“’What are you? I mean, what do you do?’
I was sleepy, the way you are afterwards. ‘Oh, not much.’
‘Ah, A gentleman.’”

In "The Father of Lies" by K. J. Parker

“’I’ve done a lot of bad things.’
‘Define bad.’
He looked at me, then nodded. ‘A lot of illegal things,’ he amended. ‘I’ve told a lot of lies, defrauded a lot of people out of money, cheated, stolen. Never killed anyone—’ I cleared my throat. ‘Deliberately,’ he amended, ‘except in self-defense.’
‘That’s a broad term,’ I said.
‘No it’s not. I got them before they got me.’

In "The Father of Lies" by K. J. Parker

Stories:

The Things We Do For Love
Downfall of the Gods
The Last Witness
The Devil You Know
I Met a Man Who Wasn’t There
Heaven Thunders The Truth
Message in a Bottle
Rules
Safe House
The Dragonslayer of Merebarton
Told By An Idiot
No Peace for the Wicked

All my life I've had the attitude I have now, although it's not out and out cynicism. Maybe that’s why I love Parker’s fiction so much.

Cynics, Confucius, Buddha and Lao-Tzu (Taoism founder) all lived at about 500 BC, and were all of a view that we should dispassionately view the world as it really is, and act upon it in a helpful way, whilst living a simple life. They said that the dissatisfied human state is the result of our actions which are often self-centre, to become satisfied you have to become other-centred. Very hard to do/be. A modern cynic thinks that other people act cynically, which is fine, the problem arises when they get righteously indignant about it, making themselves out to be saint like which it is unlikely they are. So they're end up endlessly winding themselves up. The optimist can't be bothered thinking that everyone is up to no good because they might not be. The only solution is for the modern cynic to become as disciplined as those dudes from 500 BC. But then that is very hard to do/be. In fact the reason for the definition of the word changing is that people tried to be just that and failed or others just pretended to be that so they could get an advantage.

I am the only one that get the "Snowden on cover joke" a cynical way of drawing in the reader. I think it is a time thing- the old "You can fool me once" or a few times - but sooner or later you start to cotton on- you get silver tongue orators (Blair, Obama) who will you in- then suddenly you look back and realize it was all a con- but this often takes a few years and a few history repeating itself before you get it- then after a while you realize the world is not such a nice place and is probably not going to change- then when you are a bit older you read some history and realize that this has been going on for centuries - then you become cynical- ( am I that old already? ) - all kind of liberating as you no longer have to try change the world.

We live in a forced happy, and crappy (clappy?) culture; it’s smile or die. Facebook is a perfect example, the constant status update desperate in the attempt to project a positive and successful lifestyle to others. If I want to get depressed I'll take a look at Facebook. I remember reviewing projects to focus on at work. There was a list of 8 on the table, and in my professional opinion I had suggested none of them were relevant for this particular client. My boss told me I was being negative. I responded by saying that there is nothing more negative than working on things that I consider irrelevant for my client. Obviously not gone down too well, and I was labelled as difficult to work with. Screw him. I just moved on to another job.

Some modern scholarship fails to distinguish between skepticism which is a healthy suspicion of facts or truth claims based on wisdom and experience and cynicism which is distorted and negative view based on a lack of faith in human nature. Cynicism is almost always a nasty and destructive force which is often used as a weapon to crush the human spirit and put down ones rivals. It is unhealthy and has little to do with wit, satire or irony which is what I think the writer is trying to suggest.. Au contraire. I think people confuse cynicism with nihilism or simply hopeless misery.I always define a cynic as an experienced optimist, there is a lot to be cynical about in the modern world, the hard part is not to let it get you down.

I have been cynical for years, long before my forties. People sneer and say 'oh you're so cynical', as though it's a bad thing. They're right I am cynical, but that doesn't mean I am a heaving mass of gloom. I could pretend I am a realist, but that's just dressing it up. I simply look below the surface and don't take everything at face value. I think years of working for public services reinforced my attitudes!

Or am I a sceptic?

