I have no comment on what your professor said, but reading the replies here just confirms to me that cynicism, pessimism and doomerism are certainly the mood of the current zeitgeist. Optimistic outlooks are too often met with a kind of reflexive dismissal or despair in a "I feel like things are really bad right now, have never been this bad before, and thus can never improve" diatribe.
There's a pervasive sense in online discussions these days that if it's cynical, dark or depressing, it has to be the truth. It's like Occam's razor for today's modern doomer: the bleakest explanation must be the correct one. And I'm not saying that things are easy or that democracy is guaranteed, but I am saying that pessimism isn't inherently more realistic than optimism.
The cynicism comes from the fact that many people (including me) have decided to check out from what is going on in the world and instead focus on what we can control in our daily lives.
It also comes from the fact that in many countries the social contract is broken.
You are still expected to pay your taxes but the services provided are increasingly of bad quality such as schools,hospitals, judicial system and so on.
So much so in fact that it seems to me that this relationship that the people have with the state is becoming more and more one sided. Like in an abusive relationship of some sort.
Look at the number of people who don't bother to vote anymore because at the end of the day it does not make much difference to their lives.
There is profound sense of injustice in the world at the moment but it is being swept under the carpet.
Part of the problem is the whole "In the long run, we're all dead" thing. If things are going to be bad for the next 30 years, that's most of the rest of my useful life. If my life leading up to this point was miserable and the rest of my life is going to be as bad or worse, then I'm not sure I care how things will be in 200 years.
> but reading the replies here just confirms to me that cynicism, pessimism and doomerism are certainly the mood of the current zeitgeist.
Isn't that the human condition? Historically, it was no doubt an evolutionary advantage to always think that a lion is about to pounce, so to speak. That doesn't just go away. The instincts still need something to work with even after all the real threats are gone.
It's just that people today only care about the next 20 or 30 years. They don't really care if, over the course of the next 200 years, two nations can rebuild from annihilating each other in a nuclear exchange. The nuclear exchange is a lot more pressing concern for them.
I'm at the age where 30 years may well be the rest of my life (even assuming a fairly normal old-age sort of death) and 50 almost certainly is, so while I do care about what happens after for my kids, they'll also be quite old by then, so "the whole rest of your life during which you're still significantly active, plus all of your kids' lives up to as late as late-middle-age, by which time they're firmly set on their life courses and family planning and such, will suck" is... pretty bad.
> rebuild from annihilating each other in a nuclear exchange. The nuclear exchange is a lot more pressing concern for them.
Maybe this was your intention or maybe not, but this is kinda what I'm talking about. It presupposes that there will be nuclear exchanges and annihilation in the first place, because, well, why wouldn't there be? Life is shit, tensions are high, and that's the grim dark end we all see coming anyway?
I love a low effort circle jerk as much as the next online commentor but let's be real here, nobody who's worried about stuff lower down the pyramid of needs can afford the luxury of donating resources to a hypothetical future.
There's a pervasive sense in online discussions these days that if it's cynical, dark or depressing, it has to be the truth. It's like Occam's razor for today's modern doomer: the bleakest explanation must be the correct one. And I'm not saying that things are easy or that democracy is guaranteed, but I am saying that pessimism isn't inherently more realistic than optimism.
Cynicism sells in the 21st century.