Why is it so trendy to be cynical?

[iambiguous]

Let's start with the dictionary:

Cynical:

1] believing that people are motivated purely by self-interest; distrustful of human sincerity or integrity.
2] concerned only with one's own interests and typically disregarding accepted or appropriate standards in order to achieve them.

Now, in today's world, is it or is it not reasonable to be cynical? Well, that depends of course on how your own life has unfolded. And on your current set of circumstances. For some, cynicism makes perfect sense. For others it does not. The part I root existentially in dasein.

One thing, however, seems abundantly clear to some of us: capitalism and cynicism go hand in hand.

As I noted on another thread:

You can see [cynicism] play out in the reality TV program Big Brother. It's the only program of this sort that I have ever watched. It's just a fascinating glimpse into the reality of pop culture and capitalism.

For those unfamiliar with it...

A bunch of men and women -- mostly young and attractive of course -- get together in a house and compete for the grand prize...750,000 dollars. Each week they vote someone out. At the same time however they often form these really close relationships, friendships. Some even become lovers. But: in order to win the money, they basically have to continually lie to and to deceive each other...stab each other in the back over and over again. Why? Because in the end it is always about the money!!

They have a rendition of it where you are as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Broth ... TV_series)

Now, given my own numerous exchanges with you, I would venture to speculate as follows: the reason you are not cynical is because you have managed to acquire an intuitive, spiritual "intrinsic self". You "just know" deep down inside you that something is either right or wrong, good or bad, true or false. Then the manner in which, in turn, this is conveyed to you by a Goddess.

Something that [to me] seems embodied profoundly by you, in you, for you. But something that cynics of my ilk don't experience at all. My cynicism is derived from moral nihilism. A frame of mind that, given the life that I've led and the philosophers that I have read, has predisposed me to think as I do. Here and now.

Though, sure, given new experiences, relationships and access to information and knowledge, that might all change. Again, here and now, however, I don't possess [as you do] an intuitive, spiritual Self to anchor my identity to psychologically.

I think you tend to get out of life what you put into it, and that includes one's attitude to things. It's really not all that difficult to be happy.

Not much there, alas, but, sure, that might make perfect sense to some and no sense at all to others.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

So mentally ill then. How unusual for this site. Poor thing.

[Iwannaplato]

It seems like a failure of imagination. There are many things wrong with society, but we can control our own responses.

What should a cynic really be doing?
And how do we know they are not doing these things in other contexts?

But yes, we have cynics who want to spread toxic views and who want to undermine even health. Perhaps there are even some of these here.

Ressentiment:

Ressentiment is a reassignment of the pain that accompanies a sense of one's own inferiority/failure on to an external scapegoat. The ego creates the illusion of an enemy, a cause that can be "blamed" for one's own inferiority/failure. Thus, one was thwarted not by a failure in oneself, but rather by an external "evil."

According to Kierkegaard, ressentiment occurs in a "reflective, passionless age", in which the populace stifles creativity and passion in passionate individuals.

According to Deleuze, ressentiment is a reactive state of being that separates us from what we can do and reduces our power to act. He follows Nietzsche's view that the challenge for both philosophy and life is to overcome the reactive state of things and become active, thereby constantly enhancing our power to act.[16]

I think there can be protective shells of cynicism while the person is actually looking for solutions and actions.
And then there are people who are so in love with their cynicism that they want to transform others into something self-hating like themselves and even celebrate when they think they manage to bring someone down. They taking revenge, even on strangers, as if these strangers made them feel this way by not being like them.

[Maia]

Let's start with the dictionary:

Cynical:

1] believing that people are motivated purely by self-interest; distrustful of human sincerity or integrity.
2] concerned only with one's own interests and typically disregarding accepted or appropriate standards in order to achieve them.

Now, in today's world, is it or is it not reasonable to be cynical? Well, that depends of course on how your own life has unfolded. And on your current set of circumstances. For some, cynicism makes perfect sense. For others it does not. The part I root existentially in dasein.

One thing, however, seems abundantly clear to some of us: capitalism and cynicism go hand in hand.

As I noted on another thread:



They have a rendition of it where you are as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Broth ... TV_series)

Now, given my own numerous exchanges with you, I would venture to speculate as follows: the reason you are not cynical is because you have managed to acquire an intuitive, spiritual "intrinsic self". You "just know" deep down inside you that something is either right or wrong, good or bad, true or false. Then the manner in which, in turn, this is conveyed to you by a Goddess.

