Soft Reboot

There’s this one famous quote by Oscar Wilde that goes something like this: “A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”  I can see why the quote is famous; it just sounds deep.  Too bad it’s also completely wrong.  Wouldn’t that man be closer to a “miser”?  What I’m trying to say is…Oscar Wilde, you stink.

Let’s go back to the original definition of cynicism.  According to Webster, a cynic is “one who believes that human conduct is motivated wholly by self-interest.”

Before I became Christian, I would gladly have called myself a cynic by Webster’s definition.  (I would also have to call myself cynical by the Oscar Wilde’s erroneous definition, but that’s another story.)

Here was (is?) my reasoning:

Fact 1: There is a reason behind every action that every person does. Like Hercule Poirot once said, “Without a motive, there is no murder.”   I know absolute statements are tough to justify, so if you really want to quibble, I can change Fact 1 to “There is a reason behind 99% of the actions that 99% of the people that you know does.”

I think I can defend the absolute statement pretty well though.  Let’s dream up some hypothetical boogieman that could exist who does things without reason.  Personally, I don’t really care about the hypotheticals; I’m more concerned about our actual lives.  But since I’m already here, let’s take a boogieman who’s already been created: the Joker.

I’m no Batman buff, but I remember hearing once that the Joker’s main strength as an antagonist is that his actions are completely irrational and motiveless. But is this really true?  Let’s take this exchange from The Dark Knight:

Aside: Michael Caine is AWESOME.

Alfred Pennyworth: A long time ago, I was in Burma, my friends and I were working for the local government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders by bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. So we went looking for the stones. But in six months, we never found anyone who traded with him. One day I saw a child playing with a ruby the size of a tangerine. The bandit had been throwing them away.
Bruce Wayne: Then why steal them?
Alfred Pennyworth: Because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

The thing is, I don’t think we’ve proved that the Joker is irrational or motiveless by this exchange at all.  All we’ve shown is that the Joker has perverted reasons for what he does.  We might not be motivated by the same things that motivate the Joker, but we can certainly understand the things that drive him.  You can use many words to describe sadists, but “irrational” isn’t one of them.

So there’s my defense.  If you don’t buy it, you can come up with a better hypothetical boogieman.  But I don’t think you can disagree with the fact that most of the people you interact with on a day-to-day basis are boogiemen.  So in the cases that you should care about, Fact 1 holds.  I don’t think I’m saying anything too crazy yet.  Certainly it is no stretch to say that 99% of all people around you act rationally.

Phew.  Didn’t want to spend that much time on that point.

Let’s move on to the next and final step.  Fact 2: All actions are performed out of self-interest.

Since we have established that most actions have motives, we can start to classify them.  I separate motives into three categories: actions done for the self, actions done for others, and actions done for a cause.  Let me define these categories more clearly.

Actions done for the self are those actions which obviously benefit the performer of the action.  A man is hungry, so he eats.  In this example, the man’s action of eating is clearly done for the gratification of his hunger.  A more difficult example are those actions which seem to lack a certain amount of intentionality.  For example, I can choose to wave my hand in the air right now without any seeming benefit to myself.  Ignoring the obvious motive that I have (disproving my theory), I could justify my action by a simple phrase: “I just felt like it.”  I claim that any action that can be justified by “I just felt like it” is an action done for the self.  By performing the action, I have gratified some feeling inside me.  Obviously, these actions are done out of self-interest, so I don’t need to justify the cynic’s view on these actions.

Actions done for others are actions that benefit others without benefiting the self.  I add the second clause because if an action benefits the self as well as others, a cynic can easily say that the action was performed out of self-interest.  The benefit to others can be dismissed as a side-effect.

But let’s say an action seemingly has no benefit to the performer.  Now here’s where it gets hairy for the cynic.  The cynic basically argues that these actions still are performed out of self-interest for one or more of the following reasons:

• • Building a relationship (to get something out of the other people, or to avoid the pain of being alone)
  • Building a reputation as a good person
  • The warm fuzzy feeling that appears from helping others
  • The flipside of the warm fuzzy feeling: the avoidance of feeling guilty
  • …you get the picture

You can think that this is terrible.  You can think that I am a terrible person.  Both true.  But let me just say: I used to believe that this was true.  So let’s move on.

Actions done for a cause are pretty much the same as actions done for others.  These are the actions that don’t benefit specific people around you, but rather a cause like PETA or women’s rights or whatever.  The same reasoning applies.

So that was my reasoning.  A really long-winded way of saying “No, you’re not nice, you’re just trying to feel good or make yourself look better.”  (Come to think of it, I probably could have just written that.  Oh well.)

…

So what’s changed, now that I’m a Christian?

Well, I was presented with two issues.  The first was that I needed to throw away my cynicism.  In my classification system, I had forgotten one possible motive for actions done for others (or causes).  Namely, love.

You see…I made my classification system based off of my own experiences (don’t we all?)  And since I’d never done anything out of a truly selfless heart, I assumed that all people were like that.  It’s no stretch to say that I had never loved before.

Once I understood what love meant (wow, I’m starting to sound like a cheesy song), and what it meant to do something selflessly…well, accusing others of doing things for themselves just seemed ridiculous.  I don’t really know how else to describe it.  How could one actually perform selfless acts just for the warm fuzzies?  I can’t believe I thought that.

The second is a problem that’s just recently come up in my mind by three things.  First, playing Mafia.  Second, the numerous Agatha Christie mysteries I’ve been reading.  And finally, Pastor Pat’s messages on love.  (Um, not in that order.  Really.)

This might sound strange at this point in the post, but I’ve always steered clear of judging people’s motives all my life.  Even as a cynic, I tried to avoid judging people 1) it seemed polite to take people at face value and 2) I’d go nuts if I judged everyone.  It’s a little like Locke’s social contract: we assume the best of each other to avoid tearing each others’ throats out.  Of course, being a cynic meant that I was always on my guard just in case the other shoe dropped.  My motto was to assume the best of others, but to prepare for the worst.

Now that I’m a Christian, I don’t know if I should modify my motto.  After all, if I prepare for the worst, aren’t I just assuming the worst in general?  That does jive in part with the Bible…after all, the Bible tells us that all men are wicked and depraved (Rom 3:10-18, 23).  On the other hand, 1 Corinthians 13:7 tells me that “love believes all things.”  NIV says “always hopes.”  Is this calling me to always take people’s intentions at face value?  Would that be wise?

I really don’t know where to go with this…I’m going to go ahead and continue with what I’m doing because it seems like the best course of action.  But if anyone (*coughPastorPatcough*) has something else to say, I’d be open to listen.

-Tim

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