Against Cynicism
Intellectualism on the Cheap
I’ve written before that I’m neither an optimist nor a pessimist. Neither attitude is a realistic one.
While temperamental optimism or pessimism is usually harmless and sometimes more a matter of personality than conscious volition, cynicism is a choice. Cynicism is sometimes used as a synonym for pessimism, but it originally referred to a school of philosophic thought in ancient Greece. While the original cynics eschewed wealth and fame in pursuit of virtue, today the word commonly refers to a nihilistic posture which views the world solely through a narrow lens of self-interest (and typically an unenlightened form of self-interest at that). Where ancient Cynics renounced money, power, fame, and even sex, today’s cynics claim “it’s all about money, power, fame, and sex.”
In theory, modern cynicism allows one to stand apart, to remain above the fray. It allows one to play the critic, always casting judgement, never taking action (which prevents one from being sullied or tainted by failure). Cynics say that the world is full of suffering and that people are flawed and selfish. But they fail to see the complete picture: that the world is also full of many good things, and that human beings are also altruistic.
There are various responses to the realization that the world is full of suffering and that people do bad things. One response is to try to do some good, knowing that you will sometimes fail. This approach requires operating within a moral framework, striving to limit the unintentional harm one might cause, seeking to rectify past wrongs, and guarding oneself against temptation. But it allows for the fact that all of us fall short, and that it will be impossible for any of us to be fully successful in always doing good and never doing bad. The Christian framework of sin and repentance is one example of this response.
The cynical response is not to try at all. For in trying, one often fails. And to fail would be in some way to incur guilt. Better not to play the game at all. Cynics don’t claim to be moral. They just point out where everyone else falls short.
This is a false superiority. It is false intellectually – as uninformed and unexamined as any blind, optimistic faith in inevitable progress. And it is false morally.
The cynic has no attachments or loyalties. He or she can pretend to moral superiority, relentlessly criticizing a nation or a society in the harshest terms. The cynic feels free to argue that America, for instance, is evil. When confronted with the idea that the country without sin can cast the first stone, the cynic says that all countries are evil. Freed in that way of his or her supposed allegiances, he or she can pretend to be morally blameworthy, casting stones from above, while the defenders of America (or any other nation) are forced to talk about hard choices and rectifying past mistakes and “forming a more perfect union.”
Cynics sometimes claim the mantle of realism, but my problem with cynicism is that too often it isn’t realistic. Passing familiarity with Thomas Sowell’s A Conflict of Visions, which explores and examines the nuances of two opposing worldviews – the constrained and the unconstrained, or the tragic and the utopian – might tend to give one the impression that cynicism puts one firmly in the tragic camp, and that hopefulness puts one in the utopian camp. But the actual argument of the book isn’t that one side has a dark view of the world and the other has a sunny view of the world. Constrained doesn’t mean pessimistic, and unconstrained doesn’t mean optimistic. Indeed, as we shall see many cynics have a decidedly unconstrained view of the world.
Perhaps if we refer to them as the “limited” or “skeptical” worldview, and the “unlimited” worldview, that would help clear up some of the confusion. The tragic view isn’t that the world is a bad place. Indeed, one can even go as far as to say that the tragic view tends to be held by “glass-half-full” types (who know that things could always be much worse) and the utopian view tends to be held by “glass-half-empty” types (who focus on the things which could be made better). The “limited” worldview is skeptical of humans’ ability to control events, especially at scale, whereas the “unlimited” worldview tends to believe humans (collectively, although sometimes also individually) can control events. On the question of societal direction, the constrained worldview tends to believe luck (chance) plays a strong role, whereas the unconstrained worldview tends to believe society (or the people “in charge” of it) decides where to go. Many people want to think of themselves as having a constrained worldview, but I suspect it is by far the minority viewpoint, because it seems unnatural to believe that most of what happens in a society is the byproduct of random interactions of individuals and groups,1 rather than the conscious design of someone.