This article is about something I’ve been thinking about on and off for years, which I finally decided to write about because the narrative surrounding the issue seems far too philosophically homogeneous.
Anybody who has followed my work has probably realized by now that I like to pose provocative thought experiments that question popular assumptions to see how important concepts and nuances are often overlooked. This will be another instance of that.
The main issue I’ll be addressing here is the widespread (practically ubiquitous or monopolistic) cultural norm of glorifying humility and condemning arrogance. It seems that the vast majority of people hold this view perhaps. Let’s call this norm “humility culture” for the purpose of this article. I will pose a contrary view however: that arrogance and humility are both just different forms of toxic egotism. They are just different sides of the same coin and are actually more alike than they are different.
Indeed, one could imagine some humble person on the internet right now reading this article (or hearing about it from someone else) and getting upset about it because they may take great personal offense at the notion that by being humble they could ever actually be doing something counterproductive to the good of society and/or of themselves.
There is actually an interesting irony in this, hidden below the surface, which we will be exploring more below. One may think this notion could be easily dismissed, as may be the case if one is a “true believer” in the idea that humility is some kind of virtue, but one may be surprised if one pulls the concept apart more carefully and applies a different perspective. Thus, I ask that you resist the urge to make premature assumptions. Take some time to broaden your perspective and to question the orthodoxy.
If there’s any reliable way to upset people it’s to say anything that jostles their sense of identity (aka their ego). I’d rather not upset people of course, whenever possible, as I prefer keeping things constructive. Unfortunately though, it is often difficult or impossible to pose interesting alternative viewpoints without upsetting someone. Such is life though.
Ultimately it comes down to whether you care more about appeasing peoples egos or about discerning truth, broadening your own viewpoint, and truly being as benevolent as you can be. Tact and empathy are always nice of course, and very much worth pursuing and practicing vigorously, but in contrast I don’t believe that anyone has a “right to not be offended”. The enforcement of a “right to not be offended” or “right to not hear dissent” is essentially (carried to the extreme) a recipe for a dystopian society.
It’s gotten a bit creepy lately how much ubiquitous unquestioned cultural norms have been able to acquire such an iron grip on so much of society, often aided by the conformity-encouraging and dissent-suppressing nature of most of contemporary social media.
Diversity in nature often requires a certain amount of population isolation (e.g. organisms separated onto different islands often diversify through evolution). In contrast though, when a population is put together into one giant connected system the effect is often the destruction of diversity. The same seems to be true for intellectual and creative diversity as well, to an extent.
This is one reason why I tend to distance myself from social media so much. I’d prefer to retain my ability to think thoughts that greatly differ from the norm. That’s important in creative work and in seeking the truth. The human mind can resist outside influences consciously to an extent, but never perfectly, and so one is therefore wise to protect one’s environment and what one is exposed to. There’s a balance though of course. Isolation and connectivity each have their own benefits and detriments. Seldom should either be maximized.
Anyway though, that tangent aside (many of my readers probably know I’m in the habit of making frequent tangents by now), I’ll return now to the point of the article: illustrating why arrogance and humility are actually equally bad and are just two sides of the same coin in reality.
I have for many years now been struck by an interesting observation in how people who glorify humility tend to behave and to react to things. Specifically, when I observe humble people’s reactions to other people’s manifestations of ego (e.g. to someone else bragging about something, etc) I find myself often observing clear signs (in the humble people!) of fragile egos and vindictive and bizarrely hostile overreactions.
Ok, humble people… brace yourselves for this. I’m going to tell you something that may cause your belief system to have a metaphorical seizure/stroke/aneurysm/whatever:
It’s not hard to be friends with an arrogant person.
Yep, I just said that. Try it on for size. How does it feel? How uncomfortable are you with that notion? The magnitude of your discomfort will be proportional to how much of toxic humility culture you’ve internalized.
Let me say it again, just to give it more of a chance of getting through that thick humility culture comfort blanket you’ve probably been brainwashed into your whole life:
It’s not hard to be friends with an arrogant person.
“What?! Of course it’s hard to be friends with an arrogant person! They’re such jerks! They’re so full of themselves! They suck! I wouldn’t want to be friends with someone with such a high opinion of themselves! Of course it’d be hard to be friends with them!”
No, sorry, that’s actually mostly your own egotism talking. Getting along with arrogant people is often remarkably easy in my experience. It depends mostly on your own attitude. For example, I personally strive to ideally be neutral (to simply be myself, neither arrogant nor humble), and when I succeed in that I consequently often have almost no feeling of being threatened by the presence of an arrogant person.
