I might be hallucinating, but it seems lately that misanthropy and pessimism have increasingly come into vogue. I know a guy I used to work with who enjoyed saying, "I'm not racist, I hate everyone the same." He must have thought it was clever and witty--not at all a tired, rehashed saying that wasn't funny or clever the first time it was said. There's a middle-aged woman I recently got to know with whom I'd have discussions about all kinds of things, like politics and philosophy. She's a wonderful person, but under the surface, there's a perpetual torrent of unease and pain. She's a person genuinely tormented by the human suffering she reads about, particularly human suffering caused by corrupt politics and a decaying morality. She's convinced that we're witnessing the downfall of the Western world. One time, she explained to me that some people are rich, and that others don't have much at all. I think I saw water in her eyes when she then said to me, "I just think humans are an abortion." I've been hearing this a lot of from people in the past year and in all kinds of places. "People suck." "I hate people." Yeah, well, guess what? You're a person. I don't know. To me, it's an extremely obnoxious and ignorant attitude. Not only that, but it's not helpful at all. I remember watching George Carlin's final hour of stand-up. He was very witty and clever. He impressed me with his energy and memory, especially considering his age. But I can't say I enjoyed it. It wasn't so much a comedy show as it was an hour long bitch session about how much people suck and how America sucks. It actually culminated to a point where he talked about how he prayed for natural disasters to kill people and flush everything away. And the weird thing is that people were applauding. "Yeahh!! I hope it does happen and I and my family die in a tornado!" Wait--what? Seriously, screw George Carlin. I, for one, don't hate you. I don't know you, and I might not even like you, but I hope you don't die in an earthquake or tsunami. I hope you have a good life and live for a long time. We're all in the same boat. Every one of us, without exception, arrived on this planet with a genome that we didn't get to choose. We opened our eyes and found ourselves with a family, caste and environment we didn't choose. Some of us were born well-adapted, intelligent and sociable. Others were born cheaters and criminals. Some of us got lucky. Others got fucked by a priest. A sociopath is a personality type, technically a disorder, where a person goes through life, selfishly, and without empathy for others. Sociopaths are predominantely male. Some of them become murderers and rapists. Others become successful businessmen. They actually tend to make very good businessmen, because they don't let emotions influence their decisionmaking. They're exacting and ruthlessly logical. They know what they want and they contrive ways to get it. Normal people have higher levels of stress hormones, which help moderate behavior. Sociopaths don't have this mechanism and so they don't have important inhibitions. If they do learn inhibition, it's to get a bigger prize later. What the sociopath is doing is keeping his brain chemicals at the desired levels. That's what all of us are doing. That's why the homeless man asks you for money so he can buy a beer; why sad middle-aged women eat ice cream; why we have sex; and why we maintain relationships. Different people have different ways of achieving the same result. And when it comes down to it, that's really the difference between a child and an adult. People don't ever change in any fundamental way. They simply refine and perfect the ways in which they keep their neurotransmitters at the desired levels. They learn to "play nice." All of the complex, nuanced behaviors and posturing are just manufactured scaffolds, so one can reach the candy. If you shake the scaffolding and agitate the person enough, he'll fall back to his old ways. I guess what I'm saying is we all sort of just arbitrarily arrived here and started doing what came naturally. Sure, some of us are corrupt assholes, but there are also some real decent people. It helps nothing to say that "people are an abortion." It's oversimplistic and dismissive. It closes the door for understanding and compassion. Who knows, it might be better to have compassion for people. It might be better to ask why he did that shit thing. We might learn that, yeah, Hitler was an asshole. But he also lost his mother, who was incredibly important to him, when he was a small child. He was abused by his father, by whom, he was almost beaten to death. He also spent a good number of developmental years in places saturated with antisemitic propaganda. But it's simpler to say he was evil and be done with it. I'm not saying we should tolerate assholes and completely give in to moral relativity. I'm saying it's better to be understanding and compassionate than misanthropic. It could also prevent an embarrassing self-fulfilling prophecy.
I try and understand people. If I see why someone was an ass to me, and that it essentially came from being a fallible human who doesn't know better, it doesn't bother me. But yeah...I have a volatile temper. Usually the 'hate-rape-fuck-shit-up' part kicks in first, and the nice civilized understanding part takes over a few hours later after I'm done stomping about angrily listening to Deicide too loud and baring my teeth at the world. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Dude great post! These are my thoughts exactly on misanthropy - and it has recently come to be in vogue. It's a dismissive attitude that doesn't do anyone any good.
And the opposite doesn't do anyone any good either. Actually, I would say the opposite is far far worse.
