Does misanthropy drive therianthropy + my theory

At one point, I considered myself a misanthrope, but not anymore. When I was younger and still learning about everything going on in the world, I definitely adopted a singular sort of hatred towards humans. As I've gotten older I've learned it's more complicated than good and evil, and have come to appreciate the humans in my life and the diversity of humans across the world.

That being said, I see it as a separate thing from my therianthropy. My misanthropy developed as a response to hearing about what was going on in the world and not having the maturity to really digest the information. It was also made worse by the fact that I was going through a difficult time at home and at school, so I didn't have someone to point and go "hey, not all humans are bad!" I see my therianthropy as being something I was born with that was exacerbated by trauma. Maybe being nonhuman made it easier for me to be a misanthrope, but I believe I still would have been one regardless.

That isn't to say that I believe misanthropy is an inherently childish view, just that for me, it was an opinion I formed without a greater understanding. I understand the reasons others here have for disliking humans, and I myself still disagree with a lot of common moral or societal standards that they hold.

For a short time, I considered myself a misanthropist. I truly felt a negative energy for humans — some dark conglomeration of hurt, anger, resentment and jealousy. I believe growing up neurodivergent definitely played a part in shaping this belief. After being hurt by humans for so long and for such baseless reasons, you begin to feel a distinct hatred for them.

But I realised that I probably felt like this simply because I didn't understand humans. With all their strange normative behaviours and how cruel they could be, I looked at them, and I looked at myself, and I missed the similarities. But I still had family, and friends, and people — humans — that cared. We're not all bad.

A few years later, having learnt how to interact more efficiently with them, I finally began to relate to my species more. Nowadays, I crave social interactions, I crave the following of social rules, and I find myself doing very distinctly human things in order to survive. I still feel a disconnect from them, for sure — I may blend in better, but I still do not identify with them. But as I've come to appreciate the good things we do for each other, the extra lengths some humans go to to extend kindness, warmth and empathy toward one another, that old feeling of hatred begins to melt. I'm very thankful for this.

In summary, I don't think you have to necessarily understand humans to love them. But you have to feel misunderstood by humans to hate them. I think by determining for ourselves where that line between hatred and a simple feeling of 'otherness' is drawn, we can pick apart which feelings may be misanthropic, and which might simply just be an effect of being misunderstood / outcasted. I've never believed in generalising large groups of anything — just like all leopards have different spots, all humans have different personalities and intentions. Some may seriously suck and do some crappy things, but that's not all of them. I have to recognise the good in the people that truly exemplify it.

This is my two cents, I'm curious to hear what others have to say. And thank you for making this thread, I think it's a very important question and I appreciate how much depth it has.

XX,
KK.

Yes, at four levels:

First, human civilization has always been supremacist and has been waging war against everyone and everything that does not fit into their power structure. You don't even have to be non-human to realize that and find it repulsive, but as people who find ourselves looking outside in from non-human perspectives it should be obvious from the start. Non-humans and humans alike are only allowed personhood and livelihood in accordance to their utility to the human hierarchy and its reproduction. For most non-humans the only role allowed is to be a resource to be consumed, or a pest to be exterminated. This is The Most Horrific Thing To Ever Be and I find it strange to not despise humanity in light of it. There are well meaning humans who try to end this, but they are such a small minority that I don't see a problem with painting a whole species with a single brush stroke. Unwilling or ignorant participation is still participation.

Second, humans take too much space and make it hard for anyone else to exist in it. For thousands of years natural environments have been gradually replaced by artificial ones made to suit human economic interests to the detriment of other species' existence. It's often difficult to find a place that hasn't been made barren and stinkied up by human recklessness and greed, a lot of the "natural grassland" around me is straight up disgusting. I need to go a long away from human settlements until I see plants that I would be even willing to put in my mouth. Everything around towns stinks and is sick, it's horrible. And then finding some good proper meadow worth spending time in is even harder, because even "remote" areas (I live in the middle of Europe lol) get ruined by herbicide runoff, commercial forestry and thoughtless landlords.

Third, humans are just kind of freaks? And they are often unpleasant or straight up dangerous to be around. Again, I know, #NotAllHumans, but in general it holds true. Many of the nice ones also look at other animals with possessiveness in their eyes, unwanted petting and "looking after" may not be as scary as outright abuse, but it comes from the same mindset.

