Cynicism is an Adjustable Shield
We live in an environment flooded with illusions. Some look like help: a call offering a free vacation, a brand promising “solidarity,” a tech platform touting “community.” But peel back the surface, and you often find data extraction, sales funnels, or thinly veiled self-promotion. After enough of these, cynicism doesn’t feel like a mood—it feels like a strategy.
The problem is, armor can calcify.
You protect yourself by hanging up fast, filtering every offer through suspicion. And honestly? That makes sense. Especially now, with a second Trump administration hollowing out the last scraps of consumer protection, scams don’t just exist—they thrive.
But here’s the catch: that cynicism, if it’s always on, starts burning bridges you haven’t even tried to cross. It doesn’t just block the illusion; it also blocks the possibility of real, unbranded care.
The Timeshare Call
Not long ago, my partner answered a call saying we’d won a free timeshare vacation. For a second, she let herself believe it might be real. I nearly grabbed the phone to hang up. The moment wasn’t remarkable in itself—just another near-scam. But it left a mark. I’d protected us from heartbreak, maybe. But had I also crushed a sliver of wonder?
I thought of my parents. My father’s trusting spirit has left him mugged and manipulated. My mother, still closing real estate deals post-retirement, protects him with an eye that rarely misses the fine print. I often find myself playing both roles—wanting to protect the people I love from deception, but not wanting to flatten their sense of possibility in the process.
It reminded me of something I wrote in “The Subtext Economy Has Collapsed”: how branding has so fully colonized sincerity that even genuinely good things feel suspect. A potluck without sponsors? Must be a multilevel marketing trap. A neighborhood help thread? Probably a data-harvesting honeypot. Our reflexes are trained by repetition, and what gets repeated is spin, not honesty.
Cynicism is Wounded Hope
I try to keep in mind that cynicism isn’t usually born from apathy. It’s born from grief. From having trusted, once, and gotten burned. That’s what I meant in “Disaffection Is a Raw Material”: our disillusionment isn’t weakness—it’s the residue of caring. Cynicism is often just hope, wounded and now wearing armor.
The problem is, armor can calcify.
When cynicism becomes your permanent operating mode, it stops being a defense and starts being a cage. Not only does it protect you from con artists—it isolates you from the people who actually would show up for you. That’s how it quietly helps the status quo. As I argued in “Misreading Capitalist Realism”, when cynicism convinces us that everything is already co-opted, we stop imagining anything else could be built. Our refusal becomes total, even when some things still deserve a “maybe.”
We Rely on Each Other More Than We Admit
Despite the mythology of self-sufficiency—bootstraps, personal responsibility, “don’t trust anyone”—our lives are built around mutual aid, even if we don’t call it that. A coworker covers your shift. A friend spots you groceries. A neighbor texts to check on you during a storm. These aren’t sentimental “random acts of kindness.” They’re infrastructure. Quiet and essential.
In “On Cookedness and the Fear of Needing Others”, I wrote about how neoliberalism trains us to feel ashamed of dependence—to associate needing others with failure. But the truth is, we’ve always relied on each other. What’s changed is that the collective forms we used to organize that interdependence—unions, public services, mutual-aid networks—have been eroded or privatized. So now, we keep leaning on each other, but do it quietly, informally, often guiltily.
And in that vacuum, cynicism steps in to tell us: “You’re on your own.”
Let Cynicism Do Its Job But No More Than That
I’m not advocating for unguarded optimism. Scams are real. Corporate “community” initiatives are often cover for something else. Let your cynicism screen those. But also give yourself permission to re-evaluate. If someone offers help and asks for nothing in return—no subscription, no invoice, no optics—try not to shut the door on them before they’ve finished speaking.
I argued in “Non-Coercive Systems” that we need to create social infrastructures where care isn’t transactional—where people help not because they’re being tracked or scored, but because interdependence is how we survive. Those systems can’t function if every act of care gets read as a trap.
So I try to let my cynicism be adjustable. When something smells like branding, I keep the shield up. But if it’s genuinely neighbor-led, and my gut doesn’t scream “run,” I try to leave the door cracked.
Let in the Small Things
A friend checking in, unprompted. A coworker remembering you hate mornings and covering the early shift. A neighbor knocking just to offer leftovers. These gestures don’t trend. They don’t scale. They aren’t designed to convert attention into capital. But they matter.
In “Temporal Justice: Reclaiming Time”, I argued that attention, energy, and time are political resources—that how we spend them shapes what’s possible. Cynicism that runs on autopilot eats up all three. You burn out scanning every interaction for a catch. Eventually, you stop seeing what’s real.
Read On
“Kids These Days Just Want to Be Disabled” looks at how distrust mutates when disability rates rise and get pathologized as “proof” we’re lazy or faking it. If every need is met with suspicion, cynicism in healthcare and public life can become self-preservation.
“Actuarial Medicine & Hidden Exclusion” examines how hospitals use “risk scoring” to steer away complicated patients. When “help” is systematically withheld from those who need it, cynicism feels rational.
“The Autistic Tendency to Disappear” highlights how some individuals, especially neurodivergent folks, choose to withdraw from environments demanding nonstop vigilance. That withdrawal can seem like cynicism, but it’s often self-preservation.
“I Am Expensive and So Are You” delves into how people with “complicated” or “long-term” needs face friction that labels them too big an ask. This friction naturally fuels distrust when you’re sidelined by the very systems claiming to help.
That timeshare call might’ve saved us from heartbreak—or maybe it nixed a rare moment of wide-eyed curiosity. Either way, it showed me that cynicism works best when it’s a temporary stance, not a permanent worldview. Let it sniff out scams, sure. But don’t let it define how you see every offer of assistance.
Some kindness—neighborly check-ins, quiet generosity—doesn’t come with a brand or hidden cost. If we let reflexive suspicion drown out those moments, we confirm the narrative that everyone’s out for themselves. And that’s exactly the worldview a profit-driven culture depends on.
Cynicism can protect you. But let it rest sometimes. Because in a world that so often monetizes our wariness, believing in each other—trusting real, everyday gestures—just might be the revolution we need.
— Kanav Jain
syadvada.com