Misanthropy
Related: alienation - hate - misanthropy - misogyny - pessimism
In literature: The Stranger (1942) - Albert Camus
miso- or mis-
prefixHatred: misogyny.
[Greek mso-, from misein, to hate, and misos, hatred.]--American Heritage Dictionary
see also misogyny (hatred of women), misandry (hatred of men), misanthropy (hatred of humankind)
Definition
Misanthropy is a general dislike of the human race. It is not dislike of individual human beings, but rather dislike of the features shared by all humanity throughout place and time, including oneself. A misanthrope is thus a person who exhibits a general dislike of humankind. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misanthropy [Aug 2005][...]
It is important to distinguish between pessimism and misanthropy. Immanuel Kant said that "Of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing can ever be made," and yet this was not an expression of the uselessness of mankind itself. Similarly, Samuel Beckett once remarked that "Hell must be like... reminiscing about the good old days when we wished we were dead" — a statement that may, perhaps, be seen as utterly bleak and hopeless, but not as anti-human or expressive of any hatred of mankind.
The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, on the other hand, was almost certainly as famously misanthropic as his reputation. He wrote that "human existence must be a kind of error." --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misanthropy [Mar 2004]
Misandry
Like the better-known term misogyny, misandry is a pathological aversion for a specific sex group, in this case men. While usually ascribed to women, it is also possible for men to be misandrist. Unlike misogyny, misandry has been little discussed or investigated. Some masculists maintain that misandry has been rampant for thirty years, due to feminist advocacy, and has become a social pathology. Some feminists believe that, while misogyny is a social disease, misandry doesn't exist. Others in both feminist and masculist camps consider the "war of the sexes" arising from traditional gender roles to be a powerful source of both misogyny and misandry. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misandry, [Mar 2004]