Remember one thing: Do NOT become cynical!

Hello all!

So, it's now Memorial Day weekend, and things in the States have been, well, pretty interesting to say the least. Stephen Colbert just aired his final episode of The Late Show on Thursday, the regime just indicted Raul Castro, the former president of Cuba, and the Iran war continues to drag on as gas prices remain steady (at least for now).

I wanted to take this opportunity over the holiday weekend to type out something I've been thinking of writing for awhile: an argument against the concept of cynicism. Let me start off by saying that I can be pretty cynical myself. I used to be pretty down on human nature, and my cynicism really hits peak during two major moments, one of them being the Covid-19 pandemic.

On top of my mental health taking a huge hit due to the unprecedented lockdowns and not being able to see friends and some family members, I saw people all over the country rejecting the very idea of wearing masks and social distancing. Yeah, I didn't like it either, but, at the same time, I knew that we had to protect people and get case numbers at a manageable level. However, there were viral videos all over the Internet of random people hoarding toilet paper and screaming at innocent employees just trying to enforce mask rules as case numbers continued to spike, and my view of human nature dimmed further.

Another point where my cynicism reached new heights was, of course, when Trump was elected to a second term in 2024. I had convinced myself that the tides were turning in our favor in the runup to the election, seeing how Trump was making a massive fool of himself on the campaign trail and all the signs against him, like the excitement of the Harris-Walz ticket and the endless jokes at the expense of Trump and JD Vance and all of the Republicans who were rapidly turning on the party, and I became excited at the prospect of the first female President.

And, then, once Trump won, I was defeated. I was hopeless. I couldn't believe that my country had voted to elect a man who not only had a disaster of a first term with endless corruption, millions of deaths from a preventable pandemic, horrible immigration policy, and fucking JANUARY 6TH, but also spent an entire campaign spewing hate against immigrants and transgender people, ranting about Hannibal Lecter and Arnold Palmer's private area, and just looking lost and like he was an old mental patient. I became more depressed and detached, and decided that America was truly a country of hatred and exclusion, especially as Trump immediately started his mass deportation campaign when he got back in office. I watched as people around me stayed silent or, worse, seemed happy at the shit that was happening, and lost even more faith in my fellow Americans.

All of that being said, I do not wish for anyone reading this to adopt similar behaviors to what I went through. Because cynicism is NOT smart! It only hurts your mental health and, in some cases, can even lead to dark paths.

Trust me, it can feel good in the moment and like you are enlightened and smarter than the average person, but, once you get over that feeling, you'll feel stupid and think to yourself, "What was the point of me thinking those things?? What did it actually achieve??" And, it IGNORES all of the people out there who are genuinely fighting the good fight against all odds and trying to do right by their fellow citizens. And, in even worse cases, cynicism can even discredit and smear good acts from genuine people.

For example, during the start of the second Trump presidency, even as he went on a massive crusade against his enemies and minority groups, there were also small good things that people didn't notice, like the No Kings protests that trumped (no pun intended) the fascist-in-chief's military parade MASSIVELY, the pushback against the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia (which worked btw), the failure to deport Rumeysa Ozturk, and Dems like Chris Murphy, Tim Walz, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others who pushed back against the administration's heinous actions. Trump wasn't getting everything he wanted, and did NOT declare martial law on April 20th like everyone thought he would, but I was so cynical and doomer that I had failed to appreciate these small glimmers of hope.

Even during Covid, I ignored the people who actually listened and wore masks to protect others, along with the many who clapped outside of their houses for first responders, raised money for aid for struggling families during the pandemic, and instead focused on the idiots who ranted about the first amendment to argue against having to wear face coverings.

Another important reason why cynicism is a bad idea is because it's what people like Trump WANT. Some of the main arguments of his campaign was that immigrants were "poisoning the blood" of America, and that transgender people were using kitty litter in schools, and stealing trophies and medals from young female athletes that they rightly deserved, and that Democrats were unfairly punishing him because he wanted to challenge the institution. This helped create an atmosphere that caused Trump voters to distrust everyone around them and think that minorities and Democrats were out to get them, and, in turn, they went to him for protection. This cynicism among the American people helped Trump thrive and got him elected.

It's not just Trump, either. Cynicism has benefited many an autocrat over the years. Hitler blamed Germany's woes in the 1930s on Jewish people and used antisemitism as a pretext to throw them into concentration camps and murder millions with little resistance. Xi Jinping has used hatred of Uyghur people to justify throwing them into interment camps. Benjamin Netanyahu has taken advantage of widespread Israeli hatred of Palestinians by bombing Gaza into oblivion and creating an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the region. I could go on, but it is very clear: Authoritarians thrive the more cynical and distrustful the average citizens are of their peers, because it gives them a convenient scapegoat and takes attention away from their bad deeds.

Rutger Bregman released a great book called Humankind: A Hopeful History that essentially argues for the perception of humans as good and well-meaning. Throughout the novel, he gives little-known real-life examples of people being kind and virtuous towards their fellow man, as well as stories of the media skewing facts to drive a narrative that humans are evil, policies that have been enacted that allowed humans more freedom and infinitely improved their lives, and social experiments that prove that the human species is better than they are portrayed to be by politicians and the media. The central argument is that we'd be better served by interacting more with our fellow people, rather than less, trusting more rather than assuming that everyone is a bad-faith actor, and adopting good social policies that are based on this philosophy.

There is also a great YouTube video by this channel called Pop Culture Detective that uses clips from movies and TV shows, and was released in the immediate aftermath of the 2024 election. The narrator, Jonathan McIntosh, argues that pessimistic and cynical views of human nature are mostly false and made worse by the media and how biased it can be. He also mentions an experiment conducted by Noam Chomsky wherein he asked people to imagine a man walking down the street and stealing ice cream from a child, and then asked them if they thought that it was a perfect example of human nature. Most of the time, the people who were asked said no. So, not only is cynicism a defeatist mindset that does more harm than good, most of the time, the people who espouse these viewpoints don't mean what they say.

As someone who's been there before, I would argue it's more of a reactive mindset meant to try to protect us in times where things don't make sense to us. We distrust people because it's easy in difficult times. As humans, we look for easy solutions, and cynicism is one of them. It's easy to distrust the person next to you. It's easy to blame everyone around you for why the world is screwed up. It's easy to hate.

Which is why we MUST reject cynicism. It may seem easy and convenient in the moment, especially in a time where nothing makes sense and the free world is led by some of the worst people known to man, but it will only lead us towards a world that is unrecognizable, and not in a good way. The only way forward is to pick not only ourselves up, but the people around us, as well, and lift ourselves up and push for a better world. And, if we don't think that better world is possible to attain or that it's pointless to try (another symptom of cynicism), then that will lead us to nowhere.

There are selfish and bad people out there, yes, but there are also people, including those in this subreddit, who are standing up against injustice and helping out their fellow man. And, there are more of those people out there than we may think. It's just not broadcast to us because fear sells. We need as many hopeful people as we can, because hope is the only way forward in these trying times. It can be difficult at times, but nothing good in this world was ever gained through coasting. It was earned through fighting for change constantly, and, if we are to achieve what we need to turn this country around, we need to keep fighting and pushing for it every step of the way.

Soldier on and keep fighting, but, always remember this: do NOT become cynical! Because that kind of attitude will stop us from our current goals and help the enemy win more than anything. And, if that happens, we will only end up back at the same place we were at when this whole thing started sooner or later.

Sincerely,

K.B.