Sure. I personally find cynicism intensely irritating. It’s infectious so it inevitably ends up poisoning everything. Nobody ever solved any problem with cynicism. In fact I’d go further: all the world’s backward societies (i.e. most of them) are characterized by all-pervasive cynicism (“they’re in it for themselves”, “they’re all crooks”, “nothing will ever change”), whereas the successful countries (few in number) are the ones where people have a more optimistic view of others’ motives. Cynicism is so obviously a self-fulfilling prophesy that I struggle to understand why so many choose to indulge it. I’ve heard a theory that it makes people feel better about their own helplessness. Perhaps I’m too logical but I wish people would choose not to wallow in pessimism - after all, nobody can prove anything one way or the other when it comes to the motivations of others. And oddly, most humans tend to trust others that they know personally. Personally don’t see why strangers would somehow be a different variety of human. Rant over.
I’ve heard a theory that it makes people feel better about their own helplessness.
That certainly sounds like an accurate theory, and I have been known to be cynical about stuff every so often, and am still trying to remove that from my personality. It may have been a defense mechanism developed to block all the helplessness, as that theory describes, but that does not justify my demeanor in those instances.
Like you, I believe having an optimistic stand in front of all the adversity, if nothing else, makes things a bit more manageable. And I agree that if more people dropped cynicism, the world would be all the better for it. Having said that, once that’s embedded in a person’s character, removing it is an entire re-learning process which requires one to forcibly unlearn it, because it does turn into a subconscious reaction.
Sure. I personally find cynicism intensely irritating. It’s infectious so it inevitably ends up poisoning everything. Nobody ever solved any problem with cynicism. In fact I’d go further: all the world’s backward societies (i.e. most of them) are characterized by all-pervasive cynicism (“they’re in it for themselves”, “they’re all crooks”, “nothing will ever change”), whereas the successful countries (few in number) are the ones where people have a more optimistic view of others’ motives. Cynicism is so obviously a self-fulfilling prophesy that I struggle to understand why so many choose to indulge it. I’ve heard a theory that it makes people feel better about their own helplessness. Perhaps I’m too logical but I wish people would choose not to wallow in pessimism - after all, nobody can prove anything one way or the other when it comes to the motivations of others. And oddly, most humans tend to trust others that they know personally. Personally don’t see why strangers would somehow be a different variety of human. Rant over.
That certainly sounds like an accurate theory, and I have been known to be cynical about stuff every so often, and am still trying to remove that from my personality. It may have been a defense mechanism developed to block all the helplessness, as that theory describes, but that does not justify my demeanor in those instances.
Like you, I believe having an optimistic stand in front of all the adversity, if nothing else, makes things a bit more manageable. And I agree that if more people dropped cynicism, the world would be all the better for it. Having said that, once that’s embedded in a person’s character, removing it is an entire re-learning process which requires one to forcibly unlearn it, because it does turn into a subconscious reaction.