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Is cynicism something that should be avoided? I view cynicism as a healthy need to always question authority, the status quo, and majority opinion.
It is healthy to be skeptical or to understand motivations without baselessly assuming a benevolent authority, majority or status quo, but similar to what danoss said, it’s usually a naive idealist assumed negativity that should be replaced by a more nuanced understanding of people’s motivations rather than branding peoples’ negative behaviors as universal, inevitable or human nature.
As danoss hinted at, what exactly do you mean by cynicism?
For the jaded belief that most people are inherently (for lack of a better word) anti-social and selfish, etc., then I’d point to real counter-examples, especially those occurring in times of fatal struggle like the Christmas truces in WWI.
People generally have real-world reasons for doing things, beyond some universal morals or good or evil. The same person in a different environment will usually act differently. If you live in an environment that motivates people to betray trust and cheat in order to thrive, then the cynics seem sane most of the time. Take them into an environment where people trust each other and everyone’s basic needs are met, and the cynics just seem unjustified much of the time.
PS: a fun basic demonstrative activity about trust in society from a game theory perspective: https://ncase.me/trust/ (animations run slow with Tor/Firefox’s resistFingerprinting setting, for those who enabled it)