Agree with Enmos. A teen boy not far from where I lived robbed someone at his job with a knife. He was supposed to be prosecuted, but charges have stupidly been dropped. Why? Because he 'came from a very difficult background'. So what. He's DANGEROUS. A life is a life and a stab wound to the lungs is a stab wound to the lungs, regardless of where your assailant comes from. Now because of that 'be nice to everyone' philosophy, this fucker is free to hurt people. That makes me feel really fucking safe. (sarcasm).
Perhaps there's too many people crammed into too small a space? That's how I feel sometimes. Although on the other hand we need continued growth to maintain our societies. A double edged sword.
I don't think anyone's arguing that people be exempt from punishment... but rather there are reasons for why people are the way they are.
That's an interesting observation. Personally I live in a more country setting. Both of my closest neighbors are at least an 1/8 of a mile away from me and I have a good amount of green natural property. Do you think city or suburb people are more prone to a misanthopic attitude?
That's a good question. I'm not sure. I grew up in the suburbs. I have also lived in the CBD of major cities. I don't think I wanted much free space when I was at certain ages because being where the action is, was more important. At other ages I wanted out doors and to be free of people. When I have a highly stressful job, I want a space to go to without too many people. While the beaches and parks are nice, they're crammed with a lot of other people. So, I'm not sure, but I want to say City people.
The typical reaction when u find out that santa,god,love,fairy tales,equality,good sex,voting system,the "inside beauty",morals etc etc etc etc are lies, u start crying and cursing the world and its inhabitants cause they are so "evil",when actually they're not,they never were. Am still a lifelover.
This in itself is a serious problem. We can't grow forever and the more we grow the more we must destroy the world around us to facilitate it. Sooner or later we are going to have to figure out how to prosper with 0% population growth.
Francois, your OP doesn't really touch on misanthropy. You just go on and on about how some people are assholes and how they can't help it. And you say some people are decent people. Well, so what? That isn't what misanthropy is about. Misanthropy is often about disappointment and/or a mistrust in humanity as a whole for what it is as a whole. It's not about individuals, at least that's how I understand it. I, for one, dislike humanity, but that doesn't mean that I dislike everyone as an individual. Even if each and every human was a decent person I would still dislike humanity. Humanity is a plague, an invasive species, like the Brown Treesnake is on Guam. I don't hate the snakes on Guam individually, but I dislike the group of snakes on Guam for what they are doing to the wildlife of the island. Tell me, what do humans typically think of, and do to, invasive species?
Well put, Enmos. Ideally, we interrupt reproduction- I would unhesitatingly do just that to humanity, if only I were clever enough. An engineered pandemic providing a high rate of human sterility would be the best thing to happen for life on this planet since carbonate storage.
Enmos, I've met more than a few people who've told me that if they could kill everyone with a press of a button, they would. But isn't that pretty damn selfish and irrational, considering that not everyone thinks the same way? And besides, isn't that quite invasive? Some people may think "Yeah, people are kind of fucked up and we've done some messed up things. But at the same time, we live in the least of violent times. Humans have done some pretty awesome things, like go to the moon. We know a lot. We've split the atom, and figured out that subatomic particles are made out of quarks. Hell, some day, we might even be able to save life on the planet by nuking approaching asteroids." I'm not advising it, but it would make a lot more sense for people who hate people to kill themselves (rather than everybody).
Exactly. In science, we ask, Why did this happen? What produces this behavior in these animals? Why is mating behavior in this species different from that species? For some reason we don't do that with humans.
I'm not much of a scientist, but actually- I do wonder about our behavior all the time, françois. Our self-awareness seems to have come with a curse of self-importance.
Agreed. Most definitely. Perhaps not to the same degree, though... I know you believe humanity as a whole seems akin to an invader, similar to Kudzu. (I can think of several other examples, but the "Brown Treesnake" would not be high on my list. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Out of curiosity, what in the world brought that particular species to mind?) Anyway, something I've been meaning to ask you for awhile: Do you advocate total eradication of humans as a species, or merely a significant number of individuals? (Hopefully not including the ones you like... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!) Personally, I would prefer to think that humans have their place here on Earth. In fact, we could possibly spread the native flora and fauna to other planets, thereby ensuring their continued existence for a much longer time then might otherwise be expected. (Said planets to be devoid of life and terraformed by humans, of course. I'm not looking to displace any species already native to any planet...) Anyway, I'm thinking somewhere around one billion humans, down from the current population of 6+ billion. If this number (or any other particular number, for that matter) could be made sustainable and "eco-friendly", would you prefer to leave a small population of homo-sapiens on board? Or should we wipe 'em all out regardless? Oh, and to answer your question - well, we generally think "Die, sucker, die!" and proceed to spray DDT or something equally poisonous all about their homes...
Who is talking about killing off humanity? Humans this, humans that. Humans before and humans after.. You need to focus less on humans, maybe then you'll see the whole picture. What would that achieve?
