Count Me Out of Humanity Hatred
A concentration of world evil is taking place, full of hatred for humanity.
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the West
It's trendy to hate humans. Everyone sucks. We all oppress each other, and we've been doing it since the beginning of time. Oppression is the story of humanity, and that means there is nothing redeeming about us. In fact, the only logical response to this is anti-natalism. The less horrible oppressors are born on this earth, the better. And truly, we are a scourge upon the earth anyway, so the only moral thing to do is to take ourselves out of nature entirely.
Count me out of anything to do with this horrible view.
I don’t believe that the story of humanity is one of oppression. I don’t believe it’s a story consisting only of men oppressing women or of men oppressing other groups of men. I don’t believe religion is bad and only created to further various kinds of oppression. In fact, it is responsible for much of the good in our current societies and we fail to see it at our peril. Nor do I believe we are a cancer on the earth.
I don’t know how you can read history and see only wickedness but not the moral striving. So many people who came before us were obsessed with virtue. Maybe it’s easy to miss because we hardly talk about virtues and values today. They are passé. Everything is subjective, after all.
But I’m grateful to the people who came before me, that they made a world I could live and thrive in, and I am grateful to everyone today who continues to make that possible. We are so interconnected and we owe such a debt to each other, but we never recognize it because we think we are owed so much more. Yet we rarely stop to think of what we owe everyone else.
I think hating humanity is the epitome of ungratefulness. It's a hatred of the very reason you are here and the very reason you continue to exist. It's either a self-hating endeavor, for those who rightfully see themselves as part of humanity, or it's a narcissistic one, for those who don't.
Of course there is evil. But the reason it upsets us so much is that it hurts the good. Otherwise, why should we care that some evil parts of humanity are hurting other evil parts of humanity? It is important to recognize evil, but it is equally important not to let it convince you that it’s all that exists. Otherwise, you’re only going to add to the pain. If there is nothing worth fighting for, then you won’t fight—you will simply let it all be destroyed.
How can someone look at the face of even one loved one and continue to hold the view that there is nothing redeeming about humanity? You aren’t lucky enough to know the few good people who ever existed. They are everywhere, and the ones you know are just the tip of the iceberg of good people throughout history and today.
Never forget that it is individuals who make up humanity. Never get so lost in group identity that morality is replaced by calculations of who is the “oppressor” and who is the “oppressed,” and where right and wrong are only determined by the power dynamic of the situation. We have been there before, and I am worried we are headed there again.
Communism has never concealed the fact that it rejects all absolute concepts of morality. It scoffs at any consideration of “good” and “evil” as indisputable categories. Communism considers morality to be relative, to be a class matter. Depending upon circumstances and the political situation, any act, including murder, even the killing of hundreds of thousands, could be good or could be bad. It all depends upon class ideology. And who defines this ideology? The whole class cannot get together to pass judgment. A handful of people determine what is good and what is bad. But I must say that in this very respect Communism has been most successful. It has infected the whole world with the belief in the relativity of good and evil. Today, many people apart from the Communists are carried away by this idea. Among progressive people, it is considered rather awkward to use seriously such words as “good” and “evil.” Communism has managed to persuade all of us that these concepts are old-fashioned and laughable. But if we are to be deprived of the concepts of good and evil, what will be left? Nothing but the manipulation of one another.
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the West