Thursday, January 17, 2008
Cynicism
Posted by Zach in News

Diogenes is said to be the founder of Cynicism. He lived in near nakedness with dogs in ancient Greece. He did this intentionally because he thought that culture and custom corrupted a perfect unbroken creation. The term “cynic” derives from the Greek word “kynikos” the adjectival form of “kyon,” dog. Doggish Diogenes thought that we should imitate the dog’s independence from society. Such alienation from culture was progress, civilization was regress.

In J.D. Salinger’s adolescent novel The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield’s hatred for the world rivals Diogenes’. It is particularly interesting that both Caulfield and Diogenes reject the world as phony and revere their own callous behavior in the pursuit of authenticity.

Since it’s release, Charles Dicken’s novel David Copperfield has also been considered an insightful portrayal of adolescence. Salinger must have known this because he takes a swipe at it in the opening of Catcher. He opens: “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap.”

David Copperfield’s famous first sentence is “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.” The books could not present a starker contrast to one another.

While Copperfield struggles against his poor upbringing, Caulfield marinates in his suburban, middle-class, teenage angst. The protagonist’s differences are acute, but so are the differences between Dickens and Salinger.

Dickens worked 10 hours a day as a 12-year-old in a boot-blacking factory while his father was imprisoned at Marshalsea debtors’ prison. Dicken’s later had 10 children, wrote 15 major novels and numerous short stories, and traveled on both sides of the Atlantic performing one-person-shows.

By contrast, Salinger grew up in a middle class family on the West Side of Manhattan. He then attended prep school, military Academy, and finally NYU. He dropped out after a semester, went to Ursinus College for a semester, and dropped out again. He eventually attended a writing class at Columbia University. Apart from Catcher in the Rye, he is now most famous for being a recluse. He has not been interviewed since 1980 and has not written an original work since 1965.

Despite Diogenes high regard for dogs, legend has it that he died from an infected dog bite. Cynicism will get you in the end. One can’t help but wonder if it got Salinger.

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