Tag: Hope and realism

Realism: The Only Hope

February 14, 2024

As you may have noticed from prior posts here and/or from the Hopeful Realist Newsletter, I consider myself a ‘hopeful realist.’ The reason is twofold. First, neither optimism nor pessimism make any sense to me. I guide my thinking by what I know and do not know about the world. Since both optimism and pessimism … More Realism: The Only Hope

Words and Deeds: Entanglements of Hope and Doom

March 16, 2023

Many years ago, I read an article by Irwin Deutscher titled, “Words and Deeds: Social Science and Social Policy.” It was his 1965 presidential address to the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP), published in 1966 in the journal, Social Problems. Deutscher was alluding to the fact that most of the data collected … More Words and Deeds: Entanglements of Hope and Doom