Optimism as a Guiding Principle for Humankind

Walking the dogs with my wife last night, I happened to mention Arthur C. Clark’s  “goodbye” video that he made on his 90th birthday, when he knew he’d soon be leaving his loved ones and his many millions of fans.   In it, he told us:

“I have great faith in optimism as a guiding principle, if only because it offers us the opportunity of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I hope we’ve learnt something from the most barbaric century in history — the 20th. I would like to see us overcome our tribal divisions and begin to think and act as if we were one family. That would be real globalization …”

Given the course of world events since Clark’s passing in 2008, in the Middle East and elsewhere, it’s clear that we’re not making any headway here just now; in fact, we appear to be going backwards. I believe part of the reason is that we act as though tribalism is a good thing in many cases.  I’m a bit sickened when I hear about this phenomenon, especially among people who really should know better, e.g., how the freshmen at UCLA are indoctrinated to hate anyone who has gone, is going, or will ever go to USC.  I used to think this was a joke, but, sadly, it isn’t, as you’ll learn if you click on the link above.  Mind you, these aren’t illiterate gang-bangers from East Los Angeles; they’re among the smartest kids in the country.

Yes, Clark left us with a sense of optimism that humankind has learned something, and that we can transcend this tribalism, and I suppose I share it, but we certainly have our work cut out for us.