Misanthropy
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Misanthropy is a general dislike, distrust, or hatred of the human species or a disposition to dislike and/or distrust other people's silent consensus about reality. The word comes from the Greek words μίσος (misos, "hatred") and άνθρωπος ( anthrōpos, "man, human being"). A misanthrope is a person who dislikes or distrusts humanity as a general rule.
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[edit] Forms
While misanthropes express a general dislike for humanity on the whole, they generally have normal relationships with specific people. Misanthropy may be motivated by feelings of isolation or social alienation, or simply contempt for the prevailing characteristics of humanity.
Misanthropy is commonly misinterpreted and distorted as a widespread and individualized hatred of humans. Because of this, the term often associates a great number of false negative tie-ins with the term. An extreme misanthrope may indeed hate the human species generally, but it does not necessarily entail psychopathy. Misanthropes can hold normal and intimate relationships with people, but they will often be very few and far between. They will typically be very selective with whom they choose to associate. This is also where their aversion is most prevalent, because their perspective shows an overriding contempt towards common human faults and weaknesses in others and, in some cases, themselves.[citation needed]
It is because of that aversion that most misanthropes will often be categorized as loners, living in seclusion. They generally will not find solace or effective functioning in society as a result of their perspective. However, effectively functioning in society has little or no value to the misanthrope, and the prospect of fitting into their culture seems to them like idiocy.[citation needed]
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.[citation needed]
Christian schools of religious thought maintain that humanity as a whole is inherently improper and needs salvation, while some philosophers, such as Arthur Schopenhauer, view humanity as a futile, self-destructive species.
[edit] 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.
Heathcliff, the main character of Emily Brontë's novel, "Wuthering Heights", is a classic example of misanthropy in all the main aspects.
In 1992, southern American essayist and National Review columnist 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.
Perhaps the most famous example of a misanthrope in literature is the protagonist, Alceste, in Molière's 1666 play Le Misanthrope. Another example is Timon, the protagonist of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens.
The American satirical author Kurt Vonnegut often expressed misanthropic views in his books. In one of his most popular works, Slaughterhouse-Five, the protagonist Billy Pilgrim "becomes unstuck in 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 Vonnegut novel, Breakfast of Champions, the protagonist Kilgore Trout, a science fiction author, writes many books about man destroying the world and the pointlessness of human existence. The book has passages throughout showing the destruction of Earth due to man and man's pointless existence.
Some works by Franz Kafka, such as The Metamorphosis and A Hunger Artist, also display misanthropic views.
In Huis Clos, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, "So that is what hell is. I would never have believed it. You remember: the fire and brimstone, the torture. Ah! the farce. There is no need for torture: hell is other people."
Eighteenth century Irish satirist Jonathan Swift, in a letter to the poet Alexander Pope concerning Gulliver's Travels, a novel penned by the former, wrote: "[but] principally I hate and detest that animal called man." Lemuel Gulliver, considered by several critics to be Swift's mouthpiece and literary alter ego, expresses an overwhelming disgust with respect to human beings, particularly in "A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms".
In the novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, Edward Hyde is depicted as the cruel, remorseless, uninhibited transfiguration of the gentle Dr. Henry Jekyll whenever the noted doctor drank a potion.[citation needed]
The eponymous protagonist of Comte de Lautreamont's Les Chants de Maldoror is misanthropic to the point of absurdity, lending to the interpretation that the book is a parody of Romanticism. In one episode, Maldoror goes so far as to fire a musket at sailors swimming toward shore from a sinking ship and then makes love to a female shark that was feeding on them.[1]
The English writer Jane Austen, famed for her use of irony, parody and satire, frequently showed a cynical attitude towards society and many of the people within it. Elizabeth Bennet, in Pride and Prejudice, says to her sister Jane: "You wish to think all the world respectable, and are hurt if I speak ill of any body ... There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense." (Pride and Prejudice, Volume 2, Chapter 1.)
Tyler Durden from Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club is very well known for his hatred of humanity and society.[citation needed]
Finally, the most well-known literary misanthrope is Ebenezer Scrooge, the main character in Charles Dickens's 1843 novel A Christmas Carol. The word "Scrooge" is now nearly synonymous with "miser" and "misanthrope".[citation needed]
[edit] Philosophy
In Plato's Phaedo, Socrates states, "Misology and misanthropy arise from similar causes."[2] He equates misanthropy with misology, the hatred of speech, drawing an important distinction between philosophical pessimism and misanthropy. Immanuel Kant said, "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, "Hell must be like... reminiscing about the good old days when we wished we were dead." This statement may be seen as rather bleak and hopeless, but not as anti-human or expressive of any hatred of humankind.[citation needed]
Seneca the Younger, in his treatise On Anger, suggests that one's misanthropy can be mitigated or cured by laughing at the foibles of humanity rather than resenting them. Seneca's Stoic philosophy regarded all forms of anger as corruptions of reason and therefore detrimental to good judgement; he thus argues that hatred and misanthropy must be eliminated for the individual to attain sanity.
