Why is Misanthropy ok but racism taboo?

[Chefodeath]

(...) Even at his worst, the general misanthrope is received better than a racist.

Why is this? Shouldn't it logically follow that misanthropes are worse people than racists if they do the racist's job and then some?

I've been delivering my fair share of loathing and hatred and racism wrapped in misanthropy for at least twenty years and counting now. It works like a charm. If you find yourself being openly racist, it's just no fun most of the time. Due to media attention and the doctored spin of post-WWII Stalin good, Hitler bad (even though they were both genocidal maniacs and then some), people are quite unreasonable and randomly selective in their perceptions.

If, however, you go full misanthrope, people are much less likely to feel offended, maybe because they've been conditioned by cartoons and comedians. If I openly vomit my misanthropy out in very clear words, I don't get sued or threatened or beaten up, people cheer and want to help me by calming me down with free sex and wine-infused discussions on Nietzsche.

Become a misanthrope, it makes life amongst humans so much more rewarding. Plus, you can call them sheep and ride them, too. If you meet a wolf, call him wolf and maybe you can ride him, too.

Why is that, you ask? Well, the misanthrope does not discriminate. The concept of misanthropy is easy to grasp and hard to master. Of course, it should only serve as a front because open philantropy will get you mugged and raped in the eye-socket in no time.

Great if you're willing to be a living self-contradiction.

 

[Hoplon]

I think this has been answered about 50 times already but: it's all about prejudice and discrimination.

A racist is saying that, based on arbitrary surface features, some humans are superior to others, and others are by implication sub-human.

A misanthrope should dislike all humans equally, and usually comes across as a curmudgeonly grump. This is because in practice a misanthrope is either a serial-killer, or they're putting it on and being hyperbolic.

That's right, because if you hate something you immediately murder it...

your meds need adjusting. Misanthropy is "generalized dislike, distrust, disgust, contempt or hatred of the human species or human nature" at what point does that make you a serial killer? Suicidal maybe.

And you wonder why some people are misanthropes.

Great if you're willing to be a living self-contradiction.

You know a lot of people that aren't? "don't hurt a dog" "mmm steak" is a common example.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

Because people are more concerned about equality than they are with... well most anything else, actually. At least that's the way it is in America.

na, we Americans just pretend that "we don't see color", I think America is probably just secretly racist now.

It's not really that secret, it's just that everyone's distracted by the rampant islamophobia and heterosexism.

Well the Islam reaction comes with war, just like anti-German/Japanese feelings back in the 1940's. Heterosexism? wtf? Last I checked, most people tell me I'm not supposed to say, "that's so gay".

Bullshit. We're not "at war" with Islam or the majority of Islamic culture. We're not even in a state of war with a tiny fraction of Muslims, as opposed to being at war with the entire country of Germany, that is, most of German culture, and Japan, or all of Japanese culture.

False equivalency is false.

(I do believe that that poster was referring to the pro-hetereosexual/anti-homosexual attitude in much of the US today, regarding the second part. Not everywhere in the US is as civilized as, say, a college campus; there's still tons of people that think that gay people should have fewer rights than straights by virtue of having an uncontrollable personality trait alone).

ok I'm going to take the bait and state that homosexuality is not a "personality trait". Its either a choice or a genetic trait.

I would say that it is most certainly not a choice, and can be shown as such with a simple "could you choose to be attracted to someone?" Among other arguments, it's not something that someone decides, like not deciding that you're interested in redheads or shy girls or what-have-you.

Regarding the second, though, I must also disagree. [link]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraternal_birth_order_and_male_sexual_orientation[/link] There is a correlation between a person's sexuality and how many older brothers they have. Genetics *alone* could not explain this, though the mother's hormones could. The thought being that, from a evolutionary standpoint, having many straight sons has diminishing returns, whereas having some gay sons increases the survivability of the daughters' children [link]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691850/[/link]. That is, women with gay brothers are more likely to have children and for those children to be better-raised, etc. So, while we have a biological reason for homosexual inclination in terms of genetics, it simply cannot be genes alone, but a combination of genetic predisposition (presumably to a varying degree in ALL humans) AND both early upbringing and hormonal changes from the mother during pregnancy. A good way to look at it is a set of twin, with one twin liking shy girls but the other outgoing girls, despite having the same genes, or, really, a set of twins with one being gay but the other straight.

Were it purely genetic, we'd see the children of lesbian/gay couples (with at least one biological parent being gay) statistically far more likely to be gay, when that isn't the case. This kind of explanation also excludes bisexual people (for the sake of simplicity, I'll leave out gender identity, a very separate issue).

and from what I take from what you said makes it sound like its a combination of genetics AND environment. However, it is NOT a "personality trait".

 

[CrazyGirl17]

...I'm somewhat of a misanthrope who hates racists, so what does that make me?

 

[chadachada123]

snip

and from what I take from what you said makes it sound like its a combination of genetics AND environment. However, it is NOT a "personality trait".

I don't really draw a distinction between a characteristic that you have based on genetics/environment and a personality trait (let's say shyness).

I feel like this will just devolve into arguing semantics on definitions...

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

snip

and from what I take from what you said makes it sound like its a combination of genetics AND environment. However, it is NOT a "personality trait".

