I had a discussion with my dear teacher Jenny about the meaning of ‘cynicism’ during the last conversation class, and we didn’t completely
agree. I am going to try to explain why.
The word ‘cynicism,’ like the others
from the same semantic field, has different meanings, and they are still wider
if we take in account several languages.
This word proceeds from ancient Greek.
‘Cynics’ were members of a Socratic philosophical school that was founded in Athens
in the 4th century BC. That school exaggerated some features of Socrates to the limit. Their name -"The sect of the dog"- was taken from the Greek word for
‘dog’ (Kyon) because members of that
school tried to live like a dog, that means without any kind of moral or social conventions.
We are going briefly to consider the
adjective ‘cynical’. Etymologically and philosophically, ‘cynic’ means ‘amoral’ (not only dogs, but it seems all the animals live without any moral sense). However, some modern
languages also give other meanings to this word.
In English, for example, the term ‘cynic’
may also be ‘suspicious’, ‘selfish’, ‘skeptic’, ‘immoral’, or ‘cruel’.
In Spanish, ‘cínico’ can mean ‘indecent’, ‘dirty-minded’, or ‘someone who acts
with shamelessness in telling lies, or defending and practicing some condemnable
doctrines’. It also means ‘dirty’, and ‘rude’.
In Catalan, the meaning of ‘cínic’ is indeed more restricted: ‘someone
who boasts about his indecency and insincerity’.
In German, at length, ‘zynisch’ means ‘shameless’, ‘sarcastic’,
and ‘cruel’ too.
We can see how the meaning of the term ‘cynic’
has been expanding. Anyhow, it is commonly taken as a word for describing negative
traits of personality.
After this modest cross semantic analysis, I hope my
teacher and me have closed our opinion.
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