Earlier this year, Howard Anglin wrote an article for The Hub that warned against the conceit of contrarianism. His basic case was that although the contrarian instinct can be useful in the world of politics and public policy, it needs to be wielded with care. Excessive contrarianism or contrarianism as one’s default setting tends to lead in bad directions. Sometimes—in fact, most of the time—the consensus is probably right. Real contrarianism must be discerning enough to know when it is and when it’s not.
An intellectual cousin of contrarianism is cynicism. Political commentary is marked by the cynical outlook—perhaps even more so than contrarianism. It’s the modus operandi of so many of today’s opinion leaders, commentators, and pundits. Twitter is their preferred stage for cynical takes and where they deliver their best (or worst) performances.
A healthy dose of cynicism, like contrarianism, can be useful. The complete absence of cynicism is an empty idealism or even dangerous naivety that can cause one to misread the motives and outcomes of politics. A bit of cynicism is a good defence against succumbing to mere sentimentality.
But cynicism similarly needs to be constrained. Excessive cynicism is boring and unproductive. The cynic is quick to identify problems but incapable or unwilling to commit him or herself to solutions. Their cynicism is a device to avoid ever making informed bets about ideas, candidates, or policies that may actually contribute to progress. It’s invariably a politics of stasis and a politics of snark.
It’s not just that they let the perfect become the enemy of the good. It’s that they even refuse to see or accept the good because it might puncture their cynical narrative that politicians are dumb, lazy, or corrupt and the political system is therefore irrevocably flawed.
Yuval Levin has referred to this outlook as “sophisticated cynicism.” The sophisticated cynic is highly effective on Twitter but ultimately ineffective at statecraft. They’ve chosen the easy yet unsatisfying path of detachment and critique over the imperfect yet rewarding process of trade-offs and incremental progress.
Another problem with such sustained cynicism in political commentary is that it’s actually unrepresentative of most people. It reflects an intellectual poise that seeks to detach oneself from his or her fellow citizens and sees their principal role in highlighting the various flaws present in society. Roger Scruton put it this way:
People who self-identify as intellectuals and thinkers also want to identify themselves as in some way outside of the community. Standing in judgment on it. Gifted with superior insight and intellect. And therefore inevitably critical of whatever it is that ordinary people do by way of surviving. So we have created an intellectual class which by its nature doesn’t identify with the way of life around it. And tries to gain another identity by its critical stance.
Such a stance is unlikely to find much resonance with the broader public. People can certainly be pessimistic as recent polls show. But they’re not cynical. They generally believe that their country and the people who inhabit it are good and decent and although their society is far from perfect—and in fact faces real challenges—it’s not rotten to its core.
I was thinking about this recently in listening to an episode of Ezra Klein’s New York Times podcast with Tom Hanks. It’s a must-listen.
Klein framed the conversation around the insightful (and persuasive) observation that Hanks’s tremendous success as an actor is due in some part to his rejection of the cynicism of his social milieu. His career has instead been imbued by a view of American society that’s based on the premise that people generally think well of the society, their fellow citizens, and their country. He’s instinctively understood that notwithstanding the common narrative of negativity and polarization, most people are positive, patriotic, and even sentimental.
One way that I’ve come to think about the dichotomy between intellectuals and the rest of us that Klein and Hanks discussed is through the popular television show America’s Got Talent. The former would likely sneer at the overproduced sentimentality of the show which is full of stories that seem a bit contrived, pre-packaged, and intentionally sappy. But the latter—including me—just like nice stories.
There’s a reason why it’s been among the most popular shows on television for several years. We prefer positive over negative. We like to believe in something or someone. We don’t mind sentimentality. We’re drawn to sincerity. We want to feel good.
It’s the same reason why the Apple show Ted Lasso has resonated so much in recent years. It’s kind of a silly plot when one thinks about it. An American football coach getting hired to coach professional soccer in London as part of a revenge plot against an ex-spouse is far-fetched to say the least. The storyline is a bit cliched and the jokes can be hokey. But it’s highly successful precisely because it’s deliberately rejected sophisticated cynicism—it’s intentionally anti-cynical—and the audience has overwhelmingly responded.
Same for Tom Hanks, who agreed with Klein’s interpretation of his personal outlook and how it has shaped his career. As he explained in their conversation:
I think it’s because we have entered into a realm of cynicism that seems to be much more of a default position for an awful lot of cultural exchange….
But what I did not give in to was an ongoing type of cynicism that said, “It’s all corrupt, that it is all worthless,” because, even then, I was coming across people that were honest, and forgiving, and willing to sit down and discuss the differences.
Hanks’ message here has real application for politicians and political commentators. There’s clearly a large yet untapped market for a politics of anti-cynicism. Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” is still a far more compelling political proposition with most people than Donald Trump’s “America carnage.”
Here in Canada, Justin Trudeau found a Lasso-like politics in the 2015 election campaign. Ever since, however, he’s devolved into an increasingly cynical stance that’s much more about making the negative case for his opponents than the affirmative case for him and his government. He continues to win but only by turning himself into an uninspiring version of his former self. It’s an inherently unsustainable basis for political power.
A key lesson here is that Canadian intellectuals shouldn’t segregate themselves too far from the people and society that they critique. A mix of sentimentality and sincerity is still a powerful political ideal. Tom Hanks may ultimately understand Canadian voters even more than our elected officials or political commentators themselves.