And lastly, the cycle of domination of violence I described above also affects humans, including therians. Most of us here are in some way marginalized, neurodivergent or queer and I hope you all at least feel on some level that a major source of our alienation from human society is their insistence on us conforming ourselves to certain roles whether we like them or not, for the sole purpose of reproducing the power structure which may or may not benefit us in any way other than "at least we are not the ones at the bottom who are being devoured". That constant pressure of cruelty pushes us away from humanity, and since we are therians we have somewhere to escape to, at least in our minds, if not in our lives.

I don't think this is what causes therianthropy, because most of this perspective isn't even therian exclusive, compassionate humans who care about the existence of others also see the gargantuan scale of violence perpetuated by human civilization and feel alienated because of it. Which is also why I would advise against qualifying your beliefs as "just your point of ciew" or preempting pushback with #NotAllHumans. Things are very bad right now and we are in an unique position of responsibility to heal the Earth.

I am difinately very misantrhopic and I dispise the human species as a whole with all my heart and want nothing to do with them to a point where if somone says I have a human part it feels like an insult it stems for me from psychocological reasons where I felt abandoned by humans as a pup and decided that if they don't acknowledge me and want me to conform and would 100% if given the chance deny that I am one of them then why should I acknowledge them or think of them as a part of my family I don't think it caused my theriantrhopy or the other way around but it definetly helped it in a sense that once you refuse to see yourself as human yyou look for a diffrent sort of guideline on how to behave what sort of morals you should have etc and one such guidline could be animals with wichich you develop a more animalistic sort of thinking and point of wiev

My short, simple (personal) interpretation: therianthropy drives misanthropy, not the other way around.

Unless perhaps you've experienced something incredibly traumatic at a formative age, and it ended up significantly altering your brain chemistry to the point you absolutely cannot trust humans (which is honestly fair).... nothing, misanthropic or not, is going to 'cause' therianthropy — going under the rhetoric, of course, that it is not a choice. Why would it be? It's totally miserable half the time, you feel permanately alienated, dysphoria is a daily struggle, a constant longing for something you'll never have...

I do believe, however, that therianthropy can definitely drive misanthropy. You are an animal, therefore you think like an animal (regardless of how often), you see the world through non-human eyes and so when humanity is putting extra effort into doing something disgusting, the failures feel 10x more appalling. At least for me, it's almost like its personal. Humans and their money, their moralities, their issues, are the cause for 90% of the world's problems, and when bad people fail, it feels like they want to drag every other human (or creature) down with them. It's not a struggle of morality; it's a struggle of involuntary self-separation. There's nothing more isolating as an alterhuman than being forced to suffer as every other person does knowing you never belonged here either way.

Regardless, I definitely don't hate humans. I partially see their problems from a human perspective, but that also allows me to feel empathy in a way that many animals can't. I acknowledge the good people, the great people in our world. I know the bad people will all eventually sputter and die as they are meant to, 'karma' (or whatever you prefer to call it) will always catch up in the end. The feline in me is disgusted and will probably only continue to be, but the human that I ultimately am in this life can always recognise and appreciate goodness when I see it.

XX,
KK.

For me, getting older and learning about the world made me realize that where my anger at "humanity" comes from is actually from power structures and... topics that may be too political to mention? The point is, humanity isn't bad, it just has bad tendencies when there are bad motivations, and bad power structures create bad feedback loops. These things aren't inherent to humanity though, and you truly need look no further than many indigenous communities for evidence that it's not "simply human nature" to devolve into those exploitative power structures. We don't benefit from denying that it does happen for the sake of "loving humans," but we're the only ones who can fix what we've done, so it's best to not shoot ourselves in the foot as a lost cause either. I'm only in my second week of classes but I'm already seeing a lot of this (embracing that we are the solution) in both my political ecology class and my environmental management class. Also, being exposed to the way humans rise up to push back against those power structures for the sake of strangers they will never know, that also gives me great hope.

My therianthropy has never intersected with any misanthropy, and I think part of that is because identify as a jaguar person, someone who is both human AND jaguar. It would be self-loathing, and frankly, I just don't care to do that, when I know it's far more productive for me to look for the good and focus on what I can contribute to, like my degree. Which, in essence, is so I can leave the world better than I found it.

I'm not a misanthropist as my default setting. As individuals and as a species we are all capable of compassion and cruelty. Like any social animal. I am however critical of civilisation for a bunch of reasons, but from an anarcho-primitavist perspective, not a "humans bad" perspective.
I don't think humans are meant to exist in gigantic, anonymous populations. It's the anonymity of these masses that brings out the most destructive behaviour. Leaders don't know their subjects personally, so they're not held accountable for what they sign off on. If ever I am feeling "misanthropic", it's actually grief for a version of humanity that once existed. And will never exist again without a huge disaster and noone wants that.

