The problem of cynicism …
In the work I do at Newfield, we spend a lot of time working with, and looking at, moods and emotions. Not in the psychological sense, but more from the perspective of moods and emotions as pre-dispositions for action. For example, if I am in a mood of anger, or resentment that pre-disposes me to different actions than if I am in a mood of joy, or gratitude. We are always in one mood or another, and understanding that is a key part of our work. By exploring where we act from, we have much greater capacity to change our actions, and the results we can generate in life.
If we move away from the idea of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ moods, we can instead see some moods as more helpful than others in specific contexts. For example, we can see that in some situations, fear is useful – alerting us to danger, and making us careful. At the same time, fear can be unhelpful if it stops us taking actions that would serve us. On the other hand, we can see that a mood of ambition will help us to create new projects and ventures, but, also, at the same time, it might blind us to the dangers or pit-falls in that project.
All moods have their benefits, or lessons, for us, and there’s no one-size-fits-all mood that is helpful in all situations. However, I have been exploring one mood that I think is especially dangerous, and while I wouldn’t go so far as to call it ‘bad’, or ‘wrong’, I do think we need to take a good look at this mood – cynicism – and the damage it can do.
I wrote a few months ago about the new coalition in the UK , and mentioned the cynicism which accompanied the new Government’s ambitions to create a ‘new kind of politics’. And, since then, the British press and the commentators on “have your say” columns have seized plenty of opportunities to talk about how “it won’t last”.
Cynicism is exactly that – the belief that something new can’t work, a belief that kills off any sense of possibility.
This is not an argument for blind optimism; indeed, a certain skepticism, or questioning of new ideas/ventures etc, is necessary to prevent falling into pit-falls, and to provide a certain groundedness in moving forward – making any new initiative or project into a success is not simply a case of “building it and they will come”. But, when we are in a mood of cynicism, then it’s as if we are saying “Don’t even bother to build it”, “don’t try to do anything new, different, because it will fail” (often, accompanied by the unspoken suffix “it will fail as anything new has done”). A mood of cynicism is often the result of having tried in the past, having believed in something, and then having been disappointed or let down.
In the introduction to his fascinating book, “The Politics of Meaning”, Rabbi Michael Lerner writes:
“There is a profound difference between cynicism and a methodological scepticism which rightly asks for some reason to believe that the world can be different. Much of this book is a response to the sceptic. But it will never satisfy the cynic, who holds with religious intensity the view that nothing fundamental can be changed. Pointing to the terrible crimes that have been committed in the name of social change, and relying on the disappointments most of us have felt when we gave ourselves to social movements or religious or spiritual traditions that promised transformation but actually reproduced some of the distortions of the past, the cynical wisdom of our age insists that to be sophisticated is to know in advance that no attempts to change the world could possibly work, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is necessarily a fool, or dangerous.
Yet, I insist on the possibility of possibility.”
I think that last sentence is an exquisite declaration, an insistence that, despite maybe several disappointments, several failures, it’s still worth trying to make something better.
A life that admits no possibility of possibility is the bleakest, most hopeless, kind of life, one I’ve certainly known in my own life from time to time.
However, it is one thing for me to be hopeless about the possibility for change in my own life – that creates plenty of misery for sure, but quite another thing to be cynical about the possibility of change for others, or in the world, that truly is the worst kind of mood because it has the potential to kill off any hope in anyone that things could actually be better.
And, as I write this, the latest round of peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians have begun. To be honest, I don’t hold out much hope for these talks; we have been there so many times before, and there are plenty of gloomy forecasts about how these talks, too, are doomed to failure. And yet, it would be a tragedy if we were not to even engage in such talks because of past failures, if we were to abandon the possibility of the possibility that peace is possible.
Reflections
Where in your life, or work, have you fallen into a belief that nothing can better, or tried to kill off possibility for yourself, or for others? What cynical conversations are you immersed in (eg reading news-papers whose pre-dominant mood is cynicism, deriding a new project with others, etc)?
What has been the cost to you of that?
Are you able to admit that, even though you might have been let down, or crushed, countless times, there might still be even a glimmer of a possibility of possibility?
Quote
“A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.” - H.L. Mencken
Hi Aboodi
Interesting piece this. Couple of points…If the situation in Northern Ireland can be resolved…then there is hope for the Middle Eastern situation. For me as an Irish person watching Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley sitting down and talking is the equivalent of watching George Bush & Osama Bin Laden having tea together. but I honestly believe it wouldn’t have happened without the presence of George Mitchell…a man of infinite patience who was willing to accept fractions of millimeters as progress.
Also with regards to disappointment and failure…the biggest cynics are those people who long for change and transformation so much that facing failure, disappointment, return of the same old same old (as it can be seen) really hurts them and so they want to protect themselves from that. I also see very little in the personal development world about dealing with repeated failures and disappointments – choosing to stay in the place of “possibility of possibility” or should we move on and let that go and try something else. Peace is a prize worth staying in the place for but not sure all things are..
To focus on the individuall rather than the collective, I think a man who looks for a coffin when he smells flowers could also be depressed, and that depression manifests as cynicism. I’ve never met a happy cynic, and so in this sense perhaps it’s worth considering what the cynic needs by way of support?
I have become increasingly cynical these past few years and decided to finally admit to myself yesterday that I am depressed. I can’t help wondering if the noise generated by my cynical musings may have provided a screen by which no one actually noticed my actual state, as I was too busy diverting them!
I’ve been musing on this a wee bit this morning, and it strikes me that cynicism is the puer’s response to betrayal – but perhaps I ought to translate that from psychobabble.
Naive idealism is a sign of emotional immaturity, and such naive idealism can achieve great things, but it inevitably crashes into the disappointment of reality sooner or later. There is a possibility in this process of disappointment of us learning something about the world and our relation to it. If we’re able to take this path, then we can begin to work with the challenge of having ideals and working to see them more fully articulated, whilst accepting just how difficult a process this might be – staying open to the possibility of possibility.
All too often, sadly, we fail to learn from our disappointment, and our knee-jerk response is to move from believing that everything can be changed and made new to believing that nothing can be changed. As I write it occurs to me that one might be able to see the movement from late 60s hippy idealism to the complacency of prog rock to the nihilism of punk as an articulation of this process in popular culture (just a passing thought – feel free to disregard or kick holes in it as a theory).
If you;re interested in this stuff then I strongly recommend reading James Hillman’s fantastic article on Betrayal – you should be able to find it fairly easily with an internet search.
Thank you, Alan.
I *really* like what you have to say, and can relate personally to that process. I also like the musical analogy!
Aboodi, living in the U.S. I cannot help but apply your thoughts on cynicism to the palpable disappointment shared by millions of voters who swept Barack Obama into office nearly two years ago, hoping that he would usher in a new era where the plight of the poor and the middle class would be turned around by new policies he promised to work towards. Every day I read articles by people who persevere to keep the ideals alive that then candidate Obama spoke so passionately about, but that seem to be getting compromised more and more by the increasing influence that big business has on our lawmakers and by the rising popularity of scary groups like the Tea Party that are heavily influenced by influential people in our country. Thank you for sending this article along at a time when a rekindling of the possibility of possibility is sorely needed in the United States by people who are not satisfied with the direction our country is going.