Confessions of a Former Optimist

      I have spent much of my life being obnoxiously optimistic.

      When friends have worked themselves into a state of doom and gloom about subway service in New York City on weekends because of construction, cheery Mitch can be counted upon to note that upgrading the signal system will increase the speed of the trains and shorten the wait between them.

      Two and a half couples sitting around a dinner table could be bemoaning global inequality and I, as one half of one couple, will feel called upon to note that extreme poverty has been declining in the world in this century.

      However—Thank you, President Trump!—I’m not feeling optimistic any more.  

      My sanguine attitude toward the state of the world went way back.

      I remember arguments with my dad over whether there would be another world war in his or my lifetime. Maybe, if I had served in such a war, as he had, I would have been less confident that the great powers would not fight each other and the nuclear missiles would remain in their silos. 

      But somehow the unthinkable struck me as extremely unlikely. And, so far, I’ve proved right.

      Then my anti-pessimism strengthened as I researched—way back in the 1980s—a book called A History of News.

      First, it became clear that all societies find a way to communicate news of strife, crime and disaster—whether by word of mouth or, starting in Rome under Julius Caesar, daily papyrus news sheets posted in the Forum.

      And second, it became clear that no societies waste many words or much papyrus reporting on the absence of strife, crime or disaster.

      Bad things happening get lots of attention—disproportionate though occasionally useful attention. Not-bad things are humdrum and therefore tend to be ignored. So, the present moment perpetually appears full of bad things and seems to suck. That is a bias. It distorts our view of the world.

       Hence, this optimist concluded, the news tends to make us too pessimistic.

       Indeed, when watching TV news or reading a newspaper, bad present moments seem to follow bad present moments. It is, consequently, the nature of news to make the world seem perpetually in decline.

       And, armed with this realization, I settled into my role as a repository of information on the decline of extreme poverty and as a dinner-party consensus spoiler.

      I challenged some of this fallacious “declinist” sentiment most recently in an article on this website on all the ways life has gotten safer in our lifetimes.

      However, I now have to admit that things in the United States at this moment are truly, legitimately perilous.

      After a couple of months of the Trump administration, democracy—in the oldest continuing democracy on earth—currently does indeed seem imperiled.

      For, as the Trump administration settles in, we are watching as:

•     The government of the United States is being decimated.

•    Longtime ethical standards are being ignored.

•   Venerable and valuable international alliances are being damaged.

•    Efforts are underway to reverse the progress made in recent decades by women and minority groups and even to erase their accomplishments.

•    Programs designed to help ease global poverty and injustice are being abandoned.

•    And steep, willy-nilly tariffs—here, there, now everywhere—seem likely to lead us all into recession.

      Lots of bad, bad stuff to choose from. And a global recession is certainly not to be sneezed at.

      But, as an enthusiastic democracy fan, I find myself focusing on another of the abundant outrages: the Trump administration’s effort to blackmail law firms and universities to support his regressive policies—or, in the best Mafia-boss style, else. And, shamefully, a couple of law firms and, so far, at least one top university, have agreed to accept some of those policies—have agreed to bend a knee.

      Here is The Guardian on the slimy and dangerous deal the venerable and distinguished law firm, Paul, Weiss, made to avoid the enmity of the Trump administration:

      …The firm reportedly agreed to disavow the use of diversity, equity and inclusion considerations in its hiring and promotion decisions and to dedicate the equivalent of $40m in free legal services to support Trump administration policies on issues including assistance for veterans and countering antisemitism.

      The firm, the White House claimed, also acknowledged the supposed wrongdoing of [Mark] Pomerantz, the partner involved in the investigation into Trump’s hush-money payments to an adult film actor.

      Another prominent law firm, Skadden Arps, made its own Faustian deal with the Trump administration.

      To say the obvious: everyone is entitled to legal counsel. And to say the maybe not quite so obvious: if government threats deter law firms from representing certain individuals or ideas in courtrooms—and therefore make it difficult for individuals or ideas the current government finds obnoxious to obtain their day in court—our legal system will have difficulty functioning.

      Universities, too—indeed in particular—are tasked with debating often unpopular ideas. That is why Columbia University’s decision to surrender some of its independence to the Trump administration was particular shocking. The Guardian again:

Columbia acquiesced to most of the administration’s demands in a memo that laid out measures including banning face masks on campus, empowering security officers to remove or arrest individuals, and taking control of the department that offers courses on the Middle East from its faculty.

      When one law firm caves in to government pressure, it makes it harder for others to resist, though some—nobly—have. When one university caves in to government pressure, it makes it harder for others to resist.

      My father was also alive as fascism took hold in Italy, Germany and Spain. We know the script.

      This can be part of the script.

      We are, as I write, waiting to see how Princeton and Harvard respond now that Mephistopheles has come knocking at their doors.

      Not too many years ago I would have argued that it can’t happen here. But right now—as I watch the behavior of this new Trump administration and the way some of our most important institutions are responding to it—I am not confident that it can’t.

      I am as close to being a declinist as I’ve ever been.

Mitchell Stephens, one of the editors of this site, is the author of nine books, including the rise of the image the fall of the word, A History of News, Imagine There’s No Heaven: How Atheism Helped Create the Modern World, Beyond News: The Future of Journalism, and The Voice of America: Lowell Thomas and the Invention of 20th Century Journalism. He is a professor emeritus of Journalism and Mass Communication at New York University, lives in New York City and spends a lot of time traveling and experimenting with video.