WEBVTT - From the Vault: Cynicism, Part 1 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:09.200 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:12.960 name is Robert Lamb and it is Saturday. So we 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:14.680 have a vault episode for you. This is going to 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:18.320 be Cynicism Part one, which originally published four fifteen, twenty 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:21.680 twenty five. It's gonna be part one of four. Was 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:23.160 it going to consist of, Well, we're going to get 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:28.760 into psychological cynicism, philosophical cynicism. There's a lot to discuss here. 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:36.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:43.879 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:44.760 name is Robert. 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:48.400 Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And today we wanted 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:51.320 to begin a series of episodes talking about something that 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:54.240 has been on my mind a lot lately, and that 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:58.560 is the concept of cynicism. Now, as we go on, 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.480 we're going to have to diinguish the common contemporary usage 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:06.240 of cynicism from other meanings extending into history, but as 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:10.280 used in common language today. We can think of cynicism 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:14.920 as a cognitive disposition, the core element of which is 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:20.880 social distrust. Cynicism is a dim view of human nature. 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:25.280 It's a suspicion of other people's motives and a tendency 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:30.040 to believe that people are primarily self interested and untrustworthy. 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.520 So there are a variety of kind of inventories or 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:38.520 tests that psychological studies will do to evaluate how cynical 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:40.520 you are as a person. They'll often give you like 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:42.920 a list of statements to see how much you agree 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:46.039 or disagree with them. A cynical person is going to 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:50.040 be more likely to agree with statements like altruism and 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:53.160 compassion are just for show. When it comes down to it, 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:56.960 people are in it for themselves. Everybody lies and cheats 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:00.040 when they can get away with it, Cliches like no 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:04.080 good deed goes unpunished, it's a dog eat dog world, 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:08.160 the idea that people are not sincere. They'll just tell 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:10.560 you what you want to hear. And I think the 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:14.200 core idea of it really is that you can't trust anybody. 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:18.040 We're all on our own. And before we started today, 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:21.280 I had been digging around trying to find good examples 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:26.040 of the cynical worldview presented in works of English literature. 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.480 And while you can find some pretty good examples, I 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:33.760 think particularly for some reason in like seventeenth and eighteenth 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:37.560 century English literature, with writers like Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:42.120 Is some really hardcore cynical stuff there. I actually think 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:47.800 the most cynical canon of great literature is in the Bible. 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:51.680 So many books of the Bible, especially like the later 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:56.200 books of the Tanakh, like the Prophets, have awesomely cynical passages. 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:59.480 Can I offer you a few examples, rob, Yes, let's 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:03.359 hear it. Okay. Here's Micah chapter seven, verses two to six. 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:06.600 This is the King James translation. The good man is 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:09.320 perished out of the earth, and there is none upright 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:12.720 among men. They all lie in wait for blood. They 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:15.840 hunt every man his brother with a net, that they 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:19.359 may do evil with both hands earnestly. The prince asketh, 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:22.880 and the judge asketh for a reward, and the great 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:26.639 man he uttereth his mischievous desire. So they wrap it up. 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.760 The best of them is as a brier. The most 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.880 upright is sharper than a thorn hedge. The day of 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:37.200 thy watchman and thy visitation cometh Now shall be their perplexity. 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:41.119 Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:43.840 in a guide. Keep the doors of thy mouth from 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:47.200 her that lieth in thy bosom. For the son dishonoereth 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.400 the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.280 daughter in law against her mother in law. A man's 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.480 enemies are the men of his own house. 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:59.480 Brutal, Yeah, if true, A sad state of affairs. 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:02.800 Yeah, okay. I got a couple of more shorter ones. 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:06.200 This is from Psalm fourteen, verses two to four. The 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:09.040 Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:11.880 to see if there were any that did understand and 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:15.760 seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:19.800 together become filthy. There is none that doeth good, No, 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:24.400 not one. And then finally this one. I think some 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:26.719 of the best poetry in the Bible is in the 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:31.160 Book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah's like great, great writing, but it 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:35.359 contains the famous statement from Jeremiah seventeen the heart is 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:40.000 deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:46.080 And these passages really emphasized something for me. I think 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:49.600 I am not an especially cynical person. I think I'm 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.400 not the least cynical person in the world, but I'm 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:54.320 very far from the most. 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:54.320 You know. 