The peace process in Northern Ireland has been the subject of previous dispatches.  Newsweek wrote: "Northern Ireland has been held up as proof that warring factions everywhere can be brought to the table." (Issue of January 11, 2010)

However, it wasn’t always this way.  In its March 4, 1996 issue, Newsweek published an interview with Gerry Adams - just as the peace process was beginning.  The final exchange follows:

  "Isn't it really the same old story - if the ballot doesn't work, then the IRA     uses the bullet?

The black dog of depression [has] nibbled at my heels.  But I've often used a phrase I've plagiarized from someone else - "the optimism of the will has to override the pessimism of the intellect."  Irish republicans can say, "It's the same old story.  The British government won't listen to the force of argument."  We can all say whatever we want ...  [But] we are now at the defining moment.  We have to assert the optimism of the will."

 The phrase Mr. Adams refers to is "a pessimism of the intellect and an optimism of the will", often attributed to Antonio Gramsci.  The Mighty Quinn uses the work of Kurt Godel and Otto Rank to bring to Gramsci's notion a more forceful argument