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“If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?��

If the world was created to drive us mad, as one character in "Candide" suggests, it is quite well suited for its purpose and running like a fine-tuned machine. If, on the other hand, everything is for the best in this best of possible worlds, as the optimist philosopher Pangloss claims in admiration for Leibniz' idea of a benevolent, planning, organised deity, the above question is fair and scary. What are the other worlds like, if this is the best the creator can manage?

Candide is born into a garden Eden and taught the dogma of optimistic thinking before being thrown out into the cruel world and embarking on an absurdly funny, incredibly brutal and increasingly cynical odyssey around a fictionalised, yet recognisable violent and unfair world. Consistently striving to understand his surroundings, he keeps asking questions and challenging the people he meets, and he keeps reflecting on the events he witnesses, such as the earthquake in Lisbon in 1755.

How does reality fit in with metaphysical thoughts? Is it possible to reconcile life and faith and satisfy both body and soul, while facing the blatant inequality in the world?

In the end, Candide resigns himself to his own, active but detached business of "cultiver notre jardin", - working to be able to shut out the atrocities of the world. He emancipates himself from the philosophical framework of his teacher Pangloss, even though he lets him keep on reflecting in his typical way, thus demonstrating more tolerance than Pangloss himself accomplishes.

When I first read Candide, some twenty years ago, I thought of it as a roller coaster ride through different societies, on a quest to find individual meaning and happiness by figuring out what matters in life. I considered the external circumstances and the Leibnizian optimism a highly exaggerated sarcastic joke, a backdrop for the development of the idea that bliss is to be found in active, yet private pursuit of small scale business without dogmatic allegiances to any creed, be it religious, social or political.

Now I am not so sure about the exaggeration anymore - having spent decades studying the interactions between human beings, and their habit of labelling a "total disaster" a "great win", positioning themselves somewhere in the grey zone between delusional optimism, brutal cynicism and complete disregard for truth.

"L'optimisme c'est la rage de soutenir que tout est bien quand on est mal."

If that is what the leaders of the world support, and the majority of populations accept in resignation while minding their own private business, how can we ever get to the point of attempting to fix the problems of this best of possible worlds?

Acknowledging the issues would be the first step, wouldn't it? If we maintain climate change isn't happening, we will have human-induced catastrophes of the scale of the flood following the Lisbon earthquake. If we do not fight injustice and violence, but claim it is part of the bigger picture of the best possible of worlds, life will continue to be as brutal for our contemporaries as it was for Candide and his friends:

“I should like to know which is worse: to be ravished a hundred times by pirates, and have a buttock cut off, and run the gauntlet of the Bulgarians, and be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-fe, and be dissected, and have to row in a galley -- in short, to undergo all the miseries we have each of us suffered -- or simply to sit here and do nothing?'
That is a hard question,' said Candide.��

Having grown older, and more angry at the world, I do not agree with the two options presented. Life is not either about passively suffering it or withdrawing from the world altogether, it is about actively looking for change. It is about honestly admitting that we do not live in the best possible of worlds, while keeping up the fight to make it a tiny bit better, despite feeling despair creeping into our hearts every so often. It is about "cultiver notre jardin" - but not hidden away in a remote corner.

The garden of our shared global community has to be tended! It is not oblivious, exclusive Eden, and never will be. But it can be a good enough place to live, if the Candides of this world decide to make it a common project - one that shows collaborative commitment despite continuous disappointment. I still love Candide with all my heart, but I think it is about time he applies the knowledge he gained from travelling the world to make it a more bearable place to be - for all people - starting by telling optimistic Pangloss that facts are more important than a false mantra hiding the issues under propaganda.

Il faut cultiver notre planète - malgré tout!