PREVIEW – HOPE FOR CYNICS, Which Applies To A New World Under Kamala
The Surprising Science of Human Goodness
“When a nation stops trusting itself, its suspicions first turn toward those with the least.”
This book is perfectly timed for our new era of opportunity and hope.
Because being a cynic is a death sentence.
Cynical adolescents are more likely than others to become depressed college students, and cynical college students are more likely to drink heavily and divorce by middle age. If cynicism were a pill, its warning label would list depression, heart disease, and isolation. In other words, it’d be a poison. So why do so many of us swallow it?
We are at an ideal time to pull ourselves out of the ‘cynic pit’, with the imminent election of Kamala Harris and a Democratic administration. I sense we are on the verge of another “Kennedy era” of hope and opportunity.
Professor of psychology Jamil Zaki is head of the neuroscience lab at Stanford University. He turned his grief about the death of a close friend and ‘happiness mentor’ Emile Bruneau into a book that shares his years of conversion away cynicism into a shared lesson on the dangers of the condition and how we can avoid it.
One reason is that many people think cynicism is attractive is that it seems to be cool; cynics make themselves out to be superior and more intelligent .
In fact, in studies of over two hundred thousand individuals across thirty nations, cynics scored less well on tasks that measure cognitive ability, problem-solving, and mathematical skill. Cynics aren’t socially sharp, either, performing worse than non-cynics at identifying liars.
In other words, cynicism looks smart - but isn’t. Cynics have an undeserved reputation for being more worldly than everyone else. Zaki teaches us how to quiet our inner cynic to appreciate a humanity he says is “far more beautiful and complex than a cynic imagines.”
Zaki has seen cynicism from the inside: he used to be prone to seeing the worst in people. This tendency began early; he had a chaotic family life made it hard for him to trust people’s intentions.
Zaki’s mother came from Peru; his father from Pakistan. They split up when he was eight, and he was forced to see the world from two different standards. He lived in a fractured world.
It was a time of the Vietnam War, when protests still raged. Yet compared to today, 1972 America was a trust utopia. That year, nearly 50 percent of Americans agreed that “most people can be trusted.” Fifty years later, only 33 percent felt that way.
An international survey found that most people’s tendency is to distrust others. Humanity has lost faith in humanity, and lost even more in our institutions.
But the rise of cynicism carried penalties.
Dozens of studies demonstrate that cynics suffer more depression, drink more heavily, earn less money, and even die younger than non-cynics. Our culture glamorizes cynicism and hides its dangers, through the promotion of three big myths .
Myth #1 : Cynicism is clever. In fact , cynics do less well at cognitive tests. Gullible people might blindly trust others, but cynics blindly mistrust them.
Myth #2: Cynicism is safe. Every act of trust is a social gamble. By never trusting, cynics never lose. They also never win. It shuts down opportunities for collaboration, love, and community, all of which require trust.
Myth #3 : Cynicism is moral. Cynicism does tune people into what’s wrong, but it also forecloses on the possibility of anything better.
Cynicism is not a radical worldview. It’s a tool of the status quo. Corrupt politicians gain cover by convincing voters that everyone is corrupt.
Cynicism is turning ours into a meaner, sadder, sicker place. All of this is deeply unpopular. Americans trust one another less than before, but 79 percent of us also think people trust too little. We loathe political rivals, but more than 80 percent of us also fear how divided we’ve become.
If optimism tells us things will get better, hope tells us they could. Optimism is idealistic; hope is practical. It gives people a glimpse of a better world and pushes them to fight for it.
Zaki teaches how to diagnose symptoms of cynicism in yourself and others, understand its causes, and realize how it contributes to countless social ills.
One powerful tool he used to fight cynicism is skepticism: a reluctance to believe claims without evidence. Cynicism is a lack of faith in people; skepticism is a lack of faith in our assumptions.
Zaki promotes the creation of the hopeful skeptic, combining a love of humanity with a precise, curious mind. “This mindset presents us with an alternative to cynicism.”
The average person, he notes, underestimates the average person.
Today’s cynics sneer at society but their detachment is a white flag of surrender — because to them, nothing better is possible.
To diagnose your level of cynicism, Zaki advises that you should think about whether you generally agree with these statements: 1. No one cares much what happens to you. 2. Most people dislike helping others. 3. Most people are honest chiefly through fear of getting caught.
These are all-purpose cynicism detectors.
The benefit of escaping that and living in a high-trust group is worth as much as a 40 percent pay raise. They are physically healthier and more tolerant of difference. They trade efficiently and invest in one another. High-trust nations grow their wealth; low-trust countries ’ wealth stagnates or declines. When communities lose trust, they grow unstable.
The COVID pandemic put this in full view. In 2020 people’s faith in government fell in the US and many other countries — but not everywhere. As the plague spread, South Korea’s government sprung into action, following three principles: transparency, democracy, and openness. They invested heavily in rapid testing, allowed them to quickly identify, trace, and provide government-subsidized treatment to sick individuals. By the end of 2021, more than 80 percent of eligible South Koreans had been vaccinated, compared to barely 60 percent in the US.
If every country in the world had experienced South Korea’s high level of trust, 40 percent of global infection could have been prevented.
Zaki’s friend and mentor Emile committed himself to studying the neuroscience of peace. There was just one problem: That science didn’t exist. So, he convinced a renowned researcher at MIT to help him build it.
Zaki makes us aware of the difference between beliefs, which are assumptions or conclusions; and values, which are the parts of life that bring a person meaning.
Beliefs reflect what you think of the world; values reveal more about yourself .
When someone attaches their self-worth to a belief — political , personal , or otherwise — they desperately need to be right. The person screaming loudest is often most fearful of being wrong. Does that sound like he’s talking about a MAGA cultist? …
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