Misanthropy

Started by Andrew McIntosh, February 20, 2015, 11:59:04 AM

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TS

Houllebecq is certainly bleak, (and brilliant) but I've never gotten a thoroughly misanthropic feeling from what I've read. I'm no expert, but from what I understand he hates what capitalist society, and the increasing commodification of everything that comes with it, and  what that turns people into, more than people themselves. He describes very well I think, especially in "Atomised" the loss of "value" that comes with getting older.
Kropper uten Mellomrom

Andrew McIntosh

Quote from: HongKongGoolagong on February 26, 2015, 05:20:50 PMHoullebecq's writing on H.P. Lovecraft tried to recast HPL as a great misanthrope - I wasn't convinced but the book is itself a modern classic of anti-world polemic and I preferred it to his fiction.

I keep meaning to get "Against The World, Against Life" (that's almost a Black Metal album title). I don't think it's much of a stretch to portray Lovecraft as some kind of misanthrope. People often squirm when trying to "defend" his racism for example but I think that it's those phobias that are at the heart of his writing. He's a man terrified of everything around him.

I like Hollebecq's fiction, so much as I've read which is only two books. I remember when reading "Platform" being confused as to why things seemed to be going so well for the narrator, his lover and their business, and was thinking "this is a Hollebecq novel, when is something terrible going to happen?". Lo and behold, Islamist terrorists storm in, his lover is brutally killed (he has a habit of wiping out women in his fiction), the business goes bust and he ends up a lonely and bitter old man in a scummy part of Thailand. Every attempt at happiness fails, even if it succeeds for a time, and all that's left is bitter gnawing of old pleasures and hatreds.

I think his bitterness comes from frustrated idealism but it results in some pretty anti-human sentiment. Not so much an outright contempt for humanity but more a sense of frustrated to the point of immobility.
Shikata ga nai.

cr

The aforementioned E.M. Cioran was the first who came to my mind as well. I read, that in 1966 he decided to fix one of these warnings on his door (my translation):
"Every visit is an aggression
or
Don't enter, show mercy
or
Every face bothers me
or
I am never at home
or
Damned be the one who rings (the bell)
or
I know nobody
or
Dangerous madman"

vomitgore

Quote from: cr on March 01, 2015, 06:13:02 PM
The aforementioned E.M. Cioran was the first who came to my mind as well. I read, that in 1966 he decided to fix one of these warnings on his door (my translation):
"Every visit is an aggression
or
Don't enter, show mercy
or
Every face bothers me
or
I am never at home
or
Damned be the one who rings (the bell)
or
I know nobody
or
Dangerous madman"

I would also recommend Cioran in this context. I remember reading "The teachings of decomposition" (rough translation, don't know whether that's the actual English title) about five years ago and thinking that he was one of the few philosopers whose philosophy could truly be called nihilistic. Also have a book with a few short  observations  ("Quartered") - haven't read it entirely, but it seems less deep than the aforementioned one.

Also, I just finished Evola's "Ride the Tiger" and I would argue that its cultural pessimism makes it "misanthropic" literature in a broader sense. Of course, there is the constant mentioning of the higher spiritual man on the other end, but I wouldn't say that misanthropy and superiority  (especially in an occult or spiritual sense) exclude each other.

When it comes to fiction, "The Wasp Factory" by Iain Banks is definitely worth checking out. It could be described as a somewhat darker, sicker and more isolationist version of "The Catcher in the Rye". Also, the "Skandinavisk Misantropi" trilogy by Matias Faldbakken is pretty worthwhile. The approach is kind of absurd and over the top  (comparable to stuff like "Trainspotting"), but especially the first two volumes are pretty dark at times.

Have been wanting to give Houllebecq a chance, but I have the feeling that his view is hipsteresque, which is a definite no-go for me. Can anyone comment on that?

Levas

Slightly off-topic from all the recommendations, but interesting point of view:

http://everything2.com/title/misanthropic+principle?author_id=1224172#sam512

QuoteThe misanthropic principle, also known as the unthropic principle, is the philosophical argument that observations of the physical Universe must be, to some extent, incompatible with the conscious life that observes it. This is opposed to the anthropic principle.

Andrew McIntosh

About a year or so ago it occurred to me that since organic life itself, as we understand it, so so limited in the natural universe that we can perceive so far, it's fairly obvious that the universe itself is at best indifferent, at worst hostile to organic life. It's good to see these lay musings being brought out to something a bit more substantial.
Shikata ga nai.

Zoladingoing

 Agent Smith in The Matrix Said  "human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet," however neo thinks otherwise

cr

Thomas Bernhard is always a good read (especially if you are Austrian).

"We had no luck with the weather and the guests at our table were repellent in every respect. They even ruined Nietzsche for us. Even after they had had a fatal car accident and had been laid out in the church in Sils, we still hated them."

