Post-Cynicism: Nothing Is Cool

When I was a senior in High School I took an impossibly hard class that was infinitely interesting: European History Advanced Placement. My Teacher, a man by the name of Brian Poon, taught the class in a manner that was so difficult and so all encompassing that those who took it and went to Harvard College Placed out to Junior level History courses. Anyway, the class isn't what's important, but rather, an idea that Poon described to us. We were talking about Descartes who led the Scientific Enlightenment of 17th Century Europe. That this was the beginning of skepticism, which is sort of wrongly defined by dictionary.com as:

1.	skeptical attitude or temper; doubt.

2.	doubt or unbelief with regard to a religion, esp. Christianity.

But more accurately defined by American heritage as:

1. A doubting or questioning attitude or state of mind; dubiety. See Synonyms at uncertainty.
   1. The ancient school of Pyrrho of Elis that stressed the uncertainty of our beliefs in order to oppose dogmatism.
   2. The doctrine that absolute knowledge is impossible, either in a particular domain or in general.
   3. A methodology based on an assumption of doubt with the aim of acquiring approximate or relative certainty.
2. Doubt or disbelief of religious tenets.

The importance of the birth of this was that before this, the Pope's word was infallible, the same with the church and with Monarchs, Autarchs, etc. But then questioning leads to the modern world.

He went on and said that, skepticism seems lost now and that his and my own generation (and perhaps the boomers too) do not know what skepticism is really or how to practice it. Now we live in the times of Cynicism. American Heritage defines this as:

1. An attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others: the public cynicism aroused by governmental scandals.
2. A scornfully or jadedly negative comment or act: "She arrived at a philosophy of her own, all made up of her private notations and cynicisms" (Henry James).
3. Cynicism The beliefs of the ancient Cynics.

You might be wondering what the hell I'm blabbering about, and aren't those two words the same?

No.

Skepticism is to observe something and while looking at it for what it is, keep in the back of your mind that maybe this isn't true.

Cynicism is to have come to the conclusion that everything is bullshit before ever even looking at the damn thing.

As a world of cynics we've come to the point where nothing is cool. The new album always sucks, the old album sucks too because everyone likes it now. That band was never cool, this band isn't cool either. The only thing that is cool is to be cynical and think that nothing is cool. Nothing is fair, nothing is just, nothing is happy or loving--nothing is the truth.

Descartes, et al, battled for the idea of the end of Absolute truth, we live in a world where nothing is true. All governments don't work for the people but rather try to get over on their political agenda for their special interest group--all corporations are evil, no one truly donates to charity, they just want to be in the limelight.

Today in Non-Western Cinema we watched Akira Kurosawa's Ran, an adaptation of Hamlet's King Lear and also one of the best films of all time by one of the world's greatest directors. The film has this philosophic poetry to it, it's metaphors and symbols tell a totally different story in your mind as the film goes along--the movie isn't just about this Great Lord and his sons but about Human Nature, knowing the difference between what someone says to your face and what they mean, greed and greedy women hellbent on destroying everything through the utilization of their vaginae.

Maybe it was a cultural barrier and no one there to hold your hand tell you what this action or that saying means in their culture or just plain ole' lack of respect. But many of my peers thinking that this was Mystery Science Theater 3000, ragged on the flick and then through some sort of epiphany said, "That movie sucked." Did it? Or did you fucking babbling through the whole thing keep you from actually watching any of the fucking movie? My generations mindset of "This is My Movie," is for another blog-rant but what I'm trying to show you is that this is the world we have made for ourselves.

Nothing is cool.

This film sucked because I didn't get it and everyone else in the world thinks it's amazing. And if everyone thinks it's good--then it can't possibly be so, can it?

How can anything be cool or enjoyable if we make up our mind that it sucks before we even watch it? This movie is old so it can't be as good as our modern more technically advanced movies. This movie wasn't labeled by AFI as one of the 100 best so it can't be good. This movie was made within the last 15 years I can't label it good until it is 20 years old and totally safe to like it.

All New Music Sucks.
All Old Music Sucks.

We live in a world where a band that's nuts were jumped on by everyone in 2003, is totally a joke in 2004--How can you like them, they were so last year?

What I'm asking you to do, is to pick up a dictionary and look up the word skeptical. I want you to be a skeptic for once in your life and approach something neutrally--don't automatically reject it, but don't automatically accept it.

Because if right now nothing is cool, creative, original, daring, controversial, innovative, or just plain good--will we have anything to be remembered?