The great psychologist Otto Rank, being understood at last as a founder of humanistic psychology, dares to unmask where pessimism comes from. It comes from hatred.

Insecure gaze. Photo by Larm Rmah on Unsplash.

Hatred of life, hatred of possibility, hatred of the powers of imagination and creativity to recycle bad events, hatred of hope. And yet the “philosophy of pessimism” is widespread in our culture—is this not what drives so many of us to respond to advertising and its countless promises of false hope? Is this not behind cynicism and much of the ennui and despair that accompany acedia?

But Rank takes us further and deeper into an understanding and a cure for a philosophy of pessimism when he points out that the true source of pessimism lies in self-hatred. Pessimism, he is suggesting, is the projection we make upon the world of our own self-worth. Where true self-love is meager, our love of the world will be meager. “Love others as you love yourself,” advised Jesus—but if our love of self is shallow, the love we put into the world will be also. And the world is so strong in its various misdirected loves that our weak and shallow love will be easily drowned in the energies of that world.

Resting in the delight of creation. Photo by Rick Gebhardt on Unsplash.

The result? We will slink back into pessimism, the pessimism that is inevitable when human love is based only on the human and is out of relation with the cosmic love or the divine love, including the divine love incarnated in created things. Our self-doubts and self-hatred and self-constructed pessimism will win us over and deceive us into actually believing (for it takes an act of belief) that life is vile and pessimism is the proper response to such vileness.

Blessing is gone; melancholy reigns. And when melancholy reigns, the heart shrinks, as Aquinas observes. Our world gets smaller. Joy is rarer and rarer to be found. (Joy, says Aquinas, expands the heart, while sadness deflates it.)The cure to self-hatred includes the purifying and utilization of all the chakra energy, but this presumes that the first chakra is the starting point:

Moving beyond anthropocentric self-doubt and sinfulness (the wrongs done us by human beings or societies) to the graced community of the more than human. If self-hatred causes a pessimistic philosophy, then true self-love, self in the context of the whole, can cause a blessing-oriented philosophy.

A rediscovery of our original blessing and that of all of creation is a practical cure for self-hatred. Many persons I have met have told me that fact.


Adapted from Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society, pp. 295f

To read a transcript of Matthew Fox’s video teaching, click HERE.

Banner Image: The stress of shame and self-hatred. Photo by Yogendra Singh on Unsplash.

Queries for Contemplation

Do you also see pessimism and self-hatred as elements of hatred of life, of people different from oneself, and the cause of hatred?

Recommended Reading

Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet

Because creativity is the key to both our genius and beauty as a species but also to our capacity for evil, we need to teach creativity and to teach ways of steering this God-like power in directions that promote love of life (biophilia) and not love of death (necrophilia). Pushing well beyond the bounds of conventional Christian doctrine, Fox’s focus on creativity attempts nothing less than to shape a new ethic.
“Matt Fox is a pilgrim who seeks a path into the church of tomorrow.  Countless numbers will be happy to follow his lead.” –Bishop John Shelby Spong, author, Rescuing the Bible from FundamentalismLiving in Sin

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16 thoughts on “Pessimism, Hatred, and Self Hatred”

  1. Richard Reich-Kuykendall
    Richard Reich-Kuykendall

    Matthew, You ask us today in our Queries for Contemplation: “Do you also see pessimism and self-hatred as elements of hatred of life, of people different from oneself, and the cause of hatred?”
    First of all I must say that I agree with Rank who points out that the true source of pessimism lies in self-hatred. And if that is true, one would live by a pessimistic philosophy that is nihilistic or self-destructive. And as you point out that Jesus said, “Love others as you love yourself,”– his words are actually (dare I say a natural law?) true, for if I hate myself and am pessimistic in my own estimate of life, then I will also have hatred for the world in which I live, for I “love” it in the self-hating way I “love” myself. I really have enjoyed thinking about all that is in this Meditation. Thank you !!!

