Scepticism and Cynicism
So for Hegel history shows that stoicism is replaced by scepticism and cynicism. Here again the complete disbelief in society, rather than the reasoned and calculated disbelief of the stoic, eventually leads to a dissolution of oneself. The comedy of the cynic that is directed against society, eventually begins to turn against the comedian. The idea of goodness is seen as completely foreign to mankind.
Read more about this topic: Unhappy Consciousness
Famous quotes containing the words scepticism and, scepticism and/or cynicism:
“What is wrong with priests and popes is that instead of being apostles and saints, they are nothing but empirics who say “I know” instead of “I am learning,” and pray for credulity and inertia as wise men pray for scepticism and activity.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“It has often been argued that absolute scepticism is self-contradictory; but this is a mistake: and even if it were not so, it would be no argument against the absolute sceptic, inasmuch as he does not admit that no contradictory propositions are true. Indeed, it would be impossible to move such a man, for his scepticism consists in considering every argument and never deciding upon its validity; he would, therefore, act in this way in reference to the arguments brought against him.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“Cynicism makes things worse than they are in that it makes permanent the current condition, leaving us with no hope of transcending it. Idealism refuses to confront reality as it is but overlays it with sentimentality. What cynicism and idealism share in common is an acceptance of reality as it is but with a bad conscience.”
—Richard Stivers, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Culture of Cynicism: American Morality in Decline, ch. 1, Blackwell (1994)