Good enough time to ponder the notion of "Virtuous Misanthropes".
Is humanity a failure?
According to David Cooper, misanthropy is a “verdict or judgment on humankind” (2018: 3) to the effect that it has failed, morally and otherwise (2018: 7), a verdict directed at humanity as a whole or as a collective, not necessarily at individuals (2018: 9; cf. Svoboda
Reference Svoboda2022: 6-7). Toby Svoboda claims that it is the belief that human beings are bad (2022: 8, passim). He adds that a misanthrope “sincerely judges that humans are bad, and views them accordingly, [though they] need not dislike, hate, or despise humanity” (2022: 8). Ian James Kidd, accepting Cooper’s views, defends the compatibility of the misanthropic verdict with various practical stances (2021; cf. Svoboda Reference Svoboda2022: 29-32). On these views, misanthropy is primarily a cognitivestance, compatible with various emotional stances (or even none), and directed primarily at humanity as a whole.
Consider now an argument for why humanity is a failure. The argument will be brief because it has been defended in the literature (it will also leave open the question why human beings fail, especially if such reasons might be irrelevant to the misanthropic verdict [Kidd Reference Kidd2021: 32]). Humanity is a failure because human beings tend to exhibit a broad range of deeply rooted intellectual and, especially, moral failings. Consider the following list from Cooper that includes six clusters of failings (2018: ch. 4). The first is the hatred cluster, characterized by hostility towards others (“hatred itself, malevolence, enmity, vengefulness, Schadenfreude, spitefulness and mean-spiritedness”). Second, there is the loutishness cluster, characterized by a “common disregard for others” (“boorishness, vulgarity, rudeness, and loutishness itself”). Third, mindlessness, characterized by obstructions to “the world and to the needs and goods of creatures, including one’s self” (“carelessness, negligence, … insensitivity, intellectual laziness, prejudice and rigidity of outlook”). The fourth is bad faith, characterized by “avoidance to see things as they are” (towards one’s own self: “self-deceit, willful ignorance and a proneness to be ‘in denial’”; towards others: “infidelity, betrayal, lying, treachery and sanctimonious piety”). Fifth, there is vanity, characterized by thinking highly of oneself (“conceit, hubris, narcissism, … envy, self-pity … resentment at the success of others … ingratitude … [and] jealousy”). Finally, there is greed, characterized by “a self-centered desire for a future state of him- or herself,” a preoccupation with “how best to procure what will satisfy the demands of the ego.” Cooper also mentions other clusters such as “weakness of the will, cowardice and craven servility.” All these failures are either moral or morally related (Svoboda is explicit that humanity’s failure is moral [2022: passim]; see also Benatar Reference Benatar, Benatar and Wasserman2015: 80-100).
(—from Virtuous Misanthropes, Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2024, by RAJA HALWANI
This notion of bad faith, characterized by “avoidance to see things as they are”, is a cloaking mechanism that, perhaps, avoids unpleasant news, pretends that institutions (whether governmental or religious) really do have people's best interests in mind, or that if bad things are occurring, well, we must deserve them.
The plea “to see things as they are” in the realm of meditation or contemplation, is the invitation to peer deeply into a dimension far beyond that of politics and precepts and proscriptions promulgated by those who claim to know better the weaknesses and absurdities of the human race. Thereby, to gaze into the beyond, is to no longer to know better. It might be, rather, not to know at all.
To not know is an act of humility. It voids the desire to control and dominate. It opens into a landscape of inquiry, investigation, and unforeseen possibility.
In the poem "Ezra Pound" in his book of poems titled History (1969), Robert Lowell writes:
And I, "Who else has been in Purgatory?"
And he, "To begin with a swelled head and end with swelled feet."
It was something taught in early religion classes in my root tradition, catholicism. Here's what the dictionary says:
purgatory | ˈpərɡəˌtôrē |
noun (plural purgatories)
(in Roman Catholic doctrine) a place or state of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are expiating their sins before going to heaven: all her sins were forgiven and she would not need to go to Purgatory | the punishment of souls in purgatory.
• mental anguish or suffering: this was purgatory, worse than anything she'd faced in her life.
adjective archaic
having the quality of cleansing or purifying: infernal punishments are purgatory and medicinal.
DERIVATIVES
purgatorial | ˌpərɡəˈtôrēəl | adjective
ORIGIN
Middle English: from Anglo-Norman French purgatorie or medieval Latin purgatorium, neuter (used as a noun) of late Latin purgatorius ‘purifying’, from the verb purgare (see purge).
Whether it is purifying or purging, the time is upon us, the place is here, the life-experience is our own.
Heaven, whether envisioned here on earth or elsewhere beyond, is coterminus with any other envisioned dimension. Here is here. Now is now. The various dimensional Russian Dolls are inset and enfolded upon each varied or different manifesting expression.
Hence we say "heaven on earth" or "this is hell" or, more to the point, "we are suffering here."
Yesterday it occurred to me that the Christian metaphor of "the Cross" is "what-is-here-and-now." Either we are "on" the cross, "embracing" the cross, or we are inflicting suffering and pain on those who we don't estimate to be enwrapped in our particular version of "what-is" -- preferring our version of what ought to be.
The cross, then, (in the metaphor) is that which saves, that which liberates from delusion and illusion, pomposity and pretense. In this metaphor, we surrender to what-is-here, thereby con-sequencing a passing through, a rising from, a resurrection out the deadening separation others and our minds convince us is reality.
Ours is a story, better told, of moving through.
We are that which is moving through.
To see things as they are is a thorny beatitude.
"Pray for the grace of accuracy" the poet pleads.
Robert Lowell's poem Epilogue (1977), in final book of poems "Day by Day", ends this way"
All’s misalliance.
Yet why not say what happened?
Pray for the grace of accuracy
Vermeer gave to the sun’s illumination
stealing like the tide across a map
to his girl solid with yearning.
We are poor passing facts,
warned by that to give
each figure in the photograph
his living name.
The grace of accuracy -- validity, unambiguousness, authority, reliability -- authenticity?
And for those who'd prefer to go fifteen years further back, there's those Brooklyn guys from the neighborhood: DON & JUAN - ''WHAT'S YOUR NAME?'' (1962).
"Shooby-doo-bop-bah-dah!"
