The Misanthropic Us

While Americans were witnessing the rise of 'Yes We Can', Europe has been coping with a growing misanthropy. Is this something to worry about?

"When I gave the interview for Hard Talk yesterday the guy, Sackur, who is a bright guy, not just another sucker, he told me: But you are basically misanthropic. I told him: Yes! And they praise the British nation. You know very well that there is a certain type of misanthropy which is much better as a social attitude than this cheap, charitable optimism, and so on."
Slavoj Zizek, RSA - First as Tragedy then as Farce

Rather than misanthropy being an anti-social force, Zizek presents it as playing a positive role in a society - acting akin to scepticism in keeping our assessments of human potential well grounded.

So maybe we have a need to redefine this disaffection - not so much misanthropy, or hatred, but rather an aversion?

"Whenever I tell people I'm a misanthrope they react as though that's a bad thing, the idiots. I live in London, for God's sake. Have you walked down Oxford Street recently? Misanthropy's the only thing that gets you through it. It's not a personality flaw, it's a skill."
Charlie Brooker, Screen Burn

However, misanthropy as an aversion ignores the role it plays within social groups. In fact it appears to, as David O'Doherty suggests, 'lower your expectations'. In doing so it serves to help you fit in better with, rather than drive you away from, people.

If that's the case, then maybe the cultural misanthropy that Europe is going through is just one scene in an ongoing drama. A drama in which the people of Europe are trying to adjust to an uncertain place in the modern world - and this misanthropy serves to realign our expectations of people in difficult times.