Although I like to believe I am beyond the days when I actually cared about what adjectives people apply to me, I have often been dubbed cynical by my nearest and dearest ones at times when I least expected it. Sometimes it has been because the words ‘sarcastic’ and ‘cynical’ are used interchangeably in colloquial expression; at other times, I admit I may have displayed cynical tendencies. The purpose of this piece of writing at this ungodly hour (for an early sleeper like me) is to, however, discuss two hypotheses: that I am not more cynical than the next guy and that the general understanding of cynicism is somewhat awry.
Cynicism, as explained by an online dictionary, is ‘an attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others’. Fair enough. I shall begin with an example from daily life. You go to the market to get something as simple as a turnip and a bagful of potatoes. Why do you haggle and holler with the salesman over the prices? Is it because in some abstract, unreachable corner of your mind, you are convinced that the other person’s foremost purpose is to rip you off, and the least you can do is try and minimize the damage he is going to cause to your wallet? On the other hand, why is the shopkeeper selling his vegetables at bloated prices, if that truly is the case? Perhaps he thinks that if it were up to you, you would never pay him his product’s worth. Hence, the way out for him is to set the initial price higher than the actual so that after all the demeaning haggling, whatever profit he’s making is not compromised. And if you are the rare, not-bargaining kind, he makes an extra buck or two, and you get what you deserve for being naive in the ways of the market. Take this model to a higher level. Why are all corporate deals, all transactions between big businesses, so painstakingly negotiated with attention to every little detail and precautions against all possible loopholes, with all legalities and paperwork in place? The same principle is at work: it’s up to you to save your own ass, because, if given the chance, the other guy will pound it without remorse. It’s the economics of distrust; distrust, the middle finger of the invisible hand that eluded the contemplations of poor old Adam Smith. What we experience everyday then, in the name of laissez-faire, is cynical economics; and we participate in it fully, by choice or by necessity.
Politics, however, is a game more ostensibly cynical in its machinations. Anybody who has grown up in Pakistan would invariably attest to that. As it is, the subject is expansive enough to be fit for a thousand doctoral theses. A half-baked intellectual’s nighttime ranting could hardly do it justice. Therefore, sidestepping any theoretical discourse, I will keep the following Machiavellian proposition as the basic benchmark for my conception of politics: politics, in any shape or form, is the exercise for the attainment of absolute power, and the exercise of such power over the longest possible period of time. Now, in the wake of a lot of kite-flying related deaths in Lahore over recent years, the government took a very noble step; ‘basant’ was banned. The consequent controversy was huge; an entire industry had been destroyed, it was a big blow to tourism and culture, a very cheap and effective means of public entertainment had been lost, etc. In the opinion of a bleeding-heart humanist like me, it was the right thing to do; human life ought never to be the cost of a bit of fun. Along came the long march, a perceivable threat to the power of the people in charge. Now, inevitably, clever functionaries of state put their heads together to think up means to ebb the tide rising towards Islamabad. And the first light bulb that went on in somebody’s head was for the retraction of the ban on basant on the eve of the march on the capital. It would kill countless birds with one stone. The earlier acrimony among the lahoris would die down, and the support for the march in the Punjabi heartland would be checked for people would be more interested in a night of partying and kite-flying than preparing to march for a cause, the ultimate fruit of which remains questionable and distant, for all intents and purposes. Within twelve hours of the lifting of the ban, there have been two deaths, guys in their twenties, throats slit by wayward twine descending from the sky; a macabre exercise in the politics of cynicism. The powers that be had an end to attain. The means they chose for it they knew would be too irresistible for the general public, placing their bets on a national attitude of acting first and thinking later. These two deaths are collateral damage in what war, I fail to understand. If his writings are any estimation of the man himself, Machiavelli must have been one tough guy. Wonder if this made him turn in his grave.
At a more personal level, how often have you been genuinely nice to someone without getting the ‘hope he doesn’t collect too heavily on this one’ look in return? How often have you earnestly sought a friend’s opinion and gotten vigorous affirmation of your own opinion in return, only to be told later that since you only needed corroboration of your own ideas, it was provided in good faith? At the workplace, aren’t all your words and actions first weighed by your coworkers as potentialities by which they could be harmed or, at least, their interests put in jeopardy? Why are there incessant office power plays when everybody’s got their heart in the right place? Life, it seems, is brimming to the full with subtle cynicisms. The catch, however, is that if you live by these contradictions, you are a normal human being, a person striving to make his way in the world, a person having the right to live. If, by some odd chance, you start pointing out the inherent cynicism of life, and choose to have nothing to do with it, wanting rather to lose yourself in the simple pleasures of the dhol, and the shehnai, and love, and an occasional ghazal, you are, surprise surprise, a Cynic, a sociopath, a disparager of all that is good and the upholder of all that is evil. And from here, the circle runs in reverse till you’re the one convinced that you’ve got it all wrong in your head.