In early Islamic philosophy, certain thinkers such as Ibn al-Rawandi and Muhammad ibn Zakariya ar-Razi often expressed misanthropic views.[3] In the Judeo-Islamic philosophies (800 - 1400), the Jewish philosopher, Saadia Gaon, uses the Platonic idea that the self-isolated man is dehumanized by friendlessness to argue against the misanthropy of anchorite asceticism and reclusiveness.[4]
The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, on the other hand, was almost certainly as famously misanthropic as his reputation. He wrote, "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. However, his metaphysics ultimately led him to conclude that suicide was no escape from the suffering of the world. He claimed that the world was one side representation—how we perceived it—and one side will—the underlying indivisible metaphysical matter that was the basis of existence. Because suicide does not allow one to escape from the will (from which all suffering proceeds), it is pointless to kill oneself. Schopenhauer instead suggests aesthetic enjoyment as the only escape from the suffering of the world. This would be along the lines of the cathartic release points of Mozart's Requiem, or the charmingly mysterious smile of the Mona Lisa. He also offers an escape from suffering through compassion; however, he believed that very few are capable of reaching this state, and those who do reach it have rejected their humanity (further demonstrating his misanthropy).
The Cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope was a well known misanthrope. Known for his contempt for all human beings and his enormous respect for animals such as mice and dogs, Diogenes dedicated his life to showing that the norms and conventions which most people live by are in fact worthless and utterly counterproductive to true happiness.
[edit] Movies
The characters Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, Frank Slade from Scent of a Woman, Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood, Bertram Pincus from Ghost Town, Walt Kowalski from Gran Torino, Melvin Udall from As Good as it Gets, and Randal Graves from Clerks are some examples of misanthropes in film.
Nocturno Culto of Darkthrone released a documentary film, The Misanthrope, in which he deals with black metal and life in Norway.
In the Australian film The Proposition, Arthur Burns assures Samuel that they are not misanthropist, and instead a family.
Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) Mr. Newberry: I visualized you in a haze as one of those slackster, flannel-wearing, coffee-house misanthropes I've been seeing in Newsweek.
In the Stephen King adaptation Cujo a character is diagnosed as a misanthropy alcoholic.
[edit] Television
- Dr. Percival 'Perry' Cox and Dr. Robert 'Bob' Kelso are two of the main cast from the NBC TV comedy series Scrubs. They have blatant misanthropic tendencies; especially those displayed by Dr Cox in the first two seasons. It is, however, a recurring theme; in the fourth season, both Dr Kelso and Dr Cox present the theory of everyone being 'bastard-covered bastards with a bastard filling' to Dr Molly Clock.
- Dr. Gregory House, the title character and protagonist of the FOX show House, is referred to as a misanthropist frequently within the show and displays stereotypical misanthropic tendencies, such as his stock quote - 'Everybody lies', a solitary lifestyle, a deliberate lack of empathy with his patients, and his exclusion of all but a single friend.
- Col. Saul Tigh from Battlestar Galactica. Also, on the same series, Chief Petty Officer Galen Tyrol gradually becomes misanthropic due to his many negative experiences through the serie, with both Humans and Cylons.
- Mandy from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, who exhibits misanthropist traits throughout the show's run.
- Squidward from SpongeBob Squarepants, who shows he is a misanthrope by not having any friends, performing solitary activities, showing dislike and distrust for the people around him, and displaying rude behaviour towards others.
- Bernard Black from Black Books shows hatred towards his customers and people in general and has no goals in life other than drinking, smoking, reading and insulting people.
- Elizabeth "Effy" Stonem from E4's Skins has Misanthropic tendencies in that in series 1 she refuses to speak to anyone up until the last episode where her "first word" was said to her brother, "Wanker".
- Daria Morgendorffer, high school character in the eponymous animated MTV series 'Daria' (1997-2002). Extremely intelligent but plain and unfashionable, Daria is highly contemptuous of 'normal' people, including her fellow students, teachers and family. She has only one real friend: arty Jane Lane, less misanthropic but still cynical. Daria's favourite TV show is Sick Sad World, and she has a Franz Kafka poster on her bedroom wall where 'normal' teenage girls might have contemporary movie or music celebrities.
- Vince Clark of the BBC series 15 Storeys High.
- Sam Puckett, from Nickelodeon's show iCarly shows Misanthropic tendencies by frequently tormenting or insulting most of the people around her.
- Dr. Martin Ellingham from the British comedy-drama Doc Martin dislikes, and has little to no tolerance for, people who display social or emotional behaviour, or who have overtly moral or religious viewpoints, but does have affection for a view individuals.
