Revolutionary cynicism

[Comrade #138672]

I am going to borrow a quote from Tim Cornelis:


But the bitter truth is, it's xenophobia. Become cynical man, it's appropriate.

My question is: are revolutionary politics and cynicism compatible? Is it naive to think that revolutionary politics requires a certain degree of optimism?

Share your thoughts.

[PhoenixAsh]

I am not sure if TC meant it like this but...it is important to remember that in Dutch cynicism has a different parlance meaning than cynical Philosophy and is more regularly translated as critical and sceptical...like in not accepting things merely on face value.

[Zoop]

The problem with both cynicism and optimism is that they often warp the world to conform to preconceptions, thereby altering the world through a filter.

You can easily become delusional if you fall into a cynical or optimistic mindset, and they can both be damaging.

Cynicism breeds inaction through despondency, and optimism breeds inaction through vacuous hope.

Be objective, and act accordingly.

[PhoenixAsh]

I think it is a healthy attitude to discern motives and goals with everything that happens based on experience...and don't blindly trust on face value or the pretty smile on somebodies face.

For example...consider this:

If my Boss tells me he is going to make my work more fun...this means additional responsibilities, overtime and no extra pay.

If my girlfriend says she is going to make my chores fun this usually means it will probably be more fun for her to watch me do them.

If my best friend says we are going to have more fun...this usually means we are going to either end up in a hospital waiting room, arrested, fined or running away from somebody or something.

Humor aside. People don't speak the same language. Statements may not be intended how you interpret them.

[Sibotic]

Well, I mean, a communist under communism might at least be expected to take a positive view of this. But evidently 'revolutionary politics' were compatible with some form of cynicism, for example in criticising a system of impersonality by pointing out the deceptions inherent in people who supported it or were in harmony with it. This could, evidently, be described as 'cynical.'

[Comrade #138672]

I am not sure if TC meant it like this but...it is important to remember that in Dutch cynicism has a different parlance meaning than cynical Philosophy and is more regularly translated as critical and sceptical...like in not accepting things merely on face value.Yes, even though this is posted in the Philosophy subforum, I did not mean philosophical cynicism, and neither did Tim Cornelis, I believe.

While Wikipedia is not objective truth, I think this describes it well:


Cynicism is an attitude or state of mind characterized by a general distrust of others' motives.[1] A cynic may have a general lack of faith or hope in the human species or people motivated by ambition, desire, greed, gratification, materialism, goals, and opinions that a cynic perceives as vain, unobtainable, or ultimately meaningless and therefore deserving of ridicule or admonishment. A common misapplication of this attitude involves its attribution to individuals who emote well-thought-out expressions of skepticism. Such miscategorization may occur as the result of either inexperience and/or a belief system in which the innate goodness of man is considered an important tenet or even an irrefutable fact. Thus, contemporary usage incorporates both a form of jaded prudence and (when misapplied) realistic criticism or skepticism. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(contemporary)

So, while it is also being used to denote skepticism, I would consider it, due to its connotations, a combination of skepticism and pessimism. Some people who are convinced that humanity can never get any better than this, due to "human nature", could be described as cynics as well.

I think we generally believe here that humanity can do better than this, that we can have a better world for ourselves. Otherwise there would be no point in concerning ourselves with politics. Does this negate cynicism?

[PhoenixAsh]

I don't disagree with the English definition. The Dutch one is more or less the same...what I am saying that how the Dutch word for it (Cynisme) is used in common parlance makes it interchangeable with scepticism (Sceptisch)...and culturally holds the implication of a "healthy dose".

So if Tim would have said that to me...I would not read negativism or pessimism into it because it doesn't hold that implicit meaning without additional clarification to that extent. This doesn't mean the word is positive by the way :)

This was of course in no way intended to say your topic or the debate/discussion isn't legitimate or interesting...just a clarification of the use of the word in Dutch :)

[Comrade #138672]

I am Dutch too. I may be some kind of exception, but I do not consider "cynisme" and "sceptisch" as being interchangeable.

