Pollyannaism

alternative Pollyannism

1. uncountablePersistent irrational optimism.

   I realize one self-evaluation is as true as another and that my mother’s relentless Pollyannism was a less melancholy and more efficient way of muddling through than my gloom or my sister’s saturnine honesty.

   1988, Edmund White, chapter 1, in The Beautiful Room is Empty, New York: Vintage International, published 1994

   1 more example

   […] some good guys at the Secretariat decided that 1975 should be International Women’s Year. ¶ It is typical of the special brand of United Nations Pollyannaism that they did so regardless of the fact that Secretariat hiring policies are grossly discriminatory.

   1975 May 9, Germaine Greer, “At the U.N., Women’s Year ‘of Disgrace’”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 03 Sep 2025

   Synonyms: Panglossianism · Antonyms: cynicalness, cynicism, pessimism, realisticness, realism