Cynicism

Okay, I don't want to come across overly preaching and joyous, but this is something I really need to get off my chest. It's rather similar to the first post I made this year, though with a subtly different focus. I must stress that I'm not one of these naïvely optimistic types who think that everything in the world is good. I consider myself somewhat cynical insofar as I won't take "facts" given to me at face value but rather look for corroborative evidence, or at very least think for myself about how likely it is to be true. But it seems to me that it's become cool to be cynical about everything, to an excessive extent. To doubt has become the norm; while I am a firm believer that questioning things is extremely important, I also believe that giving people the benefit of the doubt (where there's no evidence to support or deny the case in point) is simply a healthy thing to do - and above that, the sort of thing that a nice person should do. And above all else, I believe that being nice is important and something more people should try.

So I think there is a danger that all too many people are at risk of falling into - that is, to disbelieve anything because it goes against your intuition or worse, your preconceptions. To question is healthy, but you must leave yourself open minded enough to accept good, logical arguments that support ideas that might not occur to you. Not to do so is just to be bloody-minded.