Ours is an increasingly individualistic society, in which great efforts are made to differentiate oneself from the crowd. Part of these efforts, which some people have come to call “posture”, involves feigning a studied contempt for other people in general .

However… to what extent is this misanthropy true or just a facade?

What are the characteristics of misanthropes?

Misanthropy is a psychological disposition that is defined by rejection and contempt for the human species in general. In fact, etymologically this term means hatred of human beings .

In other words, misanthropic people do not feel aversion for a specific group of people, however broad it may be, but for the whole collective of human persons in general, including individuals who are not known and who will not be known. Misanthropy is, so to speak, the opposite of philanthropy .

Now, theory is one thing and practice is another. What are the concrete characteristics that are characteristic of misanthropic people? The main ones are listed below. However, it must be kept in mind that none of them separately makes the person presenting them misanthropic, but rather this attitude occurs when several of them are present.

1. Manipulate without remorse

Misanthropic people do not have to remain isolated all day, since they know that by manipulating others they can obtain rewards . In this sense, misanthropy is related to the traits associated with psychopathy, since if they can obtain personal benefits by exploiting others, there is no moral obstacle that prevents them from doing so.

2. Show sadism

A misanthropic person does not show mercy, because the suffering of others is not related to the morally bad in itself, unless it results in something that is harmful to oneself. This makes the fact of generating discomfort or pain in others, sometimes, be seen as a game, a space of possibilities with which one can get to experiment.

3. Believed to be superior

This is a totally subjective belief that does not depend on the skills or knowledge of others. For misanthropists all people in general are worthless a priori , so any skills they may have are irrelevant. The simple fact of being other people makes the misanthrope alienate their capacity to feel and to be entities with humanity. It’s similar to how someone who plays video games would feel about the characters in them.

4. Their free time is spent alone

When not working or carrying out a strategy with long-term goals, misanthropic people invest a great deal of their leisure time in activities that can be done alone or in the company of non-human animals. The reason for this is that the company of others is not pleasant in itself , and can become a nuisance.

5. Standards are undervalued

Misanthropic people conceive of rules as a code of conduct that exists only to benefit society at large, but for them this objective is of no value.

6. They do not feel sorry for the march or the death of others

In some cases, the social circle of people for whom pity can be experienced is reduced to the family, and in some cases there is not even a group that generates special sympathy. Death can be seen as something liberating .

7. They look down on politics

Politics is an effort to manage social problems, and the latter are not in the interest of misanthropic people. For this reason they consider political participation a waste of effort and time unless it is exercised to avoid concrete threats born in politics itself, and they will advocate for the non-intervention of public institutions. They are advocates of the idea that “every stick holds its own”.

8. They do not understand the spaces of citizen participation

For the same reason as before, misanthropic people do not understand the meaning of parties, collective rituals and forms of political participation and organization outside the institutions. It is considered that nothing good can arise from the joint organization of several human beings .

9. They build their own morality

Very misanthropic people rarely structure their morality by adopting ethical forms already agreed upon , such as Christian morality. Instead, they build a value system and an ethical scale to suit them, starting from scratch.

10. Her way of expressing emotions is lonely and isolated

Misanthropic people do experience emotions , but these are captured in solitary acts, which do not need the participation of others to be able to develop. For example, when they experience a feeling of loss, they do not hug someone to cry. Sentimental and emotional things are something that end in oneself, and therefore do not involve others (sometimes one can even maintain appearances out of personal interest).

11. They can come to love other living beings

Misanthropy consists of a contempt that is limited to what is perceived to be human beings. This means that they can feel attached to other animals , which on many occasions are idealized by attributing to them all sorts of positive psychological characteristics and by relativizing the harmful actions they perform.

12. His sense of humor is black and twisted

Much of their sense of humor consists of imaginary situations in which attacks, abuse or humiliation occur. It is rarely a sense of humour based on joint identification with everyday situations, but rather is based on crazy and sometimes aberrant scenes .

13. Easily enjoy acts of real or simulated violence

The imagery of misanthropic persons is well supplied with violence and, in general, with situations in in which human beings are treated as objects that are allowed to be broken . The reason, as with many other characteristics of misanthropic persons, is that from a moral perspective there is no reason not to do so, and instead breaking these social norms generates a pleasure linked to crossing the line of the forbidden.

14. They tend to be arrogant

When they can, they’re arrogant in front of others. They don’t mind humiliating others by pointing out their defects or even making them up and exaggerating them.