posted
Scott, in debate, I might agree with you, but it seems to me that cynicism in society would be more along the lines of, "I expect you to lie/cheat/steal/be rude or selfish/whatever. I'll be pleasantly suprised if you don't."
Cynicism, to me, expects the worst of people. It's more of a philosophy than a debating style.
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quote:Scott, in debate, I might agree with you, but it seems to me that cynicism in society would be more along the lines of, "I expect you to lie/cheat/steal/be rude or selfish/whatever. I'll be pleasantly suprised if you don't."
And if you don't lie/cheat/steal/be rude or selfish/whatever, I will have a hard time believing that you didn't since everyone else does. I'm paranoid like that.
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posted
It seems to me that the U.S. sytem of government, with its checks and balances, is highly cynical. It assumes that people will behave badly and try to abuse power if they get the chance, and it tries to keep them from doing it.
I'm glad, too. Imagine how much abuse of power we'd have if the system assumed that people would rise to their best when they got power.
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posted
Everyone who says they're skeptical is just lying about it. They're really being cynical but want to look good.
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posted
Any system of government that did not have a healthy dose of cynicism would fall quickly. If you assume that everybody is basically good, then people who are basically not will take advantage of you. Cynicism does not equate to contempt for humanity. It is merely a useful defense against those individuals who really are lying, cheating, rude, what have you.
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posted
I think some are being too broad with their definition of cynicism. For example, I would consider the government to be more realistic than cynical. It is realistic to expect some people to abuse power, thus they have checks to prevent that from happening. To me, cynicism is more of an unnecessarily or unwarranted negative attitude toward people's general motives, or the negative generalization of all people in a group based on the actions of a small sample group.
It is not realistic to expect all people to be good, and neither is it realistic to expect all people to be inherently evil. But a cynical person might feel that way.
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