Disrupting Misanthropy For Good

Misanthropy is defined as a "dislike of humankind." More broadly, it can include dislike or distrust of the human species, human behaviour, or human nature.

With so much bad stuff happening in the world, it is easy to toy with nihilism. 

To mumble “I hate everyone” or "people suck" to ourselves several times daily. 

To want to stop trying. 

To tumble into misanthropy.

Today, I want to share Radical Gratitude Spell from adrienne marie brown that I read for the first time a few weeks ago.

​But first, some words from the book Let This Radicalize You by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba. I found them encouraging, and that is my hope for you as well, as I risk copyright infringement. This reminder is as much for me as it is for you.

Refusing to Abandon
These paragraphs are from a section called “Against Misanthropy” in a chapter called “Refusing to Abandon” (bold emphasis mine):

We have heard it many times, often from exasperated activists: “I give up on people!” We sometimes hear these words in the wake of electoral outcomes, or when the public has been unresponsive to a crisis. It is the voice of exhaustion. We empathize with that exhaustion. 

[Long list of terrible acts, isms, and injustices.] When people fail to act against these forces, or fail to even denounce them, our frustration is valid. People should be moved by injustice, and they should take action. When they don’t, it is easy to judge them for their failures and release ourselves from any further obligations toward them. 

But when we assess the conditions that precipitate our struggles, we can see that they are not being orchestrated by most people. Most people are merely cooperating with the world as they understand it, either under the threat of violence or because they are navigating the illusions that were constructed around them. 

The people driving those conditions are a relative minority whose greed and violence does not define all of humanity, no matter how much they would like us to suppose it does. Amid a landscape of catastrophe and extraction draped in bright product displays and endless streams of escapism, most people are simply being herded along. [...] Nothing in their experience or imagination has prepared them to conceptualize the realities of the capitalist system, their real relationship to it, or any fathomable escape. 

As humans on Earth in these times, we are [...] surrounded by lies, illusions, and coercion. We are sold punishment as justice and annihilation as progress, and many people can not imagine anything else. 

But just as we do not abandon people we love who are in crisis, we have not given up on humanity. We have witnessed transformation too often to dismiss its possibility, and we have an obligation to that possibility [...]. 

Whether caring for people or caring for communities, we must draw boundaries to preserve ourselves, but we must also live in opposition to abandonment. [...] Struggling people need resources they are being denied and an opportunity to heal and reorient their lives. As organizers, we work to connect other people with the resources, relationships, information, and understanding they need to change their lives and the world. 

We organize opportunities for discovery, exploration, and the pursuit of justice. Some who take these journeys with us are transformed by their experiences and through their own labor and healing, just as we have been transformed by our own journeys. Political evolution is a lifelong process, and it is messy. Being present for people will always mean being there for the mess created by human conflict and trauma. 

Organizers do not have the luxury of misanthropy. We have to believe in people, and we have to believe in ourselves. 

Radical Gratitude
Last week, I had the opportunity to spend two days with harm reduction activists and organizers from across Ontario. It was a really meaningful time to sit with the injustice of drug policy, and at the same time, how beautiful and resilient the harm reduction community is. 

I was reminded, again, that if isolation and shame are a tactic, then gathering together and sharing our stories is an act of resistance. That taking care of each other is a radical act. 

So, in closing, I want to leave you with this:

Radical Gratitude Spell by adrienne maree brown.
a spell to cast upon meeting a stranger, comrade, or friend working for social and/or environmental justice and liberation.

you are a miracle walking
i greet you with wonder
in a world which seeks to own
your joy and your imagination
you have chosen to be free,
every day, as a practice.
i can never know
the struggles you went through to get here,
but i know you have swum upstream
and at times it has been lonely

i want you to know
i honor the choices you made in solitude
and i honor the work you have done to belong
i honor your commitment to that which is larger than yourself
and your journey
to love the particular container of life
that is you

you are enough
your work is enough
you are needed
your work is sacred
you are here
and i am grateful