It is a non-issue. It no more effects the interaction than some other extraneous factor such as a bit of rain or wind would significantly change the way you view someone in any other conversation. It’s like them having red hair or black hair, or using one operating system or another for their computer, or liking sweets or savory food more, etc. It is just a personal quirk they have, in a sense. What’s the problem? It’s only a problem if your own ego feels threatened by them. In other words, it’s only a problem if you have an ego problem. Thus, as I suggested, arrogance and humility are really just two sides of the same toxic egotism coin.
It’s important to note here that I’m talking about arrogance in isolation. If someone is violent or prone to claiming credit for others work or often screams when angry (etc) then those are separate issues. A person’s arrogance and a person’s propensity towards violence for example are separate personality axes. So, don’t conflate other personality traits that are stereotypically (but often wrongly!) associated with arrogant people in popular media like movies and books (much like how the villain in movies is often also ugly(er), even though looks have nothing to do with the presence or absence of evil).
If you look more closely, with less bias, at the people around you, then you’ll often see that arrogance itself is separate from these other negative traits and that there’s plenty of people who are both honorable and arrogant at the same time for example. So, don’t strawman me on this.
When I talk about arrogance in this article I mean only arrogance. Words have meanings. Don’t conflate different concepts with each other. That’s how many debates become completely unproductive and meaningless. You mustn’t conflate things like that if you want debates to consistently end with productive outcomes generally.
In any case, let me sum up my main point in this article in a more pithy and catchy way:
Arrogance is the egotism of individuals, wheres humility is the egotism of crowds.
In other words, humility culture is like a psychological or sociological weapon designed to protect the often fragile egos of a certain subset of the population from ever encountering anybody who they perceive as potentially doing better than themselves in any way whatsoever. Humility is thus characterized primarily by an strong desire to downplay the status of others for the sake of protecting one’s own relative social status. Sounds familiar right? Sounds very much like arrogance doesn’t it? There’s hardly anything wholesome about it, in this sense.
In fact, there’s only one real difference: Arrogance is about trying to communicate an inflated sense of one’s own social status directly, whereas humility culture is about trying to prevent any possible gains of other people’s social status from ever being communicated to others in the group (and to thereby protect one’s own relative status). That’s why arrogance irritates some people so much. Humility culture is an evolutionary mechanism designed to protect one’s social status against any gains from other people in the tribe. It’s purpose is actually self-serving, not selfless.
To put it another way: There’s two ways to increase your relative social standing in a group of people. One is by artificially increasing your own apparent status directly. This is arrogance. The other way is to artificially decrease other people’s apparent statuses indirectly by silencing them in advance or else by attacking their character as people if they ever step out of line (out of your own arbitrarily drawn line). This is humility culture.
If arrogance is akin to bragging then humility culture is akin to bullying. Neither is ideal.
Indeed, I remember being good friends with someone in my youth who was widely viewed as arrogant and disliked by many. But, since I never felt threatened by that person’s arrogance much I was easily able to be friends with them. They were a good friend too! That’s actually typical in my experience! The majority of arrogant people are often great fun to interact with and also reliable friends and allies (just as much as humble people often are). There’s just one thing you have to do to get access to those special unconventional friendships: Don’t have a fragile ego.
Don’t be the kind of person who often thinks “How dare person X think so highly of themselves?!”. In and of itself, where exactly is the harm in someone having a high opinion of themselves? It really isn’t especially threatening unless you yourself have rather bad ego issues too.
Similarly, isn’t it also unjust to view someone who has a low opinion of themselves as some kind of inferior person just because they carry themselves that way? Life is often a struggle and everyone is born into different circumstances. It is very hard to judge another human being with any accuracy without an enormous volume of information (i.e. experiencing most of their life for yourself). Why can’t we be loving and compassionate to all types of people then, regardless of whether their opinion of themselves is low or high?
That’s why I personally strive for an ideal state of being neither arrogant nor humble, but rather simply being exactly as I am. Naturally, I often don’t succeed. Sometimes my opinion of myself is too high. Sometimes my opinion of myself is too low. No human being can achieve anything close to perfection. However, the struggle to treat both others and oneself as honorably and kindly and benevolently as possible is well worth it I think.
True empathy requires empathy towards all parts of the spectrum of human experience, not just those that don’t make your own beliefs or your own ego feel threatened or anxious for whatever reason. True kindness is given regardless of whether someone “deserves it” or not, but rather instead is given based on which path of possible choices stretching forth into the future results in the most overall good (the least suffering and the most well-being) for both others and oneself.
That’s the world I’m trying to fight for in writing this post. A world free of the kinds of pernicious issues that have long afflicted humanity would inherently require a willingness to look inside ourselves and question assumptions about which of our intentions are actually wholesome and constructive and which aren’t. One cannot change social norms for the better by simply repeating those same norms without modification. One must change. The path forward isn’t always clear, but it must (logically speaking) exist somewhere. Some paths are bound to be better than others.
