Notes towards a definition of "moronic cynicism"

[imomus]

I've made quite a few passing references to "moronic cynicism", but never really defined what I mean by the term. Perhaps it's self-explanatory, but just in case it isn't, here are my Notes towards a definition of "moronic cynicism".

Moronic cynicism is a form of naivete. It's naivete turned inside out, naivete with a sneer. Imagine a child smoking a cigarette.

The girl on the left is not a moronic cynic.

Moronic cynics wonder why the girl's T shirt doesn't say "Hate" or "Cocaine" or "Fuck" or have a dead person's skull on it.

The moronic cynic uses cynicism as a way to prepare for the worst. The worst consequently arrives.

To be cynical is to be on the side of the worst, to think with its logic and to see with its eyes.

For the moronic cynic (and the shareholder) the bottom line is always money.

Moronic cynic, you will become the monster you claim to fight!

Passive aggression, self-destructiveness and negative capability are close cousins to moronic cynicism.

Moronic cynicism is still believing that there's a big simple thing called truth, then saying "They're lying to us!"

Moronic cynicism is splitting up with someone then sending 100 pizzas to their house rather than staying friends.

Moronic cynicism is telling the tale to your pals on a bulletin board and getting lots of applause for your malice.

"You should have kicked her in the teeth while you were at it!"

Moronic cynicism is taking a vaguely "No Logo" stance towards capitalism, but then working for a big marketing company, exacting your revenge on "the Man" and "the System" by frittering away your working hours on the internet and, when you're finally and understandably fired, stealing something.

"You should have set the place on fire!" say your pals on the bulletin board.

Moronic cynicism is attacking both the consumers and the companies that supply their needs. "Wake up!" you scream to people who are already awake, thank you very much!

Moronic cynicism is seeing the entire people, government and institutions of a nation as possessing some kind of "original sin".

Moronic cynicism is joining the mosque and carrying the bomb in your backpack because the world is evil.

Moronic cynicism is intervening in a contract because you think you understand the real needs of the participants better than they do themselves.

Moronic cynicism is thinking it's wrong to say bad stuff about women, but fine to say bad stuff about men.

Moronic cynicism is telling women of another culture that they're "exploited" because they're not as cynical as you are, and then finding yourself stereotyping them with words like "compliant" and "submissive" and "cute".

Hey, you're saying worse things about them than anybody in their culture does, and you still want them to be grateful for your advice?

Moronic cynicism wonders why the phone never rings.

The girl on the right is not a moronic cynic.

Moronic cynicism is "enlightened false consciousness" as outlined by Peter Sloterdijk: "that modernized, unhappy consciousness, on which enlightenment has labored both successfully and in vain. It has learned its lessons in enlightenment, but it has not, and probably was not able to, put them into practice. Well-off and miserable at the same time, this consciousness no longer feels affected by any critique of ideology; its falseness is already reflexively buffered... To act against better knowledge is today the global situation in the superstructure; it knows itself to be without illusions and yet to have been dragged down by the "power of things." Thus what is regarded in logic as a paradox and in literature as a joke appears in reality as the actual state of affairs. Thus emerges a new attitude of consciousness toward "objectivity." Peter Sloterdijk. Critique of Cynical Reason, University of Minnesota Press, 1987.

Moronic cynicism is thinking "empowerment" is acting on your own behalf rather than on the behalf of others.

Moronic cynicism is the narcissistic mindset of a fragmented individual in a culture where all individuals resemble each other, and everybody is secretly miserable.

Moronic cynicism is the secular version of Protestant "worldly asceticism". Hold back from the world, young puritan, for it is evil!

The moronic cynic flexes his muscles by criticizing marketing, then becomes a marketer himself. "I am evil," he says, and hates himself. His hate spreads out from the centre, from his wretched self-loathing, and becomes a concentric series of vicious circles, a whirlpool of pointless negativity.

The moronic cynic's pleasures are always guilty pleasures.

The moronic cynic cannot stand innocence because it reminds him of himself. He pisses on it as soon as he sees it.

The moronic cynic believed Michael Jackson was guilty all along. Of course! He would have corrupted those kids in the same situation.

The moronic cynic is not attracted to things because they are beautiful, but because they are forbidden.

The moronic cynic believes that [insert name of endangered species here] are already extinct and feels slightly disappointed to hear that populations are rising.

The moronic cynic would find the wholesomeness of this blog completely disgusting.

The moronic cynic suddenly falls in love one day with someone who isn't cynical at all.

The opposite of moronic cynicism is love.

Comments

[auto-appendix.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Nick. Those last two lines just described my summer!

[ortho-bob.livejournal.com]

Hmm, seems a bit of a self-righteous catch-all label for everything you don't happen to like today. Not that I don't agree with your dismay at most of these things, but dismissing them all as part of the same mindset is a bit glib. And any concept that tries to put terrorists and people who piss their work hours away on the internet is a bit too silly for me....

[dickumbrage.livejournal.com]

isn't describing these people as "moronic" a bit cynical?

[kattullus.livejournal.com]

I think you're conflating the people who don't get that Fight Club is a comedy with the people who actually go out and blow shit up.

While both categories are filled with people less smart than they think they are, they're hardly in the same moral category.

That being said, cynicism is damn annoying.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It's not so much a group of people as a mindset I'm describing. I'm quite capable of it myself. For instance, if you say "Mariko Mori" I'm likely to reply not by talking about her work but by saying "Of course, you know her uncle is Mori the property tycoon?"

[la-aquarius.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you should write a piece for her, a la John Zorn, called Memento Mori.

