Jason put a great post on Collaboratory with two quotes about misanthropy. It prompted me to wax eloquent:

i'm fairly misanthropic, i think. i skate pretty close to these descriptions. a big part of this is my own burning desire to justify myself. i find flaws in many other people and magnify those flaws for my conceptual gain.

one sign of my misanthropy of the second kind: i often say 'the masses are asses'.

i have observed that many cynics are disappointed idealists. i think that's part of the dynamic here. i desire the ideal and i have trouble letting it go.

how can you get off my hook? be self-aware. the biggest offenders in my book are people who have big, glaring blind-spots, whether or not they're 80% better people than me.

the Swift quote reminds me of someone who characterized the South by saying they hate Blacks but love Mamie, while in the North, they hate individuals, but love 'Blacks'.

would it be too far to go to say the first sentiment in Jason's post is a kind of liberalism while the second sense is a kind of conservatism? i think there are some parallels.