# Quote — Peter Sloterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason

> Cynicism is enlightened false consciousness. It is that modernized, unhappy consciousness, on which enlightenment has labored both successfully and in vain. It has learned its lessons in enlightenment, but it has not, and probably was not able to, put them into practice. Well-off and miserable at the same time, this consciousness no longer feels affected by any critique of ideology; its falseness is already reflexively buffered.

- Author: [Peter Sloterdijk](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-sloterdijk.md)
- Book: [Critique of Cynical Reason](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-sloterdijk/critique-of-cynical-reason.md)
- Page: 5
- Original (de): Zynismus ist das aufgeklärte falsche Bewußtsein, an dem Aufklärung zugleich erfolgreich und vergeblich gearbeitet hat. Es hat seine Aufklärungselektion gelernt, aber nicht vollzogen und wohl nicht vollziehen können. Gutsituiert und miserabel zugleich fühlt sich dieses Bewußtsein von keiner Ideologiekritik mehr betroffen; seine Falschheit ist bereits reflexiv gefedert.
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Peter_Sloterdijk#Critique_of_Cynical_Reason_(1987)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-sloterdijk/critique-of-cynical-reason/cynicism-is-enlightened

## More from this book

> Every active deed is etched in the matrix of passivity.

p. 540 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-sloterdijk/critique-of-cynical-reason/every-active-deed.md)

> Since modern thinking no longer entrusts itself with the translation of self-knowledge into worldly knowledge, and of world experience into self-experience, philosophy has had to withdraw from theories of "objective reason" into those of "subjective reason." The ground is thus taken from under the feet of the ancient holistic pathos, and philosophy sinks into the apparent truncatedness and groundlessness of the subjective.

p. 538 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-sloterdijk/critique-of-cynical-reason/since-modern-thinking.md)

> In the twilight of late enlightenment, the insight gains shape that our "praxis," which we always held to be the most legitimate child of reason, in fact, represents the central myth of modernity.

p. 539 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/peter-sloterdijk/critique-of-cynical-reason/in-the-twilight.md)