What Are Rose-Colored Glasses?
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00What are rose-colored glasses? If you'll permit me to smash two idioms together shamelessly,
00:05what a cockeyed optimist really needs is a pair of rose-colored glasses.
00:11Both idioms suggest the same basic premise, that a perpetual optimist may not be viewing
00:16the world very realistically. By wearing rose-colored glasses,
00:20a person's grasp of a situation or circumstance would be unnaturally filtered or soft-pedaled.
00:27While a more optimistic worldview is not a bad idea in itself, deliberately failing to
00:32acknowledge unpleasant or negative aspects of the human experience can be a form of delusion
00:38or denial. The origin of the idiom
00:42rose-colored glasses is still a mystery to this day, although there are a few interesting and
00:47plausible theories. The idea of an idyllic rose-colored worldview can be traced back to
00:53at least the seventeenth century. Quite possibly the popularity of romantic imagery and artwork
01:00inspired viewers to associate optimism with the rose gardens and deep reds they saw.
01:06Victorians certainly were familiar with the idea of a rosy glow, or painting a rosy picture.
01:13Viewing the world through rose-colored glasses could be an extension of painting extraneous
01:18roses to liven up a painting or decoration. Another theory concerns early mapmakers and
01:24their special corrective lenses. Because mapmaking required a great deal of attention to detail,
01:31mapmakers needed to keep the lenses of their eyeglasses especially clean and scratch-free.
01:38It is believed by some that these mapmakers would use rose petals to clean any dust or
01:42other contaminants from their lenses. The rose petals' natural oils would protect the lenses
01:48but often left a rose-colored stain. Therefore, viewing the world through rose-colored glasses
01:54would be the equivalent of focusing all of one's attention on the smallest details
01:59and ignoring the realities of the larger world around him or her.
02:04The idea of looking through filtered lenses was also a familiar one by the nineteenth century.
02:10Some people may have been accused of looking through blue or green-tinted glasses,
02:14which would have altered their perception of reality. Perhaps the same concept of a filtered
02:19worldview was applied philosophically to eternal optimists who preferred a sanitized or filtered
02:25version of reality to the one they were forced to live in by circumstances beyond their control.
02:31One of the most entertaining theories suggests that the rose-colored glasses were not eyewear
02:36at all but rather bar glasses. Viewing the world through the bottom of a glass containing red wine
02:43or rose-colored spirits might be considered the same as cockeyed optimism.
02:49Whether the soft-focused worldview was inspired by alcohol or an optimistic philosophy,
02:55it could be argued that a person looking at a situation through rose-colored glasses
02:59is making a conscious choice to accept or not accept certain realities.
03:05For more clear, concise answers to common and not-so-common questions,
03:09visit the Conjecture Corporation website.