They reduce the world to a cynical joke fit for laughter, hoping they can avoid shedding tears.
The great curse of man that he believes in his own innate goodness and is late to discover the truth after he cannot undo his past naiveté with newfound cynicism.
The concept of nil underlies all cynicism and sociopathy. It is the hidden nil-god, replacing the concept a one-god.
Unable to intellectually discriminate the cynic allows his instincts and intuitions to compensate for his unreliable, and untrustworthy judgements; all else he ridicules and dismisses.
The idea that humanity had to either be saved or destroyed, could only have fermented among those who didn’t quite feel confident in their own human identity.
“Saving the world” – translated into modern jargon – means “saving humanity”; “changing the world” became the ideology of those who wanted to save themselves from humanity.
See, the narcissist cannot accept any flaw in himself; the flaw is always another’s.
The cynic cannot laugh only at himself, he must laugh at the world, which may also include himself; he must bury himself in otherness to not expose his personal failings and responsibilities.
Narcissist/Schizophrenic & Cynical/Sociopath are the two socially selected by-products of modernity.
True, cynicism can be manipulated, or manufactured. A sheltered mind can be trained to be jaded, developing a worldly fatigue beyond its personal experiences; knowledgeable beyond its individual understanding.
Scepticism is a cynic’s concealment; cynicism is a skeptic’s revelation.
Extreme scepticism – leading to modern cynicism – is how the average modern mind expresses disrespect for its own judgements, and anxiety, when considering the prospect of suffering the costs of its choices.
And vice versa , around and around it goes where it stops no ‘body’(or one) knows,
One projective identification causing a body of introjective dis-identification cases a synthetic recollection into the irrational. Nominal-non sensible
Laughter is stress relief, mirroring orgasmic hyperventilating, spasms, followed by calm.
Whether laughter is physical or metaphorical - cynically expressed - the relief is the same.
Cynicism laughs at itself, through another, when it realizes all that it held to be indubitably self-evident, is proving to be a big lie.
A realization that seeks shelter, for the ego, in universals.
It is not weak, and gullible…the entire world is weak and gullible. It was not tricked, and taken for a fool, but all humanity is duped.
Cynicism is parasitical, compensating for a loss of self-0esteem by manipulating and exploiting those it considers to be still trapped in the lies it once also fell victim.
It now “knows what few know,” you see? It knows all is a crock of shit, and this makes it feel superior.
But is it all a 'crock of shit"?
No…not if you aren’t a romantic idealist who now finds relief in cynicism, e.g., is the concept of ‘god’ meaningless?
Not if you haven’t been infected by Abrahamism’s superstitions and its absolutism.
Is free-will a human mythology, seeking retribution, or the power to punish?
No,…not if you haven’t bought into the Biblical weaponizing of shame and guilt.
Is morality a fabrication imposing rules upon the weak?
Not if you haven’t sought salvation in Abraham’s one-god, and humanity.
Man laughs when the unexpected happens to another.
It’s fight/flight stress energies released in bouts of laughter, imitating orgasmic ecstasy.
It feels glad that it was not the victim of the unforeseen, while simultaneously feeling distressed at the thought that what happened to another can happen to him.
Cynicism accomplishes the same stress relief using language to release stressful self-contradictions, kept compartmentalized in its schizoid mind that knowns not what cohesion means.
One compartment relieving the implications of the other compartments.
When events expose its self-deceit, it expresses its anxiety with jokes and cynical remarks - redirecting and concealing, as it seeks new linguistic shelters.
Lorekeet:
One thing though in less words;
The ancient form of scepticism, as a form embedded in the tragic, has evolved to the far less contradictory , albeit reformed comic relief which cynicism is supposed to evoke.
The cynic nowedays trades on compartments which may or may not cohere, but by all means can not nihilized its own unknown intent, so.
It becomes a warranted source of confusion
All the prophets underestimated their capabilities despite experiencing God’s power (embedding the inestimable self=other limit that he is).
But. They also had a sense of humor or cynicism. They mocked those who worshipped false idols (1 Kings 18:27-29 & etc, etc, etc up the wazoo). They wanted the very people they were warning to freaking die. They recorded it that way because they weren’t freaking fake (Jonah 4, etc). Freaking.
I don’t think you really sat with this one long enough.
The liar will not appreciate honesty unless he already knows he is attempting to deceive. “Universal deceit,” as Orwell noted, creates an echo chamber of validation. In such circumstances even a lucid liar will, over time, begin to believe what he originally knew to be untrue.
Truth is lost in the din of repeating conformity, until it can no longer be tolerated to be whispered.
Truth has no need for power, it is power, and those who see it yield it, causing fear in those who cannot bear its weight.