Cynicism

I was having a conversation the other day and I mentioned to the other guy that I was beginning to succumb to one of the pathologies of journalism: "cynicism". This came up as I explained to him the facts that I came across in my articles about solid waste---specifically with regard to the Keurig coffee pod. Basically, I was referring to the "disinformation campaigns" that were waged to convince the public that these pods were either recyclable or compostable. Indeed, as I pointed out in the series, solid waste policy is absolutely rife with business people---and their willing minions---sabotaging the public good simply to make money. Thinking back about this the next day, it occurred to me that it would useful for my readers to take a look at that word: "cynic". It's not used today the way it was originally. And a lot of people might be really surprised about where it comes from. And the distinction between the old and new meanings is tremendously important to human society---even today.

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If you asked the average citizen to define "cynic", they'd probably offer some variant of this definition: "a person who believes that all or at least the vast majority of people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons". But the word itself comes from ancient Greek philosophy and originally meant something superficially similar but functionally very different.

Antisthenes, bust from the Villa of Cassius at Tivoli
Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen, c/o Wiki Commons

"Cynicism" was a school founded by a student of Socrates named Antisthenes. The word itself is based on the Greek word for dog. Dogs are generally thought of today in terms of loyalty, as in "the dog is man's best friend". But with regard to the Cynics, the reference came to refer to a complete lack of concern for the conventions of "polite society". Cynics didn't care about fancy clothes, social convention, etc.

What they did care about was virtue or "doing the right thing". This is a very important thing to remember. Modern definitions of cynicism imply that people don't give a damn about anything except their personal self interest. Ancient cynicism implied that a person didn't give a damn about social conventions or their own material comfort and instead cared only about virtue. In effect, modern cynicism is in some sense the direct opposite of ancient cynicism.

This probably comes out most obviously in only ancient cynic most people have heard about:

Diogenes, painting by John William Waterhouse
Image c/o Wiki Commons

Diogenes. He was a student of Antisthenes who was extreme in his rejection of physical comfort and social convention---to the point where he became a street person who often slept in an abandoned, large tub. He was also famous for travelling the streets during the day with a lit lantern: vainly looking for an "honest man". There is a story that Alexander the Great once met him while he was sun bathing on the street and offered to grant him a favour. Diogenes only asked that Alexander move so he would stop blocking the light. Supposedly the conqueror opined that if he couldn't be Alexander "he'd rather be Diogenes". At that point Diogenes replied "if I wasn't Diogenes, I'd still want to be Diogenes".

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Cynic philosophers were remarkable in that they actively set out to educate ordinary citizens. To that end, they not only lived on the streets, they preached. All over the Roman Empire it was possible to meet a Cynic philosopher in a marketplace. He would be recognizable from the way he looked:  he had a beard, because all, and only, philosophers wore beards. (On Roman coins only the Emperor Marcus Aurelius has a beard. That's because he was also a philosopher, who wrote the Meditations.) He would also be wearing a cloak that doubled as blanket, was probably barefoot, have a leather bag that held all his possessions, and, a staff to lean on. And he would be preaching.

And what's really fascinating from a historical point of view is how much Cynic philosophy seems to have ended up in the Christian Gospels. For example, compare these quotations.

And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:27/Matthew 10:38)
If you want to be crucified, just wait. The cross will come. If it seems reasonable to comply, and the circumstances are right, then it's to be carried through, and your integrity maintained. (Epictetus) 

Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. (Luke 6:20/Matthew 5:3)
Only the person who has despised wealth is worthy of God. (Seneca EM XVIII 13) 

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those that curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If someone slaps you on the cheek, offer the other as well... Love your enemies, and do good, and lend expecting nothing in return. (Luke 6:27-29/Matthew 5:39-44)
A rather nice part of being a Cynic comes when you have to be beaten like an ass, and throughout the beating you have to love those who are beating you as though you were father or brother to them. (Epictetus III xxii 54)

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. (Matthew 10:28/Luke 12:5
What tyrant or thief or court can frighten anyone who does not care about his body or his possessions? (Epictetus) 

I could go on and on with the quotes, but it seems pretty obvious to me that the people who wrote the "life and times of Jesus Christ" had met and listened to a lot of these Cynic street preachers.

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Pollyanna statue in front of the
public library in Littleton, New Hampshire.
Photo by Daveynin, c/o Wiki Commons

Some readers are probably thinking "well this is all quite interesting, but how is this important to me?" I want to point out a couple very subtle issues when we talk about cynicism. There's a very useful type of cynicism which stands in contrast to being "Pollyanna", or, the tendency to see good in every person and situation that one encounters. (The word comes from a character in an extremely popular series of children's books written in the early 20th Century.) It might seem to be a good quality to always see the best in people, but if you really do live your life that way you become oblivious to a lot of malfeasance and shenanigans. You take companies at their word when they tell you nonsense about their products---and the world suffers for it.