Something that [to me] seems embodied profoundly by you, in you, for you. But something that cynics of my ilk don't experience at all. My cynicism is derived from moral nihilism. A frame of mind that, given the life that I've led and the philosophers that I have read, has predisposed me to think as I do. Here and now.

Though, sure, given new experiences, relationships and access to information and knowledge, that might all change. Again, here and now, however, I don't possess [as you do] an intuitive, spiritual Self to anchor my identity to psychologically.

I think you tend to get out of life what you put into it, and that includes one's attitude to things. It's really not all that difficult to be happy.

Not much there, alas, but, sure, that might make perfect sense to some and no sense at all to others.

Like attracts like. If you put nice things out there, nice things will come back. If, on the other hand, you take a cynical attitude to everything, then that's what you'll get.

[Maia]

It seems like a failure of imagination. There are many things wrong with society, but we can control our own responses.

What should a cynic really be doing?
And how do we know they are not doing these things in other contexts?

But yes, we have cynics who want to spread toxic views and who want to undermine even health. Perhaps there are even some of these here.

Ressentiment:

Ressentiment is a reassignment of the pain that accompanies a sense of one's own inferiority/failure on to an external scapegoat. The ego creates the illusion of an enemy, a cause that can be "blamed" for one's own inferiority/failure. Thus, one was thwarted not by a failure in oneself, but rather by an external "evil."

According to Kierkegaard, ressentiment occurs in a "reflective, passionless age", in which the populace stifles creativity and passion in passionate individuals.

According to Deleuze, ressentiment is a reactive state of being that separates us from what we can do and reduces our power to act. He follows Nietzsche's view that the challenge for both philosophy and life is to overcome the reactive state of things and become active, thereby constantly enhancing our power to act.[16]

I think there can be protective shells of cynicism while the person is actually looking for solutions and actions.
And then there are people who are so in love with their cynicism that they want to transform others into something self-hating like themselves and even celebrate when they think they manage to bring someone down. They taking revenge, even on strangers, as if these strangers made them feel this way by not being like them.

I hadn't heard that term before but it's absolutely right. There may be grounds for cynicism in some contexts, but the sort of cynicism I'm talking about is the self-hating kind that wants to drag everyone and everything down with it. I find it very difficult to understand that sort of mentality, because it's ultimately completely self defeating.

It's true that we all have different experiences in life, and I've certainly been lucky in mine, but even so, it's still the case that no matter how bad a person's situation is, it can surely be improved by having a positive attitude.

[Iwannaplato]

It's true that we all have different experiences in life, and I've certainly been lucky in mine, but even so, it's still the case that no matter how bad a person's situation is, it can surely be improved by having a positive attitude.

I don't know how much one can chooe to have a positive attitude. But that kind of cynicism is holding a lot of emotion, in very static way. Not expression the complexity of emotions that person has. Just holding it all. I mean, hope and trying can be extremely painful and I have sympathy for just holding that position, but in the end they're not really being honest about the fear

[Maia]

It's true that we all have different experiences in life, and I've certainly been lucky in mine, but even so, it's still the case that no matter how bad a person's situation is, it can surely be improved by having a positive attitude.

I don't know how much one can chooe to have a positive attitude. But that kind of cynicism is holding a lot of emotion, in very static way. Not expression the complexity of emotions that person has. Just holding it all. I mean, hope and trying can be extremely painful and I have sympathy for just holding that position, but in the end they're not really being honest about the fear

I have sympathy too, and I can understand why they do it. But it just seems like such a waste.

[Dontaskme]

If you put nice things out there, nice things will come back.

That's simply not true, nothing out there is obligated to give back like for like what I give out. I can only give to myself, not others.
No matter how nice I am to someone else there is no condition or obligation or guarantee they will be nice back. There is no condition out there that causes me to feel nice about myself. I simply choose to feel nice about myself, simply because I give that feeling to myself, I do not get it from out there or from another, niceness is already innate within me first and always.

Feeling distrustful of human sincerity or integrity is your own insecurity, projected into the external world, which has spawned from within you first. You are the spawn of you and no one else.

I am open to being pleasantly surprised as I am to being throughly disappointed.

[Dontaskme]

[Iwannaplato]

Never get too attached to anyone

So, don't give birth and keep the child. Stifle feelings of love for others or avoid those you love or might love. Judge your own desires.

[Dontaskme]

Never get too attached to anyone

So, don't give birth and keep the child. Stifle feelings of love for others or avoid those you love or might love. Judge your own desires.