[edit] Science fiction
Another variation, called Anti-humanism, is sentient non-human hatred of humans. Essentially the fictional equivalent of Anti-white racism, Anti-humanism can range from mild Xenophobia to ideas of committing acts of genocide against the human species. At times, it is a response/counter to the ideas of Humanocentrism. In reality, this could potentially (but not certainly) lead to a party being formed in the future for such a cause, mirroring that of the New Black Panther Party.
[edit] Music
"I hate people" by the Anti-Defamation League (band)
Shai Hulud - Complete Discography
[edit] Misanthropic quotes
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"I have found little that is good about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think."
"In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist’s heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us."
Narrator in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights
"Sombre thoughts and fancies often require a little real soil or substance to flourish in; they are the dark pine-trees which take root in, and frown over the rifts of the scathed and petrified heart, and are chiefly nourished by the rain of unavailing tears, and the vapors of fancy."
"I am free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally."
"Out of the ashes of misanthropy benevolence rises again; we find many virtues where we had imagined all was vice, many acts of disinterested friendship where we had fancied all was calculation and fraud--and so gradually from the two extremes we pass to the proper medium; and, feeling that no human being is wholly good or wholly base, we learn that true knowledge of mankind which induces us to expect little and forgive much. The world cures alike the optimist and the misanthrope."
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton
"There cannot live a more happy creature than an ill-natured old man who is neither capable of receiving pleasures, nor sensible of doing them to others."
"Let the misanthrope shun men and abjure; the most are rather lovable than hateful."
"We readily excuse paralytics from labor; and shall we be angry with a hypochondriac for not being cheerful in company? Must we stigmatize such an unfortunate person as peevish, positive, and unfit for society? His disorder may no more suffer him to be merry, than the gout will suffer another to dance. The advising a melancholic to be cheerful is like bidding a coward to be courageous, or a dwarf be taller."
"Well, if there's anybody out there that can look around this demented slaughterhouse of a world we live in and tell me that man is a noble creature, believe me: That man is full of bullshit!"
Howard Beale of the film Network
"I despised practically everything about human life, which does limit one's weekend activities."
"Never, never, interrupt me, okay? Not if there's a fire, not even if you hear the sound of a thud from my home and one week later there's a smell coming from there that can only be a decaying human body and you have to hold a hanky to your face because the stench is so thick that you think you're going to faint. Even then, don't come knocking. Or, if it's election night, and you're excited and you wanna celebrate because some fudgepacker that you used to date has been elected the first queer president of the United States and he's going to have you down to Camp David, and you want someone to share the moment with. Even then, don't knock. Not on this door. Not for ANY reason. Do you get me, sweetheart?"
Melvin Udall of the film As Good As It Gets
"All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets. ."
Travis Bickle of the film Taxi Driver
"It's the way the whole thing works: people like Elias get wasted, people like Barnes just go on making up the rules any way they want. So what do we do? Sit in the middle and suck on it. We just don't add up to dry shit, King."
Chris Taylor of the Oliver Stone film Platoon to his friend King
"Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death."
Dr. Zaius of the film The Planet of the Apes quoting the Simian Sacred Scrolls
"I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had, during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you aren’t actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with its surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply, and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? –A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we... are the cure."
Agent Smith of the film The Matrix
"We men are wretched things."
"Everybody lies."
Dr. Gregory House of the television seriesHouse, M.D.
"I don't get people. What's their appeal, precisely? They waddle around with their haircuts on, cluttering the pavement like gormless, farting skittles. They're awful."
Charlie Brooker, journalist
"When the chips are down, these 'civilized' people will eat each other. You'll see... I’ll show ya!"
The Joker of the film The Dark Knight
"There are times when I look at people and I see nothing worth liking. I want to earn enough money that I can get away from everyone."
Daniel Plainview of the film There Will Be Blood
"But you hate people!" "Yeah, but I love gatherings. Isn't it ironic?"
Dante and Randall of the film Clerks
"Rorschach's Journal: October 12th 1985. Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout 'Save us!' And I'll whisper 'no'."
"I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse."
George Carlin of the show Life Is Worth Losing
[edit] See also
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Look up misanthropy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Misanthropy |
[edit] Notes
- ^ http://www.kisa.ca/maldoror/english.html
- ^ 1 "Plato, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo". The Perseus Digital Library. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0170&query=head=%234&chunk=text 1.
- ^ Stroumsa, Sarah (1999), Freethinkers of Medieval Islam: Ibn Al-Rawāndī, Abū Bakr Al-Rāzī and Their Impact on Islamic Thought, Brill Publishers, p. 9, ISBN 9004113746
- ^ Goodman, Lenn Evan (1999), Jewish and Islamic Philosophy: Crosspollinations in the Classic Age, Edinburgh University Press, pp. 25-6, ISBN 0748612777
