Perhaps at one point I was realistic but I think at this point I’ve seen enough blatant deception that I am overly paranoid as sort of a defense mechanism. This is probably still more accurate than how I viewed things before, but all I really meant by cynicism is that I am conscious of the fact that I am probably even more distrustful than what would be reasonable, just as a result of negative experience. Perhaps I’m right, but I don’t have an objective rationale for this, it’s largely based on heuristics.

To be a bit more concrete, it’s true that politicians and the media are liars, but then to extend that further to education, entertainment, and those who are culturally influential in general can be quite the stretch outside of a few specific data points. And how is it connected? How does this system actually work? It’s so complex it’s almost immeasurable. A critical view of this is necessarily heavily influenced by intuition and emotion IMO since you’re unable to trust a large body of your learned information from that mindset.