This comes from a discussion I had with a friend tonight. I called her cynical and she took it as a bad thing, although I didn’t necessarily mean it as a bad thing. I was more impressed by it. Sometimes I wish I was more cynical. As it is, I feel I’m too nice and innocent-minded and it leads to being taken advantage of sometimes.
I seems like the word “cynical” has a bit of a negative aspect/feeling/sound around it, though…but I don’t know…
…I think being cynical could have some pretty good advantages in the long run.
I think it’s bad if you’re cynical about everything, or in general. But I think it’s good (necessary?) to be cynical about certain things.
ETA: I think scepticism is a healthier approach for general things.
It does denote a certain unwillingness to consider that people might have good, or at least innocent motives. It’s unflattering both in and of itself and because, in general, people who are unable to consider that other people mean well don’t mean well themselves.
Maybe “skeptical” would have been a better way to go.
It has negative connotations, but I don’t see it as a bad thing. Especially since I know I am cynical. It becomes a bad thing when you get to the extreme end of the spectrum (just as being too trusting is a bad thing), where you don’t trust a damn thing anyone says or does for fear or belief they have ulterior motives.
I’ve got to agree that skeptical is what you might aspire to be. My SO was truly cynical at the worst of his depression, it was not good. It’s like constant skeptical of everything with mean derision thrown in. It’s good for some, rare, situations, like when people come up with some sort of terrible plan. Be cynical then. Not in general.
IMHO cynicism is negative and destructive. Even scepticism has its downside because there is an implied judgement that a staement must be wrong. I prefer curiousity and questioning as the best approach and keeping an open mind.
I often receive saccharine beauteous emails from a friend - you know the stuff - homilies on friendship, being good, puppies, and flowers. Mostly I delete them in disdain but occasionally I stop and consider the content. There is no harm or nastiness being communicated indeed quite the opposite. So what’s wrong with being nice and wishing good for others?
My cynicism evaporates and the world seems a better place for a while.
Thanks to boards like this one, the meaning for cynical has been rather blurred. Instead of indicating “distrusting, derisive jerk” it has come to indicate “cool, snarky, skeptic.” I am as guilty as anyone, but of late I am having real doubts about the microculture of this board and similar ones. We seem to value some of the wrong things and our language is shifting because of it.
Aside: I don’t think the meaning is shifting because of boards like this - any language used by living people will see shifts in meaning.
But back to the OP’s topic, this actually came up fairly recently (sometime in the last year) in a conversation with someone. They referred to me as cynical and didn’t intend the negative meanings. I questioned him on it, and it turns out that the intention was skeptical, but I heard the dictionary meaning of cynical. I’m glad I asked, because I would have been very concerned about the impression people had of me!
See, this was me too. I consider myself to be cynical somewhat. Not a whole lot, but I’ve definitely grown more cynical with age and in recent years.
I know, I know..I said I was innocent-minded in the OP–and I still am–but I was severely that way about 5-6 years ago. I like to think I’ve grown more cynical over time and I see that as a good thing.
So my saying “Wow, a bit cynical, eh?” to my friend was meant to be more of a note of being impressed and maybe, you could say, even as a sort of compliment.
So it surprised me when she didn’t take it as a compliment, haha. I know I would have if it had been said to me, though…so that’s probably why I see it as one.
I agree that cynical has a negative connotation, but I am cynical and I embrace the label. Half of my work is undoing the messes that optimists make; if more people were a little more cynical, we’d get more shit done.
I doubt it. Cynics are all about why things can’t be done. They are great predictors of gloom, doom, and failure. They don’t get anything done as a result. Optimists, to use your word though I don’t think it necessarily the correct one in this instance, try things and sometimes fail (to the great schedenfreude of the cynics) but they also sometimes succeed.
Using my work as an example, I am trying to set up an office in Afghanistan to implement a foreign aid project. One of my colleagues is an optimist, it doesn’t occur to him that the vendors are all colluding on their bids, that there is wide-spread corruption in the country and that we need to be eternally watchful to make sure we aren’t being taken advantage of. The result of my cynicism? Our office rent is five times lower than a similar office set up by a bunch of naive fools.
I’ve never met a smart optimist, they all sit around and think “things will work out.” They don’t realize that things worked out because the non-optimists were busting their asses to get it done.
It’s good to be cynical to an extent. You shouldn’t trust just everything. But too many people consider it a badge of pride to always look at the underside of the coin, and never be optimistic at all.