Philosophy Now Forum

Ian James Kidd takes a look at humanity through dark glasses.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/139/Philosophical_Misanthropy

Reading the article, it gives a way to systematize misantropy. You may become an angry activist or go into the woods to escape the evil world. The article gives different philosophers view on the subject.

But one thing that should have interested the philosophers - will the Misantrope agree that he or she may be wrong? In calling the world, or the culture lived in, malicious? Shouldn’t there be an element of doubt? Should not the philosophical disantrope be forced to justify the correctness of the experienced maliciousness of the world lived in?

It seems like activism is striving for a holistic view of the world, that the even more intellectually challenging view, that the world is complex and ones own view of good and bad is maybe not the universal one, is too much to handle. A politician, a parent or a manager, by contrast, must handle the world as it practically is. World is a messy place. The misanthrope seems to want to escape from that. By calling it bad.