Pangloss

learnt.

And I was playing Pangloss Voltaire in that.

And that meant, you know, narrating the show, driving the show, but also, you know, so I turned up for the first time in my life with the whole show under my belt.

And I really liked it.

Part of this is assuredly the magic of youth, the uncomplicated, the, the idyllic nature of the world while we're too young to understand the world's difficulties and complexities and its suffering.

But Candide is also-- comes to believe in his life in a kind of paradisaical existence because he's instructed by Pangloss, who is called the family's oracle, really the, sort of their, their intellectual on hand at the castle, and, uh, Candide listens attentively and innocently to this philosopher's lectures.

Pangloss more or less expresses the viewpoints of Leibniz, or rather, a caricature of Leibniz, though the way he is presented, I think, uh, it goes a fair bit beyond just a mere satire of Leibniz, which I will explain in a moment.

But this is how Pangloss's teaching is described.

Quote, "Pangloss was a professor of metaphysico-theologico-cosmolo-nigology.

He proved admirably that there is no effect without a cause, and that in this best of all possible worlds, the Baron's castle was the most magnificent of castles, and his lady the best of all possible baronesses.

'It is demonstrable,' said he, 'that things cannot be otherwise than they are, for all being created for an end, all is necessarily for the best end.

Therefore, we eat pork all year round.'" Consequently, they who assert that all is well have said a foolish thing.

There are also...

This is not the best of all possible worlds, so I'm not coming to you like Dr. Pangloss to say we can't do better.

And in a lot of these industries, we see profits and growth of this mainstream millionaire class that comes at the expense of consumers and new entrants.

And so, you know, this is maybe a Chicago take.

Candide was a satirization of the worldview of one of the primary optimists of the time, Gottfried Leibniz.

The novel follows Candide, a privileged young man who was raised and immersed in the optimism of Leibniz by his tutor, Pangloss.

One day, Candide is banished from the castle he was raised in and is cast out into the world, where he witnesses and experiences many of the calamities of life, from earthquakes and disease to war and murder.

And we follow how his experience of these calamities clashes with the optimism that he was raised with.

He encounters all these different experiences, and he encounters all these philosophers who have systems that they believe in.

And so the first philosopher we find is Pangloss, and at the very beginning, Candide falls in love with, uh, the baroness, uh, uh, the baron's daughter, and her name is Cunagon- Cunegonde.

And he, he, you know, she's ...

He's not supposed to like her 'cause he's, he d- he's not at her level, and he end up getting kicked out of the castle because he, he likes her and, and they're, they're, uh, together, and, um, he gets kicked out.

So he kinda goes on this quest, and he's with Pangloss, h- this philosopher, and they go out on this quest, and it, it, it has the feel of, uh, uh, Don Quixote.

And, uh, so the two of these guys are out on, on this quest, and they're just encountering all these different things, and there's so much of suffering that they, they themselves encounter, but then in s- the stories they hear of others.

And so you, you see, uh, Candide, this, this main character kind of having to grapple with what about all these terrible things that are happening in the world? And, and you just kind of, like, after reading that poem from 1756, you really see ...

Uh, it's like, uh-

Or Pangloss.

Don't, don't, don't give him anything.

Best part came-

Finish it.

I'm just, I'm giving him the characters.

The Pangloss, and they invade Candide, and he has to, like, fight them off to-

All right.

In 1759, the French writer and philosopher Voltaire published a satirical novel about a young man and his tutor.

Pangloss, the tutor, instructs the student, Candide, that they live in, quote, "The best of all possible worlds." As the story unfolds, Candide witnesses war, disease, natural disasters, torture, and death.

Pangloss encounters many of these tragedies himself.

Yet no matter what happens, he continues to insist that everything is unfolding exactly as it should.

It's from this character that we get the word Panglossian, describing someone who relentlessly maintains that everything is for the best.

Most of us are not as optimistic as Pangloss, but many of us do carry assumptions in our heads about how life works, that good choices lead to good outcomes, that the world is fair, and that everything will make sense in the end.

These assumptions are often unconscious and unarticulated until something happens to destabilize us.

This week on Hidden Brain, and in a companion episode on Hidden Brain Plus, when bad things happen to good people.