Several years ago, I had the opportunity to spend some time in West Virginia. The people I met there were wonderfully unpretentious. A local story then making the rounds ended with the line: “Honest officer, I was just helping that sheep over the fence.”
I relate that story less for its barnyard humor than its air of worldly-wise cynicism. That’s right, cynicism. You don’t have to be from New York or San Francisco to understand that diligent self-deception is a hallmark of human nature, or to take some pleasure in exposing it.
Cynicism, according to the New York Times, is dead and it has been slain, along with its sibling Irony, by an earnest young man from – where else? – West Virginia. According to the Times, this earnest young man has a book coming out from a major publisher, a 204-page obituary for the Age of Cynicism, packed with dense sentences, such as: “The ironic sensibility inhibits the act of remembering how to value what you value.” There you have it – cynicism is dead, gee-whiz sincerity triumphs. Excuse me please, while I blow my nose.
I’d like to quote more philosophy from the earnest young man, but the article was thin on actual ideas. The writer had only three or four thousand words and had to decide between telling the reader what this young Mountaineer thinks and describing the space between his eyebrows. He went with the eyebrows. One page is taken up with a photo of the wunderkind at home with his family, a Norman Rockwell scene, until you notice the reflection of the photographer staging the shot.
The article goes on to mention that the earnest young man won the state spelling bee in 1988 and quotes from his letter to Santa, written at age eight. Maybe I’m – I don’t know, cynical? – but it seems less than ingenuous to have a file of one’s old Santa Claus letters standing by, in case a reporter from the Times happens to stop by the house.
It’s long been a fashion among politicians contemplating higher office to write a book. It raises one’s profile, it plants stakes in the philosophical terrain. This earnest young man has refined the process still further. He wrote his book before he launched his political career at all, although I’m sure very few election cycles will pass before we see the young man’s name on a bumper sticker, preceded by the word “elect.”
Cynicism is dead, but I’m too old. I can’t change. Just like the old men who keep wearing suits that go further and further out of style, I have to accept it as my lot to be out of the mainstream, shunted off to the eddies of American intellectual life. But I can’t help it; I’ve been seeking shelter under cynicism’s protective wing for over 25 years. Where else can I turn as I watch George W. raise tens of millions of dollars from corporate executives who are, after all, “only interested in good government”?
Cynicism is the crutch that has gotten me past such presidential pronouncements as:
“I did not have sex with that woman.”
“I am not a crook.”
“Well, to tell you the truth, I really can’t remember.”
“Read my lips – no new taxes.”
and
“I feel your pain.”
I admit, cynicism is a powerful tool, and its operation by the callow may result in the user opening his or her own vein, rather than an adversary’s.
In the end, it all goes back to West Virginia. I was there to fight the world’s largest hazardous waste incinerator. It sat 300 yards from an elementary school and failed its test burn miserably, belching huge clouds of toxicants. Still, it got a license to burn from the federal government. Al Gore explained why. It was because the incinerator operator had already spent millions of dollars.
The Death of Cynicism
Several years ago, I had the opportunity to spend some time in West Virginia. The people I met there were wonderfully unpretentious. A local story then making the rounds ended with the line: “Honest officer, I was just helping that sheep over the fence.”
I relate that story less for its barnyard humor than its air of worldly-wise cynicism. That’s right, cynicism. You don’t have to be from New York or San Francisco to understand that diligent self-deception is a hallmark of human nature, or to take some pleasure in exposing it.
Cynicism, according to the New York Times, is dead and it has been slain, along with its sibling Irony, by an earnest young man from – where else? – West Virginia. According to the Times, this earnest young man has a book coming out from a major publisher, a 204-page obituary for the Age of Cynicism, packed with dense sentences, such as: “The ironic sensibility inhibits the act of remembering how to value what you value.” There you have it – cynicism is dead, gee-whiz sincerity triumphs. Excuse me please, while I blow my nose.
I’d like to quote more philosophy from the earnest young man, but the article was thin on actual ideas. The writer had only three or four thousand words and had to decide between telling the reader what this young Mountaineer thinks and describing the space between his eyebrows. He went with the eyebrows. One page is taken up with a photo of the wunderkind at home with his family, a Norman Rockwell scene, until you notice the reflection of the photographer staging the shot.
The article goes on to mention that the earnest young man won the state spelling bee in 1988 and quotes from his letter to Santa, written at age eight. Maybe I’m – I don’t know, cynical? – but it seems less than ingenuous to have a file of one’s old Santa Claus letters standing by, in case a reporter from the Times happens to stop by the house.
It’s long been a fashion among politicians contemplating higher office to write a book. It raises one’s profile, it plants stakes in the philosophical terrain. This earnest young man has refined the process still further. He wrote his book before he launched his political career at all, although I’m sure very few election cycles will pass before we see the young man’s name on a bumper sticker, preceded by the word “elect.”
Cynicism is dead, but I’m too old. I can’t change. Just like the old men who keep wearing suits that go further and further out of style, I have to accept it as my lot to be out of the mainstream, shunted off to the eddies of American intellectual life. But I can’t help it; I’ve been seeking shelter under cynicism’s protective wing for over 25 years. Where else can I turn as I watch George W. raise tens of millions of dollars from corporate executives who are, after all, “only interested in good government”?
Cynicism is the crutch that has gotten me past such presidential pronouncements as:
“I did not have sex with that woman.”
“I am not a crook.”
“Well, to tell you the truth, I really can’t remember.”
“Read my lips – no new taxes.”
and
“I feel your pain.”
I admit, cynicism is a powerful tool, and its operation by the callow may result in the user opening his or her own vein, rather than an adversary’s.
In the end, it all goes back to West Virginia. I was there to fight the world’s largest hazardous waste incinerator. It sat 300 yards from an elementary school and failed its test burn miserably, belching huge clouds of toxicants. Still, it got a license to burn from the federal government. Al Gore explained why. It was because the incinerator operator had already spent millions of dollars.
And they expect me to give up cynicism….