people held optimistic views about themselves, their fellow citizens and their prospects

for their collective futures. But, in fact, quite the opposite appears to be true: deep

pessimism seems a key ingredient for the maintenance of any good society. At the core of pessimism

is the idea that everyone, however outwardly normal, is severely flawed: short-term, blinkered,

vengeful, sentimental and prone to reckless anger, fear, delusion and passion. We're

mad monkeys, with a few extra neurones. From a brutal acceptance of this dark starting-point,

there can flow a range of measures that together will make for exceptionally wise, calm and

reasonable societies. Let's consider a few: In an ideally pessimistic society, rather

boring and extremely steady politicians are the norm. No one believes the wilder utopian

promises of firebrand leaders. The electorate is simply far too pessimistic to trust in

easy, rapid solutions to any of the nation's substantial problems. Dramatic promises at

the stump are immediately discounted with a wry, dismissive shrug. Because pessimists

know just how flawed any one individual can be, the ideal pessimistic society invests

heavily in strong, slow-moving, independent institutions that prevent too much power from

ever falling into the hands of a single person. Furthermore, these institutions are insulated

from the fluctuations of public opinion – which, pessimistically, are seen as being hugely

prone to hysteria and overreaction. In the ideal pessimistic society, there won't be

much appetite for singling out any particular group or class of people for blame. Our troubles,

the electorate sadly admit, are caused mainly by big impersonal, historical forces – rather

than by a few people who are easy to target and cathartically hate. Because they assume

that it's natural to have rather dangerous appetites and desires, the citizens of a pessimistic

society willingly put quite a lot of restraints on themselves, defining freedom not as the

ability to do whatever they want at any point, but as the liberty to act in accordance with

their wisest, most reasonable selves (which only appear every now and then). They therefore

don't see it as any particular loss of freedom to be gently nudged away from blowing their

savings, overeating, doing no exercise, ruining their relationships or developing addictions.

They accept a paternalistic society as the natural price for limiting their own self-destructive

tendencies. Pessimistic societies don't have much time for celebrity culture, for

they are dubious about whether anyone much deserves to be idolised: they know that from

close up, we're all a bit of a mess. And they're not shocked by revelations of chaotic

private lives, since this is assumed to be the norm. Spare energy is directed more towards

forgiveness rather than adulation followed by denigration. In pessimistic societies,

the education system is elaborate, broad, ambitious and very well resourced; citizens

assume that the raw human mind needs a huge amount of structured, targeted help in order

to cope with life's challenges. The curriculum isn't merely focused on technical skills

though; there is a lot of help around emotional issues too – which, it's acknowledged,

are at the root of so many of our tragedies. Because they acknowledge that we're all

fragile, easily irked creatures, pessimistic societies place great emphasis on creating

quietly uplifting and beautiful communal environments. Cities are marked by elegance, simplicity,

rationality and harmony. A stridently ugly tower block, a depressingly chaotic airport,

a squalid railway station – they darkly admit – could be enough to drive someone

to despair. The rich have always recognized this for themselves; a pessimistic society

merely differs in regarding this as a universal truth. In optimistic societies, there are

constant claims that everyone can be exceptional and, one day, awe-inspiringly successful.

The charms and rewards of life are therefore fundamentally geared towards those who make

it to the top. The best restaurants are superb, the private hospitals are outstanding, the

most expensive schools magnificent, the richest residential areas delightful, the taxes for

the rich very low. But, naively, such societies forget that, by statistical inevitability,

most people are actually not going to be successful at all. So in the pessimistic society, mediocrity

and relative failure are assumed to be the norm and the goal of government is understood

to be that of rendering an average life (that is, the life most people will actually lead)

as attractive as possible. Public housing, state schools, public hospitals and transportation

are all superb, because it's assumed (with extreme realism) that we're almost all going

to be relying on them. By following such pessimistic dictates, the profound consequence will be

a society where – paradoxically – there will be rather a lot to be cheerful about

– though, of course, the wary, gloomy and wise citizenry would never quite dare to put

it like that.

At The School of Life we believe in developing emotional intelligence.

To that end we've also created a whole range of products to support that growth.

Find out more at the link on the screen now.