My my, you really are hardwork Iwannaplato.


Feelings of like or dislike, love or hate, is pure raw emotion, which just happens to arise in all of us quite spontaneously.
None of us have any control over these emotional outbursts of feeling in any given moment of time. Not one of us can control how and when they arise, and choose to have one feeling over another in favour of one taking on more importance than the other, this is impossible to do, nor can you make stop or make preferred feeling happen, you can only have control over how you react to each and every feeling when and if it arises, which is always spontaneous, and without intention or force. Forced or intended feelings are fake and never real and raw in the immediate moment.

To welcome every emotion and feeling without rejection or fear, is the capacity to love unconditionally, the being that you naturally are, and it is to realise that only you stay with you, while other's in your life, often come and go, they are never a permanent fixture in your life, like you are to yourself. You do not at any time own anyone else, but yourself. To think you own your own children is a grave mistake, it's like admiring a butterfly that has willingly landed on your hand, and then held onto it's beauty so tight, that you've crushed it. The butterfly needs to fly, and be let go of, because it deserves it's own freedom to be, just as you do.

No one else is your property to possess or have control over, everyone is a free thinking creative unique being, to be themselves in their own right, in which ever way shape and form they choose to be, in every moment, and it's never your job to try and manipulate,influence or change or mold them into something they do not wish to be, just because others think that's what is best for them, no, only what's best for ourselves, the model we individually choose to become, is the only thing that matters to each and every one of us.

If a child we have given birth to then chooses to say I don't want to be alive, then that child has every right to feel this way, there is nothing a parent can do to make that child want to live, if it doesn't want to. Attachment is simply suffering for you, not the other person. You can love others without ever getting attached to them. That is known as unconditional love, the freedom to allow others to be their own person as they see themselves, and not what you want them to be, or see them as being.

We already must know that our children even before they are born are not always going to meet with our own expectation of them. And we should honor and respect that, even before they are born, so that when they are born, we will allow them to be who and what they are, with total unconditional love for them.

[Maia]

If you put nice things out there, nice things will come back.

That's simply not true, nothing out there is obligated to give back like for like what I give out. I can only give to myself, not others.
No matter how nice I am to someone else there is no condition or obligation or guarantee they will be nice back. There is no condition out there that causes me to feel nice about myself. I simply choose to feel nice about myself, simply because I give that feeling to myself, I do not get it from out there or from another, niceness is already innate within me first and always.

Feeling distrustful of human sincerity or integrity is your own insecurity, projected into the external world, which has spawned from within you first. You are the spawn of you and no one else.

I am open to being pleasantly surprised as I am to being throughly disappointed.

I didn't say anything about obligation, but it nevertheless works. Not, perhaps, in every case, but overall, most certainly.

Please describe the images you posted.

[Dontaskme]

I didn't say anything about obligation, but it nevertheless works.

And sometimes it doesn't.

Not, perhaps, in every case, but overall, most certainly.

And most uncertainly. Nothing we give out is certain to be returned as identical to what we have given, as we can never be certain of what is received in any given moment, in the immediacy of now. We must be open to receive, but be throughly open to be disappointed while there is expectation involved. To say like attracts like, is expectation.

Please describe the images you posted.

The image is describing in words...
Sometimes we create our own heartbreaks through expectation.

[Maia]

I didn't say anything about obligation, but it nevertheless works.

And sometimes it doesn't.

Not, perhaps, in every case, but overall, most certainly.

And most uncertainly. Nothing we give out is certain to be returned as identical to what we have given, as we can never be certain of what is received in any given moment, in the immediacy of now. We must be open to receive, but be throughly open to be disappointed while there is expectation involved. To say like attracts like, is expectation.

Please describe the images you posted.

The image is describing in words...
Sometimes we create our own heartbreaks through expectation.

Despite all that, it works. Maybe not immediately, but often pretty soon. Perhaps you should try it.

[Dontaskme]

Despite all that, it works. Maybe not immediately, but often pretty soon.

And sometimes is doesn't, not even sooner rather than later on.

Perhaps you should try it.

I do not have to try knowing what it is to be nice and likeable, I do not have to try to attract these qualities and attributes that are already innate in my own being to come and live with me, or have them reciprocated back to me, I am simply nice and likeable as myself always.

I have never once in my life ever lived with the expectation of attracting someone as nice and likeable as me into my life, I have no such desire to do so.

If someone who is like me just happens to show up in my life, then I put that down to serendipity, it's a bonus, but not a necessary asset.