A friend who has long maintained that I am unnecessarily cynical just told me that cynicism saved from disillusionment. I wonder how much merit there is in such an argument. A cynic is necessarily an observer, he is never a participant. Participants in the rough and tumble are liable to get hurt. A cynic who stands apart and observes never gets hurt. But then, he never knows what it is like, does he? And here is the dilemma that we are all presented with. Does the dysfunctionality of others present a problem that must be corrected by direct action, or does it merely remain as a conversation topic and something that people write blogs about? And who am I to judge and find others lacking when I am merely human? So is the cynical observer just a coward? Or is there a measure of intellectual detachment which must be maintained?
Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux is a cynic who commits hideous crimes with spectacular aplomb. All that he does is justified because there can be no sympathy for people, nay, a people which has lost its innocence and come so far that it does not even recognise that loss. Yet, when Verdoux experiences personal anguish in its most brutal form, the detachment, the veneer of sophistication, all of that is lost.
To each his own. As for me, I am a gedankenexperimentalist.
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