But is interesting to see how opinions vary on this. It seems to depend a lot on our own interpretation of the word.

[Бай Ганьо]

In few years "koe" and "hond" will be interchangeable for some people. Be prepared.

[PhoenixAsh]

Interesting you should mention this

The Dutch expression: One and a half men and a horse head (Anderhalve man en een paardenkop) originates from 1515 in the story of Tijl Uilenspiegel.

This is the official expression....except in Drenthe were it has always been One and a half men and a dogs head (Anderhalve man en een hondenkop).

The meaning is the same though.

:lol:

But yeah. Maybe it is a regional thing...where....you know...my region is vastly more important, representive and trend setting than yours :P

# Dutch regionalism for the win

[Thirsty Crow]

I am going to borrow a quote from Tim Cornelis:



My question is: are revolutionary politics and cynicism compatible? Is it naive to think that revolutionary politics requires a certain degree of optimism?

Share your thoughts.
I don't know if it's naive, but I do think that it is incorrect that revolutionary politics requires a degree of optimism. For the simple fact that one's politics might be in accord with revolutionary communism without the person being willing to involve themselves in available models of communist practice or even having a positive view of it all.

EDIT: I've picked up Nihilist Communism yet again. And I think this quote is fitting for this thread:


This is the definition of class hatred. We are no closer now to rest, to freedom, to communism than they were, their sacrifice has bought us nothing, what they did counted for nothing, we have inherited nothing, we work as they worked, we make as they made, we are paid as they were paid. We do not possess either our acts or the world that conditions us, just as they owned nothing of their lives.

(the reference of "they" are generations of working class people)

I don't know about others, but this is an extremely powerful passage. Evocative as all hell and jiving with so much of my own attitudes, sentiments, thinking. The way I see it, it's a kind of a hyperbolic statement, focusing exclusively on the common situation of the working class under capital and nothing besides it. Now, there's almost an instinctive reacion on my behalf, to shove it right out of sight and ignore it. But at the end of the day I do kind of choose to confront this immense pessimism (if I may use this word here) since it can be purging and therapeutic in a very specific kind of way. Reading that preamble makes me think of ideas on the ancient tragedy in fact.

Ultimately, I don't embrace the broader perspective of Nihilist Communism in total. I think there are significant problems with it, those that are in part empirical and in part conceptual. But yeah, give pessimism a chance. But I think one thing is certain, that "perspective" and the overall affective attitude towards our own acts and possible modes of activity isn't only a matter of what is correct and what isn't. It might be that it primarily isn't about that, but for sure our judgements are and need to be based on matters of fact as well.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

My question is: are revolutionary politics and cynicism compatible? Is it naive to think that revolutionary politics requires a certain degree of optimism?

It requires some impulse to act, but the impulse can come from desperation as well as optimism. I know I'm not optimistic; I have the desperate hope communism is possible in my lifetime and I'm sticking around for now to see if that's really the case (and trying to Do Something About It (TM) but that's another story entirely) because it's less messy than putting a bullet in my head, to be honest. Except on Fridays.

[BIXX]

The class war was lost already. Of course I'm a pessimist.

[Rafiq]

PESSIMISM and cynicism are not the same. Cynicism is anti-Communist by nature, and thoroughly ingenuine in its expression. Cynicism is just as pathological as something like Judeo-Bolshevism, etc. - it is the means by which one projects their IDEOLOGICALLY based notions of what constitutes the essential basis of the other. Anyone who thinks they're avoiding being a sucker by identifying as a cynic is the most brainless sucker there is. The Fascist ideologue thinks they're not being a sucker, buying into the "dreams' of Communism by pointing out that - the Jews were behind it for egoistic, ethnic-based reasons all along. What a coincidence that the ideological substance of the Fascist is ethnic-based politics and the false 'cynical' belief that humans only care about - whatever, money, power and sex, and that this must be relegated by the holy corporate state (like the Catholic church approaches original sin).

