On misanthropy and John 3:15

[Pariah]

I would call myself a misanthropic individual. I have no love for mankind and, in fact, I have an active hatred for it. It’s grown over the years to the point where it’s getting more and more difficult to hang around family and, who I would consider to be, friends. The more people try to participate in bouts of levity with me, the more physically and mentally painful it is for me to tolerate it–and it shows. Additionally–and I’m not sure whether this is a product of my hatred or perhaps the root of it–I cannot tell whether I have love or dislike for God, but my feelings seem to lean towards a kind of irrational resentment, which I realize is silly but I can’t seem to shake those feelings. I think it may have to do with me simply disliking life in general, but I’m not sure.

This isn’t something that I feel I need to fix. I actually prefer things this way because even if I was able to get over hating people, I still wouldn’t be a social person and I’d still be very distrustful. In effect, I’m operating on an imperfect contrition; hardly ideal, but it’s enough to keep me in God’s grace. As such, I maintain my faith and practice of philosophy put forth by the Bible without being totally virtuous.

However, I’ve been worried about the standards of a salvation-worthy individual of late, and one verse in particular is distressing me:

John 3:15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in himself.

While I can understand the ideal sentiment behind loving your fellow man (without necessarily trusting him) I cannot understand the philosophical relevance or usefulness of forcing oneself to tokenly override any feelings of hatred for other human beings. I’m not sure how it makes me a murder, and thus unworthy of salvation.

Can someone explain the philosophical reasoning behind this quote or elaborate on whether or not it has a specialized context that I’m unable detect?

 

[Pariah]

It occurs to me that I put this in the wrong place. It should probably go in philosophy. I can’t find a delete button. So if a mod would move it for me, I’d be thankful.

 

[Timbothefiveth]

I think it’s because you “sin in your heart”. I don’t know why you are required to love them, it’s probably because He loves them.

I don’t know how you get to “love your brother”, but just try. If something bad happens to someone, maybe try to think of it as bad and have sympathy for that person. I actually have to work on this and “loving God with all your heart”, and now I just have to try my ideas.

If you have a psychological condition, you might want to see a therapist or something, they can probably help.

Good luck

 

[EasterJoy]

It is unfortunate that English does not make a distinction between the various senses in which “love” can be meant. St. Paul told us all about the love we are commanded to live and how important it is. Read the 13th Chapter of 1st Corinthians, and you will see that love and hate are all about behavior.

You don’t have to like being around someone to be patient with them, to be kind, to be polite, to seek their good over your own, to avoid ever gossiping or backbiting or spreading lies about them. More than one of the people whom Jesus died for drove him nuts. He did not pretend to like the pretentious way they acted or the lies that they spread around.

Besides, we are supposed to love our enemies. Only a lunatic could force himself to enjoy the company of people who hated him and wanted to see him dead. A Christian, though, could treat them with same respect and hope for their redemption as he or she would treat anyone else. That’s the difference between “like” and “love”. You can’t be expected to like your enemies, but it is possible to love them.

The primary person who suffers from your negative feelings is you. Except when there is an organic problem in play, feelings are more in our control than we think. Except that they are a near occasion of sin, however, feelings are also morally neutral. In fact, the emotions and the passions are a window into the soul that it is best not to ignore, even though they shouldn’t be left to run our lives or eat us up from the inside out. It is better to admit you don’t like someone and yet treat them well than to pretend that you like them when you don’t and yet fail to treat them with respect. Service of God never rests on maintaining a pretense.

Here is a guess you might consider, too: It may be that you are not misanthropic, but merely quiet and solemn in demeanor and without a person who can truly accept you that way. Maybe you don’t hate people. Maybe you are just tired of people who won’t accept that you are not like them and who refuse to accept that you don’t enjoy the same kind of human intercourse that they do. Maybe they don’t get that a person can appreciate humor without making a great guffaw, and maybe you are tired of being forced into a mold that wasn’t made with you in mind. Maybe they don’t get that you would really rather spend an evening in company that doesn’t need a lot of words. Maybe you are different than I am, but I would eventually come to resent that. If people kept trying to figure out sly ways to change me, I’d quit trusting them, too. I would not find my feelings silly, but totally understandable.

In other words, maybe it is not you who hate, and therefore murder, them. Maybe it is they who will not accept, who in a way hate, and who therefore murder you. Who wouldn’t resent that?

