Judge the situation with unsparing pessimism, and act with determined optimism.
Gramsci used the formula in L'Ordine Nuovo in 1920 and returned to it in his prison letters, crediting it to Romain Rolland. It became a motto of the European left for combining clear analysis of defeat with a refusal to give up.
In practice
- An organiser tells her volunteers that the campaign will probably lose this year and that they should knock on every door as if it will win.
- A researcher expects the experiment to fail and designs it with great care anyway.
- Possible explanations
- One explanation for its appeal is that it separates two jobs often confused, forecasting and motivating: pessimistic assessment guards against wishful planning, and optimistic will sustains effort through setbacks.
- In its favour
- Consistent with research on defensive pessimism, in which anxious anticipation of failure improves preparation, and with the Stockdale paradox, which makes the same division.
- Against it
- Hard to sustain in practice, since pessimistic analysis can sap the will it is meant to accompany. As a precept it is untested.
- Standing
- Compare the Stockdale paradox.
- Subject
- Psychology & Behavior
- Essay
- Moralists, aphorists and the self-help tradition