A National Poll Even a Cynic Could Tolerate

People accuse me of being a cynic. I’d complain about this, but what’s the use?

It wouldn’t do any good. Nothing does any good. Besides, most people are weasels anyway.

So a few days ago these two guys send me their new book, “The Cynical Americans: Living and Working in an Age of Discontent and Disillusion.”

They want me to care about a book on cynicism. Like I care if it’s going to change the world, right?

The two guys, Donald Kanter, a professor of marketing at Boston University, and Philip Mirvis, a private researcher and consultant, say things like:

“Some 43% of the American populace fit the profile of the cynic, who sees selfishness and fakery at the core of human nature. We base this conclusion on the results of a national survey we conducted whose findings we report here.”

Just what we need. Another national survey. You know how I think most surveys are done? I think a bunch of guys get together in a room and drink some beer and make up the numbers. They just make them up. Yeah.

“The survey shows that cynics mistrust politicians and most authority figures, regard the average person as false-faced and uncaring, and conclude that you should basically look out for yourself,” the authors write. “Cynics at work deeply doubt the truth of what their managements tell them and believe that their companies, given a chance, will take advantage of them.”

Well, excuuuuuuuuse me. Like a company would never take advantage of an employee, right? No way. They’re much too busy polluting the environment or making junk products that explode in our faces as soon as we get them home.

So the authors include their survey in the book and you can take it yourself. For each statement, you indicate how you feel by marking each one Strongly Agree, Slightly Agree, Slightly Disagree or Strongly Disagree:

1. “Most people will tell a lie if they can gain by it.”

2. “People claim to have ethical standards regarding honesty and morality, but few stick to them when money is at stake.”

3. “People pretend to care more about one another than they really do.”

4. “It’s pathetic to see an unselfish person in today’s world because so many people take advantage of him or her.”

5. “Most people are just out for themselves.”

6. “Most people inwardly dislike putting themselves out to help other people.”

7. “Most people are not really honest by nature.”

Understand? Sure you do. Maybe if you don’t, I could get a chimpanzee from a zoo to explain it to you.

Anyway, if you answered Strongly Agree or Slightly Agree to five out of the seven questions, you’re a cynic.

What’s a cynic? The authors say, “to put it simply, (a cynic) believes that lying, putting on a false face and doing whatever it takes to make a buck are all part of our basic human nature.”

So I called one of the authors, Donald Kanter, to ask him what was wrong with that.

“A cynic is a person who mistrusts other people’s motives and looks for vulnerabilities and weaknesses to exploit,” Kanter said. “A cynic is a person who says: ‘Don’t get your hopes up, because you’re just going to get screwed. Don’t be a sucker, because you can’t trust anybody.’ ”

In other words, I said, a cynic is realist.

I thought maybe I heard a sigh on the phone, but with the crummy state of the phone company these days, who can tell?

“We would prefer to think that a realistic person is more of a skeptic and not a cynic,” Kanter said. “A skeptic may doubt what you say, but leaves the evidence open. All of us are cynics at one time or another. It’s hard to look at Richard Nixon or Dan Quayle and not be somewhat cynical.”

Kanter is saying that the difference between a cynic and a skeptic is that a skeptic looks at Richard Nixon and says: “This guy was a lousy President.”

But a cynic looks at Richard Nixon and says: “The guy was a lousy President and so all our Presidents are going to be lousy because that is the nature of life and politics in America today.”

Kanter and Mirvis fill up a whole book with examples and anecdotes and charts and they even tell you which areas of the country are most cynical (the mid-Atlantic with 48% cynics) and the least cynical (the mountain states with 28% cynics).

The book is very interesting, but tell me the two of them really care. Tell me they are not in it for the $22.95 a copy, right?

Anyway, I once took a cynic test that is a lot easier than theirs. It was this picture of a glass with water in it. And they asked you: “Is this glass half-empty or half-full?”

And I answered: “Who cares? What I want to know is if somebody had his thumb in it before I drink it.”

So they told me I was cynical.

I would have argued with them.

But what’s the point?

United Press International