I was trying to come up a word to describe my overall philosophical outlook, and the word “biomisia” came to me, in February 2023.
[Note: I then Googled this word, and saw that one other person on the Internet thought of this word in a similar sense as mine, in a comment two years earlier on a thread devoted to neologisms. It doesn’t appear they held biomisia as their own viewpoint though. Thus I’m not the first person think of the term biomisia, but I’ll lay claim to being the first believer in biomisia ;) ]
I define biomisia as “antipathy towards the process of life.” The word “process” is crucial in my definition, because if the word were defined simply as “antipathy towards life” (without the word “process”) it sounds like a biomisic individual is someone who hates their own life.
A biomisic person may or may not hate their own life—personally, through many twists and turns, I’ve come to enjoy my life very much at present. (On good days I would even say that I love my own life. It took a lot of mental work to get there.)
But I’m still biomisic, because I think the process of life—that is, replicators competing for scarce resources in the Darwinian struggle for existence and reproduction—is horrendous. It is stuffed to the rafters with predation, violence, starvation, sickness, and death, from the level of bacteria to the most complex mammals. Sure there are many beautiful and wonderful parts of the process of life—I’ve been fortunate to see and experience many of them.
However, this substantial beauty and wonder does not change the fact that, at its root, life is a process of survival and reproduction, and that the things that replicating entities do to survive and replicate are, for the most part, pretty awful and violent towards other replicators, and vice versa. When the replicators are sentient (such as with mammals) then the amount of pain and suffering involved in this ceaseles Darwinian battle is incalculable and overwhelming. I think it would be better off if the whole Darwinian game never got started—not that that was something anyone had any choice over.
(Yes, there is some tension between me loving my own life, and feeling antipathy towards the process of life overall. I explore this tension extensively in the chapter “The Glass is Half Full (of Piss).”)
The word biomisia uses the Greek word-forming elements “bio” and “miso.” The latter, Etymonline tells us, is a “word-forming element of Greek origin meaning ‘hater, hatred,’ before vowels, mis-, from Greek misos ‘hatred,’ misein ‘to hate,’ of uncertain etymology, perhaps from a Pre-Greek word.”
“Miso-” is the root of “mis” terms such as misanthropy, misogyny, and misandry. (Note: I forcefully disavow the latter two—I am against singling out any particular sex for scorn—though I do identify as a “loving misanthrope.” See my chapter “The Sociopathic Species: A Misanthrope’s Brief,” in my Outtakes of Joyful Pessimism.)
According to Wiktionary [accessed 2/27/23], “-misia” used as a suffix has been attested to since 1959, when Life magazine wrote: “Physicians have a medical word to describe a phenomenon they admit is widespread: iatromisia, which means an aversion to doctors” (47:15, p. 26)
I use the word “antipathy” in my definition of “biomisia” rather than “hatred” (even though the latter is the more etymologically-precise meaning of the element “miso”) because “hatred” implies an active, hot emotion. For me, biomisia does not involve an active, hot emotion (I don’t walk around each day in a rage-filled hatred of the process of life.) Oxford Languages, via Google, defines antipathy as “a deep-seated feeling of dislike; aversion.” This sounds about right. For me, biomisia is a strong philosophical dislike, aversion, repugnance, and distaste in relation to the Darwinian struggle for survival and reproduction that is at the heart of life.
I doubt that biomisia will ever spread very far as a philosophy. Not would it make any difference if it did: the Darwinian rat race will continue either way. However, I want to put the term out there, because it helps me make sense of why the world feels so “off” to me—it’s not me, it’s the process of life itself! And if this term can help me feel a bit less weird, crazy, and alienated about my views, maybe it can help other people who hold similar views feel less weird, crazy, and alienated too.