11/3/2023 0 Comments Operational definition of optimism![]() Whilst a multiplicity of values is reflected in individual expressions of optimism, a kind of meta-value is expressed in its common, cognitive form: of energy over entropy, of living over dying. ![]() The family, religious institutions, the medical profession, psychotherapists and counsellors, businesses and political leaders are, amongst others, all seen to be part of this complex, deeply engaged in the reproduction of a culture of optimism. The article argued that the necessity of optimism has given rise to a complex of optimism promoters, which function as agents of implicit cultural policy. These functions are reviewed, with particular reference to psychological and physical health, family and social relationships and the achievement of goals in different contexts. Drawing on material from a broad range of fields, this article identifies an ‘optimism of everyday life’ and proposes that it performs significant psychological, social and cultural functions. The first results of this research were published in Cultural Sociology, vol 5, no 2, 2011, in an article entitled ' Cultures of Optimism'. Prof Bennett then turned to the subject of optimism. These fields included ecology, human rights, military history, international relations, criminology, history of science, cultural criticism and political economy. The book argued that during this period narratives of decline in many fields had produced a pessimism that could justifiably be described as ‘cultural’. In Cultural Pessimism: Narratives of Decline in the Postmodern World (Edinburgh University Press, 2001), Oliver Bennett examined the growth of pessimism in the last decades of the twentieth century.
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