"I've done it many times, it won't work!"
"Gimme 10 good reasons why I should listen to you!"
"The leader should set example!"
"I've never been praised, so why should I praise others?"
Does all these sound familiar? If they don't, I'd be very interested to know which organization you come from so that I can visit the disease prevention department to learn a thing or two. Because these are 'diseases', call it 'cynicism' for the sake of simplicity, that I find it hard to cure, they are extremely contagious, and permeates through the file and rank in any organizations you can imagine. Or more accurately, these diseases are evident in places where human interact. They spread through verbal and on-verbal transmission mediums, and passed on from one to another regardless of age, race, colour or creed. Especially susceptible to these contagion is between people of different social or hierarchical status within human organizations - people higher up the chain of command spread to more at one go as compared to those lower down. Interestingly, unlike bird flu which has recently been found to infect human from birds, the 'cynicism' disease has so far been observed to remain humanly. So for this reason, there must be some undiscovered antibodies in animals that has kept them immune till this day. The origin of 'cynicism' is unknown, but evidence has it that it is observed since the beginning of homosapiens... okok... you get the drift here, I'm talking about cynical people who makes cynical remarks about anything and everything cynical or uncynical. But before I begin to turn cynical myself, I offer a few reasons why cynical people choose to be cynical.
Firstly, being cynical is an attempt to legitimize one's own failure or non-performance. When a person feels incapable about something, lack of innovation for example, he innately tries to find excuses to justify why he should not be seen as lacking in innovation but instead exposes all possible imperfections that led to his deficiency in the first place. This is especially evident through erecting "it won't work", "I've tried it before", "I'm not convinced" barriers to down play the originality of an idea when first surfaced.
Secondly, it is an attempt to prevent other's success. A cynical person never makes it easy for others to succeed probably due to "red-eye" tendencies which is also explained by Adam's Equity Theory. This person's world view is one of conflict, that when one rises others have to fall. Under the influence of such philosophy, the defence system responds by making sure others don't rise in the first place. Being cynical is probably the easiest and most effortless of all human activity, yet has the propensity to generate enough power to provide adequate defence for oneself.
Thirdly, it is an attempt to attribute failure to others. Especially evident in situations when mistakes are made, one conjures up all possible deficiencies in others and verbalize them in a way that led others to believe they were the originators of those mistakes.
To remain silent when the cynicism disease is flying around is a dangerous and irresponsible thing to do. Because the very act of remaining oblivious is indirectly promoting the contagion - so if you are not the murderer, you are the accomplice. Let me offer a few tips if you happen to be caught between the act:
1. "Did you just have 'cynicism' for lunch?"
2. "I can see 'cynicism' written all over your forehead!"
3. "I just had a flu jab, do you need one for 'cynicism'?"
Monday, April 21, 2008
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1 comment:
In my working place, I don't face cynicism as much as I face self-centredness. People are not really cynical, they are just trying to show off their work or take the limelight with the little that they actually do.
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