Chris Corrigan has an excellent post on dealing with cynicism, inspired by Euan Semple's mini-rant against pomposity. Snippet:

I have recently had the experience of people saying to me that the work I do would never work with such-and-such a group of people. My response to them is nothing will work with people if you don’t believe them capable of doing something different or trying something new. I have been responding to these kinds of limiting beliefs with two questions:

* How do you show up with a group of people when you believe they are not capable of something?
* How do YOU show up when something thinks YOU are incapaable of something?

That tends to take care of the holier than thou attitudes.