Cynicism

Abstract

AbstractCynicism denotes a posture of disrespect toward the leading persons, practices, institutions, and values of society. Originating in the fifth centurybce, the term is often analyzed by distinguishing between ancient Cynicism and modern cynicism, which paradoxically signify two very different, even contradictory, viewpoints. However certain continuities enable one to examine cynicism as a coherent concept. Ancient Cynicism was a way of life guided by the authority of nature (phusis) over the human animal and an attendant irreverence regarding the authority of social conventions (nomos). Predominantly Socratic in lineage and exemplified by Diogenes of Sinope, Cynicism held that virtue (aretê) is necessary and sufficient for human flourishing (eudaimonia) and that the virtuous life is inscribed in the simple truths and freedoms of physical nature. Modern cynicism is the opinion that certain facts of human nature and modern reality dominate social values. Associated above all with Machiavelli and Hobbes, cynicism maintains the harsh truth that the human animal is ultimately motivated by the desire for power and the freedoms it affords, regardless of any naive idealism or sentimentalism to the contrary. Ancient Cynics thus disrespect social norms because they are ethically deficient, and modern cynics because they are materially inefficacious, lacking real power. Both strands nonetheless proceed in parallel by collapsing the distinctions between public and private life and radicalizing the distinctions between speech and action.