A short NYTimes opinion piece argues that although the deadly sin of greed has played a part in the financial crisis, the delusional optimism of mainstream America (and Merrill and Lehman) has also been the culprit. How are we to proceed? Not like the Calvinists of old the author says:
Calvinists thought “negatively,” as we would say today, carrying a weight of guilt and foreboding that sometimes broke their spirits. It was in response to this harsh attitude that positive thinking arose — among mystics, lay healers and transcendentalists — in the 19th century, with its crowd-pleasing message that God, or the universe, is really on your side, that you can actually have whatever you want, if the wanting is focused enough.
The alternative to both is realism — seeing the risks, having the courage to bear bad news and being prepared for famine as well as plenty. We ought to give it a try.
The author succeeds in dropping a lot of bombs in a short time. My short thought on the matter is that if we were to really “get real” then we might be more negative than the Calvinists. As I have learned in the last couple weeks, our reality depends on something outside of ourselves. The bank runs of the past couple weeks around the world have been outside the control of those inside the bank. If the world thinks that a bank is insolvent or untrustworthy it will quickly become so. Oppositely, if the world thinks that a bank is trustworthy it will prosper. 
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7 responses to “Imputation and Optimism”
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This line from the article “you can actually have whatever you want, if the wanting is focused enough” reminds me of the SNL skit where Tina Fey (as Sarah Palin) says “It just goes to show that anyone can be president. All you have to do is want it.” and Amy Poehler (as Hilary Clinton) says “Yeah, you know, Sarah, looking back, if I could change one thing, I should have wanted it more.” Soooooo funny.
Great post, Drake!
i saw that SNL skit too! Hilarious!
Thanks Drake.
Your post brings up some interesting points that I have been thinking about a lot lately.
It is totally true that I need the word of acceptance to come from outside of me. No matter how hard I try I cannot maintain self-love. I need someone else to love me. The scary thing is that I’m always “looking for love in all the wrong places” (or as “Buhwheat” used to say on SNL “looking puh nub”). I want other people to like me. I want to be cool, attractive, funny, etc. in eyes of others.
The thing that sucks is that there is always someone else to impress, someone else’s approval to strive for. As a result of this never-ending quest for love I get fed-up and ticked off. I begin to resent the other person for not appreciating my efforts more. They should recognize all that i am doing for them and reward me with their admiration and approval! BUT they never do, or at least it is never enough. It does not satisfy. It is my quest for glory. As Gerhard Forde writes, “the desire for glory can never be satisfied; it must be extinguished.”
The love of other people can never extinguish my “thirst” for it because it is never complete, it is never unconditional. It demands that I be lovely before I can be loved, and so I strive to please until I am brought to yet another place of death where I realize that I can never please.
As you rightly say Drake we should be more pessimistic about ourselves than the Calvinists. The Law of God reveals how bad it is. It kills us every time, and exposes our hubris for making the attempt to be good in the first place.
The only thing that extinguishes the desire to “try, try, try again” is not the Law however, it is the love of God. His love is unconditional. He loves us in our unlovely-ness. The cross shows us that there is nothing that we can do to be accepted. It has been done for us. It also reveals that there is nothing that we can do to be rejected. The love of God breaks in from the outside and lays claim to us. Only in light of complete and unconditional acceptance can we be realists because then we recognize that it is not up to us, and that is a very good thing.
Forde was quoting Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation by the way.
Thanks for your entry Drake. I have a little different take on the crisis. The problem in the financial sector is actually related to mistrust of the other…there have been no bank runs (thankfully). However, while I’m sure you would agree that optimism is not necessarily bad if it is based upon something as enduring as God’s promises to us, you are absolutely correct in noting that delusional optimism does exist in both the economy and theology. [Btw, that is the price we all pay for a fractional reserve banking standard.] 😉
What the financial sector is currently experiencing is the polar opposite of optimism…it is the eye of suspicion from fellow banks and the whispered gossip between the Powers about how ‘Bank ABC isn’t good enough to play with us’ that is wreaking havoc on the markets. The public just tends to mime what the pundits are saying, a phenomenon known as ‘investor psychology’. Some of this scepticism is well-founded because it is based upon the truth that some banks present one face to the world (financial statements), while something entirely different is going on inside. This is not unlike the inner/outer lives of everyone who has ever lived, with one exception.
Yet, I think what you are suggesting is that there are other institutions that are being shoved into the quicksand of (mis/underinformed) public opinion…this soon becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy based upon guilt-by-association with other financial institutions.
This also relates to Sean’s post the other day about control. The Fed hopes it can tame this runaway horse by leading it to a $700bn money trough, oh, if it were only so simple and altruistic as that. Trust me, this action will have other consequences which is why I think the Austrian school of economics is right to advocate a quasi-quietism. Do (almost) nothing!
Anyway, as followers of Christ we are also the subject of suspicious looks, gossip, and in the case of the persecuted church, much, much worse. As you put it, ‘Freedom, it appears, comes not from a positive sense about ourselves derived from ourselves, but rather from a strong word from outside ourselves.’ This, I think, is the point which allows us to be ‘realists’ and to identify in some way with the current crisis as a unique incarnation of the law/gospel dichotomy.
Fantastic post drake