“It’s all bull shit!”

George Carlin

Symbols & Color

• Chess Knight (horse): Warrior Set
• Attitude Meter: Attitude Group
• Penny: Ordinal Influence
• Clubs: Action Axis
• Border Color: Red – Warrior Set

Implication of the Upright Position and Positive Poles

Arguments generally make people bristle, especially when they get heated. The Cynic gets a bad rap, as does the cactus. Like the fruit of one cactus variety called the “prickly pear”, it is tough to get to, must be handled with care, but often they have a soft and delightful center. But once a year, a plant deemed inhospitable, and even ugly, can produce a beautiful sight: a cactus flower. At the core of a sound argument lies a truth waiting to blossom, even if it had to get through a thorny confrontation to do so.

Card messages in the Illuminated position.

+ Argument

(contradiction, contrast, challenging, debate, antagonist, adjudicating, constructive criticism, Devil’s Advocate, non-believer, scrappy, contentious)

1. “It can’t be! So convince me!” Pilpul is the Jewish tradition to gain clarity by arguing about God’s intent regarding an event or edict. This task is worthy but seldom appreciated. Can you make a clear argument about what is happening? Assert facts and principles, rather than beliefs or positions.
2. No amount of love can every be wasted. It is not love but the arguments to withhold love that reveal places where pain has been sheltered and imprisoned.
3. The situation calls for explanation not rationalization. If the argument being asserted isn’t based on facts or tangible premises, congratulations – you’ve exposed an ideologue pretending to be an idealist.
4. Look at any argument with a critical eye and if necessary attack it. But if it stands up to evaluation, switch sides and defend it.
5. If the argument being asserted isn’t based on facts or tangible premises, congratulations: you’ve exposed an idealogue pretending to be an idealist.
6. Just remember that a person who might be gruff is probably hurting. “Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist” – George Carlin.
7. Part of critical thinking is criticism (to assault with reprimand or diminishment). But it is also to critique (to assess for quality) and then compliment where correct and necessary as an act of thorough honestly of the critic. Listen for constructive criticism and sift through anything you might detect as personal attack. Often our perceived enemies tell us the most truth.
8. If the argument being asserted isn’t based on facts or tangible premises, congratulations: you’ve exposed an ideologue pretending to be an idealist.

Quotes signifying this pole

• “Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist” George Carlin
• “Confidence in nonsense is a requirement for the creative process.” – M. C. Escher
• “Political ability: it is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterward to explain why it didn’t happen.” Winston Churchill
• “The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.” ~  George F. Will

Implications of the Reversed Position or Negative Pole

With his last breath Caesar’s uttered “et tu brute” (Even you Brutus?!). It was Mark Antony who alerted the crowd to Brutus’s treachery calling his stabbing of Caesar “the most unkindest cut of all” A reference to the Warrior’s attitude about ultimate betrayal of trust and loyalty. Trust is probably the most difficult state for a Cynic to temper: to accept it or to recognize it. As a defense, those who denigrate, (much like those in the negative pole of Self Deprecation – Abasement (Card 26), can be ruthless in their verbal attacks. The phrase “you stabbed me in the back” or “you backstabber” characterizes both this iconic moment and the psychological motivation in the pole of Cynic.

Card messages in the Shadow position.

– Denigration

(rebellious, bitter, uncooperative, pessimistic, misanthrope, pain, self-defeating, defamatory, caustic, detractor, bickering, protesting, disputing)

1. Stop the chatter and accusation. Offer a solution or shut up!
2. ‘It is all crap and we are powerless to change it.’ Denigration is the proverbial “all eggs in one basket”…broken and scrambled! Helpless and angry about it, one fights for one’s limitations with a pessimistic certainty sure to kill, or at least maim, any hope. All possibilities are being belittled. Stop the chatter and accusation. Offer a solution or shut up!
3. Nothing has ever been gained from doing nothing, except more of the same.
4. When people confuse pessimism with cynicism they fail to see what a genuine cynic like Diogenes or George Carlin did: they go past the niceties and expose frauds. 
5. Careful not to exclude all but your own opinion or destroy another with denigration. Do unto others or what goes around comes around. 
6. “Thou protest protest too much” claims the person who wants to condemn debate. Disagree loudly! Someone is trying to slide something past you by shaming you into silence.
7. Pessimism is an honest response to a low probability that something beneficial is not likely to occur deduced from all reasonable data. Cynicism is the hostile and negative belief that one shouldn’t bother to try for something because it is a waste of time. Cynics crave the certainty of failure. The pessimist is merely honest about a low probability of success. Forget hope or hopelessness. Get a new strategy!
8. No amount of love can ever be wasted. Dispel any rationalizations to withhold love. They will reveal places where pain has been hidden, or imprisoned and its revenge enshrined as truth. Pain has been allowed to run amok. Reign it in. Forgive yourself for the hurt and hate it generates. Please, STOP!
9. Pessimism is not the same as cynicism. Genuine Cynics, like Diogenes or George Carlin, pick apart an argument to expose its flaws, and catch a fraud being perpetrated. Don’t stop just because someone calls you negative.
10. Cynics, who are often quite funny, might quip that any argument is full of POOP! Preference, Orientation, Opinion, Prejudice! We agree, it is too bad that when people are in their mind, they forget to mind-their-mind and its output. Perform a RADE — Rigorous Analytical Discernment Exercise on your POOP. See if you can sort it out.
11. Oscar Wilde once noted that “A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” Realize that having an informed but snide opinion isn’t worth anything! You merely tear things down and offer no help building things anew.
12. Wavering on a decision? What are you bitter about? Don’t stop yourself by not asking the question.

