Today, being cynical is often viewed as a negative. “Modern cynicism is standardly seen as a casting of doubt on the motives that guide right conduct, challenging the preferred self-image of those it targets” (Small, Citation2020, p. 1). To be labeled a cynic is to be castigated for not being a team player, for being someone who rocks the boat and refuses to simply believe or trust (Small, Citation2020). Well, call me a cynic, but that team player sounds like a sheep conforming to the herd, as Nietzsche (Citation1967) noted.
If we dig into the origins of cynicism in ancient Greece, a different view of the cynic presents itself. Cynicism becomes about living “in agreement with nature, rejecting conventional desires for wealth, power, sex and fame,” and leading “a simple life free from all possessions, making a cult of indifference” (Conradi, Citation2019, p. 50). In ancient Greek the word cynicism is closely bound to the word dog, though whether it was meant as an insult or a compliment is unclear. If it was the former, then nothing has changed since then. However, the latter offers interesting possibilities for the practice and study of leisure. Why? Because the cynic happily contests “norms of morality and public self-expression” to see and to exist outside the box (Small, Citation2020, p. 2). Both dogs and cynics are happy “eating and making love in public, going barefoot and sleeping out of doors” (Conradi, Citation2019, p. 50).
This abandonment of conventions speaks to the notion of “freedom to be,” which is cherished by scholars of leisure and by everyone who, in their moments of leisure, feels free of the normal constraints of their mundane lives (Carr, Citation2017). Cynics, it is suggested, do not just live for this dream, where freedom is but a temporary mirage in between extended periods of drudgery; instead, they live the dream as their ordinary, mundane lives. Looking through this lens, is the dog the ultimate role model to aspire to if we truly want the leisured life? This is not a consumeristic leisured life but a cynical one denuded of consumerism. It means living without all the neuroses associated with humanity and, in doing so, to be free in our lives, once and for all throwing away the fallacy that leisure can at best be only a part of life rather than a way of life.
Yet some notes of cynicism are necessary here. To live this life of the dog and the cynic requires giving up our consumer goodies, with all their addictive qualities. It involves not so much giving up on social rules but reimaging them, as envisaged by Bakunin, the forefather of anarchy (Dolgoff, Citation1971). Finally, we have to accept that the life of a dog may have huge appeal, but a dog’s life span does not. Following the life of a cynic may not damn us to a short life, but those life-extending benefits sold to us by the consumerist economy cannot be available to cynics who have turned their backs on consumerism. Although a long life is certainly given the hard sell, the cynic has to ask whether a long life really equates to a life well lived, or whether a shorter, cynical life of leisure may actually be a better-quality life than a long consumer-driven one.
The leisured life of my dog Ebony (like Gypsy and Snuffie before her) is predicated on the work of her humans. We walk her, throw balls for her, dry her off after swimming, pay for her food and toys, and deal with her numerous injuries and illnesses. We give her the safety to laze around for hours on end, enabling her to defend the house in the knowledge that everything is safe anyway. Here we see the reality that dates back to Aristotle and Plato’s leisure: to have a life of leisure, even one as simple as a dog’s, someone has to pay. Most of the costs my family and I incur we pay willingly simply for the chance to love and be loved by a dog. Yet again, cynicism should rear its head and suggest that this “work” is a fallacy, just as the divide between human and dog is. Instead, we can see a duality (or multi-ality) where the lives of everyone (dogs and owners) interact to enable a life of leisure that covers all those who are willing to put a little into the pot and allow leisure to dominate rather than consumerism.
The dog and the cynic may be a good role model for researchers, including those working in leisure studies. Research that goes beyond the boundaries of social acceptability has often been criticized, questioned for its validity and value. On the one hand, it is lauded as the pinnacle of research (pushing the boundaries of knowledge); on the other, it is portrayed as a route to academic oblivion for an aspiring researcher. Yet dogs blissfully put their noses wherever they like and sniff to understand what is there. In doing so, they not only gain knowledge but also appear to be very happy. Researchers, it is suggested, would do well to follow the path of dog, to be a cynic both in its modern sense of constantly questioning and in its original sense of happily ignoring barriers and not stressing about it.
So go and sniff the wind, roll in the noxious leavings on the beach or the fresh-cut grass, put your nose where you like and enjoy doing so. Then, like the dog, do all this while loving the fact that we are part of society, a society that should learn to accept this attitude not just from dogs but from humans as well.
References
- Carr, N. (2017). Re-thinking the relation between leisure and freedom. Annals of Leisure Research, 20(2), 137–151. https://doi.org/10.1080/11745398.2016.1206723
- Conradi, P. (2019). A dictionary of interesting and important dogs. Short Books.
- Dolgoff, S. (1971). Bakunin on anarchy. Selected works by the activist-founder of world anarchism. Alfred A. Knopf.
- Nietzsche, F. (1967). The will to power. Vintage Books.
- Small, H. (2020). The function of cynicism at the present time. Oxford University Press.