Misanthropy

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I'm getting more misanthropic by the minute. Most people seem either total idiots, total as*holes or so full of themselves they don't have a clue. Regardless of how nice you are to people, it's easy to get ignored, exploited or simply abused. Hell, a guy who was in one of my ex-girlfriends' high school has even tried to "sell" me an Eastern-European wife. Is that how far our society has evolved?

Oh, and women are even worse. Don't even make me go there. I've frequently contemplated of moving from women to men because I'm quite near hating women, but my disinterest in sex with males just forces me to reconsider women over and over... The irony of life, I guess...

I wonder... Is it just me or do you guys recognise that sentiment?!

Intelligent, mature, and genuine people are proportionately rare, but there are still a large amount of them.

Maybe. However, almost every time I think I meet someone who fits that description, they turn out to be either utterly naive, arrogant or a mixture of both. The handful of exceptions are the people I consider my friends, but they're so rare it doesn't change the continuous increase of my misanthropy as I experience Western society falling apart all around me, which alienates me further and further from mainstream society.

And with regards to women in specific..... I've met only about two women in my life whom I do not consider utterly shallow (one of them being a fairly masculine lesbian). Whereas it's still relatively simple to find men with at least some level of intellectual depth, a woman with any sort of intellectual depth seems almost impossible to find... even when you look at women with university or post-university degrees. As a straight male, that saddens me even more considering I do long for a woman I can somewhat connect with but I find it near impossible to connect with superficial people.

You're just noticing this? Oy, vey!

As if it weren't enough that the masses behave this way on a day-to-day basis, we're now all forced to endure a steady diet of television programs devoted to celebrating and documenting this sort of behavior. And this is the wonderful 'norm' from which we are ostracized and excluded. Thank gods for small favors!

You know, the defeatist curmudgeons can bluster all they want about how we should just 'admit AS is a disorder and not a gift', but I'm coming to believe the human race is in general so stupid and self-involved that if it weren't for the occasional Autistic free thinker, nothing constructive or useful would ever be conceived or implemented at all.

Maybe I'm a bit naive, but I always tried to believe there is at least some decency in most people. That, unfortunately, I find harder and harder to believe.



It's one of the reasons I stopped watching television altogether, but it does indeed further alienate you if you do so.



Amen, brother! Having worked in various multi-national corporations as well as small companies and having had numerous social contacts with people of all races and social backgrounds the superficial and unreliable nature of man is a pattern I see everywhere.

One's just a greater f***-up or worse at hiding it than the other. One does wonder how many of the great scientists and philosophers this world has known were actually Aspies, although I'm not so certain the average Aspie is any better. I've been to a few Aspie meetings and I couldn't really say the people I met there were that much better. Hell, the folks on "Aspies for Freedom" may be even worse...



Some say humans are nothing but a parasitic virus with a slightly enlarged brain. I'd say they're probably right.

Last edited by Salonfilosoof on 11 Mar 2010, 6:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This used to really get me down, but then I realised how much of an idiot, how much of an as*hole and how much of a blustering ignorant I am myself. After that, I found myself unable to be bothered by other people's frailties, because I was too busy punishing myself for my own.

Well, I'm not perfect but at least I always try to respect other people and admit my mistakes. Even that seems to be too much to ask for most people...

Oh, I wasn't meaning to say you were those things. I was just taking the opportunity to indulge in some self-loathing.

Last edited by McTell on 11 Mar 2010, 6:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You do that often?!

Gah, you caught me editing.

I suppose I do.

I'm down with misanthropy. The key is to make sure each individual you hate deserves that hate, and avoid blanket hatred. People are a mix of weak and strong points. As an example, I found myself getting road rage a lot and dismissing any stupid, skilless driver as a worthless human. But then I remembered a good older friend of mine, a woman of impressive intellect, creative and compassionate nature, and generally one of the few cool humans out there is a terrible driver. I rode with her twice and hopefully never again. Out of a mixture of random kindness (yielding the right of way at bad times), distraction with pretty flowers and sights along the road, and a lack of logical flow/poor observation skills she made, in those two trips alone, about ten maneuvers that I would have honked at or even flipped her off over had I been driving another vehicle near hers. So it occurred to me that some of the atrocious drivers could still be OK people, and I must not hate them for that alone.
That said, plenty of people I checked out in closer detail easily make the cut and deserve the hatred I feel for them, so yay misanthropy.

Some people I loathe, others just annoy me and yet others I pity. It really depends from person to person. Those I really like are a small minority.

Attitudes like this give misanthropy a bad name.

Yes, there are a lot of pretty awful people out there. But it isn't black and white. I once had a boss who could be horribly abrasive, bullying, arbitrary, opinionated, miserly etc. There were plenty of times when I would have been perfectly happy to see him disappear off the face of the earth. But he also risked his life to help a family escape the Rwandan genocide.

Everyone comes with their own set of good and bad. I agree. The world would be a better place without humans. Collectively we consume too many resources, we pollute, we over populate. Humans are no less vermin than rats and cockroaches, and we are intelligent enough to know better. But each individual comes with his or her own set of good and bad. Some tip too far in one or the other direction, but if you bother to look, good can be found in anyone. Really, it's just a matter of are you willing to look for it.

In my twenties, I had gotten into a habit of seeking out and complaining incessantly about other people's failings. Only I and a few friends really saw the world clearly. Everyone else was shallow, venal, stupid. But at some point, I had to recognize that I was being rather shallow, venal and stupid in my complaints and that I was actively ignoring some very real good qualities in others. If I was going to be honest, I had to look at the world, not with the comforting misanthropy that told me I was one of the few who saw clearly, but that I was one of the many desperately clinging to a world view that allowed me to believe that I was superior to others.

Maybe it's because as I've gotten older, I've become more confident in myself. I don't have to see others fail around me to feel as if I am succeeding. I don't have to climb up on a pedestal and look down on everyone. I can look at myself and see many of the same flaws that I see in others. But I can also look at myself and see many of the same good characteristics that I see in others.

Well, that's the problem. When I look at most other people, I see shallowness, lack of honor, lack of courage, hypocricy, narrowmindedness, irrationality, etc. I fail to see in them the personality traits I hold very dear.

I hate people very much. It does grow more over the years. Sometimes Im struck with niaveity and optimisim and think people are ok, then I interact with some and go back to hateing people very much.

I have recently encountered an incident which has actually disgusted me to the point that I have contemplated just what kind of morals and values does the average person actually have in the society I live in? And do I somehow have either higher values or are my values simply idealistic and rather disjointed with the actual reality of human beings and their behaviour.

I then wonder whether the values I expect of myself and others are wrong and that I perhaps need to realise that most people are motivated in life by more fundamentally basic drives, be that sexual, materialistic or power over others.

The disappointment I then feel in others not meeting these standards leads me to conclude that I should rather than hold everyone to a universal standard I should simply deal with the strength and weaknesses of the individuals I have been given supervision of. I find that rather unacceptable as if you choose to work in a position were you are involved in caring and supporting a vulnerable adult you should to my mind have strong value base or you basically have no reason to be in the job. The money's hardly that spectacular.