Jam Yerself Into A Cynic’s Box

An Archtype That’s a Prison

Scott Archer Jones

Too Easy Drill Sergeant

The cynic puts all human actions into two classes: openly bad and secretly bad.

– Henry Ward Beecher

I’ve been pondering Archtypes lately. Cynic, Burnout, Conspiracy Theorist, Angry White Man, Entitled Influencer. When I was twenty, I encountered my first full-blown, two-hundred horsepower cynic. A history major, he could twist anything into an observation of sneering skepticism. He wore black, for Christ sake, instead of blue jeans with peace symbols sewn on like us naïve idiots. He cultivated pasty white skin and sunglasses at night and whipped out cynicism like an exhibitionist in a raincoat, flashing his superior genitalia whenever he could trap an audience. I thought he got laid a lot. I tried out cynicism for a week or two, but then I got on with real life.

Let us get grounded in what cynicism isn't. Cynicism is not caution exercised in a predatory world. Cynicism isn't watching your back. Even mere skepticism formed by experience is exempt from the withering label of cynicism. Let me give you real examples, purloined from a difficult and amusing world.

Cynicism isn't vigilance. I'm cautious about the news. Thinking media moguls will milk their news products for maximum cash flow would not be cynical. Staring askance at a news story so perfect (or so awful) as to be smeared with the smell of the lie is not cynicism. Perhaps the story turns out true or not – but I can find out rather than sink into an inert pessimism. I am also comforted by the idea that media moguls persist in commercial war with each other – so most lies get called out by an opponent trying to syphon away the liar's revenue stream. I may not believe the story, but I am filled with the giggles over how hard they have to work in the Circus. Think about it for a minute. Turn the sound down and only watch – it's better than Woody Allen.

Cynicism isn't defense and preparation. If I worried about credit and identity theft, I'd be a fool to throw my hands up in the air and declare surrender. My safeguards represent a self-defense from a real threat, not a cynical world view. I'm actually relieved; I never believed I'd have an identity worth purloining, and as for credit, I had expected a five hundred dollar credit card cap to accompanied by a second-class high-rate mortgage. A fool uses his credit card in a strip joint; a cynic pays cash in a grocery store.

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

– H.L. Mencken

Cynicism proves to be the easiest way to appear hip and cool. It's attractive, it's so the-new-orange, it's smart and sexy. Except cynicism can't be sexy, because it's predicated on the principle that each person acts only in their own self interest. Right now, a cynic lounges on a couch at a party thinking, “God, she's lovely. And so smart. She'd be great at dinner, great to start a relationship with. Naah, forget it. It's doomed, because she'd screw me over sooner or later.” Cynicism is tinted with loneliness. Geekiness, now, that's a route to a good times and people worth knowing.

Cynicism weighs in as anti-intellectualism of the unassailable type. Like religion, it needs no proofs. A cynic takes it as a matter of faith that every single idea, movement, philosophy, science, and art will end up disproven, discredited, and bankrupt. This plays out as wry assurance of the cynic's superiority to any idea. A nerd, now, experiences a lot of fun toying with novelty, trying the latest idea out, and seeing what else it can lead to – he messes with the Apple watch, rather than bad-mouthing it because it reports your whereabouts to the Dark Lords and it doesn't already have smell-o-vision.

Cynicism strikes us as a dirt-cheap pretense of arrogance and snobbery. Such a cut–rate mantra: “It's no good you know. They'll just ruin it for you, no matter how you struggle.” Cynicism manifests as laziness, pure and simple. A cynic doesn't have to bother, because all events fit a one-size-fits-all answer. A cynic would never have written Anna Karenina – indeed, a cynic can't justify writing except as ego. A Pollyanna carries that little writer's notebook, scribbles furiously, writes vignettes about the other eccentrics in the coffee shop. The Pollyanna might even land a book out there, and at least has a good time in the effort. The cynic can’t be troubled to try.

Self abuse! The cynic reduces himself to a static, stunted human being. A cynic's internal life does not improve, struggle, expand. A cynic chooses grayness, a sterility where only a stolen pleasure or two counts. He can only show up at work each day, depressed at a self-imposed gloom and boxed in by the expectation of disappointment. Let us all have higher expectations, and bounce back from human disappointments.

It takes a clever man to turn cynic, and a wise man to be clever enough not to.

– Fannie Hurst