Chapter 4 - The Cynical Smirk

He start out this chapter with a story about seeing an ad for Slate, an online magazine owned by The Washington Post.  The ad talks about how the magazine tells it stories with a certain smirk that people are drawn to. He goes on to talk about people who smirk are self-centered and arrogant, he compares them to grade-school bullies.  He also says that Donald Trump and Marie Antoinette smirk. He wonders if the Slate editors meant for the ad to off this way. They presented it as something to be proud of and that it would boost sales. He talks about how the ad suggest that we ackknowlege that our world is corrupt but that thoughts for changing it is naive. After he goes on to talk about a veteran newpaperman who says "everybody lies, but it's ok because nobody listens." He then tells a story about a father and a son. The father tells his son to jump from the stairs to him, the father catches him the first two times but the third lets him fall to teach him not to trust anyone. We are taught to expect betrayal and we give up hope in people from the beginning.