Modern Cynicism & The Death of Hope

It’s confession time, gentle reader: I suffer from a deep-seated personal flaw, and though I manage to rein it in, the impulse is always with me.

I get a visceral thrill from thumbing my nose at conventional wisdom.  Today I’m going to break the basic rules of Marketing, and I’m going to do it with a rakish grin.

Marketing 101 states that you must remain upbeat at all times.  Don’t acknowledge any criticisms of your product.  Instead, accentuate the positive – in fact, if you truly internalize this rule, you realize that accentuating the positive doesn’t go far enough.  Affirming a positive implies a negative; every source of light casts a shadow.  By describing the benefits of your product, you leave it open to criticism, and the last thing you want is to generate negative buzz.  Certain groups are going to hate you no matter what, and by making any sort of positive claim you’re offering them ammunition.  Pro-level marketers never talk about the product itself, they tell you about the subjective emotions it will inspire.  They create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Make your own Sun” is a trademarked phrase for women’s razors.  Seriously.

Maybe you hate the above commercial, but that’s fine; it’s not for you.  They’ll come out with a different commercial to target your demographic, the same product, but different packaging – maybe dark-grey, with heavy metal music, or black-and-red, with sexy jazz playing.  The point is that nobody can criticize the product.  Anybody who makes fun of the commercial comes off as a spoil-sport to anybody who likes it, and the only argument for switching brands is a better version of the above jingle.

This advertising is the perfect manipulator of the narcissistic and emotionally-shallow people we have in today’s world, and it’s certainly not just Bic that’s doing it.  I recently saw an Under Armor commercial about a bunch of Alpha Males playing rugby to dubstep that was equally vapid.  These methods are effective for manipulating the modern, degenerate man.  But they also perpetuate vulgar modernity-

-and if I stand against anything, it’s modern vulgarity.  Instead of emotional manipulation, I choose to focus on the concrete positives of anything I do – and whatmore, I will focus on the negatives as well.

As I’m sure you know, Jordan Owen and I have started a Patreon campaign to fund a feature-length documentary titled The Sarkeesian Effect: Inside the World of Social Justice Warriors.  As I write this, we are 20% of the way towards our funding goal, and we have already been transparent about the concrete objectives of this film – not just the ‘warm fuzzies’ that you’ll derive from helping us combat this cancer.  Well, I think it’s time to take it a step further; let’s talk about what sort of valid reasons you could have for being opposed to this project, and the $5 we’re asking of you.

1. You think it’s the wrong target.

Obviously my interests go far deeper than just video games; this is just a single battle in a larger war.  But even if it’s just one battle, I think it’s an important struggle – as well as a struggle that can be won easily.  The post-modernist front has left their flank open, and now is the time to strike.  This won’t win the war, but it will shift the terrain of the battlefield.

But that’s just my opinion; perhaps you disagree with me.  When discussing strategy, there’s a lot of guess-work inherent to the process.  You can’t Monday-morning quarterback on Sunday, after all.  Ultimately, if you gut tells you that this is a waste of time, then no factual argument is going to sway your opinion; that’s simply the nature of the beast, and it’s a stance I can respect.

2. You think we’re incompetent.

If you’re suspect of our competence, integrity, or commitment, those are again valid, rational reasons not to support what we’re doing. Saying, “I hope you prove me wrong, but I don’t believe you can pull this off,” is a morally and intellectually-consistent stance – and like the above, since we’re speculating about future events, there’s a certain amount of guess work involved.  I can change your mind about facts, but I can’t change your gut feeling-

-and you should always trust your gut.  More often than not, it’ll steer you in the right direction.

3. You think we’re biased.

I can envision a female game developer who worries that this film will be an unjust attack on her interests; perhaps she even despises Sarkeesian, but she doesn’t trust our commitment to being honest journalists, rather than opinionated editorialists in this endeavour.  I hope to prove her wrong, but once again – time will tell.  No facts I can proffer will change her assessment until the project’s done.

So there are certainly some valid reasons to be suspicious, or outright opposed to this project.  Unlike some people, I don’t claim to have a monopoly on the Truth.  But there are also some bad reasons – the ‘modern cynicism’ which is the title of this article.  With that in mind, I’d like to share a couple of tweets that I received this morning.