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:58.080 I try to be skeptical of like sweeping negative characterizations 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:02.560 about people and all that. And yet I notice that 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:07.720 when a cynical condemnation of human nature is phrased really elegantly, 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:10.240 as I think these are in the King James translation, 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:16.560 they really takes mental effort to disagree with. So it 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:20.159 is not my worldview that the heart is deceitful above 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.160 all things. I don't think that's true, But I feel 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.000 kind of foolish trying to shake my head or argue 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.120 with that statement. When it's phrased in that way, it 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:33.719 possesses what feels like an a priori factuality. If you 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:37.159 don't force yourself to stop and think about it, it 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.520 just kind of hits you as self evidently true, and 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:43.000 you feel like you'd have to be naive to doubt it. 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:46.359 And yet that it's not really what I think. So 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:48.560 I don't know if you have a similar experience, rob 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:50.640 maybe not, but I wonder, at least for myself, and 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:55.240 I think this is probably pretty common. Why do cynical condemnations, 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.680 and especially when they're elegantly phrased, Why do they like 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:02.240 walk into my mind with a perfectly forged hall pass. 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:07.120 Why does it take such effortful, deliberate scrutiny to repel them. 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:11.520 Yeah, yeah, this is I think this is something that 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:15.880 will come up again and again in this discussion, because yeah, 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:19.559 it these kind of statements they either ring really true 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:23.479 to you, and they ring true because you can take them, 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:25.320 you can hold them up to the world and you 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.320 can find examples. You know, you may be engaging in 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:30.599 a certain amount of cherry picking, or just point them 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.960 in the right general direction and you'll find evidence to 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:37.680 support this. I think these statements can also feel rather 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:42.800 cathartic because whatever's going on in your life, in your world, 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:46.440 in the like the media that you're consuming, you know, 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:49.839 there are going to be perceptions of this sort of 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:54.000 thing going on, and it can feel empowering to hold 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:56.599 up something that this is sort of like an elegant 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:00.240 takedown of what's going on and say, yeah, yeah, this 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:02.640 is exactly what I see in the world. This is 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:05.800 exactly what people's hearts are about, and you know, it 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.040 may not even be something that you believe all the time, 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:12.200 but it's kind of like, you know, sometimes you got 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:14.360 to go there. And in the same sense that you 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:16.760 might not listen to sad breakup songs all the time, 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:18.920 but there are times when you definitely need to listen 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:20.520 to a sad breakup song. Rob. 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:22.960 I think that's a really good point. I didn't quite 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.400 think about that, but the Catharsis element that's exactly right. 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:31.320 It does describe the experience of either saying or agreeing 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.920 with a really cynical statement. It feels like blowing off steam. 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:38.800 There's like a kind of relief that comes with expressing that. 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:43.720 Just total condemnation and lack of trust in human nature. 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:46.640 Yeah, you know, sometimes you've got to crank up the 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:48.920 rage against the machine in the car. It doesn't mean 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:52.040 that you necessarily feel that all the time, but sometimes 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:52.760 you've got to do it. 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:56.240 Now, coming back to like the definitions of cynicism, I 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:59.320 think one thing that's important to flag at the top 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:03.320 here is like that cynicism is used kind of loosely, 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:06.800 and sometimes it's used to mean different things. We're going 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:10.040 to be trying in this series to focus on the 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:12.600 use of cynicism as like this dim view of human 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:15.520 nature and lack of trust in others. But I would 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:21.280 say less often. Cynicism is also used interchangeably with pessimism, 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:25.160 the belief that things will go poorly or that the 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.080 future will be bad. I think we should just note 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:32.199 for our purposes, these are different concepts. Pessimism is more 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:35.880 of an outlook on reality and all of life, all 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:41.680 future prospects. So this would include, you know, low expectations 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:45.800 for random events so called acts of God, and for 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:48.880 our own ability to do as we would hope. You know, 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:53.320 that's pessimism, whereas you might think of cynicism as pessimism 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:58.240 applied specifically to other people. Other people will always let 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:00.880 you down, they'll stab you in the back. They're only 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:02.040 in it for themselves. 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.719 Yeah, it got me thinking about the saying don't hate 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:08.600 the player, hate the game. Your modern cynic definitely hates 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:13.080 the players, or at least sees them as the underlying problem. 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:13.600 You know. 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.280 It'd also add that cynicism can also easily bleed over 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:20.400 into downright nihilism. Though that's not to say that modern 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:24.000 cynicism isn't compatible with different philosophies and creeds, because you 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:26.920 could be a cynic and a hedonist at the same time. Certainly, 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:28.959 I don't know that you'd bea trement it is fun 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.160 to hang out with, but you know it is possible. 