A friend sent me this message the other day:
I had a convo with a new acquaintance recently where I got hung up on whether it’s “optimistic” to believe/operate with the belief that people are fundamentally good/doing their best.
My instinct said it doesn’t make sense to call that “optimism”, but I didn’t know why. Any thoughts? Do you consider yourself optimistic generally? About people?
My first instinct is that I believe people are fundamentally good and doing their best, but I also believe that lots of people do things that are not good, that come from layers of circumstance and trauma covering over their fundamental self. So I have this belief, but I also don't think that it's necessarily optimistic.
But maybe people don't feel this way not because they actually believe something different, but because they're defining these words differently. So what do I mean?
defining optimism
Dictionaries seem to mostly agree that optimism is related to expecting favorable outcomes. I saw a definition that described it as overestimating outcomes, i.e. expecting a better outcome than generally actually happens. If optimism is related to outcomes, then it's not relevant here, because whether or not someone is "fundamentally good" or "doing their best" feels unrelated to how they actually behave.
Optimism feels more like assuming that people will act in ways that are good, or else act for reasons I can easily understand and hold compassion for, more often than actually happens. Sometimes I do have that optimism and sometimes I don't, mostly depending on my emotional state. I do think my belief that people are fundamentally good often leads me to this optimism, but I wouldn't call the belief optimism itself. I'd call it my truth, or maybe faith. It's something I can't know for sure, but choose to believe anyways.
The Oxford dictionary says there is a second definition of optimism, related to philosophy: the doctrine, especially as set forth by Leibniz, that this world is the best of all possible worlds. This feels very related to believing people are fundamentally good and doing their best, but it's not how I use the word optimism and isn't generally how I see it used colloquially.
defining fundamental goodness
Why am I calling it fundamental? This feels very connected to Internal Family Systems therapy, which models everyone as having a Core Self that is compassionate, curious, calm, and connected. If a patient isn't experiencing these capacities, then there is another "part" present, usually experiencing something like fear or anger or avoidance, and talking to this part over time helps it be able to step back, revealing the capacities of Core Self. I take some issue with saying that only these qualities are the "true" self, and personally prefer to think of a person as all their emotions and experiences and parts. But I believe that getting to know oneself, getting needs met, and processing trauma all bring people closer to the qualities that I consider "good". And these "good" qualities feel more fundamental because they don't go away when you get to know them.
And what does it mean to be good? There are formal definitions from ethics or philosophy, and each of us have our own definition based on our own values. I'm sure many of these definitions have overlap. When I say that I believe people are fundamentally good, I mean that everyone has the capacity for kindness, compassion, and care for themselves and their communities. People often act in ways that I wouldn't consider "good", but I believe that's due to their circumstances and traumas, often circumstances that are hard to change and trauma that's hard to process. I'm often not optimistic about people's ability to act in "good" ways. But I still believe that goodness exists within everyone, and this unprovable belief -- like the existence of a God, for some -- brings me meaning and hope.