The Case for Optimism

Annamaria on Monday

I know.  I say it all the time.  The future looks bright to me.

But the pandemic, you say.  Yes.  Certainly. I do not take lightly at all the unprecedented amount of suffering around the world just now. For this year, and probably a whole lot of next year too, the disease will continue to take its toll.  And even for those who don't suffer its worst, life's simple pleasures will continue to elude us.  We will continue to bear far too much pain and loss.  We will have to remain vigilant.  Like so many others, I will have to endure continual loneliness and isolation.  I survive by reminding myself every day to count my blessings:  I live in a pleasant, comfortable place.  I have enough to eat.  (In fact, there is a good cook in the house.) I also have the enormous benefit of being in a city that has a sense of community, where the overwhelming majority of my fellow New Yorkers have taken the proper precautions and brought the world's worst Covid situation under control and kept it that way.  At least we have so far. Covid is a tragedy.  But it will not last forever.  

When I look ahead, I find great encouragement.  Why? First and foremost just now we Americans, and I think much of the rest of the world population, have been delivered a huge helping of hope with the election of Joe Biden.  It will take a great deal of hard work and good luck for his approach to governing to reap any benefits, but at least we have a better shot then we otherwise would have.

My long-range conviction of a bright future comes from two observations, which I can backup with data.

First in my own country...

The USA has long been and continues to be fraught with internal challenges of racism, income inequality, and political and cultural divisiveness. But a lot of the underlying causes of these problems will die out, because they are not embraced by the young.  Proof of this shows up data from the our recent election.  Look here:

If you look at the overall electoral map, it looks like this:

But take a look at the age distribution.

These choices are based on their political convictions.

If only voters under sixty had voted, the electoral map would have looked like this.

Optimism for the world in general...

I think young people worldwide are growing up more tolerant than other generations have.  We can chalk this up to trends going on for a century or more.  Here is the good news about what the human race has been up to.

Far fewer people live in extreme poverty

Child mortality is also way down.

Illiteracy is waning around the globe.

 

Similar worldwide gains in education show that average education level of the citizens of the world improves enormously every single decade.

You won't hear about this progress on the nightly news.  Why?  Because, by its nature, the news concerns itself more with the unusual and negative than with positive trends.  But if you take the long-term view, the world is heading in a beautiful direction.  And, given what we know about the youth of the world, when people my age turn the reins over to the young, they will know what to do.

So I say" REJOICE