Of all the pejorative words in our language, one of the most barbed is misanthrope. It’s a label that has been flung at a variety of people. For example, a host of philosophers — Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Sartre; writers of all types — Swift, Pope, Byron, Twain, Kafka, Wilde, Huxley, Mencken, and Hitchens; a scientist, Newton; and a long line of comedians, with Lenny Bruce and George Carlin at the forefront.
I’ve found many definitions of the word, each a shade different from the others. Here’s my composite: A person who hates, dislikes, distrusts, or has contempt for the human species or human nature. A few definitions contained the word reclusive, which I’ve judged to be nonessential.
You might say, “Well, that sums it up,” but you would be doing a lot of people a disservice. There’s a wide distance between hating and disliking. Neither distrust nor contempt implies hatred. Contempt implies dislike, but distrust doesn’t. So why connect all these descriptors with an or? That or is being ill used, and hence so are the people labeled as misanthropic.
I’d prefer to leave hates and dislikes out of the definition, but even after that amendment, I’m remain unhappy. In all the cultures I know of, saying that a person distrusts or has contempt for human nature is still strongly pejorative, and this is a damn shame. Are you shocked that I think so? Cards on the table, I’m distrustful and contemptuous of a great many people. Multitudes, in fact. So I qualify as a misanthrope by my own standards. I think people should shake my hand, but no, they think less of me for it.
Please give me a hearing while I try to justify my opinion of humanity. It’s only fair. I can do so if you’ll take a close look at some typical human behaviors.
Signaling
In much of the Animal Kingdom, a change in an animal’s scent or appearance or vocalizing will announce a changed biological state to its fellow creatures. The event might indicate fear, anger, hunger, affection, sexual arousal, submissiveness, assertiveness, or a dozen other things. I call this signaling behavior. Of course, humans do it, too, but here’s what’s distinctive about human signaling: using language and symbolism, humans do it for hours on end, even in the absence of a changed biological state!
I’ll give you a few examples. In a doctor’s office, I saw a young woman wearing a T-shirt with “GILLY HICKS” emblazoned across it. “What’s a Gilly Hicks?” I asked my wife. She had no idea, so I googled. Turns out, it’s a lingerie brand owned by Abercrombie & Fitch. Why, I ask, would a woman freely turn herself into a commercial for a lingerie brand? What is she signaling? It’s something like, “Are you curious about my shirt? It’s a brand of sexy lingerie that I wear all the time. Ask me out and maybe I’ll show it to you.” She’s a poster child for vanity and stupidity, and she has millions of brothers and sisters.
In a restaurant, I saw a man chomping on something big and drippy. He was overweight and looked to be in his late 50s. He also wore a T-shirt. It said, “Fast & Furious 6,” the title of the sixth in a franchise of action films about a lovable American crime gang. He was also signaling. His message was, “I’m a fun guy, full of surprises. If you’re also unconventional and adventurous, stick with me.” I tried not to imagine how awry his fantasy life had gone. How many are like him? At least as many as those who buy an idol’s sports jersey or a signature sports shoe.
Out on the highway one day, I saw a California license plate that was entirely pink, except for the plate number. When I looked closer up, I noticed a pink ribbon on the pink background. It was a Breast Cancer Awareness plate! Why would people pay extra for this plate? To make others more aware of the threat of breast cancer? So they believe, but truth be told, they are “virtue-signaling,” a common and tedious human behavior. California offers a variety of ways to virtue-signal. For example, you can get a Pet Lovers plate or a Lake Tahoe Conservancy plate. The state is in the signaling business!
Passivity
In every society, even in so-called democracies, there are parts of the status quo that are outrageous, not to mention intolerable. Yet rage devolves into a shrug and intolerance into a sigh. In our society, the premiere example is gun violence. There’s no question that we can stop it at a microscopic cost to our liberty. But we don’t stop it. We are easily distracted by people with corrupt motives, and the issue loses energy.
