Ender

The Judaic and the Christian religions originated with slaves- in Moses' time and in Jesus' time. The period in between was a sequence of attempting to live up to the imposed slave standards. After all, it is not too hard to substantiate if you apply a judicious amount of a naturalist skepticism to the history of morality. And by "naturalist" I mean psychological, anthropological, and sociological means. Modern morality remains Christian in its form. Christianity originated among subject people, and most who were slaves. Ergo, Christian values reflect the social and political circumstances of their day.
Not simultaneously. Could one be ambitious in his humility? Seems to me ambition and humility are two different things. Ambition is an aspect of arrogance. Of course one may be both at different moments, such as hold an ambition to be the best at what he does or can do, and be humble that "chance" hasn't interfered with his wishes, desires, and drives too much, producing a variable of blind luck in his life. But to say that a person is blandly both is a bit too generous and charitable.
Why not? Is there a warrant for this assumption of the autonomous human being? Yes, they are amorphous attributes, vague entities. The description of a person is based on his actions- not his potential. Without vague and amorphous entities what is left is a fictional "autonomous" being, one of the foundations of Enlightenment. However, the attributes are variables, or characteristics that a person adopts and drives his will. By characteristics I mean elements of perception they hold, and their perception is generated by a value system they adopt. If they value themselves as the "good" then they will produce a positive morality- with attributes such as ambition, creative, proud (but not vain), self-directed (leader), this-worldly, self-aware, egoistic, and preach a morality of persons, like Aristotle's golden means. But those of a different mentality who grow resentful of the "other" (who already has developed a positive outlook and an healthy attitude) begins to reverse everything in the positive person's value system, defining the "other" as a "evil," and themselves, "good." This is slave morality - the kernel that generates democratic ideals such as humility, passivity, reactionary (in the negative sense), other-directed (follower), self-deceptive (Sartrean bad faith), altruistic and other self-abasing values. That entails a morality of principles, such as the "Thou shalt...!" of the ten commandments or Kant's categorical imperatives. Morality that refers to reason or to transcendental entities such as an autonomous being disqualifies the inspection with crippling presuppositions of human rationalism.
So make the connection from where it sprung from and why it remains today. They are not arbitrary characteristic that floats in the air for eternity and infects a person momentarily and moves on. There is a psychological reason why a person is humble and another, arrogant. Is there a connection between the attribute of humility and the overall character of the person?
Humility did not originate in master morality. Since herd morality is rampant today so even the very greatest are all-too-human! By the way Muhammad Ali was an arrogant and egoistical loud-mouthed braggart who was humble for a hour or two a week. And you'll note just when he was humble: in the service of a derivation of the God of Abraham.
I'm skeptical of your choices of examples of humility here. I am not contesting that an artist could be humble- since I believe in the translucency of the consciousness- but that he could not be consistently humble when it came to his talents. He had to have a positive belief in his abilities, and since I view humility as a psychological defect (after all, the word "humiliating" is derived from the word humble), the artist had to have a healthy dosage of pride when it came to his "thang." However, a talented artist could suffer a debilitating skepticism of his skill but eventually produce masterpieces- in spite of his doubt- and demonstrate how his pride outlasted stints of psychological ills.
Talented artists are naturally prideful people who express humility at moments. Your point was?
Especially when they're bewitched by the siren song of herd morality for the most part. The passage above suggests the popular politically correct view of people- that nobody is what they are, but what they "potentially" are. PC bullshit, just as much "realism," is anathema to philosophy!
Since this era is decadent, given it is contaminated with Christian morality, to count on more than a single hand the noble folks I see will be a long time coming. Very few people are naturally creators (and develop a strong mentality that resists the prevalent morality of the time) and express a healthy morality that is encapsulated in the form "I will.." So I do not expect people of a decadent age to agree with what exposes their beliefs.
Don't you think by being a writer you will be better than what you are now, more complete or closer to what you want to be? Or else you wouldn't bother at trying to get your work published. This is a nice expression of a desire to impose one's will upon his environment to enrich his experience.
I define human nature as the desire to dominate, or simply, desire. Desire is another aspect of the universal manifestation energy, of power or domination. Human beings, due to their nature, create truths for themselves that are useful and helps them to survive as a species. This is what I characterize as 'self-interest.'
~WiGGiN~
((Sacrificed to UBB gods))

[ May 17, 2002: Message edited by: Ender ]</p>

Ender

A lack of self-esteem doesn't seem to be possible, much less a coherent term, since I define human consciousness as an intentionality. in phenomenological terms it is a "lack" which is the foundation of value. This "lack" is a penetration of being, and comes in play in existence only through man. Consciousness is always aware of itself, aware of its imperfection, that it lacks and yearns for unity with the perceived object of desire. Consciousness is not fully itself, which entails human nature- the "desire" to be whole. This intentionality, inherent in the human consciousness, must involve a self-esteem of sort. To be human is to hold a private access to the world - this grasp of reality entails self-awareness, and consequently some sort of evaluation of the self.

