I am one of the pessimists.
There are a number of reasons I am getting more and more pessimist by the day (apart from age, of course).
The first reason is the entitlement mentality which is universal nowadays. There’s no other way to put it: the masses want “free stuff” and they feel like they have some God-given right to it. As all addictions this is getting very serious very quick.
The second reason is the deep-seated envy many persons have towards anyone who’s better off than themselves. This envy is often coupled with the usual sentiment “you have more money than me so you must be cheating on your taxes, exploiting your employees, destroying the environment etc”.
The third reason is how easy is to scare the masses with immaginary hobgoblins. Think about the whole “War on Terror” saga. People are still buying into the whole “they hate us for our freedoms” and believe Afghanistan and/or Iran harbor the turban-wearing equivalent of Fu Manchu. They buy even more that “speculators” and “tax evaders” are the cause of all our problems.
The fourth reason is some sort of childish belief in State authority as a panacea for all troubles. The histeria (I cannot call it another way) which surrounded the election of President Obama is only one of the most recent example. This is coupled with another similar belief that you should vote one party just to avoid the other going into power: this is particularly strong among baby boomers. The usual example “if you don’t vote for candidate X the Reds will win and turn this place into a Soviet regime”. After the election you are usually left to wonder why candidate X’s politics are usually the same as the ones proposed by the Reds if not even more left-leaning.
The only thing we can do is explain our reasons but we should be ready to accept the fact that people will never “snap out of it”. I think we should take the same approach used to cure drug addiction. Short of sending people off to rehab clinics we should warn them of the long-term risks associated with their condition. Of course most addicts won’t give a damn but when faced with the risks their own children, whose future is being mortgaged on a daily basis, many will at least listen for a few minutes.