"Instead of committing suicide, people go to work." 

"We always wonder, when we see two people together, particularly when they're actually married, how these two people could have arrived at such a decision, such an act, so we tell ourselves that it's a matter of human nature, that it's very often a case of two people going together, getting together, only in order to kill themselves in time, sooner or later to kill themselves, after mutually tormenting each other for years or for decades, only to end up killing themselves anyway, people who get together even though they probably clearly perceive their future of shared torment, who join together, get married, in the teeth of all reason, who against all reason commit the natural crime of bringing children into the world who then proceed to be the unhappiest imaginable people, we have evidence of this situation wherever we look... People who get together and marry even though they can foresee their future together only as a lifelong shared martyrdom, suddenly all these people qua human beings, human beingsqua ordinary people... enter into a union, into a marriage, into their annihilation, step by step down they go into the most horrible situation imaginable, annihilation by marriage, meaning annihilation mental, emotional, and physical, as we can see all around us, the whole world is full of instances confirming this... why, I may well ask myself, this senseless sealing of the bargain, we wonder about it because we have an instance of it before us, how did this instance come to be?" 

cr

As he's been a personal obsession for quite some time now,  I'd also like to mention serial killer Carl Panzram in this context. "Panzram - A journal of murder" by Thomas Gaddis & James Long is one of my favourite books.

"I don't believe in man, God nor Devil. I hate the whole damned human race, including myself. I preyed upon the weak, the harmless and the unsuspecting. This lesson I was taught by others : Might makes right."

"I have no desire whatever to reform myself. My only desire is to reform people who try to reform me. And I believe that the only way to reform people is to kill 'em." 

" I wish you all had one neck and that I had my hands on it."


cr

#24
Quote from: vomitgore on March 07, 2015, 11:14:17 AM
Also, the "Skandinavisk Misantropi" trilogy by Matias Faldbakken is pretty worthwhile. The approach is kind of absurd and over the top  (comparable to stuff like "Trainspotting"), but especially the first two volumes are pretty dark at times.

I also read that trilogy and I thought it was quite entertaining.  'Kind of absurd and over the top' is a good description. What I always wondered is, how he is seen and received in the Scandinavian countries themselves? For example by those scandinavian people who frequent this forum.

TS

Most people I know of perceive it as good, but as you said, over the top.. I read it in my youth and I think thats pretty typical.
Kropper uten Mellomrom

Bloated Slutbag

The Antinatalism Hall Of Fame may be of interest.

Not that I'd necessarily want to conflate antinatalism and misanthropy, but a lot of the same names tend to crop up- preeminent among them the Norwegian philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe.

Zapffe's The Last Messiah essay
Someone weaker than you should beat you and brag
And take you for a drag

Andrew McIntosh

http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/Hazlitt/Hating.htm

QuoteWhat chance is there of the success of real passion? What certainty of its continuance? Seeing all this as I do, and unravelling the web of human life into its various threads of meanness, spite, cowardice, want of feeling, and want of understanding, of indifference towards others, and ignorance of ourselves, - seeing custom prevail over all excellence, itself giving way to infamy - mistaken as I have been in my public and private hopes, calculating others from myself, and calculating wrong; always disappointed where I placed most reliance; the dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; - have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.
Shikata ga nai.

vomitgore

Quote from: cr on March 28, 2015, 06:46:26 PM
Quote from: vomitgore on March 07, 2015, 11:14:17 AM
Also, the "Skandinavisk Misantropi" trilogy by Matias Faldbakken is pretty worthwhile. The approach is kind of absurd and over the top  (comparable to stuff like "Trainspotting"), but especially the first two volumes are pretty dark at times.

I also read that trilogy and I thought it was quite entertaining.  'Kind of absurd and over the top' is a good description. What I always wondered is, how he is seen and received in the Scandinavian countries themselves? For example by those scandinavian people who frequent this forum.

It seems as if this perticular form of Scandinavian misanthrophy is easier to romanticise and market than, for example, the (particularly Finnish?) form of degeneration and perversion found in PE. I think that one of the cornerstones of most "misanthropic" art is that it's being played safe and brought across with a semi-moralistic touch, maybe even plain social criticism? I myself have started to dislike this kind of hipsteresque pessimism that works within moral standards, but I guess that's up to the reader.

ONE

Try the French film I Stand Alone from Gaspar Noé.




I can't top it for misanthropy & there are other more curious angles to interest the Paraphiliacs; touching base w/ incest, filicide, and an enormously unhealthy nihilism in the protagonist, it covers quite a bit of ground.  Shot very well and gives the impression it was made earlier - such is the unheimlich visual feel: it has a complimentary opaqueness affording it a gritty, warts and all credibility.
resist the things you can find everywhere