On Cynicism and Hope
In light of the great light bulb of "Goddamn, I wish I'd thought to say that!" which is currently blinking over my head, I would like to direct you to two posts that make a point I have been inarticulately trying articulate for a really long time.
First, coffeeem leads off with this entry, which explains that cynicism is not the same as wisdom or helpfulness:
"Why are you surprised?"
"Did you really think that...?"
"This is old news."
"It's just business as usual."
I've been hearing and reading these lines, and others like them, a lot lately. They show up when someone--sometimes me, sometimes someone else--gets angry about the election, about FEMA, about law enforcement, about politicians, about a government agency, and says so. When they do, someone will almost always respond with a variation on one of those lines.
I'd just like to say this to the people who are responding that way:
You're seriously pissing me off. Shut the fuck up.
Because here's the implied message of those lines: "You're cute when you're naive and ill-informed. I, however, am too smart and experienced to believe that what's upsetting you can be changed. I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly ridicule you for your embarrassing lack of knowledge and world-weary sophistication."
Go read the rest. It's a short entry.
Then, matociquala (Elizabeth Bear) follows up with this gem of a post, which explains that:
The appropriate response to outrage over injustice is not, "Why are you surprised by that?" (With implied scorn for the other's naivete.) A pose of facile cynicism may be a comforting way to express your defense mechanisms, but outrage =/= surprise, and by conflating the two in an attempt to make your neighbors feel awkward and unhip, you are revealing far more about yourself than you are about them.
Outrage is useful, people. Outrage is what gets things done. Outrage is the thing that gets people off their asses to create change.
Telling people who are outraged that their naivete is mockable is the moral equivalent of telling a teenager with a desire to become an artist that they're better off getting a secretarial job than trying for a scholarship, and they should plan for disappointment. Of course they're going to be disappointed. Life is about disappointment.
Living life well is also about doing something about that disappointment. And trying to stop people from making the world better makes us into people who suck.
Read that, too. It's also a short entry.
I could not agree more, especially lately, with all the political crap flying around and pretty much everyone's overwhelmingly bitter, pissy, irritable and sometimes downright obnoxious attitude about the whole thing.
I am a pretty realistic person. I know that the world is a shitty place. Downright horrible. But I don't accept that it has to stay that way, and people who roll their eyes and puff diffidently and wave their hands and say "I don't know why that surprises you!" or "Well, that's just how those people think!" or "There's really not anything you can do!" fucking piss me off.
Attention! The fact that something chaps my hide does not mean that it surprises me. The fact that I can feel outrage over things that do not surprise me reassures me that I am a functioning, feeling human being capable of caring about important things even if they do not affect me directly.
The assumption of helplessness, of the inability to change, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I understand it can be an effective defense mechanism, and that under certain circumstances may be a necessary stage of emotional development or recovery, but I submit that it is necessary far less often than it is employed. Mostly because people don't grow the fuck out of it.
What is so hard, people, about saying "Yes, that's terrible. I don't know what to do about it, but that's a dreadful problem. What can we do to fix it?"
What is so hard about meeting someone in the middle when they are pissed off or upset or showing obvious caring about a thing, when it's a thing that you also agree is terrible? Why is caring equated with naïveté?
I guess if you sit back on your ass and say you can't do anything about the problem at hand, it absolves you of any need to take action. You not only get to avoid working to change things that suck, but you get to curl your lip at people who are working to change those things, because those people are trying to do something impossible and therefore you think they are stupid. You get to feel superior both to the people who are causing the problem and the people trying to solve it, all from a position of complete ethical and emotional inertia. And you aren't inconvenieced with having to do anything. You can just couch-surf your way through life, convinced you can't make a difference, and never have to bother with actually giving a shit.
Must be nice if you can stand living with yourself.
There is a teaching story that goes like this:
A man is walking along the beach in the early morning when he notices some random guy picking up beached starfish and throwing them back into the water. As he passes the other man, the first man asks "Why bother? There's miles of beach and thousands of starfish. They're all going to fry when the sun comes up. You can't possibly make a difference." The other guy gives him a good, long stare. Then he throws another starfish into the sea and says "I just made a difference to that one."
I very much identify with the second man in this parable, except in my version the first man says "Why bother?" and the idealistic young starfish-tosser, who is a distance runner or a dancer or someone with powerful thighs, kicks the jaded fuckwit full in the balls and says something like . . . I don't know . . . "Because some things just feel right."
I occasionally get comments asking "Why bother?" or which say things like "Well, we're all going to hell in a handbasket anyway, everything sucks, can't save 'em all, there's nothing we can do, I guess I'll go eat worms." Those comments piss me off, and now I can finally articulate why. I feel much better.
I would like to close this little sermon with a fantastic quote from Edith Hamilton's Mythology:
"The power of good is shown not by triumphantly conquering evil, but by continuing to resist evil while facing certain defeat."
Only by committing ourselves completely can we apply enough force to overcome that which besets us. We cannot fight only so long as it looks like we might win. We have to fight even when it doesn't look like there is any hope. That kind of battle, those fought one-on-one, individually, in the dark, even privately, those are the battles that decide victory. When others agree with us, cheer us on, when we have help, that is wonderful. But carrying on in the face of hopelessness, forging ahead when others have turned away, that is meaningful.
