Archive - The Tragic Optimist

Joanna Macy, Presente!

Yesterday, we lost one of our greats -- here's the interview we did together.

Jul 21 •

June 2025

We Told Them to #GoFundYourself! - And They Actually Did! Huzzah!

Welcome to the inaugural Substack post from Trillionaires For Trump. From Ollie Gark, Chair, T$T (NYSE listed)

Published on Trillionaires for Trump • Jun 19

June 9: Another Take On What Really Happened Last Week

Special Guest post! Some good news from Hawaii, and feminists who are sympathetically curious about the “crisis of masculinity”

Published on The Golden Hour: climate, children, mental health • Jun 9

April 2025

Build a monument to hope or despair

In honor of Earth Day, I’d like to share a reflection about the cusp moment we’re in. Not everything is in our hands, but we artists and activists have…

Apr 22 •

February 2025

We shall not be overwhelmed

How “selective denial” can help us survive Trump 2.0.

Feb 4 •

January 2025

Tragic Optimism and other paradoxes

How The Tragic Optimist got his name and how tragic optimism is a philosophy for our “time of monsters.”

Jan 1 •

December 2024

Latke Vodka Babka Kafka Tchotchke

For nearly 25 years now, my chosen family has been celebrating a very unusual Christmas tradition: Latke Vodka Babka Kafka Tchotchke. It’s an eclectic…

Dec 10, 2024 •

November 2024

The Future is Unwritten

Personal reflection on election defeat and passing the torch.

Nov 6, 2024 •

August 2024

Pessimism of the intellect; optimism of the will!

This video (and the larger piece it draws on) gets at one of the core ideas in I Want A Better Catastrophe: how optimism and pessimism are not what they…

Aug 14, 2024 •

February 2024

The only certainty is uncertainty, and I’m not even sure about that.

Here’s another piece from the Better Catastrophe cutting-room floor.

Feb 15, 2024 •

January 2024

Ricky Ricardo LaFontaine

Wrote this in 2009 while Bush was exiting office and Obama was coming in and the Iraq war was still raging.

Jan 25, 2024 •

Let's fight the fire, not each other

The Tragic Optimist is about holding contradictions.

Jan 17, 2024 •

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