Cruel Optimism

Cruel Optimism is when someone claims that something can be done through sheer will power and does not take into account other difficulties that are inherent within the situation.

I first came across this concept in Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention–and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari. Here are some direct quotes with Kindle locations:

One was Ronald Purser, who is professor of management at San Francisco State University. He introduced me to an idea I hadn’t heard before—a concept named “cruel optimism.” This is when you take a really big problem with deep causes in our culture—like obesity, or depression, or addiction—and you offer people, in upbeat language, a simplistic individual solution. It sounds optimistic, because you are telling them that the problem can be solved, and soon—but it is, in fact, cruel, because the solution you are offering is so limited, and so blind to the deeper causes, that for most people, it will fail. _{Location: 2333}

While at first glance, cruel optimism seems kind and optimistic, it often has an ugly aftereffect. It ensures that when the small, cramped solution fails, as it will most of the time, the individual won’t blame the system—she will blame herself. She will think she screwed up and she just wasn’t good enough. Ronald told me, “it deflects attention away from the social causes of stress,” like overwork, and it can quite quickly turn into a form of “victim-blaming.” It whispers: the problem isn’t in the system; the problem is in you.
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This is one of the problems with cruel optimism—it takes exceptional cases, usually achieved in exceptional circumstances, and acts as if they can be commonplace.
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