The gist of the whole conversation can be seen in my previous post, or by clicking here:
http://routyweed.blogspot.com/2012/11/dont-you-mean-skeptical-not-cynical.html
Dear Nick Gaudio,
Your points are fine. I really love
that you (and others like Metta) hold integrity to the intended meaning of our
language. You are absolutely right, and I can concede this – that I may use, and
have been using, the word incorrectly.
I’ve had this argument before,
actually. And so I wonder why I hold to this word, why it means anything to me
at all, because if it had no meaning – I would entirely concede. I can be tied to my own “rightness,” but not to the
point of nonsense.
Perhaps I have opened a box, unintentionally. And to navigate this conversation … I have to be careful, and intentional.
I did not intend to have a
conversation on my beliefs about the human species. I only meant to suggest
to my friend that his questioning nature (about life and about people -- and it’s our attitude about people's motivations that are central to the debate, here, I think) was a good thing.
Then, Gaudio, you offered the word “skeptical”
or “shrewd” as possible replacements for what I mean to say.
So….I’ve been thinking about that.
Do I mean skeptical? Shrewd?
Of connotations, I will say shrewd (to my mind) has more to do with
rhetoric and debate and argumentation – and, unfortunately, business and The
Market. Certainly part of what I mean, but not the totality.
Discerning.
Yes, but this definition is not inherently about people and their motivations.
Let me say here, that I think the
reason the definition must involve our considerations of others’ motivations,
is because I am thinking chiefly about the information we are given, the truths
we are offered, and about our ability to parse through that information to
consider why we’re being told things,
not just how, or even whether or not it
appears logical.
However, it is here where I must be
careful, because I also recognize that I struggle with social “trust”. In fact,
I’ve been thinking lately about that word – trust.
What it means, ontologically. If it’s possible. If it has anything to do with
anyone else ultimately, or if it is chiefly about our desire for guarantees (a different,
but related, conversation).
Skeptical:
Ok – but isn’t this just a softer version of cynical? Both definitions suggest the tentative approach, the
hesitation, the doubt – has to do with the motivations of others. So you know,
maybe what I see in the cynical part, that I admire, is the humor (not just sarcasm)
that can bloom from it. Doubt humanity is on your side?? Well turn that frown
upside down. There’s always stand-up. The Louis C.K. of it all – the Maria
Bamford mixtape.
Now, if you argue that this shit is
too heavy, too disparaging. Well yes, at times, yes it is. I love Doug Stanhope. I
wouldn’t really want to live with him. I also (in all honesty) worry about him.
I really worry about him and sometimes I just … hope he’s ok.
I think people think that about me
sometimes.
Not only do I believe that humanity
is on trial, I believe that most of us believe this. I don’t know what The
Trial is. I don’t know that it matters, really. We are a nervous species. We
are eternally damned to trying to figure out if we’re GoodEnough people while
balancing it with varying degrees of the WhatWeCanGetAwayWith-edness, the WhatWeShouldBeDoing-ness,
the WhatWe’reSupposedToBeDoinged-ness.
The latter part of these equations depend on the person (and to what
degree they are entertained), but, I think, are always set against the morality part.
Moral vs. Pleasure.
Moral vs. Purpose.
Moral vs. Intention.
Moral vs. Truth.
We are a nervous species.
The evidence of this is in our
culture itself, our marketing principles, our faith(s), our legal system. The
notion that your proverbial three sons ought to be innocent until proven guilty
is nothing more than a notion. The reality of your proposed analogy is that
human nature suggests the moment that one son steals something, the parent of
that son will ask the question about all her children – Are all my children
stealing? It is not to say that the next logical step then, is to punish all
those children – this would be cruel, paranoid, and pathological. However, the
next logical set of questions for her is not just What I should do about this son? but How do I make sure none of my sons steal? That child’s actions will
undoubtedly affect the way said parent goes about setting parameters for all
her children. And such, I imagine, is the nature of parenting, you try to deal
with what you instill in your children as you think to do it. You try not to be
reactionary (just dole out punishment when kids do bad shit), but to establish
some mode of preemptory guide. I don’t
want my other two sons thinking this is acceptable behavior … so you go
about responding to one in order to
consider the whole factor of the family’s behavior.
