Matt, let's call a spade a spade here...you've been a beacon of intellectual/academic rigor (at least since I've been here) and (what I thought was) cynicism (which, to my mind, including my own self actually, might mean idealism of a fashion), and you're saying in the previous thread that these descriptions are insulting in some way? I know you're all distracted-in-love-and-too-busy-to-drop-by-crappity-regularly, but............... dude, you're still a goob, right? I mean, you haven't forgotten the little people who made you what you are?
I have no problem
whatsoever with the ancient meaning of the word, but I am violently repulsed by the modern, kneejerk contrarian, the hipster poseur who reflexively rejects anything positive or humanistic as contrived, pretentious bourgeois fantasy or mawkish and manipulative sentimentalism. The thought that I might come across this way terrifies me. In fact, I touched upon this in a PM to Patrick not too long ago.
I
am intellectually cautious (or at least try my best to be a practitioner of intellectual self defense) and am sometimes (sometimes? always?) initially skeptical of the professed altruism or alleged motivations of others, but I do not believe I am not as horribly jaded and cold-hearted as was implied.
"Imagine the best-made, most sincere, least-pandering movie about hope and unlikely happy endings you could ever think of... would Matthew like even that movie? No. Sorry, [...].
"I am only pointing out that cynicism runs core to your soul, so a movie like of that ilk never had a shot with you. You may as well have saved your two hours"
makes me sound like I have NO HEART whatsoever and I should not even contemplate watching films that require one. It was THIS definition of "cynicism" that I loathe.
Yes, I am the one who, as a teenager, wrote on the wall of my old bedroom my favorite quote from Leonardo da Vinci's writings: "Intellectual passion drives out Sensuality."
Yes, I dropped out of college because I could not stand the pseudo-intellectuals and jaded elitists that populated my liberal arts classes. I railed against sacred cows because I wanted to destroy the materialistic obsessions of all matter of snobs ...these were cynical pursuits, I admit... but my cynicism is an impassioned one, quite the opposite of what was suggested in what Jeff wrote.
I get what you're saying. Sorry if your feelings were hurt (but I doubt very much Jeff would ever deliberately insult you and I know I certainly didn't mean anything by what I said either).
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