The question isn't what you'd do tomorrow if you thought you couldn't fail. The question is what you'd do if you had no assurance of victory. The difference between the two is the mirror that will show you what you are.
First, coffeeem leads off with this entry, which explains that cynicism is not the same as wisdom or helpfulness:
"Why are you surprised?"
"Did you really think that...?"
"This is old news."
"It's just business as usual."
I've been hearing and reading these lines, and others like them, a lot lately. They show up when someone--sometimes me, sometimes someone else--gets angry about the election, about FEMA, about law enforcement, about politicians, about a government agency, and says so. When they do, someone will almost always respond with a variation on one of those lines.
I'd just like to say this to the people who are responding that way:
You're seriously pissing me off. Shut the fuck up.
Because here's the implied message of those lines: "You're cute when you're naive and ill-informed. I, however, am too smart and experienced to believe that what's upsetting you can be changed. I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly ridicule you for your embarrassing lack of knowledge and world-weary sophistication."
Go read the rest. It's a short entry.
Then, matociquala (Elizabeth Bear) follows up with this gem of a post, which explains that:
The appropriate response to outrage over injustice is not, "Why are you surprised by that?" (With implied scorn for the other's naivete.) A pose of facile cynicism may be a comforting way to express your defense mechanisms, but outrage =/= surprise, and by conflating the two in an attempt to make your neighbors feel awkward and unhip, you are revealing far more about yourself than you are about them.
Outrage is useful, people. Outrage is what gets things done. Outrage is the thing that gets people off their asses to create change.
Telling people who are outraged that their naivete is mockable is the moral equivalent of telling a teenager with a desire to become an artist that they're better off getting a secretarial job than trying for a scholarship, and they should plan for disappointment. Of course they're going to be disappointed. Life is about disappointment.
Living life well is also about doing something about that disappointment. And trying to stop people from making the world better makes us into people who suck.
Read that, too. It's also a short entry.
I could not agree more, especially lately, with all the political crap flying around and pretty much everyone's overwhelmingly bitter, pissy, irritable and sometimes downright obnoxious attitude about the whole thing.
I am a pretty realistic person. I know that the world is a shitty place. Downright horrible. But I don't accept that it has to stay that way, and people who roll their eyes and puff diffidently and wave their hands and say "I don't know why that surprises you!" or "Well, that's just how those people think!" or "There's really not anything you can do!" fucking piss me off.
Attention! The fact that something chaps my hide does not mean that it surprises me. The fact that I can feel outrage over things that do not surprise me reassures me that I am a functioning, feeling human being capable of caring about important things even if they do not affect me directly.
The assumption of helplessness, of the inability to change, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I understand it can be an effective defense mechanism, and that under certain circumstances may be a necessary stage of emotional development or recovery, but I submit that it is necessary far less often than it is employed. Mostly because people don't grow the fuck out of it.
What is so hard, people, about saying "Yes, that's terrible. I don't know what to do about it, but that's a dreadful problem. What can we do to fix it?"
What is so hard about meeting someone in the middle when they are pissed off or upset or showing obvious caring about a thing, when it's a thing that you also agree is terrible? Why is caring equated with naïveté?
I guess if you sit back on your ass and say you can't do anything about the problem at hand, it absolves you of any need to take action. You not only get to avoid working to change things that suck, but you get to curl your lip at people who are working to change those things, because those people are trying to do something impossible and therefore you think they are stupid. You get to feel superior both to the people who are causing the problem and the people trying to solve it, all from a position of complete ethical and emotional inertia. And you aren't inconvenieced with having to do anything. You can just couch-surf your way through life, convinced you can't make a difference, and never have to bother with actually giving a shit.
Must be nice if you can stand living with yourself.
There is a teaching story that goes like this:
A man is walking along the beach in the early morning when he notices some random guy picking up beached starfish and throwing them back into the water. As he passes the other man, the first man asks "Why bother? There's miles of beach and thousands of starfish. They're all going to fry when the sun comes up. You can't possibly make a difference." The other guy gives him a good, long stare. Then he throws another starfish into the sea and says "I just made a difference to that one."
I very much identify with the second man in this parable, except in my version the first man says "Why bother?" and the idealistic young starfish-tosser, who is a distance runner or a dancer or someone with powerful thighs, kicks the jaded fuckwit full in the balls and says something like . . . I don't know . . . "Because some things just feel right."
I occasionally get comments asking "Why bother?" or which say things like "Well, we're all going to hell in a handbasket anyway, everything sucks, can't save 'em all, there's nothing we can do, I guess I'll go eat worms." Those comments piss me off, and now I can finally articulate why. I feel much better.
I would like to close this little sermon with a fantastic quote from Edith Hamilton's Mythology:
"The power of good is shown not by triumphantly conquering evil, but by continuing to resist evil while facing certain defeat."
Only by committing ourselves completely can we apply enough force to overcome that which besets us. We cannot fight only so long as it looks like we might win. We have to fight even when it doesn't look like there is any hope. That kind of battle, those fought one-on-one, individually, in the dark, even privately, those are the battles that decide victory. When others agree with us, cheer us on, when we have help, that is wonderful. But carrying on in the face of hopelessness, forging ahead when others have turned away, that is meaningful.
The question isn't what you'd do tomorrow if you thought you couldn't fail. The question is what you'd do if you had no assurance of victory. The difference between the two is the mirror that will show you what you are.