Keyes’ work is a creative, thoughtful and, at times, penetrating examination of an all too often unchecked, unhappy virtue of our post-modern, post-Truth age. A few quotes:
“The cynic will rarely articulate his or her ideals out loud. They are kept in the closet but are still used to see through and unmask those who fall short of them [thier ideals].”
Keyes develops four reasons for the path of the cynic: 1) protection against destroyed hopes 2) protection from being shown up 3) protection from moral responsibility 4) basis for an elite or superior status.
Cynicism enables you to do nothing but feel morally superior to those who are doing something good but imperfect in an imperfect world.
Job abandoned cynicsm toward God, not because cynicism wasn’t nice, nor out of fear of punishment, but because he no longer believed it to be true…as he was able to engage, understand, and experience something of God’s transcendence and love, his grievances changed shape and were replaced with humility.
God in his omniscience sees vastly more, not less than the human cynic. He misses nothing that is there. Omniscience see sthrough, but in seeing through, sees that there is sometimes no mask to take off.
When we see through too much, we see less. When we see through everything, then we see nothing except the theory that we started with.
I am looking for the wisdom expressed in redemptive suspicion, limited by humility and tempered by love and mercy.