The falsity of this claim is in thinking that the desire for money, power and sex is not an ideological, historical one, but something essential and innate. The reality is that the only means by which one pursues these things, is through ideological means - these "human desires' can only be facilitated by RITUALISTIC means, they are not spontaneous expressions of human biology. ESPECIALLY something like sexuality. The falsity of cynicism is that it pretends to bestow upon the cynic some magical power to 'see the real truth' behind the 'illusions', and that it guises ITS OWN illusionary, ideological nature by instilling a sense of insecuirity and anxiety that one is being manipulated, taken a fool of, and so on. The message of cynicism is: All the demons OF OUR PRESENT ORDER will inevitably always exist. It is FAITH, on a theological level even, that the gods of our order are true, and that humans are only what they are insofar as they are organized, initiated into the cult of Capital.

Communists recognize this is false. AT THE SAME TIME, we recognize that there is absolutely NO GARUNTEE that things will work out in favor of the revolutionary proletariat, or in favor of we Communists. None. Things are not 'naturally good', or 'naturally' bad (insofar as good and bad are relative to our standards of them, i.e. the revolution, etc.). They are totally arbitrary. It is only scientific, socially self-conscious WILL which allows us to supersede our present condition - the ONLY GARUNTEE is our conscious actions, and our will. That is it. Just like a scientist who manipulates natural processes - without this manipulation, there is no guarantee that things will work out in his favor. In engaging in scientific practice (for natural processes) he is mastering otherwise arbitrary, meaningless processes. And the same goes for us Communists insofar as we engage the social domain (except, of course, it is US OURSELVES we are manipulating, not as external forces 'manipulating' the proletariat like pieces on a board game, of course). That is the meaning of social self consciousness. For the intellectual, this is facilitated through the kind of self-consciousness derived from the scientific understanding of the ideological and psychological, and how these relate to the social (as we can only ever be individuals).

Pessimism, conversely, might arise out of some assessment of events in a concrete way. It is none the less only compatible with socialism insofar as it wrought PERPETUALLY from disappointment that arises out of a constnat, re-emerging "optimism". You might be pessimistic about the current state of things. But to call yourself a socialist, you MUST be "optimistic" that the current state of things doe snot have to exist, and iti s not an inevitability.

Call that "optimism", or call it actual will. Either way, he who wallows in pessimism and he who justifies this by any kind of cynicism is a philistine who lacks the capacity for critical thought. Socialist pessimism exists insofar as one soberly acknowledges how much deep shit they are in. But one is willfully capable of confronting this deep shit they are in.

So when Gramsci sais "Pessimist out of intellect, optimist out of will", he is NOT relegating his optimsim to some kind of irrational, unknowable "but what if there is hope after all", some total bullshit you would find in a cheesy 90's American Christmas flick. This misinterpretation would make the statement on par with Fascist irrationalism and anti-enlightenment logic, it would be a retreat into mysticism and superstition. What Gramsci means is quite clear: "Will" amounts to the CONSCIOUS PREROGATIVES of the revolutionary agents, the revolutionary intelligentsia, the proletariat, to scientifically approach ('with intellect') the current state of things. For Gramsci, the point is simple: One is ONLY a pessimist if they are too cowardly to fight, if they acknowledge a passive role in this fallen world of ours. For Gramsci, or for we Marxists, "intellect" and "will" are unified, not separate - their unification is what as known as the Communist party.

[Rafiq]

The "pessimism" of individuals is mostly so fucking ingenuine and stupid. The bourgeois atheist, a "pessimist" who has lost faith in god. When he decides to become an "optimist", he is an evangelical christian.

The Fascist who is a "pessimist" about the ability to "save his race" or any other such platitudes. When he becomes an optimist, he is genocidal.

Optimism and pessimism are nothing more than abstractions. They are fully immersed in ideological contexts. So BIXX, for example, is a "pessimist" who thinks the class war is over. But deep down, he has some spontaneous idea that things, MIGHT JUST, MAYBE work out in his favor. What a stupid, cliche'd and juvenile approach to thinks.

