Against Cynicism

It isn’t hard to know why we’ve become cynical about people in public life, contemptuous of their motivations and altruism. We’ve seen so much lying, so much selfish posturing, and recent laws have contributed to the fact that only a few of us are getting much richer, while most of us falling behind. During last week’s silliness among presidential candidates, Don said: “America is becoming a joke!”

I’ve been studying the Eisenhower years, and this has not always been the case. The mood was quite different at the time. World War II had leveled the playing field for women and non-whites, but in the Fifties we were busy getting women back into bouffant skirts and aprons and re-erecting class and race barriers wherever possible. Eisenhower was a moderate, however, who supported the social reforms begun during Roosevelt’s New Deal, and sent troops to assist in desegregating schools. He tried to reduce military spending, while at the same time not giving ground to Soviet expansionism.

I’ve also been reading Barack Obama’s “Dreams from My Father,” which is really a study in fighting the cynicism within himself, while negotiating the heritage of his African father and his white American mother. We all know where his honesty and courage have gotten him, and how he still needs it every day!

Don and I are culture workers, and we have our own fights. Don tries to get Hollywood filmmakers to see the folly of upping the number of frames per second in movies, just because technology allows it, or filming everything in 3-D, just because they can. He would like to see a return to character-based movies. At this moment, he and his producing partner, Anna, are valiantly trying to inject some professionalism into a motley film crew making a movie which gets better at Don’s insistence. Engagement is a way of fighting cynicism.

I’m writing a series of novels which, in the current conditions, stands no chance of getting published. Without a targeted audience (Young Adult? I don’t think so) or a niche market (cooking, anyone?) or celebrity (and who, exactly, did you say you were?), or a clear genre (romance, perhaps?), it is hard to get anyone to look at what you are doing. This is partly because book publishing is being rocked by forces it barely understands. Although people are reading, free web content is probably more likely than books purchased at a bookstore. None of it stops me. By the time I’m finished, perhaps things will have settled down!

Ways of fighting cynicism:

1)      Engagement. Work with every opportunity that does come your way to up the ante. Avoid the tendency to laugh things off, paying attention only to what is funny. Humor is the refuge of the disengaged.

2)      Talk to real people. Most of us can’t avoid it in our working and consuming lives. We learn more than we expect to. No one is exactly as you hoped, and many are better.

3)      Look to history. Things have not always been this way!

4)      When all else fails, retreat to the garden, to the quiet bravery of trees and plants, which never quit looking for water and sunshine, determined to fulfill their destinies in supporting us.