The most challenging aspect of being human right now?

“Being human itself. Belonging to the human race. With its violence, prejudice, evil, greediness and shortsightedness. For 2025 I might get myself a lantern and cosplay Diogenes”

The great Cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope (in modern-day Turkey) famously wandered Athens with a lantern in broad daylight, claiming to be in search of an honest man.1 Four-hundred years before Jesus, the ancient Cynic lived in poverty and sought to expose how societal norms and the pursuit of wealth, power, and status corrupt the soul, distracting from a virtuous life.

One of the most famous encounters in Diogenes’ life occurred when Alexander the Great, impressed by Diogenes' reputation, paid him a visit. The story goes that Alexander found him basking in the sun and offered him any boon he desired. Diogenes, without missing a beat, replied, “Yes, get out of my sunlight.” The greatest conqueror of the ancient world is told to step aside by a lowly philosopher.2

Imagine the wealthiest of men came into your comments and offered you a wish, any wish. How many of us would say, “Yes thank you, I wish you would get out of my comments, as I was enjoying the conversation”? How many of us, given the opportunity to give Donald a sermon, would offer him the opportunity to shame himself, as Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde did yesterday.

Not many of us, but that is still a non-zero number. That non-zero number turns into a non-zero-plus-one when another is encouraged by Bishop Budde’s action. Non-zero and non-zero-plus-one are already in the many.

Non-zero is an irreducible number.

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As a philosophical orientation, modern-day cynicism is characterized by a general distrust of, or extreme skepticism about, other people’s motives. Underlying this cynicism is the belief that humans are primarily driven by self-interest, an extreme skepticism about the good of human institutions, and a rejection of social conventions or norms (which are seen as corrupting and inauthentic).

There is a Nietzschean left-turn to be taken here, a turn that runs into nihilism or absurdism. In this view, not only are institutions and norms exposed as hollow, but the very search for meaning or higher purpose begins to feel futile. In the face of human horrors and suffering, what? What remains is the confrontation with the absurd, with the recognition that life lacks inherent meaning and that human efforts to impose order or morality often conceal deeper self-serving impulses. The cynic, pushed to absurdist limits, will either reject meaning entirely (nihilism), or create their own sense of meaning in defiance of the absurd.

Nihilism and absurdism at least provide a bottom to secure us from the fall into misanthropy.

The most challenging aspects of being human right now?

“Maintaining hope.”

“Maintaining equanimity and the desire to act constructively in such a wretched, evil world.”

In the case of Diogenes, his cynicism isn’t just a negative attitude. Yes, it rejects the worship of material wealth and superficial values, but it is positively focused on living in accordance with nature, embracing simplicity, and seeking virtue as a means of achieving that authenticity. As such, it’s a serious philosophical stance meant to challenge us to think deeply about the human condition, and our potential.

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The common sense view of misanthropy is that it is idealism turned bitter, grounded in a disappointment or disillusionment about humanity as a whole. Are humans morally deficient, perverted, damaged, hopelessly corrupt beings? Is there reason to embrace pessimism? Is there reassurance in the belief that negative outcomes are more likely than positive ones, and that human life is chiefly characterized by the pain, suffering, hardship that we create for ourselves? Is human existence inherently flawed — look at the inevitability of suffering, the limitations of human reason and how we use it to justify all sorts of injustices including genocide, and the futility of striving to better ourselves and seek happiness or meaning.

Schopenhauer, an avowed misanthrope, urges us to accept the hardships of life, because it can lead to greater clarity, detachment, and even moral insight. It is an orientation that seeks to confront life's difficulties without sugarcoating, often highlighting the fragility of human existence and the impermanence of joy.

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Let’s reject pessimism and swing to it’s opposite: optimism. Let us assume that life tends towards the good, the glass is half full always. Optimism, with its emphasis on hope, positivity, and the expectations that challenges will be overcome, progress will me made, and that people and institutions can improve. All this seems like it could be a trap. Especially in a culture that is quite intolerant of unhappiness and insists on a performative optimism.3 Don’t worry, be happy, don’t think too deeply, it will give you wrinkles.

Optimism can also be an armour against injustices suffered, a crutch and inability to face and stand in justified righteous anger. In any case, no matter which way you turn in this circularly built city, you will end up in the same sordid place.

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Cynicism, Pessimism, Disillusionment, Moral Outrage, Existential Anxiety, Skepticism. Misanthropy.

I confess to misanthropic tendencies. Our treatment of animals alone is enough to justify the feeling that there is something morally wrong with human beings. I have said it more than once: We deserve what we have coming to us, as earth shivers and burns and shakes us all off this planet. I stand in line awaiting my turn to livestream my own demise.

Do I mean it?

“Our morality. The way we use it within our work, the way we advocate, what we stand for.”

“Navigating a crumbling world.”

I think there are two distinct attitudes or orientations both going by the same name. The more common kind of misanthropy is one that is based in a belief that one is above the fray of the mass of humanity, an elitism that sees fault with the collectivity but sees oneself as an individual able and fated to overcome human mediocrity. The other misanthropy includes the self in the negative assessment of humankind, so it is a kind of “healthy” self-hatred. Or at least, an ongoing interrogation of our self-interest, a necessary suspicion of one’s self.

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At some deep level, I believe Levinas’ approach to ethics is correct, even if it is literally impossible to practice. Misanthropy, when turned upon the self, allows us to see the folly of thinking that we are by default good, that our good intentions suffice, and that we owe consideration only to those closest to us.

The one thing that I took away from my undergraduate course on Eastern Philosophy was Mo Tzu (a contemporary of Socrates) and his teachings on the concept of "jian ai" or "impartial care" — that individuals have a moral obligation to care for all people equally, rather than showing favoritism to family or close associates. If Mo Tzu's teachings on impartial care were quite radical for his time, they are even more so now.

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Leibniz, who argues that we live in the "best of all possible worlds," where even evil serve a greater purpose within a divine or cosmic plan. All negativity is seen as an opportunity to open the door for what is positively good, suffering is turned to art and understanding. Nothing is a-wasted.

I personally do not find the idea that we live in the best of all possible worlds reassuring, not at all. I am too much of an idealist.