Quotes signifying this pole

• “We’re all fucked. It helps to remember this.” George Carlin (The Patron saint of Cynics and the foil of BS)
• “Give Up.”  Don Joyce
• “If you wake up and you’re not in pain, you know you’re dead” Russian Proverb
• “Cynical realism is the intelligent man’s best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation.”  Aldous Huxley
• “Thou protest protest too much, methinks.” Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Relevance within the Michael Teaching

Cynicism is an Attitude that is attended by two suitors: humor and pain. In being contrary to most other points of view, particularly what they see as overly optimistic (Idealist) or vague and emotional (Spiritualist) they achieve a feeling of certainty about things; even if that certainty sounds like Murphy’s Law. Often ready to poke holes in an idea or at the person offering it, they cannot help but want to dispel anything they don’t deem as time honored traditional practices and viewpoints. As Essence equips a personality with this perspective for the purpose of rejecting the frivolous and feeling sanctified doing so. The fear of being wrong or making mistakes is at the core of this Attitude. The Cynic tries to avoid action unless it is absolutely warranted, and even then, it is minimal.

The Cynic often expresses itself in the guise of a reactionary. Before commenting on your idea, they tend to offer a different, and of course often contradictory one. Someone who will forestall others until their position has been granted utmost credence. A motto for this sense of inferiority might be “I don’t get no respect, no respect at all.” And then, with psychological projection in play, he/she seeks to make sure you or your premise receives little or none at all.

When in the positive pole, a Cynic plays Devil’s Advocate for the purpose of helping his point of view be stronger against attack. The Cynic sets the floor or the most terse of conditions to meet the test of credibility. If you earn the respect of a Cynic when they are in this position, you have proven yourself and your ideas solid to them in some fundamental way. A Cynic is gratified when all the pretty language is stripped away and people “get to the point.” They respect the truth, especially when it is blunt.

In the negative pole, the Cynic tends to be more loner than socialite. Their behavior tends to create conditions that keep people from getting close to them, anyway. This prevents anyone causing them pain or being led around by the nose in the name of love. Something that some Cynics will tell you is a faerie story anyway. Cursing and swearing are a favorite tool of the negative pole serving both to keep people away and to punctuate with shock value, their disapproval.

The Cynic Attitude does not automatically show itself as a mean, contrary, anti-social person. Often, the Cynic tries to blend in knowing their inner filter puts up hard barriers they may want to soften but not eliminate altogether. It is common to see a slight smirk on the face of a Cynic who, on the inside, is trying hard not to laugh when they hear something they deem ridiculous come out of your mouth.

Famous Persons

Rodney Dangerfield, Don Rickles, Joan Rivers, John Belushi, Sandra Bernhardt, Humphrey Bogart, Lennie Bruce, George Carlin, James Dean, Whoopi Goldberg, Mick Jagger, Khomeni, Steve Martin, Andy Rooney, Frank Sinatra, Oliver Stone, Christopher Walken, John McCain, Roseanne Barr, Bill Maher, Steve Bannon (and in Aggression Mode).

Cultural Relevance

When the world is beset by excessive Cynicism and the emotional bitterness which fosters it, then nihilism (nothing has meaning nor inherent value), is not far behind. In the world of philosophy and art they called this “post-modernism”. Movements that proclaim the ultimate Armageddon, or speak of scientific determinism, divorce themselves from the emotional side of life and tend to live in a soup of banality seasoned with disdain. Scornful of anything that is new or does not take into its umbrella beliefs in the ultimate failing of people, or hope, or virtue; anything that is traditional or has “stood the test of time” is the only thing to fall back on. No matter if their assessment of the situation is skewed or polemical.

Everyone who has ever heard some of today’s most popular comedians has seen the Cynic at work. Cynics are excellent in showing us the fallacies in our thinking and doing so in ways that often sting. George Carlin’s famous “7 Dirty Words You Can’t Say on Television” illustrates his point about the absurdity of denying words, but allowing actions such as war and exploitation in images. Without a bit of Cynicism to confront and ground our rationalizations, we might be lost in a sea of distortions.

Cynics often cast themselves in the role of non-conformist, or outsider. Rather than standing for something, they merely reject or rebel against any trend, fashion, or style that looks in the least bit conforming. Like the Cynics Robes Pierre and Joseph Stalin, they stood against the power structures of their times but offered nothing but the worst abuses of the past as the foundation of their reigns of terror. At the basis of all deep political cynicism, is a hatred of anything that disagrees with itself. Ultimately, the negative Cynic is the eternal pessimist even when changes go in the direction of their arguments.

If your Attitude is Cynic then you will relate to…

1. No good deed goes unpunished.
2. Expecting the worse is sensible. If it turns out better, great!
3. My first reaction is “this ain’t going to work.”
4. If the crap got any deeper in here we could plant potatoes.
5. Most of the time, nothing seems to work out the way it is supposed to.
6. No matter what goes wrong, just remember I told you so.

by Stephen Cocconi © 2011, Updated 2024

For a Motivations Cards Reading or Channeled Consultation call: 209.768-4956 or email Stephen at channeling@themichaelteaching.com