N. Kristof, "The Case for Hope"

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The Case for Hope

By Nicholas Kristof

May 9, 2024, The New York Times

 

 

(위 에세이에 나오는 아래 구절은, 오래전에 일부를 읽고는 잊고 있은 Isaiah Berlin의 책을 내게 일깨워 주(었)기에여기 따로 인용한다.)

 

"How can we weigh democratic decline against lives saved through medical progress? Of course we can’t. As my intellectual hero, Isaiah Berlin, might say, they are incommensurate yardsticks — but that does not mean that they are irrelevant to our well-being.

 

And no one can accuse me of ignoring the problems that beset us at home and abroad, for they have been my career. They’ve left me a bit too scarred to be a classic optimist. Hans Rosling, a Swedish development expert, used to say that he wasn’t an optimist but a possibilist. In other words, he saw better outcomes as possible if we worked to achieve them. That makes sense to me, and it means replacing despair with guarded hope."