    1. Globally, the human soul suffers from a number of maladies, afflictions, and disorders, all of which incline thought, perception (including self-perception), and mood in a distorted direction. Today, in our highly medicalized and psychiatrized world, they are bunched together as ‘mental disorders.’ In some way, all of those disorders rob the soul of its peace, balance, and clarity of vision, and all in some fashion torment, eclipsing the soul’s awareness of itself (identity) and others as moored in God. Self-hatred and it’s symptoms are but one of those maladies. When Jesus confronted the demoniac, asking his identity, voices from this multiply tormented man declared “My name is Legion, for we are many.” That is, if the collective, multiply disordered soul of mankind could speak in concert, and thus identify itself, it would speak those exact words as its chief identifier. Jesus delivered that tormented man from his ‘demons,’ and thus restored his soul, peace, and sanity. The written Word of God, gifted teachers, mystics throughout history, including today, and the disproportionately few graced and enlightened souls acting as salt and light among us, have simply not been enough to reverse the tide of human dis-ease and global disorder. The best those concerted noble efforts can do is retard or slow down their malignant inevitability, as salt retards putrescence, and light dispels darkness. As remedial agents, neither salt nor light entirely eradicate the wholesale inevitability of decay, darkness and malignancy. They just slow it down. Seems the best that goodness can do is hold the fort until something along more radical, apocalyptic lines occurs to save the day, delivering the globe from its multiple (legion) perils — as Jesus’ direct intervention of the demon possessed/oppressed man. We should all pray fervently for that radical deliverance lest we perish as a species, and the globe along with us. (The globe is now perched more than ever on the perilous thoes of nuclear annihilation.) Such prayer is best stated in Luke 11, where Jesus instructs the disciples, as worded in the Living Bible, to “send your kingdom soon” (thy kingdom come). Truth be told, while the rest of us frantically jam fingers in the countless holes of a fast bursting dam, humanity’s current situation needs RADICAL divine backup, and soon, or it’s game over via the “principalities and powers of darkness.” Anyone else out there feeling that urgency, or am I overstating my prayerful case?

      1. Richard Reich-Kuykendall
        Richard Reich-Kuykendall

        Joe, You ask: “Anyone else out there feeling that urgency, or am I overstating my prayerful case?” I think most everyone who writes in their comments would agree with the urgency of our situation. Thank you for your comment.

      2. Thanks for this, because I was thinking the same thing–the best we can do is hang on. When my kids were teenagers I had a recurring dream that I was on a train racing down a steep grade and I was hanging onto the rail on the caboose, one hand on my hat and my feet trailing out behind me—utterly unable to control anything that was happening. I’m surprised the dream hasn’t returned.
        The outlook for the planet and for this country seem to justify a pessimism related to the security of their continued existence, but I’m not aware of hating myself—or of blaming myself. I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve got and I don’t think there’s any more *anyone* can do. Thanks for your comment.

  2. The connection between pessimism and self hatred is very enlightening. Many years ago I read a book by a psychologist whose name I can’t remember. Pointing to statistics from prisons re studies of the male prison population he revealed that well over 50% of prisoners had experienced distress in their mother’s womb. It was posited that their mothers’ distress during pregnancy secreted distress signals to the growing fetus. Needless to say that there are many reasons, both personal and social, that a mother would be distressed as a result of pregnancy. A couple of years ago I learned about a French artist (whose name I also can’t recall) saw the healing effects of creating street art and brought it to a prison population in the USA. He engaged the men in working together on a major outdoor art installation which engendered in them a much more positive vision about the world and themselves.

    1. Richard Reich-Kuykendall
      Richard Reich-Kuykendall

      Gwen, Of all that you have shared with us in this comment, this is what struck me: “50% of prisoners had experienced distress in their mother’s womb. It was posited that their mothers’ distress during pregnancy secreted distress signals to the growing fetus. Needless to say that there are many reasons, both personal and social, that a mother would be distressed as a result of pregnancy…”

  3. Jeanette Metler

    Being a survivor of traumatic childhood abuse… and the deep seated soul wounds this caused within myself… has made learning to love, and accept myself… one of my greatest lifelong challenges. These early negative life altering experiences have impacted me in a multitude of ways. That’s why my spiritual journey has become a life-long pursuit of healing. It’s been an ongoing, slow transformational process… involving various methods… like, sacred journaling, expressive arts therapy, ritual and ceremony, praying, writing, photography, meditation, spending time in nature, creatively working with sound, through drumming and singing ancient healing chants, or working with tuning forks, crystals and chakra work as well as reiki. I also read alot, in particular literature pertaining to spirituality and psychology… basically anything that inspires me in my learning to be more loving, compassionate and merciful. I am a wounded healer… I suppose we all are.

    For myself, it’s been extremely important to focus on the process itself… knowing that I have not yet fully arrived into fully embracing the reality of the wholeness I so desire. Today’s DM, was somewhat challenging and a little painful for me to hear… knowing at the age of 60… that I still have much inner work to do. The hardest part about all of this is… is that there is this deep longing, thirsting and hunger within myself… to LOVE more… to love myself, others and life in a greater measure… and often my little daily failures… to express and manifest this, causes me much inner anguish. It’s challenging to accept that we all love IMPERFECTLY.

