Balancing Optimism With Realism

is there really a Stockdale “paradox”?

Some time back, I was interviewed by a reporter who was writing about the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, what resources Stoic philosophy can contribute, and what has come to be termed the “Stockdale paradox.” Jim Collins came up with that term in his management book, Good To Great, and used it to describe something that isn’t really a paradox in any genuine sense of the term.

What Collins draws from Admiral James Stockdale’s account of his harrowing experiences as a prisoner of war is that in difficult and dangerous situations, people do better psychologically when they balance optimism with realism about what they are facing.

Stockdale observed that his fellow POWs who indulged in undue optimism, telling themselves for instance that they would be back home by Christmas, succumbed to despair when those hopes failed to materialize.

Those who managed to continue on day by day were those who were brutally realistic with themselves about their situation, and harbored as few illusions as possible. “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

The idea of the alleged “paradox” is that one has to look at what one views as bad situations through a double viewpoint, balancing optimism with realism. I suppose this could seem paradoxical to people whose mindsets are overly rigid, and who are unable to entertain multiple perspectives on complex matters, like one’s own life conditions and possibilities.

It might also strike several other types of people as paradoxical. These include people who are fixated upon always interpreting things in a positive light, those who demand of themselves that they exhibit a perpetually positive psychology, and those who fear that if they admit that life isn’t always good they will fall apart or let others down.

A “paradox” after all, often means something that appears to go against prevailing beliefs. The Stoics were infamous in antiquity for saying things that other people found incredible.

Cicero wrote a short book detailing six of them, but those he selected are just a few of the counterintuitive, tough-to-buy, paradoxical assertions you can find as you read through classic Stoic texts.

Some paradoxes are so because they bear upon space and time (like those of Zeno of Elea), and others because of their logical structure (like the Liar’s Paradox).

Those of the classical Stoics, and Stockdale’s, are instead paradoxes of mindset, value, choice, and action. They cease to seem paradoxical and at the same time reveal themselves as effective guides to life when we remind ourselves of key Stoic teachings.

Central to Stoic philosophy is the idea that although we do not control externals, we do get to determine our attitudes towards, and evaluations of them. Though it admittedly can be tough to exercise this, we do have control over the assumptions and inferences we make, the thoughts and emotions we entertain, and the uses we make of whatever measure of freedom we possess.

Facing truths, even if unpleasant, about situations we are stuck in, equips us for exercising and applying prudence, and finding within ourselves the fortitude to persevere, that is, to continually stay on course in the choices we keep making and the commitments we continually reaffirm.

This piece first appeared in the May 2020 issue of the online magazine The Stoic. If this piece has you now interested in Stoicism, and you would like to know what to read next, this might be helpful for you.

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Gregory Sadler is the president of ReasonIO, a speaker, writer, and producer of popular YouTube videos on philosophy. He is co-host of the radio show Wisdom for Life, and producer of the Sadler’s Lectures podcast. You can request short personalized videos at his Cameo page. If you’d like to take online classes with him, check out the Study With Sadler Academy.