Abstract
Widespread misanthropy, understood as the disposition to reject society, is at once a permanent source of instability and injustice, and yet also a valuable support of cherished liberal practices, such as toleration. We must seek therefore to ‘civilise’ the misanthropic temper. Michel de Montaigne provides an instructive case study in this context, for he successfully moderated his misanthropy by his conviviality and friendship. The non-conditional character of Montaignean friendship functions to moderate rational misanthropic antipathy and thereby suggests a striking reinterpretation of civic friendship. Montaigne may seem an unpromising ally for contemporary defenders of civic friendship, but in fact his essays provide a valuable resource for the political theory of community.
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Notes
Compare Judith Shklar’s suggestion that the ‘absence of friendship might well serve as a definition of misanthropy’ (Shklar 1984, pp. 198–199). Whilst I shall ultimately question that claim, I agree with Shklar’s characterisation of misanthropy as having more to do with human relationships (or rather the lack thereof) than with any particular sentiment.
In adopting this approach, I take my cue from Judith Shklar’s work on Montaigne and the idea of misanthropy (see Shklar 1984). However, my discussion is not intended as an interpretation of Shklar’s position, nor do I consider it an extension of her view. Rather, I begin from a cluster of issues that Shklar identifies and seek to develop them in a somewhat different direction.
Relatedly, it is also very hard for misanthropes to exercise effective leadership of intolerant social movements. As Florence King writes, ‘I am unable to detect anything as simple as misanthropy in the great monsters of history. Some were insane, like Caligula and Ivan the Terrible. Others, like Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin exuded a certain heavy-handed bonhomie … that suggests normal conviviality, or at least a willingness to give it a try. … As leaders of great masses of people, monsters must be able to use their personality to mesmerize their followers and forge primal bonds with them by becoming father figures. Whatever the gift is called—heart, the common touch, public relations—no misanthrope could hold such a pose for more than 5 min, and then only on a good day’ (King 1992, pp. 4–5).
Chandran Kukathas, for example, writes that ‘it is the understandings people share that make them into a community’ (2003, p. 170).
The claim made in this paragraph is one that I have developed and defended at much greater length elsewhere (see Edyvane 2007).
Along with J.B. Priestley, another wartime political thinker I have in mind here is Richard Titmuss, who emphasised the important connection between social perceptions of collective vulnerability and enthusiasm for various forms of social altruism (see, for example Titmuss 1958). A contemporary account that offers a somewhat similar message is Tony Judt’s Ill Fares the Land (Judt 2010).
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Acknowledgments
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2010 Manchester Metropolitan University Workshops in Political Theory. I am grateful to all participants in the workshop, to Kerri Woods and also to an anonymous reviewer for Res Publica for extremely helpful comments and suggestions.
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Edyvane, D. Rejecting Society: Misanthropy, Friendship and Montaigne. Res Publica 19, 53–65 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-012-9206-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-012-9206-2