What is Cynicism Good For?

A friend of mine here in London--we'll call her Sarah-- is a corporate executive.

Sarah's firm recently merged with an American one, and she relayed to me the story of an email she received from an employee in the US. He was retiring after having worked with the firm for more than thirty years. The farewell email he sent round to the firm, she told me (with a disdainful smile on her face) was openly gushy... saying how much his years at the firm had meant to him, how much he would miss his colleagues, etc.

Sarah rolled her eyes as she recounted this to me. "Isn't that ridiculous?" she asked. And then she added, "That would never happen here in England."

I was a bit surprised by her reaction. I don't think I would have done any differently than that employee if I'd been at a firm for over 30 years. You develop relationships-- with people, with the institution. It shapes your life.

We then got into a long argument about how, in her eyes, Americans define themselves too much by their work (fair enough); how they constantly say how wonderful everything is without really meaning it (also mostly true); how they feel a need to paint everything with a "you-can-do-it" rosy tint (true again).

Sarah has a point about the way in which the cultural pressure to look and be happy distorts our behavior in the US (See for example, my friend Guy's American phrasebook for a humorous take on this). But I can't help but think that there is something equally peculiar about the energy and passion with which Sarah felt the need to attack her colleague's email.

Just like our American "you-can-do-it" stereotypes, cynicism is also a lens through which to see the world. I find it quite a lot here in London. It's often dressed up in sophisticated, even charming manifestations. My Rough Guide to London speaks of a nation-wide standard for journalists in which extreme cynicism is first quality on the checklist before getting a job as a writer or newscaster. Combined with the fact that the British, on average, have way more knowledge about what's going on in the world-- it makes for far better news coverage than what we get at home.

But like any point of view, cynicism has it drawbacks. It's fine to question things, fine to be smug about those who don't see the irony and sheer ridiculousness of everyday life... But at the end of the day, what's wrong with getting attached to one's workplace, as long as it's held in healthy balance? More fundamentally, what's wrong with believing that it's possible to live the kind of life you want to live?

I ask that rhetorically, of course. But I'm finding more and more that not everyone would see that as a rhetorical question. A realization unto itself.

Same friend tells me the story of a party we went to last weekend. She apparently met a lovely guy, also well educated. He asked her what college she went to at Oxbridge but first revealed his own college-- one of the most prestigious in Oxbridge. She tells him her college-- and, as she recalls-- he pauses for a moment, and changes the subject, as if to underline how much of a higher status he has.

Now, this isn't my culture. I've only lived here for less than six months. Sarah would be able to read his reactions better than I would.

...Except, I was at this party too. I met this guy. He seemed perfectly nice, a bit softspoken; indeed, even a bit diffident. Not the type of person, in short, who would go around averting his nose to different colleges at the most prestigious universities in the country.

I began to wonder. If I'd been in the exact same conversation, I would have read his reaction differently. Where she saw arrogance, I would have seen awkwardness. Where she saw discussions of status, I would have seen a simple exchange of facts.

Perhaps this is the exact meaning of culture-- that you can take the same exact set of inputs and interpret them completely differently. Perhaps I'm naive to not want to focus on what might rightly be a bit of status-flaunting by this guy at the party. I suppose, though, at the end of the day, I'd want to err on the side of interpreting life as fairly good, and people as fairly decent. Are the two interpretations equally valid?

Which brings me back to the question I posed as the title of the post. There's nothing inherently inferior or superior about the American tendency to celebrate heroic individualism and optimism. It's good for certain situations and distorts others.

But what is cynicism good for? When is cynicism the right lens to take to the world?

That, I might add, is not a rhetorical question.