This individual is ostensibly an opponent of Miss Sarkeesian, and yet – with these two tweets – you could easily mistake him for an ally.  There’s a reason for that; they’re both adherents to the morality of cynicism.  Two quotes come to mind – pick whichever strikes your fancy:

The medium is the message.
~Marshall McLuhan

By their fruit you shall know them.
~Matthew 7:16

First, there’s his use of vulgarity.  Harsh language has a time and a place: when it’s used skillfully, it can emphasize the philosophical importance of a statement; even unskilled users can employ it as a blunt weapon, army corporals will pepper their speech with swear words, to communicate a ‘no-nonsense’ attitude.  Greg isn’t doing either of these things.  His handle of “turbofaggots”, and that of his friend “DildoFaggins”, don’t contain any sort of social commentary, and the emotional impact is nothing but empty calories.  He behaves with the maturity of a 9 year old who just learned his first dirty word, combined with the physical strength of a 21 year old male, who cannot be controlled.  Rather than tempering his masculine propensity for violence into a pro-social tool, he swings it about wildly like a child.  Emotionally, he never undid his mother’s apron strings, but his mother can no longer spank him for his outbursts.  He spews his vitriol at whichever target happens to subjectively offend him in the moment, without thought, discipline, or strategic objective.

This is what it looks like when boys fail to become men.

Secondly, he believes in the same article of faith that all post-modernist subscribe to: namely, “There is no objective truth.” Sarkeesian and me?  We’re nothing but equal opposites, according to his worldview.  My attempts to explain the difference are nothing but cynical damage control.  There are no heroes – only villains.  Everybody’s out for a larger piece of the pie, but nobody knows how to bake.

This is a soul that’s rejected Hope – I’m specifically referring to the spiritual virtue.  Hope is frightening; it implies the potential for failure.  Hope is demanding; it provides an objective to work towards.  Hope is humbling; it makes you realize that your own weaknesses are your worst enemy.  Living without Hope leads to failure, but it’s a comforting sort of failure.  It’s the root of all addiction.

The Gambler: he doesn’t play to win, he plays to lose.  Upon gambling away his last dollar, his preconception of reality is affirmed: it’s all just bad luck.  The failures in his life come from external forces outside of his control, he never had a chance to succeed.

The Drunk: every high leads towards a hangover – not just the physical malady, but the damage to his lifestyle, as well.  His drinking gets him fired from his job, which makes life even more miserable, so he drinks even more.  The drinking creates a world where drinking becomes a necessary medication.  The drinking justifies itself.

The Nymphomaniac: she pursues love through sex, not out of a genuine desire to achieve love, but to prove that it doesn’t exist.  Each partner that treats her like an object affirms that love is chimerical; the growing bitterness she embodies drives the possibility of love even further away.  Soon enough, she doesn’t have to be afraid of emotional intimacy anymore – physical intimacy has destroyed it.

The core of modern cynicism is a rejection of Hope.  On the surface, they seem to ridicule the World of Marketing in the same way that men of principle ridicule it – but underneath the surface, its a different plant that’s growing, and its fruit is foul.  They aren’t making fun of the manipulative, upbeat mantras employed by these commercials, they’re making fun of the concept of quality in the first place. They aren’t rebelling against “Make your own sun!” being a reason to buy razors – they’re attacking the very idea of a good razor existing in the first place.

They believe that everything’s a scam, and they’ve given up on finding nobility anywhere – especially not within themselves.

My disagreement with Sarkeesian is not primarily with her arguments, it’s the corrosive mendacity which underlies her methodology.  She selects arguments because they’re convenient; whether or not they’re true is irrelevant to her.  The medium is the message.  By their fruit you shall know them.  Spiritual cynicism underlies her methodology, she lives in a world where theft and profit are synonyms.

And Greg is no different.

They can’t appreciate beauty – only their own pleasure.  They can’t appreciate kindness – only their own profit.  Each day they spend living, their misery increases as a result of their own actions; and as their misery increases, they find new ways to take it out on the world around them.  These wretches wander about with their eyes on the mud, lashing out at any and all who come into contact with them.  Like children, they scream and cry whenever they want their bottle.  Like children, they cannot empathize with the world around them.

Pity these monsters.  They live in a Hell of their own making.