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:35.080 Now, what does it mean to say a person is 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:39.240 cynical in a way that is subjective, because cynicism is 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.360 by its nature a comparative idea or a sort of 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:47.400 expression of degree. I would compare being cynical to being tall. 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:50.920 You know, there's no height at which a person becomes 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:54.480 objectively tall. People judge whether you're tall or not based 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:56.560 on the context. You know, they compare you to people 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.080 around you, or to other people in the culture where 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.080 you live, or other people in the room. And then, 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:05.280 on the other hand, while there's no objective cutoff point, 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:08.960 somebody who's like seven foot three is pretty much always 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:11.840 going to be considered tall no matter what context they're in. 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.280 And I think being cynical is like that. It's a 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:17.920 comparative idea. There's no threshold score of social trust, and 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.280 if you fall below that score, you're objectively cynical. But 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:24.000 there are some people who are so cynical that basically 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:26.440 everybody's going to think of them as a cynical person. 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:29.200 Yeah, And then of course it also depends on how 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:31.520 well you know that person as well, right, Because if 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:33.640 all you know about a person is one cynical thing 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:36.000 they said, you might be like, oh, well, that person's 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:39.559 really cynical. But maybe they're not that way all the time. 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:40.800 You know. It kind of gets into the way we 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:43.440 sometimes use the term, right we say like I hate 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:46.640 to be cynical, butes, or you might call somebody out 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:48.240 and be like, I think you're being a little cynical 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:53.280 about this. You know, in those usages, acknowledge the fact 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:57.120 that it's not necessarily a constant. It's maybe something that 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:02.080 we dip into in response to different circumstances, different stimuli 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:02.679 and so forth. 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:04.880 That's right, That's a really good point. So, like a 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:07.480 lot of things in personality, you can think of cynicism 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:10.439 as a kind of it's a tendency. You know, you 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:13.840 might be you're more kind of pointed in one general 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:17.280 direction of interpretation, but it's not going to dictate that 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:20.480 every single moment of your life and every single thought 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:22.120 you have is exactly the same. 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:23.239 Yeah. 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:25.920 So, when we're trying to judge is a person cynical? 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:29.079 I think there are two main comparative ideas we use there. 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:30.960 One is what I was just talking about, Like, how 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:34.160 cynical is that person compared to other people, like, compared 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:37.400 to the average of their peers. If they show less 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:39.559 social trusts than the people around them, we think of 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:43.120 them as cynical. But then there's a second metric that 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:46.560 I think people use, and that is how cynical a 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:51.040 person is compared to how cynical we, the people judging, 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:53.120 think it is reasonable to be. 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:56.400 Yeah, we generally assume we've got it figured out. We're 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:57.199 at the right level. 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:00.000 We're at the right level, and anybody who's more cynical 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:03.840 than us is too cynical. Somebody less cynical is naive. 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:10.320 And this creates interesting levels of complexity. Like obviously, sometimes 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:14.160 it is reasonable to be suspicious of someone's motives and 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:16.320 to believe they will probably harm you if they can. 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:20.440 Here's a common but relatively benign example, and not getting 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:23.560 into like you know, deep acts of harm against people. 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:27.720 You should not walk into a car lot expecting that 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:31.160 the salesperson and the finance manager are trying to help 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:33.480 you out and get you the best deal they can. 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:38.640 Maybe in some scenarios you'll find an extraordinarily unusually altruistic 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:41.240 car dealer, but a lot of the time what they're 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:43.440 trying to do is make as much money off of 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:46.679 you as possible, which is not in your interest. And 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:50.160 that's not to suggest that people selling cars are like evil. 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:52.839 It's just it's their job to try to make money 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:55.280 selling cars. If they can make more on a sale 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:56.840 and you, you know, get you to buy at a 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:00.440 higher price, or you know, or to take a less 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:04.920 favorable financing option, they usually will. And I think this 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:07.000 is true. And yet I think I'm not a very 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.080 cynical person to make that judgment about what happens at 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:14.120 car lots. There are just specific situations where it is reasonable, 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:17.760 based on evidence and on our background knowledge, to withhold 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.920 trust from people. And this is different, I think, from 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:25.240 a generalized cynical distrust that is not related to the 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:28.960 specific situation. Now, of course, what I think I just 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.400 said is pretty uncontroversial in principle, but we actually spend 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:36.199 a lot of mental energy trying to tell the difference 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:40.600 between these two things, like the situation where it's reasonable 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:44.520 to be suspicious and the situation