{"id":12299,"date":"2020-04-09T10:00:47","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T17:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=12299"},"modified":"2020-04-08T13:57:54","modified_gmt":"2020-04-08T20:57:54","slug":"the-eeyore-syndrome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-eeyore-syndrome\/","title":{"rendered":"The Eeyore Syndrome"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In&nbsp;A. A. Milne\u2019s classic Winne-the-Pooh children\u2019s tales, Eeyore, the old gray donkey, is perennially pessimistic and gloomy. He always expects the worst to happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Milne understood that Eeyore\u2019s outbursts of depression could at first be salutatory but then become monotonous. The outlook of the pessimist (\u201cif you think it\u2019s bad now, just wait\u201d) always enjoys advantages over both the realist (\u201cso what, life goes on\u201d) and the optimist (\u201coh, come on, it can\u2019t be that bad\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When the pessimist frequently errs in his gloomy prognostications, he can plead that they were intended to be didactic, if not therapeutic. Only by offering scarifying models can the glum epidemiologist and statesman sufficiently terrify the public and thereby allow policymakers to enact the necessary draconian shelter-in-place protocols. That strategy could apply to the recent near celebrity Neil Morris Ferguson, OBE FMedSci, the British epidemiologist and professor of mathematical biology at the Imperial College in London, whose \u201c2 million\u201d possible deaths terrified America into lockdown, just as his modeled \u201c500,000\u201d fatalities in Britain did the same in his own homeland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2020\/04\/coronavirus-pandemic-modelers-pessimists-need-dose-of-humility\/#slide-1\">Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review In&nbsp;A. A. Milne\u2019s classic Winne-the-Pooh children\u2019s tales, Eeyore, the old gray donkey, is perennially pessimistic and gloomy. He always expects the worst to happen. Milne understood that Eeyore\u2019s outbursts of depression could at first be salutatory but then become monotonous. The outlook of the pessimist (\u201cif you think it\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-3cn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13696,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/eeyore-s-corner-from-hippies-to-yuppies-to-our-puppies\/","url_meta":{"origin":12299,"position":0},"title":"Eeyore \u2019s Corner: From Hippies to Yuppies to Our Puppies","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 6, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Private Papers Part One: Hippiedom The Sixties were, as the late, great Peter Collier and the astute David Horowitz wrote, the work of a \u201cDestructive Generation.\u201d Some of the best minds of the conservative movement who lived through those wasted years chronicled their excesses\u2014the narcissism, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 14 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 14 comments","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/eeyore-s-corner-from-hippies-to-yuppies-to-our-puppies\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/HippiesWalking.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13710,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/eeyore-s-corner-from-hippies-to-yuppies-to-our-puppies-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":12299,"position":1},"title":"Eeyore \u2019s Corner: From Hippies to Yuppies to Our Puppies?","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 8, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Private Papers Part Two: Yuppiedom The nihilism of the protests movements, the drop-outs\u2019 human wreckage, the end of the draft and American involvement in Vietnam, and the \u2018silent majority\u2019 reaction to hippiness, all ended the Sixites, albeit in the 1970s. George McGovern\u2019s landslide loss to Richard\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 6 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 6 comments","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/eeyore-s-corner-from-hippies-to-yuppies-to-our-puppies-2\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Yuppies.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13864,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/eeyore-corner-trumpistics\/","url_meta":{"origin":12299,"position":2},"title":"Eeyore\u2019 Corner: Trumpistics","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 6, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Image by smshoot @ Getty Images Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ VDH's Blade of Perseus Part One: Trump, RIP? In January-February 2021, Trump\u2019s future was problematic. He was kicked off social media. And without his accustomed megaphones, Trump for the first time in years was unable to reach supporters and the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/RoadtoFuture.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/RoadtoFuture.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/RoadtoFuture.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/RoadtoFuture.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":13716,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/eeyore-s-corner-from-hippies-to-yuppies-to-our-puppies-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":12299,"position":3},"title":"Eeyore \u2019s Corner: From Hippies to Yuppies to Our Puppies","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 10, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Private Papers Part Three: Puppydom The grandchildren of the hippies and the children of the Yuppies? 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We are engaged in a suicidal impulse to delight in primaeval tribalism, to destroy the entire concept of merit\u2014and to erect in its place a Sovietized system largely overseen by middle-aged,\u00a0\u00a0privileged white people\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 9 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 9 comments","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/eeyores-cabinet-where-does-it-all-end\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13292,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-bleak-biden-way\/","url_meta":{"origin":12299,"position":5},"title":"The Bleak Biden Way","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 3, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness After a hundred days of President Biden, I think most Americans are now on to what will follow in the next few years.\u00a0 Joyless Joe Biden frowns. He grimaces. He occasionally barks and yells as he delivers a gloomy view of America and its\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12299"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12299"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12304,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12299\/revisions\/12304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}