I try not to think in black/white, good/evil kinds of terms. I think of forces and dynamic systems.

There appears to be some force that promotes one particular way of thinking, perhaps the inevitable consequence of accumulated experiences. In the case of cynicism, the balance tends to shift towards one side of a scale over time.

Without a countervailing force on the other side it can tip a normally balanced system out of stable equilibrium.

My point is explicitly: the world provides the force in one direction, and the individual must provide the force in the other.