Thanks as always, Denny.

And, yes, I too believe that a strategy should not just be proven to be correct and possible, it should also be elegant … a thing of beauty.

People are too ready to accept the opinions of people who they feel they “should” believe and offer nothing but cynicism to the people they believe they “shouldn’t”. As you point out, cynicism isn’t the same as scepticism.

I have no problem with other people’s self-certainty. Would you choose to believe someone who wasn’t confident of their own argument?

No, that isn’t the problem. What we must have is a permanent level of scepticism in the face of both certainty and dithering.

Can’t disagree with that!

I’m not sure I was advocating self-doubt. Instead I was thinking of something more like being skeptical about and open to critique of the things that one takes most for granted, for the purpose of opening dialogue with others (with whom one might have more in common than one assumes, or likes to admit).

Perhaps that’s naive. I don’t know. I think I do know that the kind of name calling and attacking and polarization, which passes for debate between the two sides of the American political spectrum, only leads to more of the same. At the same time, I think the theater of this kind of polarized debate is exploited by other (wealthy, corporate) interests, while people are distracted by being caught up in their deeply entrenched political identities.

But maybe I’m just setting myself to get smacked down by conservatives, while I whistle my skeptical tune.

Jay

Opinion writing as a spiritual journey.

It’s amazing how the greater the conviction the writer or speaker presents, the more likely we are to believe him. Authoritarian types (people with what I call an Ayatollah complex) count on that (as do sales people, of course).

Jay, Regarding “I’m constantly frustrated with this self-certaintly amongst liberals and progressives (something which certainly exists on the right as well).”

On an absolute level that self-certainty is to be shunned. But showing self-doubt in front of conservatives is like flashing your soft white underbelly to them.

Glad you liked some of my thoughts on cynicism. I meant to also mention that I think your point is very well taken about being skeptical about one’s own beliefs and interpretations. All too often, we are skeptical about others, only for the purpose of confirming our beliefs in our own basic assumptions.

I just got into a debate along these lines with a widely read blogger, who provided a very astute analysis of Republican and right wing militaristic rhetoric, but seemingly only in order to show how bogus the right is and how correct people on the left are. Much of this blogger’s comments, to this end, read like a cheering squad. The blogger seems to encourage this by making personal jibes against anyone who disagrees with them. Even those who are basically sympathetic to the bloggers point of view.

I’m constantly frustrated with this self-certaintly amongst liberals and progressives (something which certainly exists on the right as well). In the end, all the hand wringing often seems to be more about denoting the other as bad and therefore secondarily oneself as good (what Nietzsche calls the morality of resentment). What is lost in the process are real political ideas, real dialogue, and anything that might get us out of the politically polarized status quo. Indeed, perhaps more skepticism about ourselves would help us listen better to those we disagree with.

Jay

“I would suggest, then, that those who critique the darker side of contemporary culture and politics are not cynical at all. They are skeptical and analytical. The true cynic, if the term must maintain its contemporary negative connotation (and it likely will), is the person whom the skeptic critiques. The cynic is the politician or business person who has so much contempt for other people, that he or she says whatever it takes to accomplish their narrowly interested ends. Moreover it is a sort of person who usually exclaims virtue, while exploiting the good will of others. That’s cynical. Yet strangely, in contemporary culture, it tends to be the person who points out this sort of behavior who gets labeled cynical.”

I appreciate the distinction you make. Thanks, Jay.

I’m glad to see you buttressing this invaluable distinction between cynicism and skepticism. All to often, in American culture, I think healthy skepticism gets dismissed as if it were cynicism. In favor of what? Some sort of just believe what you’re told naivete? A little while back, I wrote about exactly this same topic, taking a slightly different tack to approaching it, in my post “What is Cynicism?”

Jay