Testing Positive for Negativity: Cynicism

Skip the B.S.

By Skip Eisiminger

“After some less than successful surgery a while back, I was frankly in a Biercian funk . . . . My naturally sunny self had been deposited in a fog bank. Six weeks after adjustments were made, however, my mood lightened. I never found the silver promised in the song, but I have spotted some patches of blue. Thanks to my experience, I’m inclined to think of cynicism as the infection to which every wound is susceptible.” Skip Eisiminger

“Anticipation . . . is a preface to disappointment.”—Robert Crawford

“Wishing wells are infinitely deep, or they should be.”—The Wordspinner

CLEMSON South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—1/7/2013—Before the 20th century, when a whale was harpooned and paddled home by Inuit hunters, the animal’s meat and bones became the tide that lifted all kayaks. By custom, the elder chosen to divide the day’s catch was awarded the last cut.

When I first read of that practice, I thought it was cynical: the underlying assumption being that given half a chance we’d all grab the shark’s share. I’m now of a mind that it’s just realistic. If you had a ton of blubber to divide, there’s hardly any way, at 20 degrees below zero, to make all cuts the same. Homo sapiens comprise a self-interested species, and the Arctic custom was an honest appraisal of our nature, for who can deny the yearnings of the belly?

Cynicism has been variously defined as “having one foot in the grave,” or, “being prematurely disappointed with the future.” Others have thought it the “dry rot of the soul,” “the impossibility of exaggerating the complete unimportance of almost everything,” or, “the belief that you don’t even live once.” Our misanthropic kin have convinced themselves that to pause and smell the flowers merely invites the inhalation of a honey bee. But bees instinctively avoid the dark declivities of creatures larger than themselves; especially those devoid of pollen. Moreover, the sucking force produced by human lungs is less than that required to pull a bee from a rose.

In the beginning, Job’s wife advised her epically put-upon husband, “Curse God and die.” Her attitude was inherited by Diogenes who allegedly spent his life doggedly but unsuccessfully looking for an honest man. How he missed Socrates, Plato, Pericles, and their offspring is not known.

For the next couple of millennia, cynicism’s sun rose and set, but at no time was the sunrise more brilliant than it was following The Enlightenment. In the 19th century, one finds Arthur Hugh Clough arguing in “The Latest Decalogue,” “Thou shall not steal; an empty feat,/When it’s so lucrative to cheat.”

Across the Channel, Arthur Schopenhauer thought life “an expiation of the crime of being born.”

Across the pond, Ambrose Bierce picked up the infection, declaring, “[A saint] is a dead sinner revised and edited.”

His countryman, Mark Twain, said there were times when Yahweh’s decision to save eight breeders from The Flood seemed a “pity.”

In the 20th century, the student of American politics eventually faces the dark visage of Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon, who actually apologized in his memoirs for his cynicism. If only we had known earlier, Dave Barry observed, we might have bundled his inauguration with his indictment to save us all a lot of heartache.

Perhaps the favorite target of cynics is love, which has been described as “the triumph of imagination over intelligence,” and, “a burnt match circling the toilet.”

Possibly because men have done more of the world’s writing over the last ten thousand years, women are another common target: Otto Preminger thought the troubled but talented actress Marilyn Monroe was a “vacuum with nipples.” (Had he not seen Some Like It Hot?) Preminger’s philosophical countrymen have taken stock of women and variously declared them “God’s second mistake,” “what bachelors treat as sequels,” “man’s bitter half,” and “lifeboat test dummies.” To these faultfinders, I would say listen carefully to the work of Clara Schumann and study the portraits of Renoir’s girls.

Though at one time he was married with three children, Ambrose “Bitter” Bierce defined sex as “the epidermal felicity of two featherless bipeds in desperate congress.” Before the reader who can still remember what an orgasm feels like surrenders to despair, one shouldn’t forget that Bierce had witnessed some of the bloodiest fighting of the American Civil War and had suffered a severe head wound in the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. Like Bierce, few cynics marry for long because, as one said, the only way a marriage can succeed is for deaf and blind to pair off. To these naysayers, I say study the marriage of Pierre and Marie Curie.

After some less than successful surgery a while back, I was frankly in a Biercian funk—silver lining in every cloud, indeed. My naturally sunny self had been deposited in a fog bank. However, six weeks after adjustments were made, my mood lightened. I never found the silver promised in the song, but I have spotted some patches of blue. Thanks to my experience, I’m inclined to think of cynicism as the infection to which every wound is susceptible. Given that the germ theory is a hundred years old, with no contenders vying to replace it, the proper metaphorical response to any injury is to clean the wound before bandaging it, and allow the healing process to begin. Otherwise, you or your caretaker is simply providing a warm, moist environment for the microbes to fester in.

Speaking of pus, in David Mamet’s play Decay, the playwright states, “The problems of the world . . . are, finally no more solvable than the problem of the tree which has borne fruit: the apples are overripe and they are falling—what can be done? Nothing can be done, and nothing needs to be done. Something is being done—the organism is preparing to rest.”

Given the still-recent black wave of destruction across northeastern Japan, the long-smoldering war in Afghanistan, and a gang rape-murder on a bus in Delhi, I’m inclined to follow suit, but need I remind anyone of how humans conquered Hitler, English killer fogs, and smallpox? These three would not have been defeated by “lying fallow.” Nor would we have completed the Manhattan Project, put twelve men on the moon, or taken seven-league strides to abolish racism and sexism. No, to return to my medical metaphor, one immediately washes the wound, splashes on the disinfectant, stitches it up, and waits to see if it looks rosy. A little Vaseline might be necessary, but acting in good faith is surely the proper course . . . with acting being the operative word.

A cynic might say that you bandage your wounds, eat well, exercise, and die anyway. True, life is unfair and death is real, but so is the quality of life enhanced by a healthy diet and moderate exercise. Humans are not apple trees with programmed seasons of growth and dormancy but, as Kant said, humans have a moral obligation, “a categorical imperative,” to remain un-soured. Of course, it’s easy to fault Pollyannas who find Hitler’s love of German shepherds a redeeming quality, but I still come down on the side of those who assume the best until they know otherwise.

Note: The illustration for this column was taken via Flickr from “Arrancat’s photostream” and may be accessed at http://www.flickr.com/photos/25649583@N00/3202799634/