Cheerful pessimism / Ironic nihilism?
A cheerful pessimist is one who accepts the brutal, harsh facts of life, and is prepared to accept that people, no matter how talented or how great, will always disappoint, yet he/she makes the best of it. The opposite is a tearful optimist – cursed with the belief of the best of people and subscribes to a utopia, but ends with a melancholic disposition forever bitter at the foibles of humanity. Only cheerful pessimists become comedians for they enjoy the folly of the human race, since the optimist either composes tragedies or lament failed ideals.
An ironic nihilist is a bit trickier. Generally, nihilism does away with ultimate truth or God or absolute values. An ironic thinker doesn’t bother with the quest to discover “truth,” but instead seek to uncover the pretenses of so-called truths and the pretenses of others.
Combine cheerful pessimism with ironic nihilism and you get pragmatism.
