Once upon a time, I was a high school student. In that time, there was a misunderstanding between me and one of the Christian Brothers who “taught” us boys. It’s too stupid to get into now, but I bring it up as a means of introducing today’s theme: cynicism. Basically, I said something that caused a grown man charged with educating me to say: “You’re the most cynical bastard I’ve ever met in all my years.”
I had to ask my mother what “cynical” meant. I don’t remember her definition precisely, but it made me feel both bad and weirdly proud for having merited such a negative adjective. I’d never been the most anything in all of anyone’s years before.
A quick search on Google offers the following synonyms: skepticism, doubt, mistrust, suspicion. Slightly deeper inspection of Google offers reassurance that the ancient Greek Cynics sought an existence in harmony with the nature of the individual, one free from material concern. Considerably more noble than the contemporary definition: “a general distrust in others.” While I think I see how the word evolved (devolved?) from the ancient Greek usage to the criticism Brother Whatshisname lobbed my way, I won’t detail that here. Doing so would only betray my lack of philosophical erudition.
I have embraced cynicism. There’s an old adage: scratch a cynic, find a romantic. I get that. A cynic is only distrustful of people and the world because they’ve been burned. They never lost sight of how things should be; they just understand the improbability of anything changing for the good. Small movements toward better things, sure, but overall? Nah. At best, “improved means to an unimproved end,” as old Henry David said. Which is why whenever anyone trots out a new gadget, the cynic will logically conclude that the world is about to get faster, and a lot of rich people will get richer, but the mantra that “We’re making the world a better place” will seem ridiculous when coming out of the mouth of a Silicon Valley zealot. Don’t trust those fuckers.
But here’s the thing: there’s a limit to cynicism, hopefully discovered as the cynic matures. And cynicism is not an excuse for nihilism, or for sitting on your ass and doing nothing. And maybe it took me longer than it should have to reach this point, but I think I’m there. Here’s how I know.
Comedian Eddie Pepitone tweets: “Maybe SNL will have Kate McKinnon sing a song to the people of Ukraine tomorrow! That should fix it!” My first response is to smile. Kinda funny. Immediately after recognizing the humor, I feel rotten. What the actual fuck, dude? Yeah, she dressed like Hillary Clinton and sang “Hallelujah” after Trump was elected, and I guess it didn’t really do anything concrete. But fuck man, don’t we need some goddamn symbolic gestures? And what would we have SNL or Facebook posters or anyone else without any actual power do? Keep it light? Ignore the shit show? Get on with toothless, uninspired sketches? Post more snarky edgelord jokes that are surely not going to “fix it!”
Okay, there are times when celebrities make well-meaning gestures that come off tone deaf or are just plain unnecessary, maybe even insultingly clueless (Hello, Gal Gadot), but Jesus H. Fuck, are we so goddamn cynical we can’t understand the drive to express human responses to tragedy?
Perhaps I’ve grown up. Perhaps, as a college instructor, I’ve spent too much time with Gen Z, the so-called “woke” youngsters who Boomers tell me need to lighten up. Or perhaps Pepitone’s joke was even more useless than the celeb preening he was satirizing. Did it accomplish anything more concrete than Kate McKinnon singing to the people of Ukraine? Did it actually make things worse instead of better? Arguably, yeah, it kinda fucking did.
I doubt 2022 will see me lessen my cynicism. I’m on my way to being an old fuck, meaning that my ways are set and I am set in them. Not to mention I’ve seen the ways of people long enough to not have much faith in them. But I see also the need for catharsis, and yeah, when Kate McKinnon sang that song after Trump won, well, it got to me. It felt necessary. It communicated the feeling a lot of us had that week, that things were fucked, that our country had somehow elevated the worst expression of our worst tendencies to the highest office, and that everything was off, upside down. And it was hard. Damn near devastating. And I’m sure others, those primarily affected by a Trump presidency and his horrific rhetoric, felt it more than I did. Maybe small, symbolic gestures don’t fix things, though they might offer comfort. But please, Eddie, shit on that. How edgy!