Another outrage is the cost of higher education. Think of this linkage: Low Cost of Education -> More Educated Populous -> More Knowledge-Based Jobs -> Higher Standard of Living -> More Informed Electorate -> Vibrant Democracy. Now contrast it with this linkage: High (Prohibitive) Cost of Education -> Less Educated Populous -> Fewer Knowledge-Based Jobs -> Lower Standard of Living -> Less Informed Electorate -> Weak (Failing) Democracy. In America, we are on the latter track. I think most Americans grasp this, but what’s the fix? Certainly not some sort of [tremble] socialist remedy. And so we bury the best minds we have under a ton of debt.
Having recently endured the yearly income tax ripoff, I have to add it to this list. We pay people to fill out arcane and exhausting forms that tell the state and federal government what we owe in taxes. Remarkably, there’s no need whatever to pay an expert or to suffer the ordeal alone. The state and IRS already know what our tax bill is! Employers have told them what we’ve earned and what we’ve withheld. Banks and financial institutions have told them about our interest income, stock dividends, and investment gains and losses. Let them demand that we report any exotic income that escapes their notice. Otherwise, they should simply send out bills and checks every year, as a number of countries already do. America can’t do what’s sensible (and merciful) because our representatives are so effectively lobbied by tax preparers and tax software companies. We should be screaming bloody hell about this travesty, but our political apathy is too profound.
Here’s a statistic that should freeze your blood: In last year’s midterm election, with the nation’s future hanging in the balance, only 49% of eligible voters — not even half — actually voted. And this was declared an amazing turnout for a midterm election!
Note: I haven’t included the climate-change crisis in my list because of signs that the world’s apathy is giving way. The urgent question now is whether we are already out of time.
Credulity
It’s easy to convince people of things that are dubious, dangerous, or absurd. They’ll buy into Ponzi schemes, like Bernie Madoff’s, and pyramid schemes, like chain letters. They’ll put their savings into investment bubbles that will expand forever, like tulips and real estate. They’ll go to casinos, play the slots, and buy lottery tickets. They’ll jump from planes and plummet into chasms on a bungee cord. They’ll pay big bucks for beauty products and elixirs. They’ll tell you that conspiracies drive the course of history. They’ll believe in supernatural forces and fail to distinguish science from pseudo-science. And most will adopt their parents’ views on matters political, economic, and religious with scarcely a thought.
Here’s a video I’d like you to watch. It shows a suspension of reason so profound that I can only think, This must be the abyss in which absolute credulity lives. Close your eyes. Among beating drums and ritual dancing, a tribal shaman is ranting.
Tribalism
A tribe is generally thought of as a group of people with a common ancestry, culture, and race who live in their own enclosed society. I have a different view, a broader one. Humans are intensely affiliative by nature, and proud of their affiliations. So I think of sports fans — the addicted ones with season tickets and body paint — as tribes. Fraternities and sororities are tribes, as are alumni groups, Freemasons, and The Elks. Geographic regions are tribal. Religions are tribal, and sects even more so. At the top of the tribal pyramid are nations. Their tribal bonds are particularly powerful. They have to be because nations need the binding power to contain the tribes within.
Tribalism isn’t altogether a bad thing. It’s great for the ego. “I am a good person living among good people. I feel comfortable and secure. People I love and admire think as I do. I know what’s true and false. I know what’s right and wrong.” Tribalism does wonders for self-esteem and banishes doubt.
The downside of tribalism, however, is immense. Simply put, it generates violence. The mechanism is straightforward. “Your features and coloring are different from mine. It’s hard to understand you; you talk gibberish. Your ideas about the world are wrong and morally questionable. You’re dangerous.” Perceived danger is a step away from hatred. Hatred is a step away from violence.
The only way out of the tribalism trap is to realize there is only one tribe: humanity. We’ve had millennia for this to sink in. The best anti-tribal story ever told, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, is two thousand years old. Anthropology, sociology, literature, folk history, and biochemistry have affirmed our common bonds. Yet only a paltry percentage of the world’s adult population has seen the light. The rest of humanity is busy weaponizing everything in sight, from chemicals to germs to lasers to nuclear energy to space technology. No end to this pathetic history is in sight.
That’s my spiel. If you think it’s convincing, or at least plausible, please do me a favor. The next time you come across a misanthrope, don’t drop the M word on him. Instead, engage him in polite conversation. Invite him out for coffee. Shake his hand.
The Scratching Post 