Of clowns, comics and cynics: Just for laughs 

If you are surly, contemptuous of human nature, and a misanthrope to top it, what would you be? A cynic, I presume. And despite the clever witticisms that cynicism may entail, one would hardly delight at the thought of a man given to deprecation. 

Oscar Wilde, though no altruist himself, described the habitual disparager as “a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing”. George Meredith called cynicism `intellectual dandyism’. But one can hardly imagine that cynics of yore took upon themselves the task of playing dandy. 

Antisthenes, who initiated the school of cynics in Athens around 5th century B.C., had a particular distaste for all luxury and artificial pleasure of the senses, including art and science. He claimed: “I had rather be mad than delighted.” His pupil, Diogenes, went a step further when he decided to live like a dog (the word cynic comes, in fact, from canine, both words meaning the same thing), rejected all conventions and lived the rest of his life in a tub. 

Modern cynics would, however, hardly welcome the idea of a dog’s life, despite wallowing in the customary snide-at-the-world. But did you know what happened when the clown, comic and cynic went walking together in the park. The clown promptly amused bystanders by making himself the object of fun, the comic proceeded to subject the audience to fun; while the cynic cast his yellow eye on the audience and made it the subject of his fun.