A cynical look at Cynics!

My dear OJ
Welcome back home! Your presence in Kolkatta gives me a lot more comforting and joyful feeling than when you were in the other hemisphere. That you are just two hours away from me and no passport or visa is needed to meet you makes you come alive like never before. I must remember to tell Kamal that we should go through with that programme of meeting you at your den at the earliest!

A hybrid cynic is never after any fame or material success. Those who seek them forfeit the right to be called a cynic. A pure cynic is not after anything. He does not even know what he hates most! The modern cynics unlike their ancient counterparts are highly educated too. The people who come to my mind are Scott Adams, Gore Vidal, Groucho Marx and Mark Twain. These are just a few examples of modern cynics who are/were truly cynical and contemptuous about their fellow humans. Scott Adams is the creator of Dilbert, the famous comic strip character who lays bare the corporate world’s mindlessness. Gore Vidal’s cynicism can be highlighted by a single quote of his: ‘There is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all!’ Groucho Marx was the guy who would not join any club that would admit him as a member! Mark Twain became a cynic due to circumstances beyond his control and we need no better proof of his cynicism than this classic quote of his: ‘If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man’

I like this statement of yours: ‘a cynic is a person who believes in perfection, a perfection that is impossible to achieve. This makes him an unhappy person. Not being able to be perfect, he tortures others by unloading his unhappiness on them. On people who are happy to be the way they are. No one has the right to destroy others' happiness by imposing standards on them which he himself cannot attain’. It almost sounds like an exercise in soul-searching!
Sri

 

Dear Priya
The historical portion of this thread is what I had picked from the web and in the light of all those ancient ones, found that the modern cynics were hardly qualified to be called cynics. Those ancient cynics were great scholars and thinkers but the modern ones are mere killjoys. We use the word cynic loosely to describe a person who never agrees with anything for no apparent reason. But as you rightly say, if that makes them inwardly happy why grudge it? The tool of happiness need not be the same in every case. I have even seen some people who laugh their guts out when they see someone tripping and falling down. Some people stamp out a crawling insect with a triumphant smile. Different strokes! What say you?
Sri

 

Dear Viswa
If you look at the history of some of the ancient cynics, you would see that those were the people that triggered all the intellectual progress of the human race. Those who pass off as cynics in our midst are really an apology for cynics. Let us not worry about their redemption. They are people who just cannot stand the good tidings in a fellow human being's life. A cynic, a thoroughbred one, will have no personal grudges and if he can lace his cynicism with a touch of humour, he will be very much in demand. Take Mark Twain, for example, who said "If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will never bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man!"

All your concern for the modern cynics who are nothing but scums of the earth is quite laudable but when it comes to working out a scheme for their redemption, I must sound a word of caution with a quote of Friedrich Nietzsche. "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that he does not himself become a monster in the process"
Sri