Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: We argue that the film Hannibal is at its core a story about the lure of misanthropy, and the struggle of idealism (in the sense of love for and pursuit of the 'best' in humanity, which we consider here as faith in humankind's capacity for goodness) against this lure. Accordingly, it provides a useful foil for considering the lure of misanthropy in political thought: in particular, the tensions and agreements between idealism and misanthropy in the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In considering the above, we examine Rousseau's critique of bourgeois liberal society as a misanthropic critique that is both rooted in and set against Enlightenment idealism, and argue that this critique, and Rousseau's general attitude toward what he considers vice, reflects a broader, but nonetheless unique, misanthropic attitude. We then argue that Hannibal Lector, the title character of the 2001 film 'Hannibal, is a skeptical, or corrupted, misanthrope - that is, one whose hatred of viciousness has very nearly become a hatred of humankind generally - and that he therefore brings to life some of the core elements of Rousseau's misanthropy/misanthropic critique. We argue further that Clarice Starling can also be understood to be misanthropic and so too embodies some core principles of Rousseau's critique. We argue that in this case, however, the misanthropy lies at an opposite extreme from that of Lecter's: Starling's misanthropy is an idealistic misanthropy. Finally, we argue that the subtextual emotional struggle between the skeptically misanthropic Hannibal and the idealistic Clarice Starling reflects some important connections and tensions between idealism and misanthropy, and so allows us to consider the relation between idealism and misanthropy in the thought of Rousseau. In viewing Rousseau's misanthropic critique of bourgeois liberalism through the lens of the film Hannibal, we argue that Rousseauan misanthropy can be seen as a sort of continuum along which the important tensions of this critique - idealism versus skepticism, actual versus apparent virtue, natural goodness versus social goodness - play.