Opt Out of Cynicism

> I think I'd rather have what I'd consider a realistic and true view of the world as it is rather than anything else.

You say that but a realistic and true view of the world will show that things have indeed changed for the better for a lot of marginalized people -- and within our lifetimes, too. It's definitely not "always the same", to paraphrase the author. If you think it is, you may be the kind of person the author is referring to.

I suppose you were there with Frankl and can tell us all about it and how you managed to survive. Did you ask to have your ladle of soup scooped "from the bottom" or did you have a superior strategy for survival?

Your comment is a vacuous, bald assertion that Frankl is "nonesense" and his ideas were a "schtick". Next time you comment, consider shedding light on the matter rather than merely smearing and adumbrating.

I use a style of cynicism to maintain access to early growth. Things that grow typically do so explosively and in a non-linear way from very small initial states. "From shit, flowers grow," is an adage I use a lot, and you need exposure to the shit to get exposure to the growth. However, after a while, it does make my views smell a bit after spending that much time in it.

However, let's say Santa Claus is a vast conspiracy by parents to decieve children, and while nobody could seriously believe any group that large could keep that secret, generation after generation does it. Christmas happens every year one way or another. We go along with it because we are emasculated liars, with our ugly sweaters and insufferable canned music, bending to the objectively absurd narrative that defies basic rationality and physics, one as implausible as the origin story of some deranged peninsular dictator, all so as not to be isolated and exiled. We justify our participation in the lie, one that teaches children to normalize disappointment, that their parents construct elaborate webs of nested deceptions to get their attention, and that the gifts aren't for you, they are to make themselves happy. Your parents are joy-vampires.

That was meant to sound unhinged, but it's to illustrate the point that cynicism can be convincingly simulated without a lot of effort, which means it is a pattern of thought that is necessarily one of many you can actively choose from. It's funny, but it also can become a vice, where it can become a substitute for humor (ask how I know). The other adage I use a lot is that if you smell shit everywhere you go, check your shoes.

The test I would use is, if you can figure out how to make money or even find joy from a hypothesis predicated on the contrarian - but still fact - that Santa isn't real, you may have healthy cynicism, and I'd be very interested in hearing it. Chances are you can't, and the best we can do is become a Santa truther, where we tell people Christmas was an inside job, and we only invented the Easter bunny to convince us that the rest is real.

Cynicism can be very valuable, but I don't think we can understand the value of it as a tool without being able to also laugh about it, because (imo) the humor is the only way to be really sure the cynicism isn't the only tool we have.

loved to learn this quote and story, and love your take on its point!

I don't think I share the author's definition of cynicism. For me, it's more like the opposite of naïveté. Meanwhile, I also consider myself an optimist about the big picture and the long-term. I just think everyone is self-interested while I subscribe to political realism (i.e. everything is power dynamics) and pragmatism (i.e. evaluation depends on purpose.) It's just that I think that can all be true and things can also turn out fine and people can have meaningful relationships too. I just default to skepticism and distrust. Why? Because I find it to be a much more predictive theory of the world and it produces better results as far as I can tell. Since I can use that and have faith at the same time, I don't really see the downside. You just have to learn to separate the two aspects.