Humans are complex like any animal and full of good and bad traits, the negatives behaviours don't matter that much when scaled down. Warfare between tribes is different to warfare between nations. Clearing a patch of forest for a settlement is different to clearing the entire amazon for soya beans. I have sympathy for misanthropes to an extent because people around us are indeed a faceless mass. A force. Not just the individuals we live with and the strangers on the other side of the valley. That does also of course mean that good deeds are scaled up too! It's not all bad. I'm sure some people would call me an ecofascist but I don't particularly care.

I'm curious to know if endangered or exploited theriotypes correlate with misanthropy at all. It could make for an interesting poll. The newer planet of the apes series are my favourite films. My sympathies are pretty one-sided. I have a tattoo of the Caesar symbol. Irl I want nothing more than for the zoos, circuses and other facilities to be empty so the entire third act of Rise makes for very cathartic viewing. The way humans have historically treated their cousins is abysmal, and still is now. Not to mention habitat loss etc. And that fact brings out the egdelord in me for sure. I am prepared for bonobos and other apes to go extinct in my lifetime. The only remaining populations will be in captivity. Existing in a vacuum with no effect on their former ecosystems, a living museum exhibit. They don't even look or act the same anymore because being stuck inside 4 walls makes them mentally and physically ill.
Though like I said before, for every large scale act of cruelty, there are equal acts of kindness. And people who make it their aim to combat the damage done are wonderful and I couldn't be misanthropic towards that if I tried.

I found myself to be a misanthrope long before I discovered theranthropy. Humans have a cruleness that goes beyond nature. Yes there are other highly intelligent animals that do hunt and kill for sport but nothing on the scale of humans.

Years ago I cam across a quote by aristottle "The misanthrope, as an essentially solitary man, is not a man at all: he must be a beast or a god...” this spoke to me deeply as a lost teen who had been abused and traumatised like so many other creatures are. I think that's when I rejected humanity and opened myself up to finding what I really was. Even now I heavily reject the notion of being human even if my body is. Humans after all and weather they like it or not are still animals.
On that statement alone I would say theranthropy is connected, without one I wouldn't have found the other. Due to my ingrained fear of people I have adapted better to being my kintype because I know spiritually and psychologicaly im not human

The older I get, the more distant I become, f.ex. to let anyone enter my world. I don't trust people all that much. Throughout the years, they've been judging and telling me how I should live my life as though I can't make those decisions myself. Through observations they've made on me, I got the impression that they don't see me as quite a whole person, a person who has rights, desires, needs... At times, I feel like I'm not even trying anymore to make my opinion known. Who'll understand? Who will take me for full?
Something quite personal happened recently which proved that they don't have the slightest clue what's wrong with me. As far as I'm concerned, they are just gambling with my life and taking my support away without asking what my needs are nowadays. Right now, I just happen to suck it up and live with it anyway, but I'm well aware life could have been better if they'd just let things be the way they were. In this society, I'm reminded over and over again that I'm neurodiverse, need support, can't decide for myself how I can fill in my life to the best of my ability etc. etc. It makes me feel like I can't do anything right, you know, like I'm being blamed for being disabled, that I'm faulted and flawed. It's suppression, really. It's discrimination. And if you look at how society marginalizes and discriminates smaller groups of individuals that don't fit their idea of just, I can't say that that comes much as a surprise there. If there was just a little sentiment of sympathy in their systems, they would have asked me for what I needed instead of GUESSING. I don't like smart-asses -excuse the language- who believe they know what's right for me without doing inquiries. Specifically when they go over financial support, I think it's very important that, if they want to do adjustments, they ask the parties involved what those parties actually need. I dislike slip of the finger work. This is just one of the couple of examples I've got that prove that they haven't got the slightest clue who or what they're working with. All my life, they have jeered at me, made fun of me and tried to put me on the sideline. Quite frankly, I'm done with that kind of treatment.
As to the question asked, I'm not quite misanthropic, but I have my moments where I loathe my humanity and want it to be gone. I can be very embarrassed when I hear the news and ask myself a lot if that's the species I really want to identify with, if I could. But nah, thank you very much.

EDIT: Sorry, I'm still mad over it. After all that's happened so far, that doesn't come as a surprise much.