Marxists transcend "optimism" and "pessimism". That which we are disappointing with - IS NOT OUTSIDE of our control (as a potential, possibility). If it truly is outside of our control, for the time being, we have no reason to be 'pessimistic' about it. End of story. Is someone pessimistic that the sun appears yellow, and not blue? Their "pessimism" is most likely a confused perversity.

[RedMaterialist]

Marx :

(Chapter 2, Capital, I)


What chiefly distinguishes a commodity from its owner is the fact, that it looks upon every other commodity as but the form of appearance of its own value. A born leveller and a cynic, it is always ready to exchange not only soul, but body, with any and every other commodity, be the same more repulsive than Maritornes herself.

So, no. Cynical revolutionary politics are not possible. But that's not to say that deceit, falseness, subterfuge, and lies are not used in revolutionary politics.

[Thirsty Crow]

Optimism and pessimism are nothing more than abstractions. They are fully immersed in ideological contexts. So BIXX, for example, is a "pessimist" who thinks the class war is over. But deep down, he has some spontaneous idea that things, MIGHT JUST, MAYBE work out in his favor. What a stupid, cliche'd and juvenile approach to thinks. Not so.
Both are attitudes which are to some degree really influenced by emotion and psychological states (though I wouldn't say at all that they're either simple or direct and unalterable "products" of such states). If these are "abstractions", then the word is used so broadly as to make it completely redundant and beyond salvation (pun intended).

Anyway, it's slippery, all of this talk about such notions. For instance, I don't think optimism has anything to do with the knowledge that social life need not be the way it is today (the latter is a judgement of fact, or to be more precise a modal judgement about lack of necessity in the relevant sense of the word). That's why I don't "hope" for the possibility, I'm pretty sure I got to know the possibility we speak of. Now realized possibilities, that's something quite different.

[PhoenixAsh]

Cynicism only exist in relation to context. It does not exist outside it. Criticism or rejection of cynicism exists only in a specific context and is therefore limited.

[Lord Testicles]

The class war was lost already. Of course I'm a pessimist.

Something isn't lost if it's still on-going with no end in sight.

[Sibotic]

Both are attitudes which are to some degree really influenced by emotion and psychological states (though I wouldn't say at all that they're either simple or direct and unalterable "products" of such states). If these are "abstractions", then the word is used so broadly as to make it completely redundant and beyond salvation (pun intended).

They are referring to them as 'views,' rather than as 'emotional states,' or in brief in terms of what underlies them, so to speak, or what these might be expected to find their hurt or elated ways to if they are expressed as viewpoints on anything relating in any way to the social system or actual subjects. They don't necessarily mean 'pessimism' or 'optimism' in the sense you seem to be discussing. Obviously, it might also be a worthwhile point to note that, for instance, a person might be accused of 'cynicism' for not taking drugs (I'm not in this case referring to homelessness and its treatment in the capitalist era), if this were a communal thing on some level, which is of course related to 'emotional states.'


Something isn't lost if it's still on-going with no end in sight.
Perhaps you didn't see it, but if this were to mean 'as if eternal,' then that would have simply been capitalist ideology in the end. Knowing that it has an end, it might make more sense to draw conclusions about it from that basis.

In any case I doubt anyone's primary concern is whether or not BIXX's side 'won' or 'lost' the class war, just that since it's over communism is established. You might wonder why they could have been so glum about this fact.

[BIXX]

Something isn't lost if it's still on-going with no end in sight.

What is currently called class war is just grasping at the last bits of life we have.

[Rafiq]

Not so.
Both are attitudes which are to some degree really influenced by emotion and psychological states

Well, yes, but I do not see how this contradicts the point - saying these are influenced by 'emotions and psychological states' assumes that 'emotions' and 'psychological states' have some causal power in themselves. Used in this way, they are abstractions. An emotional state does not determine anything. There are real social, and (only) subsequently psychological processes which underlie 'emotional states'. Which are profoundly ideological ones. Do you mean to claim that being cynical is some kind of innate thing, rooted in biological processes, whose essential basis and expression is trans-historic? I sure hope not.

