CYNICAL: contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives
Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online
I understand why people get cynical, especially in fraught areas of our social and political life like guns.
Although I can’t guarantee I won’t, I hope I never become cynical. If I start down that path, I hope I (or someone who loves me) will recognize it in time for me to step off.
To be sure, sarcasm is a key that I sing easily in, and I have been known to invoke Dostoyevsky’s idea that, “I love humanity, it’s the people I can’t stand.”
But I generally consider myself earnest and optimistic, even if I become more of a tragic optimist as I age.
Why am I thinking about this right now?
Tracy Chapman joined Luke Combs to perform her song, “Fast Car,” at the recent Grammy Awards. I got goosebumps watching it.
Tracy Chapman’s eponymous 1988 album was released when I was a sophomore in college on my way to studying sociology in no small part because of the economic inequality I had witnessed on “skid row” in Los Angeles and on the streets of Washington, DC. So songs like “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution” and “Mountains O’Things,” along with “Fast Car,” really struck a chord with me at the time and continue to give me feels.
Of course, heterosexual cisgender male country music star Luke Combs was criticized for cultural appropriation for covering a song by a Black queer woman, and those responses were re-triggered by the performance.
For me, I found the moment hopeful for its recognition of Tracy Chapman as an artist and its potential to bring people from different backgrounds together in common cause.
Sure, Luke Combs used the Confederate flag before. He also apologized for that. Humans can change and grow. Human culture can, too.
We could use more of this in many areas of our social and cultural life, not least of which as concerns my main concern these days, guns.
Like I said, I hope I never become cynical.
Gun Culture 2.0 
“When too much cynicism threatens to engulf us, it is buoying to remember how pervasive goodness is.” (Carl Sagan) It also helps to not read the comments and even ignore social media for a while.
ALSO:
“The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it” (George Bernard Shaw)
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$500,000.
That’s how much in residuals Tracy has made off of Luke Combs’s cover of Fast Car so far, I hear. I also hear that Tracy gave her blessing to Luke. So as far as I’m concerned, if Tracy is making bank, and gave her blessing, I personally have no problem with the cover.
Adding to that, Luke loved the song when he was a kid saying is was his favorite song before he understood what a favorite song was. That a cis-gen white male kid was inspired by a song created, and sung, by a Black queer woman, that proves my contention that the arts – especially the performing arts – bring all kinds of people together than it separates people.
But then, that only this old cis-gen Black
man’s opinion.
As for becoming cynical: it’s one of the major reasons why I quit social media. The bullshit that stinks up that joint was making me cynical. I despised becoming that man.
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I had just finished grad school and was still in my idealistic period when I first heard Fast Car. It still resonates with me.
Good post, David. Don’t ever blow out that candle of hope.
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Is it cynical of me to note that “Fast Car” resonated with me for many reasons when it came out and, while I knew what color Chapman is, I could not have cared less. I did not care or even know then, anything about her sexuality, nor do I even care now. And, frankly, I don’t think the color or gender or sex of someone who covered it with her blessing is relevant. Is it cynical of me to say people can’t enjoy anything these days simply for what it is and not for some meaning they project on to it?
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Call me a cynic. For, with this cover and with everything in music, sports, pop culture, and politics — and of course including gun control — I see us being told what to think about and how to feel about it. It keeps us on a mental & emotional treadmill, unable to slow down and see what’s going on.
I’ve been this jaded since I was a kid, when watching The Prisoner and listening to Pink Floyd led me to suspect that most things are sleight-of-hand, machinations are underway behind the curtain, and nothing is really as it appears to be.
Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away/
Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air
Welcome to the machine/
What did you dream? /
It’s alright we told you what to dream
Calm, reasoned observations & analyses like the ones found here, are the antidote.
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[…] [3] I Hope I Never Become Cynical […]
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