RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – (Opinion) Cynicism has been around for a very long time. In 390 BC, it had almost the reverse meaning it has today. The philosopher Diogenes, seen as the father of the Cynics, believed that “wealth and power are seen not only as without intrinsic value but as positive evils in that they take from you your own inner freedom. The radical implication is that we can be not only as happy as kings, but we can also be happier by virtue of our self-sufficiency.”
It seems today as if inherent dishonesty and self-serving actions have proliferated over the past few years to such an extent that it’s hard to know what to believe, or if anyone or anything has a pure motive any more.
Take for example our Brazilian president’s praise-worthy participation in U.S. President Joe Biden’s virtual climate summit earlier in the month. He pledged to double the budget for environmental enforcement and end illegal deforestation by 2030. To the applause of the world’s leaders gathered in front of their screens to confront the increasing dangers of climate change, this appeared to represent a major and welcome change in heart for Bolsonaro.
Based on his previous rhetoric, however, skeptics wondered if he would really do it. We were right to wonder.
Less than 24 hours after this grandstand performance, Bolsonaro cynically signed off on the 2021 federal budget that included a 24% cut in funding to the Environment Ministry and related agencies from the previous year.
According to Reuters, Bolsonaro’s reasoning for the budget cuts and the reduced number of environmental fines handed out to ranchers – big supporters of the president – was to bring “peace and tranquility” to the countryside.
If cynicism can be described as a disbelief in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions, Bolsonaro could be its Brazilian poster boy.
Exceeded in the number of Covid 19 deaths only by the US (and more recently, India), much can be blamed on Bolsonaro’s widely quoted assessment of the pandemic’s dangers: “Enough fussing and whining. How much longer will the crying go on? How much longer will you stay at home and close everything? No one can stand it anymore. We regret the deaths, again, but we need a solution.”
‘Regretting’ these deaths has something of a hollow sound when the needed ‘solution’ is no closer today than it was when these sentiments were voiced, even if the pace of vaccinations has improved and a fourth Health Minister (this one a doctor, not another military officer) has been appointed.
It is hardly surprising that Bolsonaro’s Covid-19 utterances often sound like US ex-president Trump’s famous statement that “a miracle might make the coronavirus pandemic disappear” or his encouragement to keep businesses open, no matter what. Trump knew the pandemic was much more serious than he was saying, as he acknowledged in a March interview with journalist Bob Woodward: “I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic.”
To suggest that a desire to take the nation’s mind off the growing pandemic and enhance the economy and the stock market, in order to help his re-election prospects, does sound downright cynical. Even worse is the continuation of what is now called ‘The Big Lie’, the totally unfounded claim, shared by as many as 70% of Republicans, that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was stolen from them.
How little resonance Diogenes’ brand of cynicism has today when wealth and power appear to be the prime motivators for all political activity! Cynicism has been catapulted from a marginal mindset to a full-fledged religion, while self-sufficiency has been largely replaced by local same-day home delivery of almost everything. It should be no surprise that a popular biography of the US Senate minority leader is entitled “The Cynic: The Political Education of Mitch McConnell”.
Once upon a time, we used to turn on our radios to hear thoughtful, objective presentations of world news by commentators like Edward R Murrow and Walter Cronkite, whose independence and honesty were above question. We might not always agree with their conclusions, but they were never cynical, and they called out those who were.
No longer.
Today, the financial bottom line has come to replace veracity as the litmus of broadcast journalism. Fox News, the offspring of Australia-born Rupert Murdoch’s worldwide media empire, unquestionably deserves the ‘Oscar’ for what New York Times editor Bill Keller says “has made American discourse more “cynical,” “polarized” and “strident”.
“I think the effect of Fox News on American public life has been to create a level of cynicism about the news in general. It has contributed to the sense that they are all just out there with a political agenda, but Fox is just more overt about it.”
Today’s media hero, with a reported daily evening audience of three million, is Tucker Carlson, an arrogant, self-important performer (sometimes passing himself off falsely as a ‘journalist’) whose prime desire appears to be super click-bait, He is good at it, getting his name and Fox News talked about endlessly in other media, despite (or perhaps because of) the subjects or the idiocies of his opinions.
His latest overt uproar-causing thrust is to proclaim “forcing children to wear masks outside should be illegal… Call the police immediately, contact child protective services… What you’re looking at is abuse, it’s child abuse and you are morally obligated to attempt to prevent it.” Mask wearers, according to Carlson, are liberal “zealots” and “neurotics.” Despite some public disgust and push back, the power of his audience numbers and the cynicism of his media bosses protect him from being fired.
Perhaps it is time for us to harken back to Diogenes’ labeling of wealth and power as positive evils, and tell the Jair Bolsonaros and Tucker Carlsons of this world that we have had enough of their cynicism, and seek to rediscover the self-sufficient joys of looking at things as they really are.