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Misanthropy

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For the Molière comedy see Le Misanthrope.

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Misanthropy is a hatred or distrust of the human race, or a disposition to dislike and mistrust other people. The word comes from the Greek words μίσος ("hatred") + άνθρωπος ("man, human being"). A misanthrope is a person who hates or distrusts mankind and in most cases their own humanity.

Misanthropy does not necessarily imply an inhumane, antisocial, or sociopathic attitude towards humanity.

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Forms of misanthropy

While misanthropes express a general dislike for humanity on the whole, they generally have normal relationships with specific individuals. Misanthropy may be motivated by feelings of isolation or alienation. It may also resemble intellectual arrogance, where a person dislikes humanity because of a sense of mental superiority over other humans.

Overt expressions of misanthropy are common in satire and comedy, although intense misanthropy is generally rare. Subtler expressions are far more common, especially for those pointing out the shortcomings of humanity. In extreme cases, misanthropes may remove themselves from society, becoming hermits or shut-ins.

Misanthropy may also take form as a belief that humanity is inherently animalistic and wild, and that we, as thinking beings, must struggle to overcome our animalism and strive towards a higher intellectual and measured nature. This view is especially common in Judaism and Christianity, which hold that mankind has two natures: that he is a) created in God's image, and b) fallen into Sin. While Christianity maintains that the animal ("sinful") nature is inherent in all human beings since the FALL, Judaism attributes an irremediable inferior animal nature to all "Nations," namely all non-Jews, inferior by divine ordination to the "chosen" members of the Tribe. These views are diametrically opposed to Satanism, which holds that mankind's animal nature is inexorable, should be celebrated and given in to, and that those who do not are thereby pathologically ill. Other intellectual movements espousing this form of misanthropy or very similar ideas include Stoicism, etc.

Misanthropy in literature

Misanthropy has been ascribed to a number of writers of satire, such as William S. Gilbert ("I hate my fellow-man"), but such identifications must be closely scrutinized, because a critical or darkly humorous outlook toward humankind may be easily mistaken for genuine misanthropy.

Jonathan Swift is widely accused of misanthropy (see A Tale of a Tub and, most especially, Book IV of Gulliver's Travels). However, Swift was also involved with many charitable organizations in Dublin, including a hospital for the care of the mentally ill.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous hero Sherlock Holmes is also often called a misanthrope, although critical studies of the character also reveal a streak of humanism.

In 1992, Southern American essayist Florence King, a self-described misanthrope, wrote a humorous book on the history of misanthropy called With Charity Toward None: A Fond Look at Misanthropy.

The famous author Hunter S. Thompson was considered by many members of his family and close friends to have a misanthropic worldview. The reasons for this are evident in much of his writing; many close to him have speculated that these feelings were brought on by a very tough childhood during which he saw his father die young and his mother fall into alcoholism.

The Canadian essayist Kevin Draper also exhibits a profound dislike of humanity in much of his writing, however he has told many close friends that he considers himself to be an empathic humanist.

Perhaps the most famous example of a misanthrope in literature is the protagonist in Moliere's eponymous 1666 play (Fr. Le Misanthrope).

Misanthropy in philosophy

In Plato's Phaedo, Socrates states that "Misology and misanthropy arise from similar causes"[1]. He equates misanthropy with misology, the hatred of speech, drawing an important distinction between philosophical pessimism and misanthropy. Immanuel Kant said that "Of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing can ever be made," and yet this was not an expression of the uselessness of humanity itself. Similarly, Samuel Beckett once remarked that "Hell must be like... reminiscing about the good old days when we wished we were dead." — a statement that may, perhaps, be seen as rather bleak and hopeless, but not as anti-human or expressive of any hatred of humankind.

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, on the other hand, was almost certainly as famously misanthropic as his reputation. He wrote that "human existence must be a kind of error." Schopenhauer concluded, in fact, that ethical treatment of others was the best attitude, for we are all fellow sufferers and all part of the same will-to-live; he also discussed suicide with a sympathetic understanding which was rare in his own time, when it was largely a taboo subject.

The American satirical author Kurt Vonnegut often expressed misanthropist views in his books, most likely because he witnessed the tragic consequences of the horrific firebombing of Dresden. In one of his most famous works, "Slaughterhouse Five," the protagonist Billy Pilgrim "comes loose from time". He is taken hostage by the Tralfamadorians, a race able to see in "4D", who can travel through time and experience all the events in their lives, not necessarily in chronological order. Through the novel they teach him a fatalistic philosophy, summed up in the book's signature phrase, "so it goes". In another book (Breakfast Of Champions) Kilgore Trout, a fictional science fiction writer, writes many books about man destroying the world and the pointlessness of our existence. The book has passages throughout showing the destruction of earth due to man and man's pointless existence. "This is a tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast." "Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That's my utopia." "I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours."

Misanthropy in popular culture

See also

 

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