Is being a cynic reasonable, or self-defeating?
“It’s hard to argue against cynics - they always sound smarter than optimists because they have so much evidence on their side.”Columnist Molly Ivins (1944-2007)
That is a quote from a Psychology Today article: A Field Guide to the Cynic, By Elizabeth Svoboda.
She quotes from Rick Bayan’s site The Cynic’s Sanctuary: “The world belongs to people with IQs of 120. Anything much greater or less amounts to a liability.” The site identifies itself as a home for “disgruntled idealists, subversive wits, professional misfits, skeptical jesters, curmudgeons, and misanthropes.”
Svoboda notes that “when he was a newly minted history graduate, Bayan was convinced his knowledge of ancient wars and English monarchs would lead to a creative, lucrative job.
“Bayan’s first dead-end gigs, editing obscure trade publications like Rubber Age and Container News, were enough to start the pessimistic wheels turning in his brain. He became moody and depressed, apt to deliver angry retorts to anyone who got in his way… his disillusionment, depression, and hostility (along with defensive pessimism) all form the constellation of traits that make up the cynic.”
She says University of California-Irvine personality researcher Salvatore Maddi “contends that many cynics are like Bayan: They aren’t so much born as made. According to Maddi, the first seeds of cynicism are often planted when people put in effort to achieve a goal like snagging a promotion at work or raising a self-sufficient child—and then see their high hopes dashed.”
A hallmark of the cynical personality, or response, is the sense that nothing one does in life really matters.
This sort of helplessness is a feature of depression, too. “While cynical people are at no greater risk for depression, says Michael Yapko, a clinical psychologist, those who ruminate on their pessimistic thoughts are.”
Cynics can count some noteworthy examples, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Dorothy Parker, and Oscar Wilde.
“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.” Oscar Wilde .. (1854–1900)
Related Talent Development Resources pages:
anger
awareness / thinking
Depression and Creativity
depression books
existential dread
article: A Recipe for Authentic Living: Making Meaning, by Eric Maisel, PhD
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April 5th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Thank you for such a wonderful post. It was exactly what I am looking for. You now have a dedicated reader.
Terry Psychic ability