Misanthropy – the hatred and general disgust of humankind and all that it stands for. Misanthropists are those who just can’t stomach other people; human behaviour tends to really grate on them. Many would describe them as grumpy, stroppy and generally miserable souls who need to cheer up. However, doesn’t living in a big city such as London put a bit of misanthropy into all of us?
Take the tube at rush hour for example, it’s packed beyond belief. People are crammed into carriages like sardines in tins, so close that you can smell that the bloke on your left has halitosis. It’s hot, it’s sticky and you’re not quite sure whether the guy behind you is innocently brushing against your bum, due to lack of space, or whether he is creepily taking the opportunity to molest you. Despite being so packed people refuse to move down inside the carriage where there is a little bit (and emphasis on little) more space. They prefer to stay standing on top of each other, obstructing the door, breathing, each other’s nasty recycled air. Lovely.
By the time you reach your stop you’re pretty peeved, but nonetheless so relieved to be out of there. The need to get out of the station fills you and you want to power up the escalator but you can’t because someone is ignoring the tube escalator etiquette, of standing on the right. You try to say excuse me, but he can’t hear you as his headphones are on full blast. You touch out your oyster card only to find that your balance is now in minus. That revolting journey just cost you £2.30; now that doesn’t seem that much, but for a poor graduate in a deep overdraft it’s a fortune.
When leaving the station everybody is walking at full speed, talking on mobile phones, tweeting, facebooking, whatever. But the one thing they seem to have in common is a “my life is more important than yours attitude.” No one spares a thought for anyone else, people barge you without apologising, talk so loud on their mobiles without a thought of disturbing anybody. There is a nasty sense of self importance in the air.
The next hour or so you spend wandering around Oxford Street spending money you haven’t got on clothes you don’t need.; clothes that everybody buys which in turn makes everyone look the same. You feel deflated and make your way back to the Tube. It’s not that packed this time round. You feel low; the banality of day to day life gets to you and you shed some tears. The passenger opposite you is watching, noticing your tears. He gets up and gives you a clean tissue to dry your eyes before he gets off. You smile to yourself. City living may create misanthropists but it also creates real humanists.
A think city living requires a strange kind of love of humanity, not misanthropy. If that were the case then why not move to a farm? I’d prefer to be uncomfortably comfortable in a big city than isolated on a farm.