[Story Index] [Discussion Thread] [The Asylum]
Be Less Cynical
By CHiPsJr
2000-12-06
I've spent a large portion of my twenty-eight years on this earth worshipping the witty...particularly the cynical, curmudgeonly sort. People like Groucho Marx, Oscar Wilde, Voltaire, and the all-time king, H.L. Mencken, who devoted themselves to deflating other people's balloons of self-righteousness and self-importance with a few carefully chosen words. I've admired them and sought to emulate them. I've done better than most people at achieving this goal.
So naturally, I was delighted to discover the internet, and forums like this one, where enlightened mockers could gather and poke fun at true-believers everywhere.
Except that after a while, the thrill began to fade. It wasn't that I couldn't find cynics on the net, or elsewhere. Quite the opposite, in fact. I found myself awash in a sea of cynicism, and finding the atmosphere not to my taste.
Ours has become a brutally cynical society. Witness, as evidence, the fact that we have elevated David Spade to celebrity status. David Spade can't act. He can't perform any task requiring talent. His sole claim on our entertainment dollar is his ability to make the occasional smart remark in a slightly more snide tone than your average Joe. Our society considers this to be a skill worthy of a seven-figure salary. Worse still, there is Bill Maher, who earns his paycheck with a television show on which three liberal celebrities, a liberal studio audience, and the host himself spend thirty minutes making snide remarks at anyone who espouses Conservative beliefs. This show bears the ironic title "Politically Incorrect." His recent standup special bears the title "Be More Cynical." I can't bear either. Yet he, like David Spade, is a celebrity, based solely on his ability to be snide.
Cynicism is also all the rage in academia. Literary "deconstruction" and the concept of the sociological "kritik" celebrate their own lack of advocacy. Adherents to these schools of thought take it as a point of pride that they tear down the foundations of society without advocating anything to replace them. Apparently, advocacy or constructive reasoning are exercises for suckers.
A 23-year-old author named Jedediah Purdy (we can forgive him for his name, I hope) recently wrote a book called For Common Things in which he makes a pretty persuasive case that excessive cynicism...indeed, the worship of cynicism...has become one of our society's biggest problems. For one thing, he contends, cynicism is intellectually lazy. Anybody can lie back on their couch making smart remarks and tearing others down. Those smart remarks aren't going to improve the world in any meaningful way, though...it's those who choose to reason and to actually defend their conclusions that bring about improvement in the world.
For another thing, and probably more importantly, cynicism is cowardice. Purdy contends, and I agree, that most people who adopt cynicism as an all-inclusive attitude towards life are motivated primarily by fear...the fear of taking a stance, being proven wrong, and as a result, being thought foolish. Say what you will about Conservative Christians, at least they have the guts to stand up for some principle, and to advocate their principles before a cynical public. They may not be as educated as the makers of smart remarks, but they sure have a lot more guts. They, unlike the scoffers, are unafraid of the shame that comes from being proven wrong.
Look--there are any number of people who deserve richly to get an intellectual ass-whipping from those around them. Dangerous and foolish ideas deserve thorough refutation. And smart remarks are an important and entertaining part of that process. That's what Mencken was all about.
But we've lost track of the advocacy process and started just worshipping the smart remark. We've lost track of the difference between tearing down someone else's idea in order to build up a contrary idea of your own, on the one hand, and just making clever remarks to prove how cool and jaded you are on the other. We've ceased to respect wit; we've come to worship cynicism.
One of the differences between this forum and many others is the fact that the people on it have the guts to stand for something. There's all too little of that going on these days. If we want to make popular discourse a better place for people like us, it's time that we declared war on cynicism. It's time to expose deconstructionists for the mental masturbators they are. To call out Bill Maher and his wannabes for the cowards they are. And to call a Spade a dickhead.