where you're just expressing 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:48.080 a bias towards cynicism. Like if a friend comes to 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:53.480 you and expresses distrust of something or someone that you 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:56.680 personally put a lot of faith in. What's the most 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:59.360 common defensive reaction for us to have. I think it's like, 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:03.560 don't be so cynical or you're just being cynical. Saying 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:08.040 you're just being cynical downplays the possibility that your doubting 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.320 friend has a good insight, you know, maybe that I 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:15.120 have misplaced my faith and trust in something, and instead 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:19.120 it reframes the doubting friends' skepticism as part of a 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:23.920 general dispositional bias that they have. So dealing with the 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:27.480 balance between cynicism and reasonable suspicion is just a really 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:30.040 difficult thing that I think we all have to deal 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:34.040 with in our lives. We're asking the question, like, in general, 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:38.720 how suspicious should we be of other people's motives? And 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:44.520 let's say you take generally cynical people and generally trusting people, 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:50.400 which groups model of the world makes more accurate predictions, 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:53.560 which group's model of the world is more useful in life, 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:57.560 and in which context does each model thrive the most. 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:00.280 I think we'll have to revisit that question and as 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:00.920 we go along. 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:05.320 Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's always in short, it's it's 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:08.080 a careful balance, right, because do you want to protect 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:11.280 yourself absolutely all the time from all things, or do 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:13.320 you want to be able to move through life and 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:15.600 open yourself up to new possibilities that may in fact 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:18.280 hurt you. Like it always, things like this will always 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:22.040 remind me of that C. S. Lewis quote about being 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:25.840 afraid to love because being because you're afraid that you 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:28.760 will be hurt through that love, either you know, VI 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:31.880 a loss or some other action. And therefore I think 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:35.120 the analogy made was like, you know, entombing yourself, you know, 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:38.440 putting yourself in a casket of loneliness, and I think 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:39.720 some of that applies here. 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:41.000 Yeah, yeah, totally. 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:53.200 Now I do have to acknowledge that, Yeah, dealing with 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:58.480 cynicism in people can certainly be exhausting, you know, Like 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:01.560 we've been saying, the cynic, like the pastus, tends toward 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:05.760 type one errors in cognition, false positives, believing that the 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:09.080 predator alerks in the bushes even when it doesn't. And 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:14.120 there is always, again, ample evidence for the cynic, exhaustive evidence. 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.680 Even because they are not wrong about many generalities about 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:20.880 our world and human nature, they tend to put others 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:25.720 on the defensive, forcing them to make non cynical counter arguments, 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:32.520 you know, essentially prove the righteousness of their fellow human beings. Yeah, 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:35.040 and at the same time, in making those counter arguments. 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:38.120 You don't want to go so far as to dismiss 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:41.720 the perceived threats or threats entirely, because then they're going 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:43.680 to come back at you with while you're being naive. 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:46.480 This connects to what I was saying earlier, Like, again, 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:49.320 I think I'm not very cynical, but I feel kind 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:52.240 of silly or foolish if I try to argue with 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.080 somebody who says the heart is deceitful above all things. 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:57.440 It's like, I don't know, it has a kind of 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:00.760 it has a kind of power because, as you were saying, 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:05.359 the cherry picking really works in its favor. You can 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:08.439 always think of examples when which you were wrong to 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.720 grant trust, but that if you think about it logically, 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:15.320 that doesn't actually mean you should always withhold trust. It's 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:19.640 just like it's very captivating those specific examples of when 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:20.800 it went wrong for you. 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:23.600 I was thinking about this as well over the weekend. 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:26.760 I was doing a bit of driving, and driving is 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:29.800 sort of a you know, it's a limited, sort of 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:34.520 artificial in some ways, like social scenario, and it's probably 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:38.000 a scenario where like I'm more cynical when I'm driving, 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:41.880 but in that I am less trusting of the other drivers, 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:44.680 And I'm not that I'm necessarily believing that they're out 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:47.080 to hurt me, but I maybe am more inclined to 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:51.400 believe that they are not looking out for me, and 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:54.280 they're maybe being a little greedy there and they might 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:57.000 not see me and so forth. But I guess the 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:00.359 danger would be taking cynicism from an environment like that, 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:05.120 where it is maybe you know, low risk to engage 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:08.040 in such cynicism. To take that feeling off the road 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.199 and into the real world, I could see where that 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:11.240 could be kind of hurtful. 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:15.800 Yeah, you take your defensive driving mentality and apply it 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.679 to your friend and family relationships and to politics and 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:22.720 to everything else in your life. Yeah, not a good idea, 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:23.439 I would argue. 