defining cynicism

Hello out there, my name is Alice, and in this blog I am going to explore the concept of cynicism, and especially how it impacts on education.

Firstly, I want to explore the various definitions of cynicism, and looking at what cynicism really means. It first became apparent to me during the National Student Leadership Forum in Australia that young people especially are cynical by nature due to various environmental factors impacting on their lives and that sometimes, it is not good to be cynical, and rather we should be trusting. So cynicism is:

“An inclination to believe that people are motivated by self-interest; skepticism”

I think my Dad is the biggest cynic of them all, or maybe all dads are? But one thing that I would argue against this definition of cynicism is that of the word ‘people’ I would think that in the 21^st century, perhaps this should be groups or people, organisations, the media and governments. Cynicism now extends far beyond a single person.

The second definition I came across was quite the same; “an attitude of suspicion where you believe the future is bleak and that people are acting only out of self-interest”

Again, I think it needs to be extended. Self-interest should include the interest of the greatest shareholders of companies, greed, and the interest of the majority and the minority (I will come back to this topic in a later blog). I love the ‘future is bleak’ part in that definition. Isn’t that so typical now of the whole of society? Everything is negative (and I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, it is quite realistic), However, if the attitude was more positive, perhaps, maybe outcomes would be different.

An example came with this definition, which was that “when you always think the worst and have a hard time seeing the good in anyone (anything).” I think this is the most dangerous part of cynicism, is that there is a threat to the person’s general perceptions about everything. If young people especially go around every day, with the negative, cynical thoughts about the government that have been projected on them from everywhere, no wonder they have a difficult time finding positive things to think.

The final definition I found was “an attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of other.” I love the words ‘distrust’ in this one- we are generally distrusting things. I also love the word integrity here- it’s not necessarily the motives, but also, whether their motives will be upheld.