C. S. Herrman: Cynicism: More Dangerous than Psychopathology Cynicism is no less addictive for those disposed to it than gambling or drugs. Normals are perfectly capable of cynicism that is more damaging than the hard core variation for the reason that, whereas there is but a handful of militant psychopaths, there are many millions who manage to achieve, however inadvertently, far more damage to society than the collected sprees of all the available psychopaths combined.