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Opt Out of Cynicism

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Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#161

Post by jsackmann »

yesenadam wrote: post #138
nescioquid wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 believe the GP is largely spot on. Evidence is not easy for me to link to now—when I looked into this a few years ago, I looked up a few of the books linked to in the substantial Controversy section of Frankl's wikipedia page. That section was erased by Frankl's grandson a couple of years ago–yes, hard to believe. Before that, it said something like - Frankl only spent a week at Auschwitz, not the many months the b…

This article outlines some of what you remember (though not, afaict, anything about getting Nazis interested in his medical 'experiments') https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/vik...

Per the article, he spent years in concentration camps, but only a few days at Auschwitz.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#162

Post by Barrin92 »

wruza wrote: post #141
Barrin92 wrote: post #68

I'm pretty sure I fall into the definition of a cynic given in the piece "according to cynics, the world operates in a certain way, the elites are always the same, and will always be the same. The cynics think we are always playing the same game that has always been played. For example, a cynic may think that media’s only purpose is to sells your attention to advertisers - like I did here. And often they might be rig…

I'm not chronically depressed or antagonistic because of it, but 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. I knew some cynical folks and you do not seem to be one of them. The criteria is not how objectively you view the world, but how you act on it. E.g. someone “redirects” the train of medicine for troops in a conflict, because anybody would…

Interesting post. I think cynicism is both about how you view the world and how you act in it, because the former informs the latter. So to me cynicism is both a view of the world broadly, I think of it sort of as Hobbesian, empirical and realistic rather than idealistic and certain ways to act individually. A sort of Machiavellian personality type is to me a pragmatic form of cynicism.

To take the prison example. I guess a cynical person would say, yes, complaining makes no sense because if you loudly complain the guards just beat you up. Staging a prison revolt is just going to give you more years and the justice system is screwed as well. The prison is a zero sum environment and you're likely only going to get ahead by screwing over someone else, and being deceptive and clever.

And honestly to me that's a fairly accurate description of actual prisons in most places. Cynics tend to be people who are acutely aware of power and how people leverage it for their own interests, but I don't think it implies that one has to resign from life.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#163

Post by tedeh »

yesenadam wrote: post #138
nescioquid wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 believe the GP is largely spot on. Evidence is not easy for me to link to now—when I looked into this a few years ago, I looked up a few of the books linked to in the substantial Controversy section of Frankl's wikipedia page. That section was erased by Frankl's grandson a couple of years ago–yes, hard to believe. Before that, it said something like - Frankl only spent a week at Auschwitz, not the many months the b…

Here's a random link to his Wikipedia page history when the controversy section was still there: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Viktor_Frankl&old...

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#164

Post by marginalia_nu »

estaseuropano wrote: post #131
cristoperb wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point of this story is not that cynics were wrong but that one never would have survived his ordeal It's interesting you'd use that story to make your point because about 2,000 years earlier Diogenes, the founder of Cynicism, was supposedly captured by pirates on the Mediterranean and sold into slavery. Not only did he survive but the man who purchased him was so impressed that he appointed him to run his house…

But cynicism the philosophy is not the same as holding a cynical mindset all day.

Leading upper-case Cynic philosophers exhibited a lot of behavior that might be called lower-case cynical today.

A criticism that is as old as Diogenes (at least Laertius) is that they were essentially a cult of edgelords. They pretended not to care what people thought, but it was just an act, at the same time it was really important to them that people around them knew how little they cared through all the shockingly (lower case) cynical things they said and did. DL has Plato accuse Diogenes of this directly. All this is reducing a philosophy to a trope, but it's not an entirely unfair accusation either.

Speaking of which, a bizarre and entertaining piece of history is Lucian's extremely hostile biography of Peregrinus Proteus.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#165

Post by iamacyborg »

robjan wrote: post #157
iamacyborg wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The converse is true, too. It’s absolutely sapping working with folks who’ll just repeat bullshit and call you a cynic for trying to helpfully point out the flaws in their thinking.

There is a very real difference between constructive criticism and simply complaining. In most cases, complaining and shutting people down without suggesting any possible alternative or improvement just makes the situation even less unpleasant for everyone.

