From Merriam Webster:

Definition of Panglossian: marked by the view that all is for the best in this best of possible worlds: excessively optimistic

Did You Know?
Dr. Pangloss was the pedantic old tutor in Voltaire's satirical novel Candide. Pangloss was an incurable, albeit misguided, optimist who claimed that "all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds." So persistent was he in his optimism that he kept it even after witnessing and experiencing great cruelty and suffering. The name "Pangloss" comes from Greek pan, meaning "all," and glossa, meaning "tongue," suggesting glibness and talkativeness.

Candide is an operetta with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, based on the 1759 novella of the same name by Voltaire. I have played Candide a few times in different settings with an orchestra and in a wind ensemble. I did not understand the quirkiness of the music until I read this today. It is a fun, and at times, a difficult piece to play. I will be playing it yet again tonight with a small clarinet ensemble.

This word, Panglossian, seemed to resonate with me today with unrealistic optimism being expressed, in my view, will all that is going on. Perhaps I have become too cynical after leaving Mormonism to be Panglossian.

I remember looking up that word years ago when reading Candide. I liked the book a lot. I don't buy into viewing the world with that level of optimism.

My mom used to have a sampler on the wall with a quote from Robert Browning: God's in His Heaven, All's Right With the World. No wonder she could buy into Mormonism!


I'm impressed that you take the time to study the background of some of the music you play. I didn't know about that operetta. Good luck and enjoy.

From Wikipedia:

The phrase "the best of all possible worlds" (French: le meilleur des mondes possibles; German: Die beste aller möglichen Welten) was coined by the German polymath Gottfried Leibniz in his 1710 work Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal (Essays of Theodicy on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil). The claim that the actual world is the best of all possible worlds is the central argument in Leibniz's theodicy, or his attempt to solve the problem of evil.

He also covered the subject in his 1686 Discourse on Metaphysics. Maybe Leibnitz was the inspiration for Pangloss.

Inspired me to invent a new word - Panglosexon.

All acceptable sex is for the white heterosexuals in this whitest of all possible worlds.

Here is a related word with "gloss".


https://www.britannica.com/topic/glossolalia

Softmachine and I played with the word almost a year ago.

And yes, it did stem from ridicule of Leibnitz and, more generally, Voltaire's disdain for the then popular idea that reason and science would produce a better world. Isaiah Berlin reprised the argument several times in the 1950s, when everyone thought the now dominant United States could, in its optimism, lead to a secular global paradise.

These authors were exploring the conflict between science, which does progress; and human morality, which they felt does not. What do you get when science improves much faster than human behavior? More efficient ways to kill people and destroy the planet.

"The best of all best of all best of all best of all possible worlds!"

(spoiler)

And then the cow dies.

Or is donated in tithing and ends up in Brigham Young's yard.

I haven't studied the word, and I don't mean to gloss over the subject (sorry), but to me it seems all he is saying is....this world is all we know and all we have, therefore it's the best as far as we know. Therefore, whatever happens is for the best....even if what happens is bad.

I see more neutrality than optimism. But then I'm not a fan of opera either.

Candide is worth a read. I think you would like it.

Pangloss looks at tragedies, horrific ones, and says, "that is as it should be in this, the best of all possible worlds." Candide is a naif, seeing and experiencing things for the first time and unsure how to interpret them. Pangloss comes along, again minimizing people's pain and suffering. It resembles Mormonism's implicit belief that everything that happens on earth is for a purpose, that all wrongs are tolerable because God will make them right in the hereafter.

Candide is brutal satire.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Candide is brutal satire.

The best of all possible satire.

In this best of all possible worlds!

Nailed it.

Hammer time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_wS0Kw6k9c

I have a suspicion that EB studied philosophy while at the Lord's University.

I just didn't know they allowed students to wear Hammer pants.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2020 05:12PM by Lot's Wife.

It was the 90s. Everyone looked gay.

Oh, but the hair!

Is the roan a horse or a woman?

Prof said the roan was a woman, and I was like, naw - it's a horse.

Naif? Moi? Possible.

Well, if I may speak Candidedly, what you said was very interesting. I may have to check it out and give it a read. It has lots of pictures, right? Any pop up pages? I like those.

Just try not to get the pages stuck together...forever.

Spit take! That made me laugh out loud!

And "stuck together forever" sounds just like the celestial kingdom!

I found Candide sordid and unfun to read---and Pangloss what is usually meant when people call someone a "Pollyanna." Pangloss is better as the glib, surface- don't get too deep, don't feel anything, and yes, there's really no such thing as tragedy, because, hey, all's right in this best of all possible worlds.
UGH.

I like better the sight of Jesus, standing in front of Lazarus' tomb, weeping. Loss hurts, and living on this planet sometimes hurts terribly, even though yes, there is also incomprehensible beauty and goodness too.

As long as I'm able to do a Nancy Wilson guitar lick kick, the world is okay by me.

C'mon, get up and move, one, two, three, KICK!!

You are such a barracuda!

I read an abridgement of "Candide" (although not on gold plates) in a college Freshman history/literature/religion course in the early-to-mid-1960's. This was in an anthology called "The Heritage of Western Civilization," still available in a later edition from Amazon. Later I read the whole thing and discovered that they'd cut out some of the best juicy parts.

Voltaire had a way with words. I particularly like Candide's encounter with the Dutchman and his wife; and the old woman's story of being captured by the pirates.

In addition to Leonard Bernstein's operetta, there was also a 1960 film with Jean-Pierre Cassel and Daliah Lavi, updated to the WWII/cold war era. And of course there was "Candy" in 1968, with Richard Burton, Marlon Brando, Ringo Starr, James Coburn, John Huston, John Astin, Elsa Martinelli, Sugar Ray Robinson--and Walter Matthau as the superpatriotic, psychotic General Smight.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054719/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062776/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

Here's a joke from that era that I believe puts the Candide-Polyanna-Pangloss attitude in perspective. Of course we were college students, and Vietnam was just beginning to appear regularly on the evening news.

Optimist: This is the best of all possible worlds.
Pessimist: Yes, I'm afraid you're right.

> Optimist: This is the best of all possible
> worlds.
> Pessimist: Yes, I'm afraid you're right.

That is brilliant. I would change "pessimist" to realist, since the statement is factual and not tinted by a predisposition. But the couplet is brilliant!

Panglossian - I thought that was an Armenian doctor on M*A*S*H or something like that.