THE FALLACY OF CYNICISM

"Cynicism" is the belief, habit, and attitude of thinking that views other things; and other peoples actions as being insignificant, unimportant, not honest, self-serving, no good, redundant, not sincere, not worth anything, does not lead anywhere, etc. What I call "the fallacy of cynicism" is the fact that it is cynicism itself which consists of the things it projects as an attitude or view of the world, and it is in fact cynicism which is false, and negative, and unimportant. A lot of cynicism comes from a lack of inner content, or the lack of inner life that exists in people, and comes from a feeling of jealousy, and inadequacy, and a general feeling of apathy, and insecurity, and doubt towards oneself, and things in general, but is projected outwardly as an attitude, and it tries to convince itself and others that it is correct. All human beings who desire to be in touch with the truth at all times should banish cynicism from their very "being" as soon as possible. Modern society and the media and people in general these days are saturiated with cynicism, and it is because most people and the masses do not know how to think for them'selves, and don't really care about the truth, and are full of doubts, and therefore project this cynical attitude when they disagree with something. People should apply reason, logic, understanding, empathy, sympathy, and compassion if they want to overcome cynicism in them'selves and in others, cynicism is like a disease that must be eradicated. To have an appreciation for people, and the world in general, as well as developing, and displaying the faculties of "humour", "love", and "compassion" towards people has a positive and beneficial affect on people and their attitudes to the world in general , and when one displays this to them in a regular and consistent manner one finds great things begin to happen amongst people and their view of the world, and this should be encouraged more within the general make-up of peoples thinking and outlook of the world, instead of the tired cynical and defensive attitude that many people display which creates a feeling of seperation amongst people, which in general is a bad thing. I have always liked the Arthur Schopenhauer quote that; every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world, and this is why it is important to have a very open, and active mind, and one should also be all-embracing in one's view of reality and the universe in general, obviously wanting to know too much about reality can be foolish, you know the old saying, that if you try to be everywhere you find yourself to be nowhere, it is better to expand your knowledge a bit at a time, and at the same time it helps to have an active and open minded approach in one's understanding of things, it also helps to be all embracing in our approach and in our comprehension of reality, and we should also think of the "whole" and "totality" of things as best we can, and learn to harmonize differences. Some people have the attitude that being open minded means a person has no firm convictions, and also has an unbiased approach to reality, in a sense this is true, but this is not a bad approach, but a prudent one, and this is only because being biased can cloud peoples sense of reason because of its one-sided aspect and manner, also having convictions can be a rigid way of thinking and approaching life in general, because of the fact that convictions can be very fixed even when it is in defence of incorrect things, convictions can degenerate into petty one-sided stubbornness if it is not checked and corrected, so therefore it can help to be open minded at times when required. "Cynics" always have a very limited, narrow, and erroneous view of reality, and they think that their opinions have some kind of validity, when in fact their opinions on any topic contain the most useless answers any thinker could possibly have produced as a description of reality.
cynical people are always trying to devalue the efforts of other people and the force of their joy and enthusiasm, because cynical people have no joy or enthusiasm of their own, they have no desire to want to undersand things in reality, cynical people are simply negative empty shells devoid of any real content within their own "being", and they try to project this view onto everything else and everyone else, they want everything to seem less important than it is, and also less significant. Cynicism in most cases is a false and negative view of reality, enthusiasm, reason, and a positive way of thinking is a truer view of reality, and is also progressive. "Peak experiences" are a more accurate view of reality than a cynical and apathetic outlook could ever encompass, peak experiences give us a brief moment of clarity about the surrounding world, anything that gives our consciousness a feeling of clarity is truer than anything that simply undermines the importance of reality in our consciousness. Cynicism is an unconstructive and worthless aspect of human consciousness and should be beaten out of everyones attitudes to life who have this trait as part of their personality. Cynicism and apathy can create a feeling of boredom in our lives, and when events and moments in our lives become boring our will goes through periods were it remains passive for long periods of time, and then our focusing muscle, and our sense of purpose becomes weak and unenthusiastic and looses its focus, this outcome also gives us a feeling that our life is failing and is unimportant and futile. Meaning, purpose, and enthusiasm is important in our lives, cynicism, apathy, and boredom cripples the will, meaning and purpose stimulates the will, enthusiasm, joy, and the peak experience is a sudden surge of meaning, and it gives the feeling that we are in touch with the truth about reality. The majority of people who are very cynical do not, and cannot accomplish the great things that a more positive and enthusiastic person can attain, cynics by their very nature are low achievers. It is more what we believe things to be, and also what we want them to be that makes them what they ultimately become in the final result in the form of our actions, and this is why cynicism is such a negative and lazy attitude to have, because it lowers the quality of all judgements and endeavours. It is usually easy to tell what a cynic is thinking in most situations because most cynics have very predictable thinking patterns, in most cases. One of the only advantages to cynicism is that many things can be figured out using this approach, because the methods employed by cynicism are analytical, and fault finding, so in a sense the need for improvements in things can be suggested, by pointing out the faults that exist, and can be found in them, and cynicism can also indicate how those faults need to be improved, or eliminated. To be cynical about something bad is good, but to be cynical about something good is bad, for instance, to be cynical about an unfair, repressive and oppressive government is good, whereas to be cynical about a democratic and egalitarian state is bad. Most of what I have written in this essay is in regard to the cynicism towards good and positive things rather than the cynicism towards the negative and bad things. Sometimes when somebody is being very cynical we can get the feeling that they are not being truthful; so this the reason why I entitled this essay "The Fallacy of Cynicism".