As much as I love doing talk radio, I must be honest and say that my industry is riddled with evil masquerading as entertainment. I don’t mean the evil of having wrong beliefs or espousing falsehood or even indulging in vulgar discussions. That goes without saying. Instead, I mean the much larger evil of misanthropy.
You see, a misanthrope is someone who hates humanity, but most people don’t notice misanthropy because they don’t recognize the symptoms. Surely a person who kills or hurts people for sport would be seen as misanthropic, but what of someone who berates and mocks them for money…or a political cause?
You see, acerbic political (or theological) discourse is almost always the byproduct of believing that other people are mere means to a (more valuable) ideological end. Those who agree are useful objects in pursuit of the cause, and those who disagree are mere obstacles to be ridiculed or destroyed. Though it may appear to an untrained eye that the misanthrope only hates his opponents, the fact that a supporter can so easily earn his contempt by merely changing opinions (and vice versa) means that he doesn’t truly love those who agree, only the reflection of his own idolatry recognized in them.
This mindstyle of contempt awaiting anyone who fails to measure up is the infallible mark of a misanthrope. But unskilled in the diagnosis, those who happen to agree with his views merely think him a valiant warrior on the field of public discourse. Yet only a narcissist makes agreement the price tag of fellowship, and only a misanthrope mistakes contempt for a virtue.
Nobility is making your enemies so precious that your love of them leads you to suffer on their behalf. But finding your own ideas so precious that devotion to them leads you to verbally maul your enemies (and enjoy others who do the same) is just a cowardly form of fantasizing murder.
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