Cynicism

(see other key terms)

The capital 'C'

What would be a Cynicism....(with a capital C.) = The philosophy of the ancient Cynics in ancient Greece, founded by Antisthenes, a pupil of Socrates, who were marked by an ostentatious contempt for ease, wealth, and the enjoyments of life; the most famous was Diogenes, a pupil of Antisthenes, who carried the principles of the sect to an extreme of abstinence. (see 'asceticism'). The word derives from the Greek word for 'dog' and this is gives us a clue as to how we may live for the moment and being unrestrained in criticism and self-expression. Modern cynicism small 'c', according to Sloterdijk, is: "..the universally widespread way in which enlightened people see to it that they are not taken for suckers.....They know what they are doing, but they do it because, in the short run, the force of circumstances and the instinct for self-preservation are speaking the same language, and they are telling them that it has to be so...Cynicism is enlightened false consciousness." (see 'cognitive dissonance')
1672 Sir T. Browne Lett. Friend xxiv. (1881) 143 "Yet his sober contempt of the world wrought no Democritism or Cynicism, no laughing or snarling at it."
The Cynic philosophy claims to be the genuine teaching of Socrates. The ancient cynics were apparently very different from the modern 'cynic. The cynics of ancient Greece 'lived out' their feelings, sometimes in a public bodily expression of disdain that defied social conceits and excesses. They believed in ascetic values that predated urban society.