By DONALD DeMARCO
Cynicism results when a person believes that he has conquered hope. Since it is a conquest of sorts, though surely a negative and counterproductive one, it can endow the cynic with a certain amount of pride. In a similar way, a younger brother can take pride in knocking over the tower of blocks that his older sibling constructed. In this case it is pride that goes after a fall. So, too, the cynic believes he has achieved something when he imagines that he has caused either philosophy or theology to topple over. In his own strange way, he finds nihilism, the defeat of hope, to be amusing as the following anecdote suggests.
A philosopher and a theologian were engaged in a disputation. The theologian used the old quip about a philosopher resembling a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat — which wasn’t there. “That may be,” said the philosopher, “but a theologian would have found it.” It is presumed that the philosopher is in search for something that is not there, while the theologian boasts that he has found it.
Its cynicism notwithstanding, this is, in its own way, a good joke. It takes down both the philosopher and the theologian, while making us smile at their alleged pretensions. Here, pride also goes before a fall. But as an afterthought, there is really nothing funny about cynicism. The cynic, as someone has said, is a person who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
Diogenes the Cynic, as a historical figure, well personifies cynicism. He became notorious for carrying a lamp in the daytime, claiming to be looking for an honest man. He criticized and embarrassed Plato, disputed his interpretation of Socrates and sabotaged his lectures. He exulted in tearing down anything that was alleged to be noble or important. He was truly an anti-philosopher as well as an anti-theologian. He was the master of the “put-down.”
While it is common to poke fun at anything that is pretentious, that demeaning word does not apply to everything that is said to be noble and important. Philosophers were once called “wise men.” Pythagoras took a more modest view of his profession, observing that in the strictest sense, wisdom belongs to God alone. Thus, he coined the term philosophy, meaning “love of wisdom.” There is considerable wisdom in his modesty since, at best, we can attain wisdom only in a limited way. The philosopher, as Jacques Maritain has said, is merely “a beggar at wisdom’s door.”
Yet, wisdom is worth seeking. As St. Thomas Aquinas has remarked, “Of all human pursuits, the pursuit of wisdom is the most perfect, the most sublime, the most profitable, and the most delightful.” We often appreciate wisdom in times when we are foolish. Poor Othello, who loved “not wisely, but too well,” realized his mistake, but only when it was too late. “Life’s tragedy,” wrote Benjamin Franklin, “is that we get old too soon and wise too late.”
The recognition of foolishness presupposes the existence of wisdom. If foolishness has entered the back door, it is because we have ignored wisdom ringing at the front door. Wisdom is not entirely elusive or incomprehensible. It lies in the proper ordering of things.
God comes first, neighbor second, the self comes third. We should think before we speak, look before we leap, and evaluate before we decide. Impetuosity, rashness, thoughtlessness, and carelessness are enemies of wisdom. Cynicism is the philosophy of regret, the painful consequence of choosing things out of order. Therefore, as St. Augustine states, “Patience is the companion of wisdom.”
Our ability to recognize the reality of wisdom is evidenced by the immense satisfaction the “Serenity Prayer,” attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, brought to a countless number of people, including members of the armed forces and those dealing with alcoholism and other personal problems: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Wisdom here is recognized as the key that gives order to our lives, so that we can do what we can do and not worry about doing the things that we cannot do. The mind has an important role in discovering wisdom. “Cynicism,” as Norman Cousins maintains, “is intellectual treason.”
The eye is made to see color, the ear is designed to hear sounds, and the lungs are fashioned to breathe in oxygen. So too, the intellect was made to know truth. And truth is a critical stepping stone in the pursuit of wisdom. Again, to quote Aquinas: “The human intellect is measured by things so that man’s thought is called true not on its own account but by virtue of its conformity with things.”
Philosophy is the love of wisdom and is a great aid in opening the door to theology. It is, as its etymology indicates, an act of love. Therefore, philosophy begins with love. But it also requires humility since it is reality that measures truth, and not the ego. Thus, love and humility, together with patience, form a buttress against the invasion of cynicism.
Cynicism is neither original nor natural. It is the unhappy consequence of a life lived without wisdom. No child was ever born a cynic. We become cynics by default, as the result of not living a life of virtue and, as a consequence avoiding wisdom, the crown of all virtues.
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a senior fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, Conn., and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review.
(His latest works, How to Remain Sane in a World That Is Going Mad; Poetry That Enters the Mind and Warms the Heart; and How to Flourish in a Fallen World are available through Amazon.com. Some of his recent writings may be found at Human Life International’s Truth and Charity Forum. He is the 2015 Catholic Civil Rights League recipient of the prestigious Exner Award.)
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