I don't really draw a distinction between a characteristic that you have based on genetics/environment and a personality trait (let's say shyness).

I feel like this will just devolve into arguing semantics on definitions...

it will, so agree to disagree

 

[GraveeKing]

-Ultimate snip of ultimate furry justice!-
I'm a Brit and this place seems to have a really good attitude towards homosexuality for the most-part :3 It's more of an issue in America though where religion has a say in the law.

I agree that's it's wrong for certain prejudices to be one-sided, that's another issue that needs to be tackled. These days female>male and black>white prejudice is more common than male>female and white>black, almost like we're trying too hard to appease people who were discriminated against in the past.

That's exactly right, we're too short sighted to look at the present where REAL discrimination is happening, I mean hell a man can't even sit next to a child that isn't his on a plane anymore - because OBVIOUSLY every man would be a pedophile and every women wouldn't be!

It's insane, and I don't think it's to do with religion - it's to do with IDIOTS having a say in the law, being fair it does prove political freedom is going it's job, if the laws were all intelligent who would speak for the idiots? No one! Then natural selection would kill them all off and the world would be a better place... we can't have that though can we?

Aaaaaaaanyways, point is - I think everyone has lost faith in something to do with humanity, that feeling of 'I don't want to live on this planet anymore' that just make you think everyone else is stupid but you (and very few selected others), henceforth why Misanthropy is OK! It's simply accepting that most of the people in the world are dumb-asses.
Hey, I got back on topic eventually didn't I?

 

[AD-Stu]

It's because misanthropy isn't discriminatory - if you hate everyone then nobody gets left out. Plus the average misanthrope's justification for his/her position is typically a lot more logical than the average racist's.

so by that logic, if a person was racist (or hateful to a particular ethnic group) because of a logic reason, it would be ok? How about old Chinese people who lived in Nanjing their whole life and had the Rape of Nanjing inflicted upon that persons sister, mother and grandmother? Would it be ok for them to hate Japanese people because of the traumatic experience that happened?

Obviously not, because it's simply not logical to hate all Japanese people based on the actions of a few Japanese people.

IMO there is no logical justification for racism. Misanthropy is at least a grey area in that regard.

 

[Krois]

I don't know if the goal of this debate is to make people hate misanthropy or not since it is being compared with racism. From my perspective as a misanthrope, this debate makes as much sense as a debate on if we should hate those avid dog-lover/cat-haters with passion more intense than the hate for racism. Yes sure, go ahead; that's exactly the reason why I hate this species to begin with because the logic for justifying the stuff humans do is so messed up.

Before anyone mistaking us to be just angry loner teens that shouldn't be taken seriously and most likely destined to be serial killers. Let me make this clear, we do have human friends/family and our hate for human species are perfectly sound as we got the entire history of humanity and latest news to back it up; as for desire to eradicate the some or entire species, are you daft? Listen to yourself before you speak. Hating something doesn't mean the need to destroy it on sight.

If that is your view on us, then you're ignorant, misinformed or bias and we hate that kind of people. But if you hate us for merely being an ass most of the time, then your hate is just.

 

[DracoSuave]

He can be seen as charming and sympathetic, someone fed up with the bullshit of his species.

You tell yourself that.

In other news, people hate assholes. "Misanthrope" is a five-dollar word for "asshole".

 

[rabidmidget]

It's about the ideas behind the person that cause the different reactions. Racism has been an issue for as long as people have existed, and it needs to be constantly fought against, misanthropy on the other hand, can only really exist in isolated cases due to its nature, so it isn't as much of a concerning issue.

 

[Krois]

If you hate us for being a pain, do so. At least I can accept people hating me for being impatience.

Thing is we hardly care as do most people when you hate a person for who they are. The topic is asking "shouldn't it logically follow that misanthropes are worse people than racists", which is validating thoughtcrime and not about what we actually did or didn't do in action.

We might hate human species but we don't sack people of their jobs for being human as racism do and we don't go out killing everyone on sight because of our belief too. Now how stupid would that sound to you if it were true?

If you failed to get the logic there, I think my hate is just in this case.

 

[CulixCupric]

I'm a misanthrope, so i know the subject. the simple answer is that misanthropy includes ALL people, and therefore doesn't discriminate. you hate everyone equally.

 

[owbu]

I guess it has something to do with the history of your society

If you life in germany/USA racism is a bigger deal than in other contries, cause our grandpas acted like total dicks
If you life in the western world sexism is a bigger deal than in the arabic countries, because some contries still act like total dicks towards women there

Since James bond movies arent real, misantrophes never invented their "laser", so noone really cares about them

 

[sketch_zeppelin]

Misanthropes have a general grivance where as racists act out of ignorance and fear. As a species we can be pretty fucked up and none of us can choose to be born so its understandable that some people have come to hate the whole human condition. Given the choice these people may have wished to be born as somthing else or not at all.

Racists, however, belive that certin types of humans are worse than others based on skin color and or place of birth. There is no evidence to suggest that being born black makes you a worse human than if your born white. This is just ignorance.

so to some it up: Given our history its easy to accept that the human race can be crappy...but saying being white somehow makes you better than the rest of the species is just going to piss people off.