An ancient cynic would understand that this happens, but he wouldn't stop looking for honesty. He'd keep making a fuss, even if it resulted in him being sued into poverty, being beaten by thugs, or, thrown in jail. That's because he defines the value of life in doing the right thing.

I'm afraid that in contrast a lot of modern cynics use their disgust with what they know of the world around them to justify ceasing to even bother looking for the good. It's as if Diogenes decided that there were no honest men to be found, so he blew out the light in his lantern and put it away. I noticed this a lot during my futile attempts to run for public office. I'd meet people who who'd complain bitterly about how awful politics was and how the candidates were "all the same". I'd suggest that if they really felt that way, they should at least vote for a candidate who was honest---even if they had no chance of getting elected. But invariably these people wouldn't even do that and instead couldn't be bothered to put in even the minimal effort involved in voting. This is a very far cry from the ancient ideal of "If you want to be crucified, just wait. The cross will come". Modern cynicism is an excuse to refuse to engage with the world around you---the ancient form was a call to only engage with the very best parts of being human. 

I can understand people who take on this modern cynic persona. When you catch someone lying to you in order to manipulate you into doing something bad, it can seem like a kick in the guts. But the answer isn't to "play it cool by letting the world grow a little colder", but rather to be more discriminating in where you place your allegiance.

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Political Corruption

You corrupt bastard! ;-)
Phil Alt, from his website

This week I was involved in a discussion on Reddit about Phil Alt's recent attempt to ride the bus for a week to understand how well it works. He gave up after a few days because he found it too slow for him to manage to attend all the different meetings. This led to a conversation about public transit and why it is that Guelph doesn't seem to be able to come up with a better bus system. One person opined that it is important to realize that "all politicians are corrupt", and that that explains a great deal.

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The idea that politicians are "corrupt" gets thrown around an awful lot. This upsets me because I have known quite a few politicians fairly well and I've never had the feeling that any of them were involved for personal gain. Instead, they were all people who worked very hard at a very difficult job purely because they had an altruistic desire to help others.

So what's going on?

I think that for many people a variety of different issues have become conflated in the minds of people with "corruption". I think it might help the discussion if I first tried to parse out some of them.

Working with the other parties

Among the crowd I hang out with, a lot of folks are very upset about Justin Trudeau reneging on the promise that he was going to change the way we count votes for elections. 

It appeared to us lowly voters that Trudeau favoured a ranked ballot system of voting but the NDP and Greens instead supported a more formally proportional system. (The Conservatives wanted to keep the present system.) Since a consensus wasn't emerging between the Liberals and the other Left-of-centre parties, he decided to "pull the plug" on the whole thing. 

Did Trudeau break his promise? Maybe yes and maybe no. Personally, I'd say that a ranked ballot system would have been a big improvement over first-past-the-post. If you accept this point, then the blame can be just as easily  put on the NDP and Greens for refusing to settle for half a loaf. After all, the Liberals did win the election, so it is reasonable to expect that they would have more say over the reform than the other parties. If you think that Trudeau cynically promised something that he never intended to actually do, then I suppose you could call him "dishonest"---which is a form of corruption. But if you think---as I do---that he offered an opportunity to the NDP and Greens, but they refused to take advantage of it, then it wasn't corruption so much as being naive to think that they would settle for a system that doesn't directly serve their interests.

Settling for the possible instead of doing what's "right"

The Liberals say that they want to get us off fossil fuels but at the same time they are also trying to get a pipeline built that will help the filthy tar sands to overseas markets. Any honest person who has been paying attention to climate scientists has to know that the best option is to leave the oil in the ground. But there are so many people in this country who support the oil industry that it is political suicide to say this. This is why Trudeau feels the need to support the pipeline, as does the provincial NDP. That's what he means when he says he is trying to get "social license" for things like a carbon tax.

Does this mean that Trudeau and the Liberals are lying when they say that they want to take substantive moves towards dealing with climate change? No. It means that they realize that if they move on the file without building a consensus among the community that we need to do this, they run the risk of being clobbered in the next election. And if this happened, they realize that they would not be replaced by the NDP or Greens, but by the Conservatives---who have built their brand around sabotaging any attempt to get off fossil fuels. If you have the opportunity to gain power, you have a responsibility not to throw it away to someone else who would be objectively worse. That's not corruption, it's doing the right thing.

