On the back of my musings about why American’s seem to be encouraged to pursue things more eagerly than in other cultures I have encountered (namely, the British), I was listening to Radio 4 and an author was talking about her new book. She made the point that American’s view optimism as a positive thing, whereas in England we view optimism almost synonymously with delusion. It is an interesting point: Do we see our disdainful-selves as in some way superior to our optimistic counterparts?
