QUOTE : For whole generations, a certain pessimism is associated with the historical failure of revolutions. That pessimism is a thing of pathos. The other less sentimental, fiercer type comes from recognizing how ideal things are, the perfection and exactitude of our freedom and the absolute availability of the simplest solutions. For example, the resolution of the famine problem in Ireland by killing off the young children. You could not do better; there is no more elegant solution. It is a stroke of wit. The stroke of wit also despairs of language, but from that despair it always derives a brilliant solution, drawing a line between two diametrically opposed poles. A diabolical simplification; everything is in the ellipsis. There is no crueller trick you can play on reality than to idealize it just as it is. It never recovers from that (whereas it can easily cope with being denounced). Deify power right where it is and it can't believe its eyes. Take the people who marched through Red Square with placards reading 'We are happy in the Soviet Union! The Soviet Union is the land of happiness.