{"id":4209,"date":"2011-02-15T03:27:35","date_gmt":"2011-02-15T10:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=4209"},"modified":"2011-02-15T03:27:35","modified_gmt":"2011-02-15T10:27:35","slug":"celebrate-the-cynic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/15\/celebrate-the-cynic\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrate the cynic!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I ran across this blog post the other day: “Kill your inner cynic.”<\/a> It in turn was inspired by an article in Men’s Health<\/i><\/a>. Both make the same point: that successful people are never cynics and if we want to succeed, we should find some way to stamp out our inner cynic and greet life filled with belief and hope.<\/p>\n

Now, that’s all nice and rosy. And I’ll admit that both authors have a point. To a point.<\/p>\n

But let me put in a good word for the cynics of the world.<\/p>\n

Mark Zimmerman, author of the Men’s Health<\/i> piece, challenges readers to name one successful cynic. You can’t do it, he says. Just plain can’t.<\/p>\n

Ah, but we can. Mark Twain. H.L. Mencken. George Carlin. Bill Hicks. Will Rogers. George Bernard Shaw. Oscar Wilde. Probably P.J. O’Rourke and Dave Barry. In fact, it’s hard to name a successful humorist or social satirist who isn’t<\/i> a cynic. <\/p>\n

And although he wasn’t successful in material terms, let’s not forget Diogenes<\/a>, who lived his life exactly as he pleased and raised some pleasant hell while doing it. I’d say the fact that we haven’t<\/i> forgotten Diogenes thousands of years after his death makes him a pretty darned successful cynic, even if he did choose to live and die in poverty. Wikipedia says he’s one of the few men to publicly mock Alexander the Great and live to tell the tale. He intellectually humiliated Plato. No small feat, that. In fact, those are a much bigger feats than the athletic and acting successes Zimmerman cites.<\/p>\n

But then, cynic meant something slightly different<\/a> in those days than it does now.<\/p>\n

In fact, it’s mostly in the matter of definition that I clash with the above two writers of good cheer. They never define what a cynic is, but they cast their verbal nets to cover all manner of negativism. The guy who doesn’t believe in himself they call a cynic. The guy who thinks his life is ruled by bad breaks they call a cynic. The guy who attributes everybody else’s success to luck or unfair advantages they call a cynic. The guy who belittles your ideas (“That’ll never work!”) they call a cynic. The guy who gets together with his buddies and laments the hopeless state of the world they call a cynic. <\/p>\n

And okay, that’s part<\/i> of what being a cynic is about. That’s the bad part. The part that really does hold people back and make some folks particularly unpleasant to be around.<\/p>\n

But both articles (which were published about a year ago) then go on to lament a 2009 statistic: only 22 percent of the American public trusted the financial system at that point.<\/p>\n

Only<\/i> 22 percent? Yegads and little fishies! If one<\/i> percent trusted the U.S. financial system in 2009, it was one percent too many. If 22 percent trusted the financial system, that’s 22 percent viewing the world through rose-colored glasses as thick as the bottoms of Coke bottles. Heavens. That’s not a sign of cynicism. That’s a sign of delusional hopefulness.<\/p>\n

Regarding that statistic, which he sees reflecting a sad level of distrust, Haris Fazlani, writer of “Kill your inner cynic,” further laments:<\/p>\n

A healthy bit of skepticism is definitely warranted but where do we cross the line? Where does it go from, \u201cHmm, that\u2019s pretty wack but it\u2019ll probably get better,\u201d to \u201cI knew this financial system would screw up some day, the government can\u2019t do anything right. We\u2019ll be stuck here for at least another ten years.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Um … but anybody who was actually watching with open eyes did<\/i> know that the U.S. financial system was screwed up and headed for catastrophe — catastrophe that hasn’t even begun to finish unwinding yet. The government ultimately can’t<\/i> do anything right because its very existence and every, single thing it ever attempts is premised on aggressive force and theft. And we’ll be damn freaking lucky<\/i> if we’re on any road to long-term financial honesty, stability, prosperity, and greater freedom 10 years from now and not just in another bubble or a depression or a hyperinflation or tripping down some other as-yet-explored Keynesian dead end while imagining that all is well. You know that. I know that. Is our knowing that a flaw in our souls? Or are we just seeing reality — which is a virtue beyond every form of rosy hopefulness?<\/p>\n

But Zimmerman and Fazlani don’t see it that way. In fact, while advocating rosiness, Mark Zimmerman overlooks what may be the single most truly hopeful and wise statistic he stumbled across. He can’t see its wonderfulness. No. In fact, he adds with a shudder: “Even worse: The … average American trusts a stranger on the street 55 percent more than a stockbroker, and 48 percent more than a large corporation.”<\/p>\n

Well yes. Of course. The average stranger on the street is probably a decent fella.* Somebody who’d help you fix a flat tire or rescue your cat from a tree. Probably not<\/i> somebody who’d connive you into a crooked investment to increase his bonus. Probably not somebody who’s lobbying government for special privileges or trying to pick your pocket.<\/p>\n

What could be better and wiser and more conducive to happiness than trusting “the average stranger” over the the average institution? If that’s what cynics do, then I’m all for it.<\/p>\n

Yes, let’s not spend our lives whining about what “they” (whoever “they” might be) are doing to us. And gods forbid, let’s not discourage our fellow humans from exploring their creative ideas (unless we know they’re the kind of folk who always produce disaster). And let’s try to believe in our ability to improve our own lives, even when things seem bleak and we feel weak within. Let us not cry in our beer as all the potential of life rolls over us, ungrasped, unappreciated.<\/p>\n

But if seeing — and saying — the plain truth about corrupt and coercive institutions is cynicism, then hooray for the cynics! Let’s be hopeful and rosy and optimistic about a future filled with lots and lots and lots more cynics! Cynics who will see reality so clearly that they’ll stop wasting their time paying obeisance to hopelessly corrupted systems. Cynics who’ll just laugh and turn their back on all the pompous pretensions of pashas and potentates, and for that matter the preposterous pronouncements of Federal Reserve chairmen and the ponzified plans of Wall Street and Washington — and get on with living!<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

* With a few notable exceptions, which is why we go armed. “Trust, but verify.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I ran across this blog post the other day: “Kill your inner cynic.” It in turn was inspired by an article in Men’s Health. Both make the same point: that successful people are never cynics and if we want to succeed, we should find some way to stamp out our inner cynic and greet life filled with belief and hope. Now, that’s all nice and rosy. And I’ll admit that both authors have a point. To a point. But let me put in a good word for the cynics of the world. Mark Zimmerman, author of the Men’s Health piece,…<\/p>\n

Continue readingCelebrate the cynic!<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mind-and-spirit","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}