How do you feel about the philosophy of cynics?
Not so long ago I became interested in this direction. And, I admit, it seemed interesting to me,because I myself got to the point that maximum simplicity is a pretty good choice. And kinism, with its rejection of the family, the state, unnecessary needs, etc., directly says (as I understand it) that the simpler, the better. I ask this question because I would like to hear your opinion.
“Punk is not a kinik, it just smells like that.”
A cynic is a fool. A fool can only be a fool against the background of normality. The only point of being a fool is to make a normal person think, to take a critical look at their life. That is, it is a completely parasitic thought, not self-sufficient, fruitless-it cannot give any answers, only raise questions. And the person who thought about the question, but did not reach the answer, just stood there in vain. This does not mean that kinics are bad or unnecessary. This means that every thing has a time and a place, and a place of Cynics-in the history of ancient Greece.
Another Plato will be just a graphomaniac with a super-valuable, but completely secondary idea. Another Diogenes will be just a bum, of which there are hundreds and thousands.
Rather positive. Because the central idea of the cynic philosophy, if we discard all the shocking and scenery, is a rational skepticism about generally accepted norms and values.
Simply put, if something is “generally accepted”, and some opinions and ideas are shared by the overwhelming majority of the crowd anywhere-this is not a reason to think that they are necessarily correct in something. Most often, it's just that these ideas are simple and pleasant (they give you a sense of superiority, power, security, etc.).
Cynics really believed that the simpler – closer to nature-the better. But the nature of man is also the nature of a reasonable social being, so the Cynics did not call anyone to be totally “like animals”, the same dogs.
In the Buddhist canon, by the way, there is a comical sutta about how “following the path of the dog”, if it is like a dog qualitatively, then it will be reborn as a dog, and if not very much, it will go to hell (since it has uselessly spent a valuable human incarnation).
I treat any of the branches of philosophy as a limited, narrow and one-sided view of being. For me, there is wisdom from above and there is the wisdom of this world, to which philosophy belongs.
As it is written in the Book of Isaiah:
8 My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD.
9 But as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.
(Isaiah 55: 8,9)
Perhaps this direction does limit the evil of human life in some way, but it does not completely save it. As they say, there is no evil without good, just as there is no good without evil – in other words, there are negative aspects in all things and ideas of the world, but the divine path that the Creator opens is the perfect path.