Using these words - optimism and pessimism - in a way that emanates their divorce from real context, is to use them in ideological ways, like being "pessimistic" about life. This is ideological insofar as it designates something, but doesn't provide us the language to actually understand this something. If one is 'pessimistic' about life, what does that mean? What exactly are they pessimistic about, and so on? Ideology works that way: If one is an ex-evangelical, who is 'pessimistic', then his standards of optimism are probably proportional to the degree that which his evangelical beliefs are substantiated. He will not make this consciously explicit in his words, though. He will say "I have adopted a pessimistic outlook", but what defines the framework of life that which he ascribes this pessimism is simply assumed, conferred ideologically.

To go back to my point: What defines one's standards of 'optimism' or 'pessimism' is contextual. For example, I can be "pessimistic" about the prospects of my favorite team losing.

Cynicism, on the other hand, is deeply immersed in bourgeois ideology insofar as it designates a given framework that defines the essential basis of others in an ideological manner. Cynicism is an acceptance of the inevitability of man under present conditions as essential to man himself, guised in a dignified manner, and among the masses - born of hopelessness.


Anyway, it's slippery, all of this talk about such notions. For instance, I don't think optimism has anything to do with the knowledge that social life need not be the way it is today (the latter is a judgement of fact, or to be more precise a modal judgement about lack of necessity in the relevant sense of the word).

Well, in fact, it does. If one recognizes that present circumstances are not inevitable and do not have to exist, then this is automatically an 'optimist' assessment. Well to be more precise, it is neither 'optimistic' or 'pessimistic', to reiterate Gramsci, but willfully engaged, leaving nothing to chance. But there is a necessary hope to seize one's own historical destiny, that can transcend the immense ideological power of the state, of ruling ideas, etc.. Acceptance of present conditions, among working people for example, is totally and fully rooted in nothing short of hopelessness and a belief in the natural inevitability of our present order. When it comes to social matters, there is no room for 'facts' that are observable to any neutral spectator. As I stated before, it was the error of both Kautsky and later Stalinists who claimed this of Marxism - the reality is that Marxism is already a biased position in an order which must ideologically designate what Marxism opens up for knowing, in the same way that the pre-capitalist society had to ideologically designate natural processes with superstition.

One cannot, in other words, asses this of our present order without already taking the partisan position that it does not have to exist. One refuses its inevitability (the first scientists had to refuse the infallibility of superstition - say, in matters of astronomy - before any matter of neutral observation), because insisting on its inevitability as an assumed belief IS NOT a matter of empirical fact for the broad masses, it is a belief whose power derives from its ability to reproduce the existing order (relate to people's conditions of life, ETC.). When one opposes the existing order, this space of freedom to be free from reproducing it ideologically is opened up. This can result in a scientific understanding of it, or it can result in reaction, etc. - so the 'opposition' here can be as vague as need be.

I'll give you an example if you think I'm talking nonsense. Let's take modern scientific racism (which is, by all means, an inevitable, very logical conclusion of our genetic determinism and 'cognitive revolution', anyone who has the slightest encounter with it understands this). The attitude of racists IS NOT one of blind belief. On the contrary, against those like Kamin, Rose, Lewontin and Gould, rejection of scientific racism is assumed to derive from some kind of naivety, some blind, 'optimistic' belief that 'races' are not essentially different and that the basis of human consciousness is not reducible to genes, etc. -

Racists, like Jenson, Unz, Lynn, and vanhanen almost universally approach academia as figures accepting 'cold hard truths', cynical truths, etc. - every reactionary is a cynic. But this is a great falsity, a sham - it is they who are immersed in ideology as anyone who reads them can see. But Leftists simply don't see this - they they read the mismeasurement of man, but they pay no attention to the responses by the racists - which often times are even supported by respectable figures like Flynn (i.e. who discovered the flynn effect) - and subsequently they themselves fall susceptible to accept it upon a 'surprised' encounter with the 'cold hard truths'.

