Noun. Cynicism pushed to its logical conclusion, wherein one becomes cynical even of cynicism itself.
Most cynics are amateurs. Mere dilettantes dabbling in pessimism like mopey teenagers. Self-indulgent quitters with no real commitment to the art. A true cynic pushes beyond naive first insights to really question everything—even the need to question everything. Even the motivations behind the questions themselves. Even the answers to the questions about the answers.
True cynicism, pushed to its logical end, begins to look something like optimism.
Nothing matters. Not even the idea that nothing matters. Nothing is True. Not even the idea that nothing is True.
Everything ends. Every comfort, every joy, and every happiness, yes. But also every suffering, every sorrow, every war. Every certainty, every “truth”, will eventually be replaced by new ideas. Everything ends.
If this seems like relativism, beware—relativism offers no solution. Relativism is just another Zen “koan”, a logical impossibility that vanishes in a puff of smoke when examined to its conclusion.“Everything is relative” or “there are no absolutes” are themselves absolutes, which if true must therefore also be false. Poof! Such simple bromides contain no answers.
Facing this unalterable reality, not turning away and taking refuge in the whining of the mere cynic, but facing it and sitting uncomfortably with it and eventually accepting it, we arrive inevitably at the question: how, then, can we live with this?
How can we conduct ourselves in a world in which everything ends? Even love, even war?
How can we act when we cannot know what is true, when maybe nothing is true, and maybe anything is?
How should we live when we must doubt everything, even doubt itself? With humility, perhaps? Compassion? Curiosity? Who knows? (Hint: no one.)
These questions, and their answers, and the questions about those answers (and so on), are the domain of supercynicism.