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’s the greatest enemy of Christianity to-day? Frozen meat. In the past only members of the upper classes were thoroughly sceptical, despairing, negative. Why? Among other reasons, because they were the only people who could afford to eat too much meat. Now there’s cheap Canterbury lamb and Argentine chilled beef. Even the poor can afford to poison themselves into complete scepticism and despair.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“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)
“There is no comparing the brutality and cynicism of today’s pop culture with that of forty years ago: from High Noon to Robocop is a long descent.”
—Charles Krauthammer (b. 1950)