[Rafiq]

What is currently called class war is just grasping at the last bits of life we have.

Perhaps for BIXX, who cannot possibly conceive class war as something beyond an impossible dream.

In reality, the social antagonism, or "class war" or inherent to the process of capitalism. Social antagonism is everywhere, what is missing is the political class struggle which is directed consciously.

Every reactionary outburst of the masses, every victory for the Fascists is related to the social antagonism and the anger of the broad masses derived from it. Any idiot can see, upon evaluation of anti-semitism historically (let's say, in the 19th century), that this was an anti-capitalist false-consciousness, which sections of the working class were very susceptible to.

Every onslaught against the gains of ordinary people, every rolling back of people's benefits, every anti-union campaign, expressed in such a manner that it can get the support of the victims themselves, THIS IS CLASS WAR.

[Thirsty Crow]

@Rafiq: we're talking about altogether different things:


Well, in fact, it does. If one recognizes that present circumstances are not inevitable and do not have to exist, then this is automatically an 'optimist' assessment.
...and this is why these are slippery notions. Not that they have a well established meaning like some simpler terms.

As for me, optimism would amount to saying "Global communism is (very) likely" and the reverse for pessimism. The big difference is I'm counting on expecting, or thinking some things will actually happen, as part of the attitude I was trying to describe.

So it's a metadiscussion, talk about talk after all :lol:

[Tim Redd]

The problem with both cynicism and optimism is that they often warp the world to conform to preconceptions, thereby altering the world through a filter.

You can easily become delusional if you fall into a cynical or optimistic mindset, and they can both be damaging.

Cynicism breeds inaction through despondency, and optimism breeds inaction through vacuous hope.

Be objective, and act accordingly.

However both cynicism and optimism can arise from experiencing life in a mostly scientific manner. Having a primary perspective that is mainly one or the other doesn't doesn't mean it occurred because a person wasn't open minded. Also in large part having either view depends on what things or affairs are being investigated or are the focus of interest.

[Luís Henrique]

My question is: are revolutionary politics and cynicism compatible? Is it naive to think that revolutionary politics requires a certain degree of optimism?

I don't think that the most usual opposite of "cynicism" is "optimism". An optimist is a person who tends to expect positive outcomes; the opposite of that is "pessimism", which is the tendency to expect negative outcomes.

Cynicism is a quite different thing. Other than the restrict, phylosophical meaning, it means either a callous disregard for social conventions (in which sence it is the symmetric of hipocrisy), or a characteristically negative appreciation of human motivations in general. A cynical swindler can be very optimistic about the outcomes of his or her criminal activities: he or she thinks that humans in general are stupid and greedy, and grow stupider when dominated by greed, with allows swindlers to bait them into scams and hoaxes.

Luís Henrique

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Cynicism, on the other hand, is deeply immersed in bourgeois ideology insofar as it designates a given framework that defines the essential basis of others in an ideological manner. Cynicism is an acceptance of the inevitability of man under present conditions as essential to man himself, guised in a dignified manner, and among the masses - born of hopelessness. That's a very narrow definition of the term "cynic", and it certainly differs from the philosophical notion of cynicism. The ancient cynics didn't view human nature as intrinsically bad and selfish, but on the contrary took social conventions to be fundamentally problematic if not hypocritical. If anything, their agenda was to shake people from their love of convention and established political norms, and take a more skeptical stance to society as it is.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/cynics/#H3

Certainly, there's a kind of beatnik/hipster "cynicism" that might be incongruous with Leftist goals, and a kind of bourgeois attitude of cynical selfishness which is too. This is in line with many colloquial uses of the term "cynicism". However, I think many Leftists have shown their rulers, religious authorities and employers the kind of contempt Diogenes showed towards Alexander.