Diogenes, a founder of cynicism was not very cynical about staying in his waterhouse.

A good policy: Always be wary of things that confirm rather than challenge your ideas.

Another one: When things challenge your ideas, don’t try to turn them into things that confirm them.

The #Ocuppy movement is about a month deep. It has confirmed some of my ideas and challenged others. But, the most important  effect it’s so far had on me, is to raise questions about things I had not previously noticed.  The criticisms of it have been as valuable as the support.

And I’m not talking about the hack narrative, pulled off the shelf, dusted off and broadcast, ready-made, by the media.

At least not strictly about that. It reminds me of one of Nan’s old boyfriends. His ship was sunk by a German U-Boat. Believing, like many sailors,that learning to swim was bad luck,  he instead clung to a wooden board and a hastily snatched bottle of rum. He floated around the Atlantic with both until he was rescued. The media narrative is just such debris. It gives people something to cling to but no explanation of the ocean, the torpedo and certainly no rescue.

Spoiled, anarcho-communist elites working for the demoncrat party and that black president. Doesn’t fit your politics? Were you into revolution before it was cool? Try this on for size: White, middle class students with dreadlocks banging drums and courting the police. Take whatever chunk of any of that and cling to it. Have a drink. You deserve it, you unsung hero of the revolution, you. Maybe they’ll let you lead the next one.

But what of the ocean?

You know there’s something wrong. I don’t give a shit about your politics, you know something has gone wrong. However we thought we’d get to the world we wanted, this certainly isn’t it. We’re not even going in the right direction. Backwards at best. Often upside down. The ship is sinking.

And something has emerged that allows you to voice your concern, whatever it may be, and try to stop whatever you think is wrong. It hasn’t given you a set of beliefs. It hasn’t told you what to think. Just asked you to think and speak and act.

That’s it.

And that’s supposed to be a weakness?

How forums looked before the internet.

The Internet has the same so-called weakness. If you don’t like the people on it, you’re free to join in, start your own site and make your case. It’s a space, not a dogma. #Occupy is the same. In 2011, that open source model should not require explaining to anyone but the geriatric. Yet, here we are.

I can see why the people who control the podiums of the world would feel threatened by such an initiative. It’s harder to figure out why people who only stand to be empowered by this would be against it. And this is where this #Occupy thing challenges me. This is where it’s made something obvious.

Just as the baby boomers were insanely self-indulgent, my generation suffers from its own terrible flaw: A pathological cynicism.

I cannot tell you how much it bothers me to say that. Too often people use that word as a way to turn off the critical faculties of others. God knows, I’ve had it used against me often enough to be familiar with that despicable process. So please understand that I’m not telling anyone to turn off their criticisms. I’m simply asking that we do not confuse cynicism with intelligence and skepticism with cynicism. By all mean, be skeptical. You have cause.

And you have good reason to be cynical.

I never had it in the first place.

We’ve seen all of our heroes sell us out. We’ve seen every ism there is turn out worse than the one it replaced. When I was a kid, the Blue Jays, after winning two World Series, went on strike. Most of our lives are spent looking at adverts for crap we don’t want or need to solve problems that don’t even exist. If cynicism was not our default attitude, we’d be in a much worse place than we already are.

Don’t surrender your cynicism. But consider it.

I’ve often heard people my age say they like something only to quickly point out that they don’t believe in it. Knew a deadhead who was quick to point out that he didn’t believe in any of that hippie shit. Just liked the drugs. Knew a punk who pointed out they didn’t believe in any of the punk ideas. Just liked hitting people. Advertising people who know their jobs are bullshit but like the influence, artists who believe art is horseshit but like the acclaim. And so forth and so on.

I’ve been guilty. Still am. And I’m not going to give it up.

But I see where my fear comes from. I don’t want to be made into a sucker. Again. Our cynicism may be pathological but so is the society that birthed it.

Imagine if your default attitude was belief. You'd be a race car.

Capitalism has perverted my basic attitude into: What the fuck are you  trying to sell me? And if I lacked that attitude, I’d have thousands in credit card debt and a lot of shoddy sneakers. Maybe I’d be in some foreign land fighting a war.  I might have no arms. I could be dead. Like whoring yourself for cigarettes in a prison, cynicism is a survival tool in capitalism. One of the better ones we have. Given the circumstances.

So yeah, don’t surrender it, but consider it. At the risk of courting nihilism, extend your cynicism to cynicism itself.

I stayed in my tub and all I have to show for it is this lousy lamp.

Cynicism is decadent. It means that you have so much, the best way for your to survive is by saying no more. Just as we have people dying from eating too much, we can’t believe too much lest our minds get flabby. It’s an anorexic response. Like many eating disorders, cynicism has never been a disease of deprivation but one of abundance. It’s a nice position to be in.

And a comfortable one. It excuses much of what we do. After all, if everyone else is on the make we best be too. It divides the world into three basic classes: Con-artists, the suckers and you. That seems a little too convenient to be true.

Once we’re cynical about all of humanity’s aspirations we’re left with nothing but hedonism, careerism and greed.  And look how romantic we get about all that. Most of our political coverage is not about policy but election strategy. In short, we’ve actually started to vote based on a candidate’s ability to bamboozle us.

Sorry, not us. The suckers.

We call it electability.

In spite of all that, I’d say cynicism is fine. It’s important. But it has to recognized as our default position. And before we reset, we need to ask if it’s the correct one. No attitude is right in every situation. That’s why we can have more than one. Sometimes, even at the same time.

When we return to cynicism, we should do so, not by reflex, but by reflection. It should be a choice. One we’re skeptical of just in case we make suckers of ourselves. We need to ask why it might appeal to us.

My Nan’s boyfriend grabbed his rum and chunk of wood because it was his only chance at life. Too many of us are gabbing the debris from the exploding ship of state, cast every which way by the blast of the media, just to support our notion of ourselves as clever people. By doing so, we’re not taking away the power of the things we might fear, suspect or dislike about #Occupy. We’re giving those things power by defaulting the field to them. And when all that comes true, we’ll doubtless pat ourselves on the back.

We’re muzzling ourselves. And why? Because we’re afraid of being fooled? By us?

Shit, that’s still no worse than this mess.

I mean, seriously, could a group of dreadlocked hippies be any more evil and incompetent  than Congress? Would a drum circle on Parliment Hill do any more damage than the current residents? Could dedicated communists do more to nationalize the banks than the banks already have?

I fucking doubt it.

So you might have to excuse me while I check my cynicism –but not my skepticism– at the door about this whole #Occupy thing. I support it, donate to it and do what I can. Sure, we all might make fools out of ourselves but I prefer that to being made a fool of by others.

This time, I’m not wearing a life jacket.