Enough with the misanthropy!

Misanthropy, the unvarnished disrespect for other human beings, is taking quite a beating these days; though despite its rancidity, its a resilient point of view. Misanthropes look for reasons to hate other human beings, to judge them inferior & despicable, to find them all wanting. Judging from their commentary, we’re all a doomed lot, sheeple, addicted to the boob tube, & wedded to Obama’s lies. Lord, they’re a depressing lot!

Unfortunately misanthropes are not just downers; they’re a voluble lot, often with enough advanced degrees from the right universities to get jobs as commentators in media. And I’m not talking about just Fox News.

Some of them are writing jeremiads up the wazoo about all these battles human beings are fighting that seem to go nowhere, that aren’t winning the gold medal, that don’t seem to change things. Social transformation isn’t a contest like being judged the smartest guy in geography class. It’s a historic process involving not just the fates of millions of people but their entry into political life on their own behalf.

Working people are chastised because they don’t rise up en masse & defy the powers that be--the powers with surveillance systems & arsenals that can take them out with one errant drone. Only a a fool goes out into the public square on their own to defy such possibilities.

But this is where misanthropy gets thrown a curve ball! Because from the unidentified 
“Tank Man” in China’s Tiananmen Square to this young man in Taksim Park, Istanbul, human beings do defy the odds & military might. They’re not the odd balls, the “heros,” the exceptions to the norm of conformity. They are legion. They just need organization. And then they are invincible.

It’s the misanthropes who are hopeless, especially hopeless bores. Enough with the jeremiads. Show a little respect for your brothers & sisters. If you can’t muster that, muzzle it! And go away!

Unmasked & unprotected, a man remains in place, holding  onto a Turkish flag while the rest of the crowd flees from tear gas.

(Photo by Danya Chudacoff)