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Being blinded by ideology

This is not the ship of state!
Photo by Topory, c/o Wiki Commons

Politicians often run for office saying that they will "cut red tape" and "find efficiencies". But when this doesn't happen, and taxes don't go down, the people who voted for them often complain bitterly about "all politicians are the same". The problem is that the largest fraction of a government's cost is payroll. And all employees are governed by binding legal agreements, usually through union agreements. In addition, most of the projects that the government undertakes take longer to achieve than a government mandate. This means that any given regime ends up saddled with a lot of the financial undertakings of the previous one. And a government cannot simply "rip up contracts" without suffering severe penalties. (Think about Doug Ford and the cap-and-trade agreement---.) 

The ship of state isn't a nimble laser sailboat, it's more like a giant container ship. And anyone who says that they can do big things like cut taxes without running up huge deficits or dramatically cutting services is probably being ridiculously naive. But being naive is not the same thing as being corrupt. A lot of people in our world have a tendency to see everything through the lens of their ideology. I don't know if this is something hard-wired into their brains or if it was something that was pounded into their heads by society. But the fact is a lot of folks have a very hard time seeing individual facts, connecting the dots, and, coming up with their own take on the world. Instead, they start off with an idea about how the world operates and ignore any evidence that contradicts it. Unfortunately, a lot of people like this have the drive needed to get into high office. Luckily, many of them get somewhat "woken up" by the experience of being sworn in and start listening to their experts. Others find that there is a whole set of "checks and balances" set up to prevent really stupid decisions from being made. But if you are someone from the outside looking in---and you still believe in the ideology that got the guy elected---it can look like the fellow was lying just to get elected. I would suggest that this may sometimes happen, but it's much more likely that they simply didn't understand how complicated government really is.    

This is more like it:  huge, with a turning radius measured in miles.
Photo by Frank Schwichtenberg, c/o Wiki Commons

Confusing the individual with the system that traps them

I would suggest that the real reason why some folks tend to say that "all politicians are corrupt" is because the individuals who say this have a hard time distinguishing between an individual person and the system that they find themselves enmeshed in. I can understand why people look at things this way. Our entire legal system places all the emphasis on the fictional belief that each individual has the choice to "freely choose" one action over another at every point in her life. Many people's religion teaches the same thing: each person is freely able to "choose" whether or not to embrace an imaginary friend---and on that basis either end up in paradise or some sort of eternal Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Most thoughtful people consider this absurd. People are constrained by a whole range of factors:  genetics, the way we were raised, our education, life experience, health, etc. And the institutions we work within have a huge impact on who we are. That's why psychologists talk about long-term prisoners being "institutionalized". It's also why people say "you can't change the system", instead "the system will change you". People who get upset and complain that "politicians are corrupt" are doing so because they cannot see the profound limitations that our society puts on the freedom of individuals in leadership positions. Some of these are no doubt important checks and balances of the sort that have limited Donald Trump's reign of error. Others are more insidious and protect "powers and principalities" that should have had their influence nipped long ago. 

I would suggest that one of the strongest impediments to real change for the better is this tendency by many people to focus on the individual personality of the leader (ie: by doing things like calling her "corrupt") instead of on the way "the system" limits her ability to do some things while making it impossible for her to stop others from doing other things. In other words, we need to stop thinking of politics as psychology and instead think of it as systems theory. 

One Possible Reason Why the Populists are Angry

Kate Manne, from her
Twitter Feed

I recently listened to a fascinating podcast interview between Ezra Klein and the philosopher Kate Manne titled This Conversation Will Change How You Understand Misogyny. I can't say that it actually changed the way I look at the current populist backlash that we are facing in politics, but it did reinforce something that I've been thinking about for years and it also helped me better articulate those ideas to the point where I think I can now share them with the people who follow my blog.

The two key points that underlie Manne's analysis is to accept two starting points. First, you have to get rid of the idea that human beings are discrete, atomic entities who freely choose everything that they do. The idea is that modern research has clearly shown

Ezra Klein, c/o Wiki Commons

that in a wide variety of different ways everyone is a product of their childhood, culture, biology, etc. All of these things have a profound effect on how we understand the world and act. This isn't to say that none of us have what we call "free will"---according to Manne---just that the exercise of that freedom has to take into account the subtle ways in which these various factors colour the way we see things. For Manne, the only "freedom" that we really have includes how we try to understand, compensate for, and, overcome these elements that have created who we are.