And I believe that the reason we
are nervous, is because we prove, time and again, that we are capable of
awful behavior. Sometimes it’s out of stupidity. More often our awful behavior is
out of selfish motivation. And even beyond that – we prove time and again that
for all the beauty we are capable of, our moments of awful – have devastating
consequences. So that you can go through your whole life doing wonderful
things, and in one moment, one very horrible instant – ruin more than everything
you’ve worked your whole life at making beautiful.
That’s possible.
The reverse – is really not true.
You can’t be a horrendous person your whole life and in one moment, with one
good deed, “undo” a reign of terror.
Bombs take moments. Construction –
Weeks. Months. Years.
Now having said that I believe all
this – I have inherently, I suppose proven all of your points. Though I love
people, need them desperately, am ravaged by, amazed by, inspired by and moved
by people – I also live with this belief. And you’re right. It colors how I think.
Some days – it weighs heavily on me. And maybe, after all, I’m wrong. Maybe
this is the half empty, half full scenario.
However.
I believe it.
And I also believe.
That unless we are honest to
ourselves, about the damage that we are capable of doing. About the nature of
our selfish hearts, about our tendency (and
here, maybe is where I depart into your dreaded cynical category, and enter the
most debatable, contentious part of my thoughts on this) to be self-involving,
self-referencing, self-motivated, then we have no real way to have honest
discourse about what we are willing to do as compromise, what we owe ourselves as a functioning society,
what we owe each other in the face of
current reality, what we owe each
other because of our inherent
tendency toward self-motivation.
So. For example. If we could be
honest about national health care coverage, we could discuss it without the
bullshit rhetoric. Nobody really
cares about the people we don’t know and their liver diseases. But we owe it to
ourselves as a functioning society to ensure that all of our citizens are,
minimally, healthy. The debt, to my mind, has to do with the debt we pay for having
the privilege to indulge (in a ‘free’ nation) our self-motivated spirits.
And then sometimes I feel like our
bullshit thoughts about political systems stems from the fact that we are
unable as a species to admit that we are largely self-involved (and in this
context) selfish beings. If we could
admit that – if we had that healthy dose of skepticism (to use your word here),
maybe we could move on to the next conversation, instead of pretending like
there’s some moral high ground that most people will take in most situations
when the cameras are turned off and nobody is listening in.
Because the reality is – that shit
is entirely unpredictable.
All the rest of it is bullshit.
This to me, has something to do
with the kind of cynical I mean to address in my comment. I am somewhat ….
curious, I guess, why folks have not noted that I modified the term itself. I
did not call my friend cynical. I did
not praise unmediated, rampant cynicism in his intellectual rigor. I used the
term “mild” for a reason. I said “mild cynic” for a reason. I mean to suggest
that it is one part of a complex, nuanced human spirit. The other part, I was
trying to say, has hope, is discerning (which is about facts and reason, less
so than it is about human intention), is skeptical (and maybe the difference
for me is a colder, more remote shrewdness), can be mildly cynical (appreciates
the darkness, the duende, the death of our eventual selfishness, the humor in
it, the bleak but beautiful, the eventual wind down, the Eternalblahblahblah, the Oh But Aren’t We All a
Little Damned, the morbidity of our daily actions because we are not coming out of this shit ok, and this is why –
cause we’re kinda’ fucked up). That’s
not skeptical. That’s … that’s cynical. I’m a little cynical.
I see that.
That’s how I think about things.
And then – then I take my bike and ride real fast downhill by the river and
laugh at the fucking autumn leaves.
Gaudio, you do, too. That’s why I
love you.
It’s what we do in the face of it
all that I think we all mean to have hope about, here. So maybe there’s a
different word for what I mean. But I don’t know that word, exactly. I’ll keep
hearing suggestions.
Right now, I’m saying “mildly
cynical”.
