Ideology of Power

A.C. Grayling shows himself the consummate rational atheist in The God Argument , arguing deeply and profoundly his stance. His book is broadly divided into two parts; the first is dedicated to scoping out the arguments for and against religion and religiosity – the notion of a divine being that suppresses men's baser inclinations, Grayling says, is superfluous, even unnecessary. The second proposes a shift away from religiosity, or the penchant to believe in some god that arbitrarily imposes precepts onto the denizens of the earth, and toward humanism. Humanism, he argues, presents one’s moral and ethical values as the conclusion of one’s own deliberation and considered judgments, arrived at through Reason. After all, ‘that is what is meant by living autonomously – taking responsibility, thinking things through.'

It has been a rocky journey since election night, where (now President) Trump shocked the world in a miraculous upset victory over Hillary Clinton. The writing had been on the wall, and the complacency of the media outlets had obscured the root of the problem, making it seem as though a Clinton win was inevitable – a supposed fait accompli . As is always the case, political analysts and strategists, with the advantage of hindsight, have perspicuously adduced myriad reasons and factors accounting for Trump’s win. Whatever transpired, our business is in the present, where Trump’s first days have been just as controversial as his presidential campaign. Now the target for much invective, the most entertaining of which has been the Women’s March, Trump’s executive actions have spanned almost the entire breadth of his campaign promises, his most recent one being a temporary ban on all immigration from seven primarily Muslim countries: ‘Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen’...

It is obvious that different individuals have different and sometimes widely varying predispositions to taking certain perspectives. Such perspectives have given rise to categorizations of people as 'Optimists' and 'Pessimists'; it is almost a given that optimism is considered a crucial deciding factor in the success, happiness and even longevity. Overweening optimism, however, often blinkers a person to the pitfalls of life. The straightforward answer that optimism is always better than pessimism needs greater thought.