I know a fellow who works in psychiatry who is from Russia. I wish you could talk to him, because according to him Russians have an entirely different way of appreciating life, one that respects black moods as worthy of respect and even having their own beauty. Maybe if you talked to someone with that kind of a background, you could figure out what you want to do without having someone want to needlessly medicate you into a false levity that God didn’t create you to have. (And it may be that false god, the one who presumably made you one way and yet is totally ready to burn you forever if you don’t act a totally different way, whom you resent.)

In the meantime, you don’t have to like people to love them. If you do your best to love them–in the sense St. Paul describes in 1st Corinthians–if you repent when you fail to treat them as God wants you to treat them and, above all, if you depend on God’s grace to make up for the objective moral faults you cannot shake, you will be OK.

 

[Pariah]

You don’t have to like being around someone to be patient with them, to be kind, to be polite, to seek their good over your own,

I don’t want to use people for my gain. I just want nothing to do with them, and if I am forced to interact with them it would only be for the sake of my eternal soul that I offer them any sort of charity. So I can’t say that it’s for their good that I do anything. But the way that verse sounds makes such a philosophy seem almost paradoxical.

to avoid ever gossiping or backbiting or spreading lies about them. More than one of the people whom Jesus died for drove him nuts. He did not pretend to like the pretentious way they acted or the lies that they spread around.

So are you saying that “not hating” my fellow man doesn’t have to consist of positive emotions toward them, bu rather a respectful approach?

Here is a guess you might consider, too: It may be that you are not misanthropic, but merely quiet and solemn in demeanor and without a person who can truly accept you that way. Maybe you don’t hate people. Maybe you are just tired of people who won’t accept that you are not like them and who refuse to accept that you don’t enjoy the same kind of human intercourse that they do. Maybe they don’t get that a person can appreciate humor without making a great guffaw, and maybe you are tired of being forced into a mold that wasn’t made with you in mind. Maybe they don’t get that you would really rather spend an evening in company that doesn’t need a lot of words. Maybe you are different than I am, but I would eventually come to resent that. If people kept trying to figure out sly ways to change me, I’d quit trusting them, too. I would not find my feelings silly, but totally understandable.

In other words, maybe it is not you who hate, and therefore murder, them. Maybe it is they who will not accept, who in a way hate, and who therefore murder you. Who wouldn’t resent that?

Possible I suppose. In fact, now that I think about it, you’re probably right. But, couldn’t that be said of all misanthropes? The predominately social status-quo is “murdering” the anti-social minority?

 

[EasterJoy]

I don’t want to use people for my gain. I just want nothing to do with them, and if I am forced to interact with them it would only be for the sake of my eternal soul that I offer them any sort of charity. So I can’t say that it’s for their good that I do anything. But the way that verse sounds makes such a philosophy seem almost paradoxical.

So are you saying that “not hating” my fellow man doesn’t have to consist of positive emotions toward them, bu rather a respectful approach?

Possible I suppose. In fact, now that I think about it, you’re probably right. But, couldn’t that be said of all misanthropes? The predominately social status-quo is “murdering” the anti-social minority?

You feel the way you feel. You can force yourself to notice the good things about people, but you really cannot force yourself to like them. The good news is that you don’t have to.

You also do not have to force yourself to enjoy loud gatherings full of manufactured joviality. Cistercian monasteries, I dare say, contain a good number of people who are relieved that they will never have to go to another cocktail party.

You only have to give people respect and take the trouble to meet their needs as far as you are able. Some can provide food, some can’t. Likewise, some can provide “clever conversation” and “laughs”, and some can’t. Even in the realm of emotional comfort, it is often another group who can stand to sit and say nothing and just be there, while the “great conversation” people can’t do that. You only have to give freely from the store you have been given, to pitch in where you’re needed. I daresay you have more to give than anyone credits you for.

If you are not inherently spiteful, envious, quarrelsome, grasping, proud, mean-spirited, or the like, I wouldn’t worry if you find a lot of people difficult to be around. I say this as a talkative, outgoing person who likes most of the people I meet: you may be the healthiest person you know. The ones who get the label of “misanthrope” have been some of my favorites. Learning to close my mouth and enjoy them in their own way of being has turned out to be an effort well worth making. They have been, in my experience, honest and utterly reliable, often very profound thinkers with great depth of feeling, and extremely appreciative of those who are willing to meet them where they are and accept them as they are. I would not be surprised if the quiet ones and those impatient with the nonsensical are some of the Lord’s favorites, too.

PS Ever thought of moving to a rural area in New England? Scotland? There are places rumored to greatly appreciate men who abhor the company of the foolish.
(Maybe you could try Cavendish, Vermont. That’s where the Solzhenitsyns chose to live.)