservativism (which he here calls pessimism) is thoughtful and well-argued. It's a pity, though, that he all too often descends into tired leftie-bashing as if the last 20 years had never happened. All the usual suspects are rounded up and shot, but not once does it seem to occur to him that the modern-day Right can be every bit as utopian and ideology-driven as its left-wing counterparts. Indeed, the one time he mentions the financial disaster of 2008 he lays the blame at...more

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Apr 08, 2013 Hasan rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: my-library

First of all, what he argues for cannot even called 'pessimism' -that would be an insult to a philosophical concept. This is simply a hollow, reactionary, foolish writing. He's the last thing to be called a philosopher. On the contrary, he is a typical same old right-wing straw man. And his so-called 'pessimism' is the pessimism of the 'privileged', of the status quo, of the 'marketeer' who blindly believes in the auto-corrective mechanisms of the invisible hand and preaches us the futility of a...more First of all, what he argues for cannot even called 'pessimism' -that would be an insult to a philosophical concept. This is simply a hollow, reactionary, foolish writing. He's the last thing to be called a philosopher. On the contrary, he is a typical same old right-wing straw man. And his so-called 'pessimism' is the pessimism of the 'privileged', of the status quo, of the 'marketeer' who blindly believes in the auto-corrective mechanisms of the invisible hand and preaches us the futility of any social change! Contrast it with the pessimism of angry punks, for instance or the pessimism of the real losers!

We are dealing with a guy a little more educated than Anders Behring Breivik, who shares the same hatred against anything left and who thinks himself ridiculing thinkers like Adorno or Althusser. Ooo, who might be his hero then? Of course, it is bloody Enoch Powell. What to expect from a poor man who calls Sartre a 'cafe-haunting intellectual'!

Our little man sums all ideologies into 'fallacies' of logic, of culture, etc., as if he is the only smartest one on the earth. His 'unscrupulous optimist' is none other than an empty concept for all leftists. And when we look at the references of this 'GREAT INTELLECTUAL', we are not so surprised. e.g. that (not so) 'generally reliable think tank Open Europe' (p.112). He doesn't even know much about the acquis and differentiate between treaties, regulations, decisions, etc. His arguments which are thought to be strongest are based on age-old weakest right-wing rubbish.

You know, there is a country pub meeting scene in 'This is England' (2006) movie, in which an ultra-rightist leader gives a speech to those skinheads. He speaks about the most banal words on conspiracies against those proud Britons and against the country. Beware the rhetoric! Here it is! This author can, at most, be that character -exactly same kind of rubbish.

I read this in the hope of reading a philosophical argument without knowing the identity of the writer. This is only a political commentary, in its worst form. Wasted time. (less)

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Apr 22, 2013 Philski rated it 5 of 5 stars

Great book. Roger goes through various fallacies chapter by chapter building on the previous ones, starting with very basic fallacies (i and we, planning, utopias) and building up to a cogent argument on why optimism leads to failures and time/budget overruns and why pessimism is necessary to keep things in check. It does deal somewhat with political philosophy and favors conservatism over liberalism (or maybe better stated historical liberalism versus modern liberalism).

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Aug 24, 2011 Aviva Dierckx added it

Shelves: own

bangelijk deze neo-conservatieve denker! blij een liberaal te zijn, en de gevaren van zijn denkpistes duidelijk te kunnen onderscheiden. lees het om dit gedachtengoed te kunnen herkennen en ontmaskeren bij wie er zich tegenwoordig van bedient in de politiek maar ook elders...

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Oct 06, 2011 Edwin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

Vooral het eerste deel was heel goed. In dat deel worden diverse drogredenen door de mangel gehaald. Typisch drogredenen gehanteerd door utopisten die alles in het werk stellen om ons een glorieuze en uiteraard betere toekomst in te duwen. De laatste hoofdstukken zijn niet allemaal even goed, vind ik, maar over het algemeen blijft een positief beeld achter.

Ik weet niet hoe goed de vertaling is. Er staan geen notities van de vertaler of een inleiding in of iets dergelijks. Op de achterkant staat...more

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Sep 06, 2010 Natalie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: ma-research

This one is going to be grand, I can feel it.

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Mar 10, 2011 Joshua rated it 2 of 5 stars

This one was difficult to get my head around. Scruton is definitely an academic, certainly a scholar; I felt that I was listening to an overly long, rambling lecture and the hall doors were locked. "Let me out of here!"

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About Roger Scruton

Roger Vernon Scruton is a self-employed English philosopher and writer, known in the UK as a key figure in the "New Right" in the 1980s and 1990s. He currently lives in rural Wiltshire, but was a professor of philosophy at Boston University from 1992 to 1995, and subsequently a professor at Birkbeck College, London.

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