balancing skepticism and cynicism
note: (this is one of those “early march” backlogged thoughts… might as well polish it up a bit and spit it out, right?)
So, more and more I’m finding myself in the skeptic’s mindset… demanding sufficient proof for whatever claims land at my feet — including, increasingly, my own claims.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing… it causes me to slow down a bit when I’m thinking about things, but it also makes me have to reason a little more…
But I’m having a problem with it… or rather, with some baggage that comes with it.
The skeptic’s is inherently a role of negation — doors that are assumed closed until they’re reasonably demonstrated to be open. Through the door of skepticism, colored by the observation of things that are observable in the world, that sneaky bastard cynicism slips in.
So, the problem I’m having is that I find myself slipping over the line from skepticism to cynicism. I think that it’s important to cultivate an abundance of skepticism, if nothing else as a mental exercise to defend your own beliefs. But, maybe too much of it and it starts to rot, transforming from healthy rationalism to a terrible spiritual vitriol.
I don’t think that skepticism and cynicism are inextricably linked, though. One can open the door for the other, but they don’t have to be together. The skeptic’s only qualification is the demand for demonstrable proof. The cynic points to things that aren’t really demonstrable, the baseness of human nature or human culture as the underlying motivation for things.
To put it in more objective terms, skepticism is a default-deny policy, and cynicism is an acceptance of a certain proposition — that of the cynic.