David Inglis, University of Exeter
It is often said that sociology is a cynical exercise. It looks at the world in a corrosive way. It reveals the nature of mystifications and things presented as real and apparently obdurate, which it shows to be in fact social constructions and ideological elaborations. It sees through appearances and reveals the bases of things in social relations and forms of power. What could be more cynical than that?
That cynical impulse is part of the Enlightenment inheritance of sociology. The notion that one can cut through from the surface level of things to deeper realities is one taken from the Enlightenment philosophers, whose trenchant criticisms of kings and priests still animate the more cynical facets of sociology today. Another element of the Enlightenment that made its way into sociology was a swingeing sense of irony, both in terms of how opponents were derisively spoken of and represented, and also of how the questing actions of humankind were thought to have often highly ironic consequences, rebounding on actors in every kind of unexpected way. You only have to read a work of Enlightenment history like Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to realise where sociology’s acute understanding of the unintended consequences of human actions came from.
So in many ways sociology became a modern version of Enlightenment cynicism about the state of the world and the claims made by the powerful, as well as drawing upon the types of irony and ironic writing pioneered by the philosophers of the 18th century. In a peculiar way, when sociology has gone about its business, it has been embodying the cynical and ironic mode created by philosophers in France, Britain and elsewhere some 250 years ago. Of course a complex and contested terrain like sociology is never just a result of one source or tradition, as feminist and postcolonial critics would point out, but it remains the case that when sociology does what it does, looking at the world askance, it does so by enacting a cynical vision and using ironic forms of representation derived in large part from the Enlightenment.
That is why, when I am told at parties, wedding receptions and other social gatherings, by people who are not sociologists, that sociology is just far too cynical, I usually endeavour to ruin the conversation by replying that sociology is usually not cynical enough. And more specifically, I tend to say at such times that today sociology is in danger of losing its cynical and ironic edge. I add that the kind of cynicism that animates what sociologists do risks becoming, because of institutional pressures, something resembling nihilism more than cynicism, at least as the latter can be more productively understood. Saying those sorts of things is usually a good way to end a polite conversation and ensure I am not invited again to such gatherings, which often counts as a blessed relief.
What I have in mind is that cynicism is not in fact what it is commonly understood as being. A conventional understanding of cynicism thinks that it is a purely negative exercise and simply destructive of what it has in its sights. If cynicism were simply that, then when sociology is being cynical, it would be nothing other than a series of negative gestures towards the world. Taken to an extreme, cynicism tumbles into nihilism, which is violently aggressive, mostly very unproductive and often leads in a paradoxical way to resigned acceptance of the way the world currently happens to be. I don’t think that there is much mileage to be gained from nihilistic sociology – although I am tempted to develop such a weapon each time I have to listen to the neoliberal orthodoxies emanating from certain parts of the university and the whole apparatus of government today.
Luckily, there is more to cynicism than simply negativity. As the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk (1988) shows, the modern word ‘cynicism’ is very much a diminution of the original Greek word Kynic, and the ideas and actions to which it referred. In ancient Greece Kynicism was not just a philosophy, it was a way of life. The Kynical philosophers practised what they preached. They did not just say outrageous things against the dominant social order, they lived in equally outrageous and unconventional ways. Diogenes, one of the main Kynics, is said to have lived in a barrel, his pronouncements against conventional society so striking and so scandalous that even Alexander the Great was said to have come to visit him in his rather unusual habitation. And when the great emperor arrived in front of Diogenes’ barrel, the philosopher said something to the effect of ‘Get out of the way, you’re blocking the view!’.
Such outrageous cheek was never just naughty for its own sake, nor was it an exercise in simple negativity. It was both an attempt to pull apart conventional ways of thinking and living, and endeavour to create something better, more honest and more true than were the standard pieties of the age that underpinned how people actually lived. Kynicism was therefore simultaneously negative and positive, destructive and productive, denying the world through negativity and ironic attack in order to create a better one. Modern cynicism is a much diminished remnant of the earlier Kynical impulse.
I think that we find both Kynicism and cynicism in many of the great works of sociology. The pessimistic streak in German sociology, most spectacularly embodied in the writings of Max Weber, can be seen as cynicism heading towards nihilism, with some relatively feeble gestures towards a more positive vision of how society could be. That trend is counterbalanced by Marx, whose emphasis on capitalism’s creatively destructive capacities seems to be a direct ancestor of ancient Kynicism. Marx takes up an Enlightenment pen filled with fury and fervour against the powerful, but this is done with the aim of helping to bring into existence a better way of life for all, a truly Kynical combination of attack and degradation of the opponent together with a constructive will to make the world more truly liveable.
