Cynicism In Todays Society

The mention of cynicism in a novel or a text almost always makes me stop and think. (I have noticed that now I commonly stop and think while reading books.) I feel that literature is usually a way to express a dislike of something or a criticism of the way people live. This is probably why when cynicism is mentioned I feel like there is a direct reference to the same work: metafiction. “…cynical? So many people nowadays were. No one seemed satisfied, and Wilhelm was specially horrified by the cynicism of successful people. Cynicism was bread and meat to everyone. And irony, too. Maybe it couldn’t be helped. It was probably even necessary.” (Bellow, pg. 13) I felt connected to what Wilhelm was saying in this passage: I also feel that today no one is happy with what they have. I identify with this myself, I don’t feel like I’m doing the best I could for many aspects of life, and this makes me be very cynical towards other people. So when Wilhelm talks about cynicism I felt like he was talking to me directly, and not to the innumerable amount of readers that he might have throughout all of life. It was very interesting to see the effect that this had on me, because as I read this [art of the book I kept on thinking back to it and for the rest of the time I was paying lots more attention to what was being said and trying to apply it to my everyday life.

Another topic that I related to the topic of cynicism was the part where he talks about money, and the effect that it has on people. It is sadly all true, too. You are seen differently in the world depending on how much money you have, and the system of classes that has been developed, invisibly, around the globe controls how everyone views everybody else. If someone with money and someone poor came and presented the same argument in a meeting you would probably slide towards the person with money, even if the ideas were the same. Is this because of the security that money brings along or is it because the audience would feel more comfortable around a person with money? It really doesn’t matter, what matters is that the issue is too big to be ignored. In the movie The Pursuit of Happiness I saw this variable expressed very well. The man goes form having some money to having none, but he gets back on his feet after all. How does he do this, however? He does it by pretending he has money all throughout, as it is the only way he will be taken seriously. What makes a snobby upper class teenager more valuable to the world than his poor and lowest class counter part? Nothing. Nothing at all. Society has always thought that there is something there, and this is the sad part of the deal. In the world we live in money, many times, means more than values.