there are competing definitions but they’re at least opposed if not precise opposites in the one i subscribe to
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Replying to @chaosprime @StevenBrust
there's a difference between skepticism, demanding evidence for claims, and cynicism, a spiritually corrosive immunity to passion in any endeavor. a substantial difference.
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Replying to @palecur @StevenBrust
that isn’t what i mean by cynicism and sounds suspiciously like pessimism. by cynicism i mean distrust of people’s nominal motives.
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Replying to @chaosprime @StevenBrust
that is, uh, a fairly bespoke definition of the term
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Replying to @palecur @StevenBrust
i consider it quite originalist actually
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Replying to @palecur @StevenBrust
what even is this late-coming revisionist “cynicism” that everybody hates and nobody likes, anyway? it never seems defined beyond “blob of stuff i don’t like”
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Replying to @chaosprime @StevenBrust
it's a fairly clear definition: distrust of motives leading to insincerity in all aspects of life, nothing enjoyed for its own qualities but only for the way it points out the failures in something else, nothing taken at face value leading to nothing being valued at all.
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Replying to @palecur @StevenBrust
sounds like a real pathological case that doesn’t follow from the basic principle out of any necessity at all
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enh, the meaning of the term didn’t mutate from a philosophical school to a snarl word for newspaper editorial polemics and then magically stop there forever
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