This is an important issue with a lot of different social issues because it reframes them from being directed onto the individual and instead talks about the society they inhabit. In the specific case that she was talking about with Klein, for example, seeing the world this way changes the conversation from being "do I hate women?" to "is what I'm doing right now something that doesn't help women become equal members of society?" The same thing could be said about other "identity politics" issues. The emphasis changes from "am I a racist?" to "does the immigration policy I support discriminate against non-whites?" It also has impact on the environment: "am I a climate change denier?" to "does this policy I'm supporting make the future sustainable?" Once we assume that people are to a very large part formed by the culture they live in, then if we want to make the world a better place, we need to change the culture instead of blame the individual.

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This leads to the second point that Manne identifies, namely that one of the key ways that culture controls human behaviour is through shaming. Gender is obviously rigidly controlled in our culture through shaming---"man-up", "don't be a sissy", "real men don't eat quiche", "that's so gay", "that haircut is so butch!", "that skirt makes you look like a slut!", etc, etc. It might be harder to recognize this in other aspects of culture, but once you understand what to look for, it becomes easier to see.

Shaming is a complex behaviour in that it involves pointing out that someone is expected to live up to a specific norm---and that they are failing to do so. As such, it is inherently hierarchical because it always involves someone taking on the role of being a judge who can decide who is or is not living up to their understanding of acceptable behaviour. It isn't just a case of someone being told that they don't "make the grade", though, it is also a case of someone internalizing this code to the point where the comment from the "outsider" has a deep emotional "sting". 

Let me illustrate this point with an example from my own life.

I have worked as a porter in an academic Library for over 30 years. Sometimes it's slow in the building and there is nothing to do except the odd walk-through and wait for someone to call on the radio or telephone for help. One night I happened to be suffering from a truly hideous migraine headache and was sitting behind a cup of tea trying to keep my eyeballs from falling out of my head. My supervisor showed-up to pick up something from his office. The next day he called me into his office and told me he was very upset about me being where I was the night before and called me "lazy" because I wasn't actively doing something. (I asked him what exactly I was supposed to be doing and he had no answer---he was actually an incompetent boob who didn't really understand my job.) This event put me into a tremendous depression that went on for weeks, led to some serious weight loss (my significant other called me "the incredible shrinking man"), and, only ended after I went to a professional for some therapy.

The point was that I had never been accused of being "lazy" in my entire life and my self-image was tied directly to being a "hard worker". When my boss called me "lazy", he totally shattered this belief about myself and deeply shamed me. It was only after the therapist pointed out that many workplaces are deeply hypocritical about how much people actually do, that many bosses have absolutely zero understanding about who does what, and, that in most cases our interactions at work are exercises in "gamesmanship" and "deception" that I realized that it was ridiculous for me to care what my incompetent boss thought of me. It also helped me immensely to hear this from a professional---who was actually provided by my workplace---which helped get out from under the deep shame that I'd felt because of this whole incident. 

I will admit that my example might seem a bit extreme, but not when you consider that a lot of working-class people have built their entire definition of self-worth on the concept of being "hard workers". I had this reinforced the other night with a cab driver. I mentioned something about having grown up on a farm and she started going on about how "farm people are all WORKERS". You could tell that in her universe this is obviously the most positive thing anyone can say about someone else. And this makes sense. When you have very little value placed on your being by society-at-large, one of the very few ways you can feel good about yourself is to at least think that you are doing the best you can with the very limited opportunities available.

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Another thing about working class culture is that it teaches people to be ashamed about asking for support. I have to admit that it's taken a bit out of me every time I switch to the blue font and start asking for people to support this blog in order to break the "habit" of assuming that all news on the Internet should be "free". Well, here's "the ask". If you like this blog enough to read it, you should consider supporting it. I don't want money from poor people, but if you aren't, perhaps you could kick something in both to "pay your way" and also to pay for the folks who can't afford to support it. It's easy---you can subscribe using Patreon, or toss something in the Tip Jar. If you don't want to do that, send me a cheque by mail:  124-A Surrey Street East Guelph, N1H 3P9  (made out to Bill Hulet.) (Thanks to Evelyn for being so awesome!) 

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Right now we are going through a period of rapid social change. When I was young there were schools and jobs that just refused to admit women. It was against the law to be gay and police raided their bars. Discrimination was casual and accepted just about everywhere. That's all gone. Just to give you an idea of how much things have changed, a co-worker mentioned to me the other day that it had been years and years since he'd heard a joke that made fun of an ethnic group. I had to admit that I could say the same thing---and that amazed me. They used to a common part of social discourse.

How did this change happen? I'd suggest that it simply became no longer acceptable for people to make "Newfie", or "Polack", or whatever type of dumb jokes anymore. People were shamed into no longer repeating them. I can certainly still remember the first time I was shamed by someone because I repeated a dumb anti-gay joke. It stung, and at first I had a hard time understanding what the problem was, but after some other similar incidents, some reflection, and, time, I simply "moved on" and this sort of thing ceased to be part of my casual conversation.