I think that by changing our path as a culture towards a more balanced and nuanced view of human nature and dignity, one where we strive for balance between the self and the other, rather than too much of either, we can make the world a much more pleasant place for everyone to live in.
So, next time you encounter an arrogant person, ask yourself: Do I really have to take this personally? And likewise, the next time you have an impulse to think less of yourself and to verbally downplay yourself and silence your own speech, ask yourself: Don’t I have more self respect and more respect for the truth than to censor myself like this?
Really the question is: Can you both acknowledge the good in others and the good in yourself and respect both of those equally? Or, will fear in either direction rule your mind and your choices? Can you have empathy for all human beings across the spectrum of human experience or only those that fit your own tastes and don’t threaten your own sense of status?
Nobody can be perfect in this respect, but I think it’s worth fighting for. Kindness and truth are always worth fighting for. What kindness really means can admittedly take a lot of careful introspection and observation though. People like to think it’s really simple, but unfortunately it often really isn’t. So, it’s best to be tolerant and accepting of variations in people’s personalities and their unique struggles in life.
Kindness shouldn’t be something only reserved for victims.
One shouldn’t have to pretend to be a weakling, to be inferior to those around you, to downplay who you are and what you stand for, just so that anyone will be willing to consider showing any compassion towards you.
In fact, that reminds me of the classic trope of the beaten down wife who is given no choice but to constantly act subservient and feign inferiority just to not trigger an ego tantrum from her husband or from other men in society. The relation between humility culture and arrogance is much like that, it seems to me. It’s oppressive toxic egotism masquerading as virtue, but it’s anything but virtuous in reality.
Also, I’m well aware that one of the most common responses to this article will probably be “That’s not my definition of humility! True humility isn’t toxic!”. However, I’d have to disagree with you. That argument is like a no true group member (aka no true scotsman) fallacy. It’s like saying religion X members couldn’t be true religion X members if they do anything bad. It’s like trying to define only good things as being the things associated with a characteristic you like, thereby by definition forbidding all criticism. That argument’s real purpose is to forbid all criticism in order to immunize the belief in question from ever potentially being changed.
There is also the issue of equivocation of definitions. It’s like how some people try to redefine racism as meaning “power + privilege” and then use that as a justification for why any super racist thing they might say about white people can’t possibly be racist. It’s a kind of Orwellian doublespeak designed to deliberately introduce an equivocation fallacy into an argument in order to tilt the entire conversation towards a specific outcome you’ve already decided should be the truth before you’ve even begun hearing the debate or evidence from the other side. It’s not intellectually honest. Equivocation fallacies are never valid ways of arriving at the truth nor of achieving social progress even for that matter. Such tactics always backfire eventually.
The argument that someone’s definition of humility doesn’t fit the one I’ve discussed here in this article follows this exact same kind of logically illegitimate equivocation pattern. The impulse to glorify humility (downplaying oneself publicly and attacking other people’s potential status gains, etc) is inherently evolutionarily bound to the social gains one can accrue by suppressing the social status signals of others in your tribe. That seems to be where fondness of humility inherently originates from. It has more in common with bullying than with being virtuous. In fact, it may actually be the core source of the bullying instinct in human beings, now that I think about it.
Natural instincts often feel good and “right” but that doesn’t make them virtuous. For example, people often have an instinct to be kinder to more attractive people. In the heat of the moment, they feel that they are just being nice, but really it’s just an evolutionary bias designed to increase reproductive success. Similarly, the real nature of humility culture is just to protect one’s own self-interested relative social status in one’s local community.
True virtue in these respects in contrast requires a willingness to respect both the ups and the downs of social status dynamics and personalities, not only those that serve your own interests. Crucial to accomplishing that is not getting caught up in the rat race of egotism (regardless of whether it is self-inflating or other-suppressing in nature) and the accompanying uncomfortable envious feelings and toxic social effects.
People from many different backgrounds and personality quirks can actually get along quite easily if the right kind of constructive attitude is embraced! I believe that as humans we generally benefit from diversity, whether that diversity be intellectual, creative, egotistical (humble vs neutral vs arrogant), racial, gender, social, economic, or whatever else the case may be.
People of all colors and strips often have something to teach us!
Some of the most interesting people I’ve ever met were also “arrogant”. And that’s ok!
It’s ok to be flawed, to be broken, to be less “likeable” than average, to be strange, etc.
True kindness is magnanimous and doesn’t require perfection, whether from others or from oneself. It’s when we’re most unforgiving that we become most disconnected and discontent. In contrast, when we accept people’s imperfections and benign differences as they are, that is when we truly are enabled to connect with other people and to enrich our lives the most.
We’re on a big imperfect journey together, so I think it’s best to try to remember that.
Be neither arrogant nor humble. Simply be real.