Rising Cynicism on this forum

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Good god no! I've also never dyed my hair, I have no tattoos, I have no piercings. I was a plaid shirt, trainers, jeans and leather jacket sort of punk. I guess, back in the late 70s, you could say I dressed more like a US punk than a UK punk.



Indeed, people are people.

I guess we should make it clear that we're using the word cynicism in various ways in this thread. I'm thinking of it in terms of Cynicism, as best I understand it. People act in their self-interest, to the extent they understand it, and any apparent concern for other people can be understood as an extension of that self-interest. Realistically, I consider it too simple to have a lot of analytical value, but we can find uses for simple explanations.

More often, when people say cynical they refer to mean-spiritedness or even verbal abuse. I consider that a bigger problem. There's crossover, but I make a distinction between attributing someone's unpleasant behavior to selfishness and attributing their behavior to pure evil. We have a problem with rising demonization as well as rising cynicism.

Maybe we can promote the idea of thinking of other people as complex adaptive systems, rather than in deterministic ways like cynicism or demonization.

Being cynical doesn't mean being selfish or narcissistic. It means having a lack of faith or hope in the human race because *it* seems motivated only by selfishness and narcissism. And cruelty. And stupidity. Many people here suffer depression and/or anxiety, or have been bullied, are being bullied now, and have gone through some really terrible experiences which naturally can make us more cynical than usual.

Personally though, I think I'm cynical because I see the world for what it truly is.

I've been feeling a little world worn myself, these days.