Kilgore Trout
Active Member
I'm reading the novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being at the minute. I've just come across this bit:
"Several days later, Tomas posits that somewhere out in space, there is a planet where everyone gets to be born again. They will retain all the information about their first life, and get to try again. Then there is another planet, where they get to try the third time. And so on. This is Tomas's vision of eternal return. Now, says the narrator, we have real definitions of pessimism and optimism. An optimist is a person who thinks that on planet number five, the history of mankind will be less bloody. A pessimist is someone who thinks otherwise."
Initially i thought well people would correct their mistakes given the chance, so surely planet 5 would be a substantially better place then plant 1. But then, maybe given multiple opportunities at life the greedy would just find more ways to be greedy. The violent would just find more ways to be violent. I guess older people have more knowledge than the young but are they better or nicer, I'm not sure.
Anyway, what do folks think? Is this a good way to assess optimism and pessimism?
"Several days later, Tomas posits that somewhere out in space, there is a planet where everyone gets to be born again. They will retain all the information about their first life, and get to try again. Then there is another planet, where they get to try the third time. And so on. This is Tomas's vision of eternal return. Now, says the narrator, we have real definitions of pessimism and optimism. An optimist is a person who thinks that on planet number five, the history of mankind will be less bloody. A pessimist is someone who thinks otherwise."
Initially i thought well people would correct their mistakes given the chance, so surely planet 5 would be a substantially better place then plant 1. But then, maybe given multiple opportunities at life the greedy would just find more ways to be greedy. The violent would just find more ways to be violent. I guess older people have more knowledge than the young but are they better or nicer, I'm not sure.
Anyway, what do folks think? Is this a good way to assess optimism and pessimism?