~WiGGiN~

[ May 17, 2002: Message edited by: Ender ]</p>

Ender

Dilute the term according to whatever adopted definition one holds, yes.
Of course one may choose something that is not germane to his or her survival, but the expression of one's will for a conceived purpose instills meaning in the action and renders an act of the self. Let the examples begin! A mother who chooses to protect her child by taking a bullet is not a selfish act- given that she values her child's life over her own.
Yes, a self-destructive course of action is another expression of human desire. My approach is Deleuzean in nature. Human desire appropriates objects of value for its own purposes. All moments of appropriation implies self-destruction. Self-overcoming also entails self-destruction- the destroyed self being the configured values that warranted the role one holds.
Probably poor wording- the choice of "selfish" can be restricting. How about "intention" or "desire" or "aspiration" of libidinal creatures?

ManM

Consciousness is not fully itself? Given your definition, intentionality is not fully itself? This is only the case if the intent is intentionality. We desire to desire? And this must stem from a lack of lacking? But if we lack lacking then we lack nothing, and there is no desire without lacking. And so we don't desire consciousness because we do not lack it. Consciousness is fully itself. In layman's terms, I don't buy your argument. The lack of self-esteem has a deep tradition in Asian and some Christian thought. I am not willing to toss all of that into the circular file without a good counterargument.

Adrian Selby

"Don't you think by being a writer you will be better than what you are now, more complete or closer to what you want to be? Or else you wouldn't bother at trying to get your work published. This is a nice expression of a desire to impose one's will upon his environment to enrich his experience"

I think here, with regard to my writing, my idea of humility is the appropriate response to an objective assessment of my writing in relation to other far greater writers. I don't think we necessarily disagree after reading your post, I just think that if I am not humbled by some beautiful fiction, which I often am, then I would call it misplaced confidence. For I can be confident in my own writing, and I believe I'll get better, but to assert that my writing is worth reading seems presumptuous. Perhaps in relation to art, regardless of how well one's conviction of one's own genius matches up to one's works, whether that work is genius or not to a large extent resides in the eyes of all the beholders. It therefore seems foolish to proclaim oneself as having produced an astounding or lastingly great work of art. I always thought that was for others to decide.

Also, in relation to your self/altruistic split of qualities in the middle part of your post, I have to just disagree that the qualities mentioned lump together like that, I think its a little more confused.

I also don't think I'm being merely pc by suggesting that people can't be easily categorised as herd. My problem is that it is hard to point at people and say herd, or great, and then actually try to achieve an agreement on what it means for them to be either. After all, you'd have trouble equating herd with self abasement and those other negative altruistic qualities because its obvious very few people are properly altruistic, rather, people are quite selfish. At the least, that's a hypothesis that holds as much water for me. Quite how one then characterises herd if they do not display Christian virtues seems be more difficult. Also, I think the truly Christian person is a lot rarer a person than the christian person.

I'm aware that the noble side of egoism cannot be equated with the petty selfishness of many people, but at the same time, my problem with the simplicity of the categories is that people frequently reveal to me traits that make them very hard to pin down. This friend of mine who's dying from cancer, all of his mates agreed they did not think he would show such awesome courage and strength of will to overcome the symptoms and live his last months in the manner he has and will. All his life he simply worked and looked after his own little circle, as do almost all of us. He was also at times a morally dubious character, yet when faced with adversity, such as this lung cancer and the repeated treatments he's completely changed my attitude towards him.

Circumstance then seems to play a large part in just how one characterises someone with regard to pride (not vanity) confidence and personal strength of will.

Adrian

Ramen

Not according to neurologist James H. Austin...

DRFseven

Good point, Adrian. Though people may assume humble affect, this may not reflect mental attitudes at all because an attitude of humility is a response or conclusion one reaches as a result of perceptions, while affect is a personal habit. Humility is neither good nor bad in itself, but is judged either appropriate or not by the circumstances.

fwh

Quote from Blaise Pascal We are not satisfied with the life we have in ourselves and our own being. We want to lead an imaginary life in the eyes of others, and so we try to make an impression. We strive constantly to embellish and preserve our imaginary being, and neglect the real one. And if we are calm, or generous, or loyal, or *humble*(my addition) we are anxious to have it known so that we can attach these virtues to our other existence; we prefer to detach them from our real self so as to unite with the other. We would cheerfully be cowards if that would acquire us a reputation for bravery. How clear a sign of the nullity of our own being!

IMO many of us fear we are insubstantial ghosts. To overcome this we are overly aware of the impressions we make on those living around us. Skeptics and dogmatists alike are not immune from this.

Plato asks us to test ourselves somewhere in the "Republic". Ask yourself which you would rather be: a good soul whom everyone thought evil, hated, misunderstood,etc; or an evil soul whom everyone thought good, loved and rewarded? Maybe asking the right questions can steer us straight in the search for a comprehensible "nature of man".

Laurentius

...everytime I feel like enjoying humbleness I remember a saying I came across once on the Internet:

"Don't be so modest - you're not that great."

AVE