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:30.000 Yes. Now, another huge problem about regarding modern cynicism, and 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:32.119 this is something we'll come back to again and again, 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:35.560 is that it's often pointed out that it generally fosters 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:40.480 a worldview in which no progress is possible. So again, 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:43.600 not just talking about engaging in little feelings of cynicism 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:46.080 now and then, like if the cynicism really piles up, 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:48.960 and if you really double down on your cynicism, then 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:52.440 there's no reason to try for or aspire for anything, 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:56.400 you know, because like if people are all bad, essentially, 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:58.480 if people are all just in it for themselves, they're 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:01.840 just greedy, there's no caring. Then what can we do 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:05.680 as a society, What is it all possible? And you 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.320 just kind of become fossilized in the mud of your 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:09.119 own distrust. 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:11.960 I think that's exactly right. In fact, this link you're 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:16.080 suggesting between cynicism and inaction or lack of progress is 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:19.720 absolutely backed up by evidence. We might get more into 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:21.800 the details of these studies later, but I've been looking 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:25.760 at studies that have found cynicism tends to cause people 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:30.719 to skip opportunities to cooperate to achieve goals. It tends 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:34.520 to people high in cynicism tend to hold back from 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:38.520 involvement in the political process, not voting, not protesting, not 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:41.040 signing a petition, even if they care about an issue. 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:45.159 And it just seems like if you're higher in cynicism, 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:48.280 you are less likely to try to make things better 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:49.840 and more likely to give up. 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:53.280 I want to read a quote here from Ascar Allen, 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:57.960 author of the MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series book Cynicism, 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.080 which deals as all just gusts and as I cite 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:04.560 this book again with both ancient cynicism and modern cynicism. 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:07.160 More on that in a bit, but he writes quote 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:12.719 as a cultural disposition, cynicism foments distrust, derails progress, and 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.360 reduces all higher things, all that is good about humankind 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:20.440 to the level of its own diminished outlook. It assumes 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:23.879 that all human motives are basically selfish and denies the 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:26.680 possibility of a better world. Yeah. 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:29.960 I think that's true despite the persuasive power of cynicism. 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:32.600 As I mentioned earlier, I think that is correct at 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:34.920 the level of my personal experience, and that seems borne 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:36.760 out by experimental evidence as well. 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:40.840 Yeah. Yeah, And I'll also add that in the book 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:42.840 he stresses that, you know, while we can all point 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:46.520 out just you know, egregious examples of cynicism in the 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:50.920 world around us, we're also just all infected by cynicism. 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:53.320 Like it's not just a world of cynics and non 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:57.399 cynics for the most part. And he cites common sayings 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:00.480 like I hate to be cynical, but and so forth, 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:02.480 like we were talking, but you know, points out that 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:05.840 cynicism is pretty much in all of us festering to 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:09.320 various degrees and very much takes on the form of 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.520 an affliction. It may dominate, it may go into remission, 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:15.880 it may flare up due to various and environmental factors. 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:19.240 But it is there, absolutely, Yeah, which raises the good 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:22.639 question of, if it's there latently to some degree in 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:26.200 all of us, and in some cases for quite understandable reasons, 0:21:27.119 --> 0:21:29.760 what brings it out, what makes it grow, and maybe 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:31.840 what can diminish it. Now, I guess we'll have to 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:34.400 come back to that, because one thing that we definitely 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:37.719 should address here is it gets a little confusing when 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:42.240 you're trying to look up research on cynicism, because cynicism 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:45.920 is a word that is used to mean at least 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:50.440 two completely different things. There is a school of classical 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:55.240 Greek philosophy called cynicism, which is not merely social distrust. 0:21:56.160 --> 0:21:59.040 It's a whole school of thought that entails different things. Rob, 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:00.840 I think you're about to get to it in the second. 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:04.439 But these two cynicisms are totally different, and it was 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:07.840 a kind of an interesting question to me to wonder 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:11.000 how the same word came to be used for these 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:12.120 two different things. 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:15.680 Yeah, it's one of those things where it's it's complicated. 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:19.879 We're dealing with, you know, centuries upon centuries of human 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:24.679 history with different returns to ancient cynicism and so forth. 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:28.240 You know, it's it's not quite a scenario that you 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:30.320 might encounter with movie titles where you're like, Okay, well 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:32.440 there's the Peter Lorie mad Loove movie and then there's 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:36.000 the the nineties television series Mad Love, and these are 0:22:36.040 --> 0:22:39.120 not connected at all. They just share a title. There's 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:42.560 more connective tissue here. But but it is I think 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:46.600