    In being completely vulnerable and honest… I have to admit, that I don’t really know much about the JOY so many speak of. I have had glimpses of it, now and then… but it’s always been rather illusive. In this kind of in-between place I simply try to trust… in ways I cannot comprehend… that I am throughout this journey of life… BEING LOVED TO LOVE… in, with, and through the Great Mystery, the Great Spirit of Divine Unconditional Love… in compassionate and merciful ways… and that the beauty and goodness of this will continue to embrace me in infinite expressions… and that this in some gracious way is not only preserving this original blessing, but also is awakening me, to seeing the unfolding, evolving and emerging reality of this… of becoming wholly Oned With that which already lies there within my heart… simply in need of being tended to, nurtured, cared for and cultivated… from within all that I experience and encounter in life, both in my inner world and my outer world.

    1. Richard Reich-Kuykendall
      Richard Reich-Kuykendall

      Jeanette, I am saddened by the fact that you were abused as a child. I was too, but I have tried to “let go” of the past, which was a long walk through the Via Negativa. And you write: “through the Great Mystery, the Great Spirit of Divine Unconditional Love… in compassionate and merciful ways… and that this in some gracious way is not only preserving this Original Blessing, but also is awakening me, to seeing the unfolding, evolving and emerging reality of this…” What you speak of, is the Via Transformativa–that time and place where your life is changed, and you help others to make their changes as well.

    2. “Seek and you will find.”
      I salute you for the strength of your quest and I note the words of a Japanese gardener I once read: “The garden is *never* finished, the point of the garden is to continue to work toward perfecting it.”
      Don’t be discouraged by not knowing much about Joy; or about what you think of as dwindling time to achieve your goals of understanding and Love—the journey is never finished and the point is to continue to work toward perfection—knowing the whole time that you will never achieve it!
      Many blessings.

  4. Damian Maureira

    Yes, Matthew, I agree that self-hatred is the source of pessimism and hatred of others…. And this self-hatred comes from lack of self-love whose roots are the lack of spiritual awareness/ignorance of our True Self~Cosmic Christ Consciousness~Loving Diverse Oneness within and among us — in our relations with one another, in Mother Earth and all Her creatures and abundance, in our spiritual multidimensions, and in All of our ongoing co-Creation~Evolution… God’s Divine~Creative Love (the Source and highest energy of All Creation) is Truly All in All… And this Divine~Creative Personal Love includes All Life, Wisdom, Truth, Justice, Beauty, Joy, Peace, Freedom, Creativity, Diverse Loving Oneness, Mystery….
    🔥❤️🙏

  5. Matthew, you state, “The cure to self-hatred includes the purifying and utilization of all the chakra energy, but this presumes that the first chakra is the starting point….” Sri Aurobindo makes the case that the safest route is to begin with the heart chakra, so compassion informs the opening of the other chakras. My experience supports that, even though it may seem to take longer.

  6. It seems a contradiction that beneath narcissism and bravado lay fear, pessimism, hatred, including hatred of self (though unacknowledged).

    Brokenness needs our prayers more than anything else. We get frustrated and angry with evil behavior manifested in broken people. But confrontation only triggers more abhorrent behavior. Only Divine LOVE can heal and transform such hearts.

  7. Today I planted tomatoes, beans, herbs, and cucumbers. If there’s a tomorrow, I will plant squash, greens, and flowers. I am guided by the phases of the moon to plant on these two days and reap for the next two days—at this stage, “reaping” will consist of looking at the damp beds with satisfaction and daring any prey to approach! One of the greatest evidences of Hope is planting seeds.
    As I understand the word “pessimism,” it’s a state of not having a lot of hope about the future. On the other hand, there’s reality—which, at this stage of life on Planet Earth tells me that there’s not a lot of hope for the future unless there are drastic changes.
    I am fierce in the defense of our country and our rights which, for some time now, has placed me in an adversarial position, but when the angel asks if I love God, I have to tell him, like Abu ben Adhem, that what I love is mankind. The reality is that mankind and the Creation given us by a loving Creator are both in jeopardy. The reality is also that I still love mankind in all its messiness and ignorance—and continue to fight like hell against the Forces that work to destroy it.

    1. Richard Reich-Kuykendall
      Richard Reich-Kuykendall

      Olive, Thank you for your words that you, “still love mankind in all its messiness and ignorance—and continue to fight like hell against the Forces that work to destroy it.” And I’m right there with you !!!

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