True, but that's why I specified "helpfully" pointing out flaws.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#166

Post by louhike »

moksly wrote: post #124
louhike wrote: post #118

Isn’t it cynicism (or idealism) just a survival strategy which happens because of your experiences? I know I tend to be more cynical than most of my peers but I always attributed that to growing up in poverty unlike them. Sometimes it seems a lot of people think others can apply their way of thinking or seeing the world and it will make their life instantly better. But I don’t think it can happen if they don’t live i…

That is a really sad outlook to me. After decades in Enterprise IT, many in the public sector of Scandinavia you’d probably expect me to be a cynic, and if you go through my post history you’ll see very recent examples of what looks like it, but I’m actually always rather optimistic. The healthy survival strategy in a world of shit isn’t to give up, it’s to fight on and hope for the best. It’s to come to the conclusi…

I might be wrong but it seems to me you're mixing cynicism and pessimism. With cynicism you distrust other intentions, but you can still fight to improve your situation or the situation of others.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#167

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

cristoperb wrote: post #74
evrydayhustling wrote: post #21

Another good quote for the OP is Miguel De Cervantes, author if Don Quixote: "there is madness in too much sanity, and the greatest madness of all is to see things as they are instead of as they should be". He would know: Cervantes killed a rival on a duel at 17 and fled to sea. They were attacked by pirates and he fought well before getting his hand blown off and taken prisoner. He lived in captivity but befriended…

> The point of this story is not that cynics were wrong but that one never would have survived his ordeal It's interesting you'd use that story to make your point because about 2,000 years earlier Diogenes, the founder of Cynicism, was supposedly captured by pirates on the Mediterranean and sold into slavery. Not only did he survive but the man who purchased him was so impressed that he appointed him to run his house…

It may be possible, that the pirates who captured Diogenes were not the same as those who captured Servantes. You may have to differentiate your approach and adjust it to the specific type of pirates, if captured by pirates...

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#168

Post by jd115 »

LOLz well done, selling happy faces to the most cynical crowd on the internet :D Look at these comments! My oh-my.

Seriously though, good piece - if a bit shallow. It's a good start. People need to hear this.

Cynicism is the only evil in the world. The opposite, of course, is innocence - and, since this can't exist in pure form, the closest second is gullibility. Not ONE person here will agree that gullibility is a good thing, but I say it's our saviour. It is truly the best you can do in life.

Look, it's not that cynics are wrong... No. They are right. That's the problem. The problem is that they are right. And that's the root of all evil. They are limited - enslaved - by their reality. There's no escaping it. So the only thing they feel they can do is fight back, with all their might... And you know where this leads? Straight to hell.

I'll make it more painful.

The ones who fight corruption are the most corrupt.

The ones who fight injustice are the most cruel.

The ones who fight intolerance are least tolerant.

Your only moral obligation in life is to make this decision for yourself: Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be good?

If it's more important to be right - you're already on the loosing team. If it's more important to be good - now you are ACTUALLY right.

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#169

Post by rackjack »

louhike wrote: post #118

Isn’t it cynicism (or idealism) just a survival strategy which happens because of your experiences? I know I tend to be more cynical than most of my peers but I always attributed that to growing up in poverty unlike them. Sometimes it seems a lot of people think others can apply their way of thinking or seeing the world and it will make their life instantly better. But I don’t think it can happen if they don’t live i…

Astute observation. It is common for people to live life with "maps" that worked well early on but now work very poorly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation

Re: Opt Out of Cynicism

#170

Post by marginalia_nu »

jd115 wrote: post #168

LOLz well done, selling happy faces to the most cynical crowd on the internet :D Look at these comments! My oh-my. Seriously though, good piece - if a bit shallow. It's a good start. People need to hear this. Cynicism is the only evil in the world. The opposite, of course, is innocence - and, since this can't exist in pure form, the closest second is gullibility. Not ONE person here will agree that gullibility is a g…

I don't think it's this black and white. 'Candide' makes a good argument against the other side of the coin, toxic optimism or whatever you want to call it. Horrible things absolutely do happen and ignoring this doesn't make things better.

Maybe the problem is an inappropriate amount of faith. Not in the religious sense of the word, but as in confidence in external things. The optimists have far too much, the cynics have far too little. Maybe we should look to the mean.

Having no faith at all offers up a breeding ground for corruption on both personal and institutional level. Having too much obscures it if it's already there.

> Your only moral obligation in life is to make this decision for yourself: Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be good?

Often the question that should be asked is "why aren't you doing the things you know you should do?" Most people already know what is good, yet they do other things instead out of sheer momentum of habit, or because they don't realize they had an option.

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