Living is easy with your eyes closed: this month, the local Te Henga nursing group tackles the issue of scepticism versus cynicism and ponders which quality is more prevalent in the nursing profession.

The Te Henga Section of the Marxist Nurses" Union is currently hosting a series of educational and uplifting evenings. Last week we heard Helen Wishnesky--"Red Helen"--on "Scepticism as an inoculant against foolishness, bureaucratic excess and the folly of obedience" We offer prizes for these addresses--"longest title" is a fiercely contested section. We don't have a very good tape recorder in the Te Henga Section of the Marxist Nurses' Union and so this record is from notes. Unfortunately Red Helen didn't have any, and mine got wine (also red) on them. So this is from memory, also dodgy--for reasons best left unsaid.

We asked Red Helen along because she's a bit of an intellectual She says she's not an academic. "Academics do it by themselves, intellectuals do it to each other", is how she explained the difference. No, it didn't make much sense to us either. We got Helen along particularly to address Pat, the Public Service Association rep's, issue. He had asked some questions about a district health board (DHB) project. Project New Horizons, I think he said it was. The DHB said this was going to be the turning point in health care; it would signal a new paradigm in the configuration of service delivery mechanisms; reconnect clinicians and service users; meet DHB Treaty obligations; recognise minority interests; acknowledge consumer perspectives; and forge a new intersecting set of mutually validating interests in a "caring matrix".

Pat reckoned all it really meant was hospital management was being relocated to better offices with sea views. He said this in a DHB meeting. Bad mistake. He said he was told he was a "wrecker", a "pathological doubter" and that he was failing to "show leadership", and not grasping the essential fact that he should be optimistic and "take ownership" of the exercise. He gets told that sort of thing every day, so he wasn't too worried. What really got him going was Jane Pain (the sub-associate-under-moderator-for-nursing in his DHB) calling him a "cynic". When Pat protested that he was a sceptic, Jane said something dismissive like scepticism being cynicism in drag.

So we invited Helen to give us a bit of an update on scepticism and so on. Red Helen let rip. She gave us a succinct precis of scepticism from the Greek Pyrrohonian sceptics through to the Roman Septus Empiricus and to Immanuel Kant. She wove the utilitarian ethical philosophy of Jeremy Bentham and existential thought into a fascinating discourse tapestry, which was only occasionally interrupted by the gentle snores of her audience.

I think Helen was trying to tell us that scepticism is a little like a stupidity vaccine. You should have it if you don't want to be fooled and duped. The early sceptics took only what could be proved, as opposed to the dogmatists who believed what suited and was expedient. Dogmatists don't change their position, she said, only their clothes. Dogmatists are still with us, living under rocks and in unwholesome places, like universities. You can tell them, Helen said, because they damp their jaws in a rigor of a smile when challenged, and then they tell you they hear where you're coming from. Then they don't return your calls or emails, and if you get away with them doing only that to you, you're a lucky punter.

Louise, the lecturer, woke at one stage and asked Helen if this wasn't a bit of a worry. That's the least of it, said Helen. Being a sceptic means you don't only question others, you question yourself. You may think someone is something a haemorrhoid grows on, but (and here she wagged her index ringer) that is not enough! You must follow the sceptical position and took at transference issues, consider the possibility of projection and so on. Scepticism is never easy! Living with your eyes open is hard! Louise went back to sleep.

Phil from forensics asked Helen to expand on the difference between scepticism and cynicism. Bad mistake. That got us another 45 minutes of the history of cynicism, with biographies of Antisthenese, Diogenes, Crates and so on, relieved only by the odd quote, like: "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." And "Cynics regarded everybody as equally corrupt. Idealists regarded everybody as equally corrupt except themselves."

Actually, Helen went beyond that. She said cynicism was a disease characterised by self blindness or manipulation of the truth, unrelieved by serf awareness and/or humour.

For examples of cynicism, she suggested we took at last August's issue of Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand (p8). People celebrating 30 years of moving nursing education into the tertiary sector were, in effect, celebrating nursing graduates' indebtedness, increasing student dropout rates and the surrender of control to polytechnic and university bureaucrats. Celebrating that is cynicism, she said.

Or, look at the editorial in fast November's Nursing Praxis in New Zealand, she said. There nurses are advised to tie about their lives "to win [recruitment of] the much needed future nurses ..." because the truth might put these poor darlings off and send them off to be accountants or lawyers or some such. That is cynicism, she said.

Stilt, she said, if cynicism is wilful blindness to uncomfortable realties and pathological self justification, at least it's easy. At least you don't have to think.

After this, the unit debated the issue. We decided to form a sub-committee to promote scepticism and root out cynicism from the nursing world. That seems to be an appropriate response to this sort of thing, don't you think?

* Interested readers wishing to explore the ideas of philosophers named in the text are advised to read potted histories, many of which are available on the internet. You, too, can quote serious sounding names without the slightest idea of what it's all about. Impress your friends!

* The charming portrait of your columnist was taken by Richard Ward, photographer, family man and theatre nurse of Dunedin.

Chris Cottingham, RN, BA, MEd, DipSocSci, is a staff nurse at Moko Services, Maori Mental Health, Waitemata District Hearth Board. In his spare time, he writes a bi-monthly column of alternative (sometimes amusing or irreverent but always challenging) musings on our profession.