Another great sociological cynic, Thorstein Veblen, cast a highly ironic gaze over the doings of the wealthy classes, and in doing so brought to bear what Adorno subsequently called the ‘evil eye’ upon pretentiousness and conspicuous forms of social display. But while Veblen was arguably mostly a cynic in the modern sense of the word, Marx was a Kynic, his critique of the ruling classes never being content merely to assail them for their cruelties and stupidities, but also aiming to abolish the existence of such classes once and for all, as a means of establishing a better social order. While the cynic ultimately accepts the way things are, at the same time as excoriating them, the Kynic’s activities are all geared towards the transcendence of the status quo. To this end, she uses all the tools available to her, both mocking humour and satire in a negative mode, and, in a markedly more positive register, joyful laughter embracing all the possibilities that life has to offer.
But the positive and negative uses that Marx the Kynic made of humour and satire are barely touched upon in the teaching of his work and that of other classical thinkers, that happens today. Too often classical theory courses have had all the joie de vivre extracted from them, becoming far too dully routinized exercises – dutifully engaged in by teachers and grudgingly engaged with by students – ever to capture the humour, the vivacity, the anti-Establishment cheek of the Kynical impulses in what are now boringly labelled ‘the classics’. Far too often all the fun has been taken out, leaving a kind of grey shell that Max Weber may have thought typified modern life in general.
Therefore it’s time to completely rework how classical sociology is presented and taught. The buoyancy and outrageousness of the Enlightenment philosophers and the likes of Marx and Veblen need to be rediscovered and communicated to a new generation of young people who might then actually find that these old guys are not only saying things that are still worthwhile, but are saying them in lively and often highly provocative ways. We need to recast the understanding of those who have been unfortunately framed as dull classics, showing that they were really not the dry-as-dust figures that now haunt the pages of textbooks, but rather were passionate and compelling people who sometimes spoke the most outrageous truths to and against the powerful.
Peter Sloterdijk pointed out in the mid-1980s that a modern cynic is someone who privately does not believe in what they are doing, but they keep doing it anyway, because they feel that they have no choice. He was thinking of such people as government bureaucrats who know that the anti-welfare dependency rhetoric of their political masters is phoney and cruel, but they continue to enact the policies anyway, because they do not want to lose their jobs and end up on the streets themselves. Sloterdijk’s point seems, 30 years later, ever more like an accurate prediction. So much of what we do as sociologists involves paying lip service to the imperatives of the neoliberal university, whilst deploring quietly the way things are going. Such an institutional situation breeds a wholly destructive cynicism, which then can seep into the very pores of one’s being. The bracing cynicism of sociological thinking ceases to be the main kind of cynicism that animates one’s views. Instead structurally-induced cynicism starts to take over, perhaps leading even to the paradoxical situation of the sociologist feeling deeply cynical about sociology itself, its chances of survival in the neoliberal academy, and its possible future obsolescence.
That is why this is an opportune moment to revitalise sociology through embracing not a cynical but rather a Kynical outlook. This should inform both how we think and how we live, and what and how we teach. The Kynic draws upon all the tools that laughter, satire and critique can muster, but does so in a way that is cheerfully positive, even while recognising the power that despair can have. The kynic’s sociology is certainly not a soured or curmudgeonly exercise – those are the hallmarks of conservative satire and its paid hirelings who can be found on the likes of Fox News. The kynical sociologist, by contrast, sees through power and publicly says so, but does that in ways which embrace movement, change, social fluidity and the endless potentials that human history always seems to throw up, no matter how bad things otherwise seem. Sociological kynicism draws on the best of the earlier sociologists, but recognises their profound limitations too. She does so in a spirit of amused and amusing effervescence that – hopefully – communicates itself to others, most importantly a globalized generation of young people whose options are more limited than ever, but whose potential and energies are ever more brimming over.
And if the kynical sociologist is ultimately brought down by power – and in the neoliberal university there is more than a chance of that – then at least people will say this of her: she went down fighting, laughing in the face of the enemies of a better society all the while.
Reference
Sloterdijk, Peter (1988) Critique of Cynical Reason, London: Verso
David Inglis is Professor of Sociology at the University of Exeter, UK. He writes in the areas of social theory, globalization, cultural sociology and historical sociology.
The post Cynical Sociology? No, Kynical Sociology! appeared first on TASA.