Arrogance and Humility

Arrogance and Humility

This is an exploration of a special definition or metaphorical sense
of the words “arrogance” and “humility”.
There has always been a sense of adamant, even refractory holding of a view,
a belief, an opinion or judgement, in the word “arrogant”.
When one is “arrogant”, one is unyielding.
But there is another element in the meaning: it is the element of claim.
The claim has a sense of attachment and a posture of defence.
The attachment is personal.
The defence is both of the claim and the self which is personally attached.

This exploration acknowledges all of that, but begins
to allow the sense of the word to move in the direction of meaning
an arrested, unyielding fixation which resists change.
There is an element of preservation and perpetuation, if not conservation
in this special sense of the word.
There is the arrogance of kinds and degrees of certainty.
There is the arrogance of supposed qualification and authority.
There is an arrogance which has a sense of claim to have considered all
and to advocate a position of final knowledge or absolute knowledge.

Lurking in the shadowed edges of this special sense
or definition of “arrogance”, there is a sense of the claim of arrogance
to really be undefendable.
That kind of arrogance is a kind of ferocity.
That kind of arrogance comes from a fear.
That fear may be based upon an insecurity.
What if the claim is indeed undefendable?
Is there a sense of worthlessness, uncertainty, even futility that follows?
So it behooves us to sustain a humility, a softness of position, an openness,
a readiness to change, an alertness or awareness to new possibilities or options.
There is a durable bending involved in humility.
There is an absence of self-importance, but this doesn’t mean a weakness,
it doesn’t mean that in being humble we regard our advocacy
as deficient in power or strength.

What is being said here, about “arrogance” and “humility” has a certain power
or strength about it.
But the power or strength is based upon a self-evident,
or easily discovered validity, if one simply explores the territory indicated,
the insights are accessible, if not apparent.

Humility may show itself in a certain playfulness, a lightness or humour.

Arrogance may show itself in an overseriousness.
Between these two, there is a joyful reverence, regard and respect for others,
for our world, our reality, our experiences.

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fig. 1

The alloys of humility and arrogance have texture, and properties,
like the phase diagrams showing varying melting points
and evaporating points of chemical combinations of different percentages
of each element.

But more that these two elements may combine.
As the number of variables in the subject increases,
or as the elegance of the synthesis, the design or symbiosis increases,
the power or strength of the humility increases
as a result of the comprehensive nature of the advocacy.
With the simplifications of arrogance, which may gain its sense of absoluteness from eliminating many factors regarded as irrelevant, trivial, mere complications,
a kind of hollowness and insincerity and corresponding weakness follows.

The sense of fruitful and pleasant exploration which flows
from a consideration of “humility” and “arrogance” compounds
to a sense of richness and even ecstasy as we develop the other dimensions
of elegance and simplicity.
The finest hammer never can arouse the sense of awe
which is stirred by the elegance of a flower.
The number of member components, the number of variables, are too few
in even the best designed hammer to rival the elegance of a flower
with so many elements.
This allows us to see the arrogance of a design or a plan, a civilization or culture.
The openness of humility permits the greater number of variables
to flow into the range of relevance.
Elegance is possible with humility.
Only simplicity is possible with arrogance.

It is arrogant to attempt to isolate and define, even for the sake of control.
To isolate and define is a viewpoint

which categorically sorts out the relevant

and the irrelevant.
To forbid hidden connections or influences is to gain a blindness
more than a certitude.
Science which now takes on the humility of the participant observer,
in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory sees the so-called observed
and measured properties as only arising upon the occasion of observation
and measurement.
The arrogance of science which pursues the absolutes of certainty
is simply deluded by the ignored influences.
Science which only believes what can be replicated ignores the continuous change
which flows, which eliminates the possibility of replication.
It is ever the outcome of arrogance to simplify, to neglect, to ignore,
to curse as irrelevant, the implications, the trivia, the irrelevant, so called.
It is ever the outcome of humility to be open, to consent to the relevance of subtle
and perhaps distant influence, to allow change, to regard any truth
as provisional and relative.

Are these statements about humility and arrogance arrogant?
Or are they simply strong, self-evident,
with their own kind and degree of elegance?
What more shall we discover if we openly explore even the subjects of arrogance
and humility, elegance and simplicity?

I see life as elegant. When we overfocus upon simplifications,
“bottom-line” data reductions, we acquire a culture of arrogance.
When we overfocus upon the “rights” of an individual
and neglect the accompanying side effects of difficulty
gaining co-operative behaviours and a spirit of competition and conflict,
we see the implications of arrogance.
Who or what guarantees the “rights”? Law?
What about the flow of consequence as a result of the way things work?

“Freedoms” are different from “rights”.
Freedom may be gained by the elegance of a design,
even the design of an organization or society.
“Rights” may be gained by rules which moderate an essential component
of competition and conflict in an organization or society.
If we are attempting to combine human effort to meet collective human need,
if we combine that human effort with a stream of energy,
with tools and equipment, with skills, as well as with other human efforts,
we gain the efficiency, the effectiveness, the reliability
in our organized productivity, which meets collective human need.
We gain the consequences, other freedoms of efficient, effective,
reliable production.
This yields either an abundant supply of material well-being
or extensive personal freedom, or self-determination, even leisure.
“Rights” are required in a society which simplifies
by regarding others as regulated by rules rather than concerns.
Rules allow competition and conflict to prevail
up to the system boundary we call a right.
The whole foundation of “rights”, rules, competition and conflict
are seeded in free will of the individual who employs his free will
not with the elegance of synthesis and symbiosis,
the many variables called “others” are irrelevant.
The simplification of rules and rights is sufficient for such arrogance.
The ability to co-operate and combine efforts by defining the social system
as open and mutually and morally inclusive of others,
is an alternative which requires no rules nor rights,
but it does require the humility of tolerance, respect and regard for others,
not as competitors who are regulated by rules and rights,
but as mutual functionary with needs relevant to their function.

Copyright 2011, 2013, ECOhealth / Eve Revere