This is a good point. The word "cynical" has been co-opted somewhat to mean a sort of manipulative nature - usually followed by the words "marketing ploy". I suppose that such a ploy would capitalise on people's selfish tendencies so it would pertain to cynicism, but the word gets tarred. When McDonalds target their meals at kids, that's cynical but it's also defeatist - it suggests that that is the only thing kids will respond to, without trying to buck the trend.

In Parker's SF, I emphasize the point which should not be overlooked is that if we take people as they are, with all their wonderful ideas, idealism, generosity but also pettiness, greed, revenge you cherish changes more since you know how hard one has to work to overcome this. There are no heroes in this world, no “super humans” only struggling people who try to make small differences. Its the struggle which makes us human, the word “hero” (only used if you succeed) de-humanize this. First move of a new manager is to clear the older deadwood and cynics when they take over, in this case older deadwood and cynics are the same. The older employee has seen it all before, new manager “great new ideas” which are the same old ideas dressed up in new words, if they they had a new way of managing people they would be rich. There is nothing new in managing people. They will leave in a few years leaving a bigger mess behind them, and the cycle of managers repeats itself, saying afterwards “it all worked when I was there”. Now days managers are far more interested in managing there careers than the business organization they are in. Mediocre people are told by business universities that they can be managers when you would not put them in charge of the toilet. Is that cynical enough for you. I agree that cynicism is better than it's reputation, but it all depends on your definition cynicism, ancient Greek cynicism might be quite well defined, but contemporary cynicism can be everything from reasonable doubt to jaded negativity. Personally, I'd say a lasting element of cynicism is rejection of conventions for their own sake, distrust towards traditional values, and nowadays, distrust of absolutist beliefs.

But, people tend to overemphasise single personality traits, no one is exclusively a cynic or an optimist.

I prefer to call myself a realistic pessimist. There are fine boundaries between that and cynicism. In particular situations, particularly negative ones, I never start off from an optimistic point of view. I've never understood optimists. They always expect and want the best outcome from situations, so when things go wrong or don't turn out as planned, some become down or even depressive about it. I always start off with the point of view of "Well what's the worst that could happen?", start of with a supposition that it might happen, then when it doesn't it's a bonus. This has served me well in the past, particularly when I had a life threatening illness and was at deaths door. You develop a black sense of humour. It helps a lot.

Ah, cynicism. Gets such a bad rap. The first thing to say about it is that it isn't synonymous with negativity; as such it is possible to be both cynical and positive. As the article points out, it is more an unwillingness to accept bullshit, and a desire for precision, rather than an aversion to positivism. But to me, that raises an even more urgent question: why does positivism get knocked so much? Many people tend to see it as a sort of intellectual failing. I disagree. It is easy to think that nothing good can happen, and such a view is often humorously done and generally charismatically-presented - cue the Ian Hislops, the Jo Brands, the Jimmy Carrs - such that the message becomes hard to resist. But being hard to resist doesn't make it right. Yes, those guys are funny but I would say they are also positive, otherwise it is unlikely they would do what they do. Why would they bother? Problems arise when people focus on the slightly rock-n-roll idea of negativity without thinking about the positivism that got those people to a point where they could broadcast that message. See? Things aren't binary.

I wonder how many of I wonder how many of Parker's characters could be described as being cynical? Saloninus, Zeus’ daughter, etc. Saloninus is a my favourite character. Most of the time he's on the make, driven by his own motivations, his wits, self-interest, greed, hatefulness, and craft. We watch him striving, pulling the strings of his own little puppet show, either in defiance or in ignorance of the broader show in which the rest of the characters are only bit-players. Psychopaths often do very well in Parker's milieus as well - lacking empathy with others means that can make the so-called "difficult decisions"...take greed - taking an irrational amount for yourself and not sharing with anyone - resisting all attempts by the State to try and redistribute it. More money than you could possible know what to with just sitting in bank accounts doing nothing (which actually does not harm the overall Parker's economy in hid world-building). Parker is able to explore theories of personality theory to assert why some characters become envious/greedy/cynical in a way I've never seen done in SF.

My own definition of cynicism also involves rejecting oversimplifications and restrictive labels. Just like Saloninus.

And I’m out with a bang! ( )