.png)
Cynicism. That is the inclination to believe that people are motivated in large by their self-interest and therefore cannot be trusted – at least not initially. I’ve found myself – as I’ve gotten older and encountered many different acquaintances and personal relations in my younger years – that I’ve become quite cynical myself. I find it very hard to initiate any new acquaintances or relations, partially due to me being all too easily exhausted by social interactions and finding people – through my past experiences and the things I learn as I go on in the present – by in large difficult to trust.
It also doesn’t help that I’m Swedish. Swedish people are naturally untrusting towards strangers of any kind. I was seriously kind of shocked when I visited London that one time and could have these British people I’ve never met or communicated with before come up to me and say “hi” completely at random on the street. That is SO unlikely to happen in the country I’m from, believe me.
Now cynicism can have both its good sides and bad sides in this. On one hand it is sadly true that you can’t trust all people and so it is an advantage to always approach with at least some skepticism to a person’s true intentions and motives, rather then to trust blindly and possibly be betrayed or taken advantage of as punishment. On the flip side we mustn’t forget that as human beings we are social animals and it is in fact vital to have at least one person in our lives that we can trust and depend on, or we may suffer serious personal decline.
Cynicism is a central ingredient in noir-style stories. The classic hardboiled private investigator is more often then not a cynical, world weary survivor who’s seen the worst of the worst in people and it goes hand in hand with his/her job to investigate and figure out people’s true intentions and motives. This was also of course a byproduct of the Great Depression of the 1930’s when the style of noir and hardboiled crime/mystery dramas came into popularity, when people were impoverished, desperate, depressed and distrustful towards the authorities and their fellow citizen alike.
My comics takes place in a setting that is by in large, in terms of tones and themes – all though it does incorporate a lot of different genres, from mystery, to horror, to sci-fi, to fantasy – a noir-style setting. A place where authorities and institutions of any form is either corrupt, misled or divisive and a lot of people live in a daily phobic state due to the spread of mutation and isolation from the outside world beyond the group of islands where they live. Molly Lusc, the most popular one of my main characters, herself is by in large a cynic who sees deceit – often rightly so – in people around her, though she has a few people in her life that she do trust - at least to some degree.
She herself is not the most trustworthy person, which she is aware of. In her comic we see her lie, steal, manipulate and betray the trust of people - even one who she deeply cares about - largely due to her past childhood traumas and because almost everyone else around her are so deceitful, manipulative and – openly or secretively – hostile towards her or others around her. Her behaviour is a byproduct of her environment, just like the behaviours of each and every one of us are a byproduct of our own environment, the one we grew up with and the one we live in and witness every day. Even if we’ve never experienced betrayal or manipulation of any kind up until now, all it really takes is a grand act of deceit from society in large or within our own personal lives at any point to open the door to cynicism.
I think my point is, when it comes to cynicism in real life, is that is not wrong to feel a little bit cynical towards people around us, as long as we don’t let it consume us and leave us in a place of complete paranoia and fear. As I said–trust is vital.
So let me know what you think of cynicism. Is it part of your comic setting in some way? Do your characters know who to trust or do they reject the notion of trust entirely? Let me know in the comments below and have a good, trustworthy Sunday.
Cynicism
Andreas_Helixfinger at 12:00AM, July 14, 2024
3 likes!
©2011 WOWIO, Inc. All Rights Reserved Mastodon
Andreas_Helixfinger at 8:34AM, July 15, 2024
@bravo1102 - I trust the universe. I smile through my tears, knowing when it is giving me a softer punch and a chance to fight again.
bravo1102 at 6:07AM, July 15, 2024
Show me a pessimist and I'll show you an optimist who kicked in the teeth one time too many. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. Third time brace yourself for some heavy cynicism and negativity. Pessimists usually call themselves realists and some folks just never win as if there was some power in the universe that just won't let it happen. Just smile though your heart is broken and do it anyway.
Andreas_Helixfinger at 9:57PM, July 14, 2024
@marcorossi - Yeah, I think people confuse cynicism with pessimism, which is the word for being negative. Being a cynic doesn't mean that one is necesserily negative. It just means one doesn't want to be fooled or taken advantage of by unscrupulous people, for which there are plenty, sadly.
Andreas_Helixfinger at 9:54PM, July 14, 2024
@PaulEberhardt - That would be plain skepticism you're teaching, which is to doubt and question what you see and hear. Cynicism is the next step of that in which you, due to your experience with people, always suspect people you've never met to have ulterior motives until you know them well enough. It's a suspect-til-proven-innocent kind of aproach when it is used moderately. Paranoia is the absolute extreme of that where you are convinced that everybody's out to get you, wether you know that for sure or not, which is when things have tipped over to insanity. But yeah, a sense of humour is vital to all this. That's why the classic P.I is always a wisecracker^^ I think the difficulty to trust goes deep in german and scandinavian culture dating back to ancient norse times. Hell even most of the Norse gods were depicted as deceitful schemers who treated human beings like pieces on a chessboard. I think that says a lot about who we were back then and who we are now.
marcorossi at 3:07PM, July 14, 2024
Imho, there is a difference between cynicism proper (not believing in something) and negativity, but what most people call cynicism is in fact negativity.
PaulEberhardt at 12:39PM, July 14, 2024
I'd like to add that you might create the best badass cynical characters if you have them channel their habit exactly the way you shouldn't in real life, but the notion of channelling it in different ways may be quite useful for making them interesting and fine-tuning them to how likeable you want them to be underneath. ||| Btw. I agree with you that culture plays an important role. Us Northern Germans are said to be taciturn, dour and cynical as all get out - I notice again we've got a lot in common with you Scandinavians 😉 however there is a crucial difference between those of us from the country and those from the cities: being from the country I was brought up to greet everyone I meet on the street with the all-purpose, all-day "Moin!" no matter who it is. Don't mistake it for openness, though, it's just common decency, acknowledging that other persons exist. We might not need to remind ourselves of that, but it's better to be safe than sorry. 😁
PaulEberhardt at 12:22PM, July 14, 2024
Do-gooders call it cynicism, cynics call it experience. 😉 I believe there is a healthy amount of everything, and a good dose of cynicism becomes more and more critical in a world, where everyone is trying to influence you to their ends, using growing amounts of bullshit. As part of my job is teaching kids how to recognise bullshit, to judge the quality of sources, cynicism is integral to it, and that it has been second nature to me for a long time is quite an asset. I'm told I'm nevertheless kind and pleasant to be around. If so, it's because it all depends on how you channel your cynicism, whether you let it make you bitter, cranky and nasty or whether you put it to good use (i.e. train more cynics so we won't be needed that much in the future), for which you need a good sense of humour, which is generally a good coping strategy for those who see the world all too clearly. Doesn't work with everyone, though: black humour is like clean drinking water - some people just won't get it.