i become the enemy of people: a poll

i can begin to have even the best of men = i can begin to hate even the best of men. think that is the only important typo

it really depends. some days i agree, others i'm capable not only of loving individuals but of hating humanity as a whole.

i more often feel the opposite of this.

agree with contenderizer on the whole.

is being politically left-leaning, i mean in particular caring about the welfare of common society and putting that ahead of the individual, an expression of love for humanity?

are love and moral obligation separable?

i don't know, but i think they are. i wouldn't say that a sense of what all people deserve, of what we collectively owe one another, must necessarily be grounded in love. our regard for humanity in general could be viewed as a kind of non-local self interest.

love individuals and find it easier to be forgiving of their particular faults/foibles. mass of humanity, otoh, can go die

ie, its the aggregate of our combined faults that make us so loathsome

you just need to change up your definition of people

this is basically narcissism, right, claiming to love people as humanity but hate them as individuals? something about it strikes a chord with me but something else rings false. i don't hate people but i don't care about a random individual in the same way that i think i care about humankind. there is not something that turns me away from people, it is more that there is most often not something that turns me towards people. i don't feel anything about the guy opposite me on the train but i strongly wish for and am maybe a little obsessed with improvement in the circumstances of humanity, of all of the units that comprise that mass, albeit by my own personal understanding of improvement. is this love, or is it just some kind of moral impulse, an instinct for a particular order in society? it feels like love but maybe that is just the most flattering interpretation. and why doesn't it filter down to the disaggregated level?

you can't accept the flaws of individuals, but seeing humanity as a flawed mass of people is easier.

so maybe you're projecting, and can't stand your own flaws, but hope that as part of humanity you have self-worth.

or you dislike your immediate peers

i don't condemn individuals, it is more like disinterest. i wouldn't say i am disinterested in myself, or excessively interested in myself. but maybe caring about humanity that i am a part of is just within my range and caring about another individual within that humanity is a step of separation too far, unless there is a more direct link in-between.

i used to relate to that passage but reading it again it kind of repulses me too, and really i just don't know what i think.

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