My god, Momus, The Penis Song is terrific. Do you remember King Missile? That great "Detachable Penis" song? I like the bouncy organ grinder groove in yours better, though.

[dickumbrage.livejournal.com]

elegant response. i like the coherent incompleteness of it: in order to characterize moronic cynicism, one must consider this mindset cynically.

You're talking about a dogmatic reactive mindset...

[anglerfish96.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's annoying. But we all get trapped in it, right? The "moronic cynic" is in all of us because we choose to hold on to what's comfortable and that which validates our egos. It keeps progress at bay on an individual and a cultural level. We all are caught in our private cages. Some people choose to pursue escape. Others never even see the possibility. Others complain about complainers.

[djm4]

I think he's found a handy and accurate label to apply to all such people. That doesn't mean that they're all in the same moral category.

[(Anonymous)]

And what is the antidote to moronic cynicism in your opinion? The antonym - 'enlightened optimism', perhaps? How does that appear in a rundown?

[(Anonymous)]

I thought that negative capability was something like the ability to tolerate uncertainty rather than grasping after facile "truths." I don't understand how negative capability, thus understood, has anything to do with moronic cynicism. If anything, it seems _un_like it. Is there another kind of "negative capability" out there, or some subtle distinction that I am missing with respect to this sort?

[facehead2k.livejournal.com]

The guilty pleasures point is a very interesting one. It's certainly a large part of midwestern America. The unifying force behind the American conscience probably is guilt. As I matured, my catholic guilt was replaced by liberal guilt. Guilt is probably the rickety bridge between the religious right and more secular left.

I do think it's a bit harder to link (by way of moronic cynicism) terrorists to people who don't advertise certain preferences in art, literature, or pornography. While I do identify with a couple of these cynicisms, I can't be defensive. The definition sounds very broad. Even your journal's rants about Other Music, London, New York, and America. Isn't there some cynicism to voting with one's feet. Moronic cynicism may encompass everyone but Jonathan Richman and miss_mcdonald

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

As soon as this post started, a tingling feeling at the back of my neck told me to expect a Sloterdijk reference, overt or implicit, and I was right. My question, then, is, why do you append the modifier "moronic" to cynicism? In your view, is there a non-moronic cynicism which is different in certain key respects from enlightened false consciousness?

[ortho-bob.livejournal.com]

I suspect your "moronic cynicism" is a modern secular version of accidie (http://www.thenazareneway.com/Institutes%20of%20John%20Cassian/book_10_the%20_spirit_of_accidie.htm).

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The phrase "negative capability" comes from the poet John Keats, who defined it as:

"when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason"

In other words it's an a priori assumption of gloom and a denial of the empirical facts of a given situation. I think this tallies perfectly well with other items in my checklist, like the assumption that Endangered Animal X is already extinct just because "shit happens, it's the way of the world".

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

A printed hard copy of this post is good for one ride on my highwheel.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I append "moronic" for somewhat proprietorial, judgemental and practical reasons. If I just called this cynicism, everyone would know what I was talking about. I wanted to mint a new meme, a meme which does devastatingly judgemental work as it rips through the world. "Ah, that sounds like "moronic cynicism" to me!" people will say, and other people will bristle and wonder if they are guilty of some new kind of sin.

But I do believe that cynicism is a meme in its own right, and has become totally reflexive, a kneejerk reaction. We need to fight that meme with a "killer meme" which destroys it. People would be much happier if they started constructing virtuous circles instead of vicious ones. Positivity grows exponentially, just as negativity does. Actually, that observation is the basis of most religions and philosophies.

[reptilebrain.livejournal.com]

How can someone who acts wholly in self-interest be an ascetic? Also, what about all the cynical "poor" people I know and know of? They seem to think that nature is in fact red in tooth and claw, yet are very happy-go-lucky in their day-to-day life.

[alionunderaw.livejournal.com]

Moronic cynicism is thinking it's wrong to say bad stuff about women, but fine to say bad stuff about men

I was hoping to say something similar!

[2sixteen.livejournal.com]

You wouldn't be related to Brian Koontz by any chance?

[(Anonymous)]

I think that I must understand Keats differently here. I think that he is (or was) speaking against science and philosophy, saying something like that there were truths and facts beyond their reach, but which were valid and important nonetheless. I got the impression that Keats meant it as a _compliment_ in that letter, just as he means to be criticizing Coleridge's lack of it. I don't think it's a matter of denying empirical facts, so much as seeing (or at least granting) that there may be more interesting things (or additional things) to see and understand than those that empirical science can show us (in some situations, anyhow). I never got the idea that the person with negative capability would deny empirical facts just to advance her own jaded, crabby point of view. Instead, I thought he meant that the person with negative capability would be "content with half-knowledge," as he puts it, rather than substituting a malformed, biased "truth" in its place.

However, this could all be wrong.

[facehead2k.livejournal.com]

I never got the idea that the person with negative capability would deny empirical facts just to advance her own jaded, crabby point of view.

This does adequately explain Ann Coulter rather well, however.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Because acting according to your own interest makes you withdraw from the world, hate yourself, and hate the world. Hence you become a recluse, a misanthrope, an ascetic.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The volunteer fire fighter (http://www.usafreedomcorps.gov/content/about_usafc/newsroom/photos_dynamic.asp?ID=238)? No, but perhaps he could extinguish the fire in your user picture.

[reptilebrain.livejournal.com]

While that's not really what I was asking, I'll accept your opinion because I love your lyrics so much.