On Cynicism

     Unwarranted cynicism has always bothered me. It often appears as an unwillingness to try new things, but I find that by far its most irksome manifestation is criticism born of unfamiliarity.

     To begin unpacking this idea, let's start with an immediately accessible example: movie special effects (for the purposes of this article, I would regard video game graphics as interchangeable here). Now, no movie may be excused for not using the resources it has to their fullest effect. But did you catch the keywords there? There are two operating principles to keep in mind: available resources and fullest effect. You can pick on the ridiculous visuals in crappy man-in-suit monster movies all you like (and be fully justified in doing so), but anybody who regards a movie (especially a classic) solely on the merits of its special effects completely misses the whole point of the entire movie experience. At the end of the day, a movie's purpose is NOT to convince you that they took the camera out and filmed the whole thing exactly as it appears onscreen. We will always know that what we're seeing on the screen isn't real, no matter how good the effects get. A movie's purpose is to convey some truth (or at least an emotional experience) by way of an engrossing narrative. It fulfills the exact same cultural function as campfire stories of ye olden days; the pretty moving pictures are there as a visual aid, to help us keep up with the story. Stage theater buffs don't generally complain about lack of immersion if all they have are cardboard sets; when seeing a good performance, they meet the actors halfway and get caught up in the story anyway. You can also look at the differing pop culture receptions of the two Star Wars trilogies for the perfect example of the interplay between story and visuals.

     Let's go a little more abstract now. Stylistic differences present another major stumbling block to many movie goers. Now, I regard myself as having a relatively wide range of tastes in movies, so it astounds me to see people polarize themselves to the extent that a mere premise or even genre attached to a film can cause immediate disdain. (Admittedly I retain such biases in some arenas, though I'm doing my best to break of those remaining mental habits!) Oscar snobs will turn up their noses at what they see as "Big Dumb Movies", and action movie junkies will be bored to tears in the absence of explosions. Both these attitudes result from a failure to understand the actual intentions of the movies that exist on the opposite ends of the spectrum. On one end, some movies endeavor to examine the human condition, while on the other hand, some are about pure, simple, cathartic release. Some try for something in the middle, while some try to take you along the y-axis in a completely different direction. Ultimately, style and genre are exactly the same as special effects. It's not what you use, it's how you use it. If it's done in service to the narrative, and you make the absolute most of it that you can in service to the story, then you're justified in using whatever you want.

     I've mostly been discussing movies in this blog post, so I apologize if a sudden turn for the philosophic seems a bit jarring. It seems to me that certain common strains of cynicism can be addressed by simply coming to a better realization of how certain things are meant to work. Marriage, though rife with its periodic difficulties, really does not seem all that hard to get a grasp of, at least on a foundational level (and once you've got a solid foundation, dealing with the big blunders and daily annoyances seems almost a breeze, at least once you've worked through them!). One simply needs to keep a few simple things in mind when considering marriage: it is a personal and economic union that leads to a certain melding of lives, it is not a 50/50 but a 100/100 sort of affair (that is, both halves contribute as much as they possibly can to the relationship, whether it works out to be exactly equal or not), and above all, to remember that humans are complex sacks of emotions that don't necessarily think or act in an entirely logical or consistent manner. We all have reasons for doing things we that we can't quite explain. By all means, vent your frustrations (as kindly as possible), but let them flow through you and over you, like water off a duck's back. Don't let it stick. This all leads to a greater understanding of not only your partner, but also of how marriage in and of itself is supposed to work. In my experience, once you understand something, even if you can never quite fix it, cynicism has much less room to take hold.

     I apologize again if religion is a road you weren't expecting to go down here, but I'm going to talk about it anyway. I'm not arguing for anything in particular in any case, just a little understanding. One sees a lot of criticism of religion by those who don't understand it, and want to condemn it as illogical. To that I say, they've missed the point, and have adopted a position of cynicism out of ignorance. At its barest, most utilitarian core, religion is about bringing a sense of peace and order to the tangled mess that is the human mind. (Understand that I am discussing religion here, not the existence of the supernatural.) As much as it is capable of great feat of intellect, the human mind is not the most logically-based construct ever. Too much emotions jumbles up the thought processes. To an "evangelical atheist" like Richard Dawkins, I would say that this is the very purpose that religion evolved for. Yes, you can have morality without religion, and yes, you can explain the universe without religion, but a great many people need religion to achieve that sense of peace and order out of the tangled mess of human experience that we all share in to some extent. Some don't need it, but many do. What do we achieve in attempting to disenfranchise people of the spiritual? Remember, humans are complex beings. If religion must be kept out of the classrooms, individuals can compartmentalize, as long as they have those compartments to retreat to as need be!

     It may sound a little cliche to say "we just need a little more understanding", but it's true, dang it! If you prefer to state it in a somewhat less sappy and more analytical manner, you just need to learn the rules of the game. If you approach baseball with only an understanding of water polo, you're naturally going to run into your fair share of frustration. Once you understand generally how something is actually meant to work, you then get that little light in your head that potentially allow you to actually enjoy it, or at least appreciate it and properly evaluate it for what it's trying to do.