The Conical Glass: Cynicism

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Cynicism

I watched Conan O'Brien's farewell show last night -- more about that on The Other Blog, of course -- but the thing that struck me the most was the really beautiful speech he gave near the end of the show. The whole thing is transcribed here. This is the key passage; Conan is addressing the young fans who rallied for him:

All I ask of you is one thing: please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism -- it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen.

I almost teared up when I heard that because I am probably one of the most cynical people you could ever hope to meet. Conan would hate me. After I almost teared up, my mind immediately went to, "Well, it's easy not to be cynical when you just got 40 million dollars." And, "If all of those kids had watched you on the TV instead of on Hulu, you wouldn't be having your dreams crushed by NBC right now."

The "don't be cynical" line is turning into an Internet meme, and it's already on T-shirts. It's pretty to think that today's youth will embrace O'Brien's words of wisdom, but unless you are insulated by fame and money, how can you not be cynical? (Conan's message competed with John Edwards' confession, the culmination of one of the most cynical careers in political history, which was released shortly before O'Brien's final show.) Certainly optimistic kids should avoid hanging around the comments section of any political blog or newspaper column; I was browsing through the reader responses to a Bob Herbert column in the New York Times earlier today, and there are plenty of people there who make me look like Little Mary Sunshine:

"I believe the Democrats simply don't care, and neither does the Republican Party. The only thing the political parties are interested in is enjoying the perks of power."

"Corporate profits count. Corporate spending counts. Corporate ability to wreck depredations abroad counts -- and don't worry -- the American people will never hear of these damages and provocations abroad. U.S. corporate interests won't allow reporting on that."

"The Democrats and Republicans are selling exactly the same product: USA of, by and for the big Corps. They just differ slightly in their respective sales pitches."

"We put politicians with the most money, but not necessarily the best ideas, into office. We do so because we are so lazy that instead of taking an active role in our democracy, we take the soundbites given to us by the best marketing campaigns money can buy."

"There is no one now let alone in the future who is or will be the least bit interested in representing 'the voters'. Our voices are ignored now and will be increasingly dismissed in the future as the money begets power."

And those are just a few from the first page; over 550 comments were posted before some editor said "no mas" and pulled the plug. (Now they can all move over to Maureen Dowd's new column and start leaving remarks there.)

The only saving grace in life is that sometimes amazing things do happen, and while I remain convinced that you can't stick your head in the sand and deny harsh realities, I guess it's important to sometimes focus on the good in the world. For instance, when I was raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through Team in Training a few years ago, Robert Smigel, creator of Conan mainstay Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, made an extremely generous donation. (No, I don't know him. And I've never been 100% sure how he found my fundraising page, though I have my suspicions.) Every time I hear that one of my friends, or even a friend of a friend, is raising money for a Team in Training activity, I donate. I pay it forward. And I think of Triumph.

posted by 125records @ 10:20 PM

3 Comments:

At 10:04 AM, spanghew said…

And there's people like this: and scroll to "Good Guy"
At 10:04 AM, spanghew said…

And now I'm cynical about why every goddamned website has its own system for HTML: let's try this - http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/82444152.html
At 12:04 PM, 125records said…

Kimberli's first mistake was buying a used Ford Taurus. I'm glad she got it fixed for free, but as the former owner of a Taurus, I can attest to the fact that those cars are crap.