The belief that the best life is one lived close to nature and away from the rules and regulations of society.

The doctrine of the Cynics; the quality of being cynical; the mental state, opinions, or conduct, of a cynic; morose and contemptuous views and opinions.

1. a Greek school of philosophy originally based on the doctrine that nothing can be known. In the Roman era cynicism became an ethical doctrine emphasizing the need to live an austere, abstemious life. 2. more recently, the view that people act in ways to further their own ends and self-centered ambitions.

( Greek κυνισμός) was originally the philosophy of a group of ancient Greeks called the Cynics ( main article), founded by Antisthenes. Cynics are individuals who maintain that only self-interest motivates human behavior: they are inclined to disbelieve in human sincerity, in virtue, or in altruism. They tend to dismiss a substantial proportion of popular beliefs, conventional morality and accepted wisdom as as unreliable, irrelevant or obsolete nonsense. Wikipedia Read a short passage about skepticism and cynicism from Science on Trial by Marcia Angell.

The belief that the worse about people or the outcome of events.