Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, you are unlikely to step up and take responsibility for making it so.

Chomsky frames optimism not as a mood or naïve cheerfulness but as a practical stance that enables agency. The quote argues that believing improvement is possible is a precondition for action: if the future is assumed to be fixed or doomed, people rationally withdraw from civic responsibility. In this sense, optimism becomes an ethical and political strategy—an orientation that sustains organizing, dissent, and long-term work even when outcomes are uncertain. The emphasis on “responsibility” reflects a recurring theme in Chomsky’s public thought: ordinary people can shape institutions and policy, but only if they reject fatalism and accept their role in collective change.