In looking up the word Cynic I found the following table in the Online Etymology Dictionary.  I tried to copy and past the table, but ran into trouble.  Here is the link:  

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/humor

Some of us have been discussing Cynicism, but very off topic, so I thought to start a new topic on it.

If a cynic focuses on self-justification, wouldn’t the cynic’s own justification be open to the same scrutiny as is aimed at others?  The cynic’s method is to show that we are naked, that the ideas and conventions that we clothe ourselves with have more basis in establishing respectability than in establishing any truth.

Of all the devices in the etymology of humor, it seems to me that cynicism may be if not the most powerful, or at least a valuable tool--it can be a means of searching for a balanced view of oneself.   

On the matter of one applying cynicism to oneself, we can still have ideas and viewpoints.  A private life can possibly operate without them, or approach that ideal, but we need them when interacting with each other.  I think that the table’s heading says it all: humor.

Paradoxically, a cynic must have a sense of humor.  How else could Diogenes have lived in a barrel?  We have to have viewpoints, but they should not be selfish.  We can’t use them to justify ourselves, or so the cynic believes.  The trick is to strip onself naked yet escape self-hate or shame.  Only humor can do that.

In this sweeping view of cynicism, true cynics would be a heroic few.  We would recognize them not by their biting wit (nakedness is painful only when you are ashamed to be naked,) but by the sparkle in their eye.  And the sparkle would differ from sarcasm in how in actuality, and again paradoxically, by taking away our clothes it raises us to our own naked dignity.