Cynicism gets bad press. It’s considered undesirable — to the point where you might be tempted not to voice all your criticisms so as not to be seen as curmudgeonly. It’s handy for others to be able to dismiss cynicism with Oscar Wilde’s value of nothing quote/ But I think cynicism is a source of good.
In the early 20th century many dabbled with optimism (and its extremist cousin utopianism). Armed with a naive view of progress, believing in science/reason/technology people imagined international brotherhood just around the corner. (At this stage it was still “brotherhood”.) HG Wells and Shaw are probably the best examples — but they represented what was probably felt by millions.
Then came the Great Disappointment, revealed through Stalin, Mussolini and the rest. It revealed that utopia wasn’t “just round the corner”, and we weren’t nearly as civilised as we thought. And, most importantly, that if a Great Messianic Leader cometh, this is more often than not a very bad thing.
Today people might be more cynical about the world, politicians. motivation etc. This is good: it protects us from being swept away into insanity. If there’s one thing that the 20th century taught us it’s that utopias are very likely to lead to atrocities. A utopian rearrangement of society is essentially the act of testing a simplistic theory of human nature on millions of people with no control group. No wonder it gets out of hand. Our cynicism is our immunity against future utopian horrors.
I was watching some footage of Churchill’s state funeral when I realised that these days it’s very rare in a democracy for the masses to show a great deal of affection for their leaders. Such feelings are saved for dictatorships that still run on visions on utopia, that still forbid political cynicism. In a democracy, a politician is likely to be shouted at. A great example: a great deal who supported Obama with fervour, have rightly torn him a new one over Rick Warren. Now that we’ve stopped believing in utopias, a real improvement is possible. Now that we’ve realised there is no Grand Leader to save us, we can start trying to pull ourselves out the messes we’ve made/inherited.
3 comments ↓
Nice use of the word curmudgeonly. We don’t see that nearly enough these days. I’m happy to be a cynical curmudgeon.
no, it’s much more of a victorian era uk word.
in fact don’t virtually all curmudgeons hail from that area?
Couldn’t agree more.
The only problem is that we have replaced our national affections for great leaders for celebrities. Look at the ridiculous outpouring of grief after Diana died in the UK. Or the amount of “news” coverage given to stars adopting babies from abroad.
But even there our cynicism appears, “Who’s fabby and who’s flabby?” type articles. We want to see the worst of people which is a bad thing.
When we hear of a Washington or Downing Street scandal there is no outrage anymore, more a clamour for the sordid details.
Surely the time has come to ask for a higher standard from our elected leaders. Surely they should be the elite of the population. (And if they’re going to defend the 10 commandments they should at least be able to name them.)
Leave a Comment