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Misanthropic meditations

Mequa

Neo-Epicurean
*Caution: Rant. Trigger warnings.*

Having recently gone through a bout of some rather dark misanthropy, I recently had a discussion with someone online regarding these kind of issues, with which we were largely in agreement. This relates to a sentiment that, on the whole, neither of us were particularly impressed by our fellow human beings in general. This comes largely as a result as having been burnt by the kind of behaviours I am going to outline below.

The first kind of human animal who inspires me to feel this way, is the backstabber. This is a person who, after a period of (real or feigned) friendship with a person, decides to slam the knife in their back, and betray them without the slightest consideration for their feelings. This kind of behaviour inflicts not only deep emotional hurt, but real and prolonged psychological harm. It can damage a person's ability to trust in general, and in worse cases lead to them developing symptoms of depression. Yet it appears many folk have no qualms in doing this to others who make the unfortunate mistake of trusting them.

I can give an example here. I had a friend who was my closest and best friend at school. That friendship ended after he got a new girlfriend, and she took a personal disliking to me. He sided with her, and, expressing a callous disregard to my feelings, decided to stonewall me and shut down communication. She let me know, gloatingly, about what both of them had been saying about me behind my back for months when he wasn't talking to me (naively, I had assumed he was merely busy and wasn't actively ignoring me due to passive-aggression). Poof, 20 years of friendship down the toilet. I am sure others can relate to such experiences. Having been betrayed in such a manner by having long-standing loyalty to me thrown to the dogs over a new loyalty, did scar me deeply and leave me unable to trust other humans in general for many, many years.

Two-faced backstabbers are the types I personally consider the lowest of the low. In my experience, the blindsiding is the worst aspect of it. Often, it's the person I least expect who decides to slam the knife in my back. I've had that experience online with people I was "friends" with for years, who decided to turn on me for the pettiest of reasons. I just personally find it very difficult to have any respect for a person who thinks they are being clever by stringing me along, stabbing me in the back, then expect me to just suck it up.

The other kind of human animal I hold in contempt, is the bully. The attitude of a bully is that if anyone shows any vulnerability or weakness, they are a pathetic weakling and deserve to be abused. These types glorify toughness and callousness and see anyone expressing any kind of vulnerability as just asking for it. You'll often see many of these types following beliefs such as Social Darwinism and fascism. Often this kind of behaviour is justified by the belief that they are simply entitled to abuse and harass others who are unable or unwilling to fight back, and see themselves as "strong" and the people they are able to abuse as "weak".

In my firsthand experience, the worst types combine aspects of the bully and backstabber. They are "friends" with a person for ages, wherein they get to gain considerable knowledge of the person's vulnerabilities. Rather than using this knowledge to abstain from harming them, it provides ammunition to later use against them. They not only stab the person in the back, they use the knowledge of the person's vulnerabilities against them and viciously bully the person. If the person is driven to suicide as a consequence of this abuse, it's because they are "weak", and being able to be badly hurt is taken as a contemptible weakness making them simply asking for it.

This kind of mindset strongly suggests psychopathy or sociopathy, and I have encountered quite a lot of this kind of human dross on the Internet.

And then, there are the apologists of the aforementioned backstabbers, bullies and sociopaths, who see the above sort of thing going on, and automatically make a snap judgement to blame the person on the receiving end of it by simply assuming they had it coming to them somehow. If they see someone get knifed in the back, they assume they must have deserved it somehow. If their buddy buddies decide to gang up on and abuse someone, they side with their buddy buddies and hold the target of abuse in contempt. If they see their buddy buddies malign someone, they uncritically buy into the slander and join in the hatred in a highly biased way. If the person on the receiving end of this objects to such treatment, they are assumed to be a weak whiny crybaby who is just playing the victim out of some kind of manipulative ploy.

The "they just have it coming to them" mentality is not merely incredibly stupid, it is twisted. What frequently turns the metaphorical guns of the above kind of bully on a person, is if they dare to call out their bull****. Alas, truth serves very few it seems.

When humans act like a bunch of pack animals in a mob mentality, they just buy into herd thinking, which leads them to uncritically take sides with the perpetrators of abuse. At the very least, they become too cowardly to intervene when they have the power to do so. They become too cowardly to call a spade a spade and take a stand against those who feel they are entitled to abuse others. In their moral cowardice, they even have the gall to attack others who pass judgement on those who abuse others.

This is why my opinion of the human race is not exactly sky high. There are so many cowards who are apathetic and indifferent towards the real vile sociopaths who foul things up for everyone else. There are those who prefer to sit in their little "positive" and "pleasant" bubbles of delusion and refuse to think about such things, finding them a "downer", not wanting their precious little bubbles to be popped and thus, finding themselves highly deficient in compassion and empathy. These types end up personally rejecting anyone who dares to speak out about such issues, wanting to believe that life is all kittens and rainbows. Cowards, I call them, with a serious empathy deficit. Such behaviour is not exactly blameless, either.

Do excuse this rant, but these are issues I am not going to shut my mouth about merely because some selfish people don't want to hear it or it puts a damper on their day. I suppose anyone who feels this way on hearing such issues might be best to do a bit of introspection, and consider why they feel the need to plug their ears.

Mequa
 

Adramelek

Setian
Premium Member
Yeah, Mequa, I have had similar experiences with people throughout my life. I remember one time this girl I was going out with was only going with me to try and convert me to Christianity. When it was clear I would not convert, she broke up with me. However, that did not give me a negative view of women in general. Other betrayals though have given me a somewhat melancholic view of people in general. I am quite mistrusting of others, but I do sometimes take chances and try to develop friendships with others of like mind and similar interests.

As you know I am a Setian. I was lucky I suppose in that I met and corresponded with the right kind of Setian folk in my early years of Left-Hand Path Initiation. If they all or a good deal of them had turned out to be untrustworthy and fiends that would have given me a very negative impression of Setianism in general. As a matter of fact Setians are some of the most intelligent and trustworthy folks I have ever encountered. :smileycat: I think I have had only one true best friend in my life, one who always stood on my side, never judged me. After high school though we lost contact. I wonder what he is up to these days?

Xeper.
/Adramelek\
 
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