philechat

Why the "I am humbler than thou" argument? It has nothing to do with pride or humbleness, but whether which side has the Truth per se.

Just because one is humble does not mean one is right. A skeptic was practicing Christian morality par excellence when he indulges in the claim of "humbleness". A skeptic should seek knowledge in the face of all the oppositions that said knowledge is inattainable. And such an attitude is necessarily going to be construed as arrogence by those who gave up the search.

Perhaps all is futile. But so what? Humbleness and skepticism does not mix. A Socrates was called arrogent when he challenged the prevailing Athens beliefs. And a skeptic would most likely be called arrogent by the Christians in the US society.

"Humbleness" is not a virtue in-itself. Its connotation with authority adherence, with social conformity, and its rejection of challenges and curiosity stinks of weak-mindedness.

[ June 15, 2002: Message edited by: philechat ]</p>

katellagen

Admitting limits is NOT the same thing as giving up. (But mischaracterizations like this can easily be construed as arrogant. ) I'm sure I'll never fully understand my wife, or her me, but we plan to pursue this knowledge for the rest of our lives.

I'm not sure where you got your definition, but that's not at all how I see it.

So when Samhain asks:
You would respond, "because we are, and we should be." Fair enough.

Peace

GaryP

Just click the quote (" ")symbol on the original message. Your reply box will pop up. then you can keep the whole thing or edit it.

Oresta

LordMoneyG:
Perhaps. But we might pull this through another prism of thought: Those who are uncomfortable with ambivalence, complexity, contradiction, cognitive disonance seek absolutes. Intuitively, that seems to explain theist True Believers. But much of religion - particularly those of a Calvinist cast - place the believer in an unresolvable state of uncertainty. On the other hand, atheism - at least my atheism -is free of doubt or any need to explain the "unknowable". Perhaps the agnostic is "comfortable being uncomfortable", but I haven't seen any evidence to support that either.

I might be properly called "arrogant" by some theists. But I think my rationale for life is more along what touchy-feely people snidely refer to as "intellectualizing" - evidently a very bad thing to do.

philechat

Yup, humbleness implies submission to others and admitting of one's lower status than the others. It pleases those big egos when we keep saying that we are not as good as they are.

Also, all quests for knowledge would be construed as arrogent. Many things (like space exploration or magnetic wave usages) was originally considered impossible by many. But look what we got now. Oops.

"Pride" is a virtue in Aristotlian ethics. I would say that those who exalt humbleness as virtue-in-itself are followers and not creators.

[ June 16, 2002: Message edited by: philechat ]</p>

seebs

No, it just implies admission that we are not inherently more-important than the others.

Empirically, a great number of them have created great things. I have been told that I am somewhat creative (and indeed, someone yesterday just told me that he's gotten a lot of use out of some code I posted to usenet once in a fit of pique, so my creative output *has been used by others*). I don't consider this to mean that I'm "better" than the guy using my code, nor do I think of him as "better" than me. I think that we are cooperating, and making the world a better place.

The virtue of "humility" is focused on recognizing that, while you're unique, so is everyone else, and even though you're unique, you could be replaced by any of a billion other unique things.

I think your characterization of this virtue as a trait of "followers" is a poor one; in fact, it often encourages people to be good leaders, because they are leading *for the followers*, not for themselves.

philechat

The "all men are created equal" thing is not even a value I hold, and I think very few Christians would say that "all religions are created equal" either.

One considers something as having more value when one chooses a particular ideology or action. And by affirming certain values, one is not being humble about it. Humility is a disguise and an avoidence of individual responsibility of his/her choices. The sentence "I don't know and you don't know either. But the Christian God exists" implies a positive assertion of the second sentence, which directly contradicts the supposed "humility" in the first sentence.

Humility affirms nothing--it seeks to debase one's choice in the eyes of others so that one can avoid conflict with the other. Humility in leaders is a pragmatic tool : For leaders want followers to listen to him, and to have the followers agree with him, leaders "pretend to" listen to the advice of the followers without actually believing him/herself the same level as the followers.

To exalt humility as virtue-in-itself is the supreme performance of bad faith. One never makes decisions based upon "what makes one the most humble", but decisions that are the most valuable (therefore not humble, but affirmative) to oneself.

[ June 16, 2002: Message edited by: philechat ]</p>

seebs

All men may not be precisely equal, but this doesn't give me any good way to establish their respective values. The belief that one can say "ah-hah, these people are much more important" leads to madnesses like Trebaxian Vir.

Affirming certain values is not necessarily in opposition to humility. Humility is avoiding "I'm right, you're wrong" as the basis of debate. A proud person seeks to prove that his opinion is right; a humble person seeks to ensure that, by the end of the debate, he believes the right thing.

What you describe is not the same as the thing Christians speak of when they talk of "humility". Like many names of sins and virtues, it's a term of art; trying to apply other meanings to it is meaningless, just like arguing that something isn't a "disk" because it's not round, when talking to a computer scientist, or asserting that a thing is not a "graph" because it hasn't been drawn anywhere.

I can't quite parse this. One does not make decisions based on "what will make me the most humble", any more than one makes decisions based on "what will make me care for my friends the most". However, just as you may make the decision that best expresses your caring for your friends, you may make decisions that best express your humility. (And, once again, this is a term of art, and does not necessarily refer to the exact same set of things the normal English word does.)

yahwehyadayada

Thanks, GaryP.

Leones Homus

I agree, humbleness does not always, if ever imply subbmission to others