Unfortunately, some people don't see this sort of negative feedback as being an opportunity to rethink what they believe in. Instead, they get very upset and see the other people's attempt to modify their behaviour through shaming as being an assault on their sense of worth---just like when my boss called me "lazy".

The cartoon show South Park devoted an episode titled Smug Alert! to this issue. It involved the citizens of South Park all buying hybrid cars and becoming so self-righteous that they develop a deep cloud of "smug" over the city that threatened to destroy everything. Just to give you a sense of what the show is like, among other things, people owning hybrids were shown being so in love with themselves that they love the smell of their own farts. (I thought about putting a link to the entire show in the post, but there was so much casual homophobia in the episode---people routinely say something is "gay" because is it "fake", "silly", or, just plain bad---that I gagged on including it.)

Another example from popular literature comes from Barbara Kingsolver's  novel Flight Behaviour. In that book monarch butterflies stop over-wintering in Mexico and instead settle on a wooded valley in Appalachia that is going to be clear cut so a poor land owner can pay off some of his bills. Kingsolver specifically said in an interview that she wrote the book so readers could understand the sort of rural society that breeds climate change denial. In what I suspect she felt was a truly "telling" vignette, an outsider tells a poverty-stricken rural dweller that he should buy a hybrid car in order to "save the planet". I've been involved in the environmental movement for a very long time and I have yet to see this sort of stupid insensitivity to poverty by anyone. I mention this point specifically not because I think that this is an accurate portrayal of how environmentalists act, but because I think it is "spot on" about how some folks think environmentalists act. (I couldn't quite figure out what Kingsolver actually thinks about this, but I suspected that she believes the lie about the environmental movement.)

Barbara Kingsolver,
Photo by Annie Griffiths

I think that both South Park and Kingsolver are serving a useful purpose in articulating exactly what it is that populists are really angry about. A lot of people have lived their lives by defining themselves against a set of very clear notions. But along comes the rapid change of society and all of a sudden hard work isn't as important as having good "people skills". You think that being "gay" is a ridiculous perversion---and yet we have a Premier who is an "out" lesbian. You lost your good-paying job in the oil patch that proved that you were both a "WORKER" and a "good provider" and those damned environmentalists and First Nations types are refusing to let companies build a pipeline.  And the government keeps letting in more and more of those funny brown-skinned folks to compete with your jobs. And on top of all of this, whenever you complain smart-ass people with an education try to shame you into shutting up by saying that you are a ignorant boob who needs "sensitivity training". In fact, if you are too vocal about what you actually feel, you can end up losing your job. What ever happened to free speech?

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I've understood the importance of shaming for social control since well before I heard the conversation between Klein and Manne. I mentioned this to a friend once and suggested that environmentalists need to develop methods of shaming people in order to stop them from doing environmentally damaging things like driving big cars and flying all over the planet on their vacations. Her response was totally unexpected. She totally lost it and said that "shame" is a totally horrible thing to inflict on anyone. I was surprised by the depth of emotion behind her response. In retrospect, I think I now understand what was going on. This friend thinks Brexit is a good idea and believed that Donald Trump would do some good in the USA. She is also someone with a very strong work ethic (she's a "WORKER") who has had to suffer from a great deal of profound indignity in her life. I think that she has developed a very sensitive "antenna" to any attempt to put pressure on people to "get with the program". In other words---she's allergic to "smug". For someone like her, I'm not sure that trying to use informal social pressure is going to do anything except create anger and resentment.

Having said that, I'm not sure what else people can do about "die harders" who keep manifesting behaviour that hurts other or damages the planet. Would it be better to make everything illegal and put them in jail? Should we just try to convince them to change through gentle persuasion and tell the people that they hurt "well, we tried"? I don't really know how else we can get people to stop doing bad things than to let them know that we simply do not approve. It really is the case---as in my example of the racist and sexist jokes---that if enough folks tell you that something is in bad taste many folks will eventually stop doing it.

But in the interim there are going to be a few people that are really, really angry about being told that they need to "pull up their socks" and "get with the program". I suspect that all the people of good will can do is be patient and reflect on the idea that this backlash is only a temporary thing. Most young folks have no problem with this new world. It's just some of the older citizenry who hang tenaciously to the old ways of being. And to paraphrase Max Planck "Civilization progresses one funeral at a time".   

The Village Funeral, by Frank Holl,
Public Domain image c/o Wiki Commons