Posted by
Andrews on Monday, June 16, 2008 9:58:35 AM
It appears that recently I have been repeatedly mentioning one topic, one human characteristic that is at the root of most of our political and societal ills. I have called it by a number of names, vanity, arrogance, a lack of humility, but I think pride describes it best. And it appears more and more that pride is behind most of our worst mistakes.
I first saw it when I described the arrogance of those who want to
substitute their judgment for that of their fellows,
thinking they know better. Then I saw it in economics, where politicians believed that they
could establish an economy that worked better than the market, or even that they could
measure with any certainty economic forces themselves. Then we saw a related pride in those who thought that they
could understand the weather so well that they could predict
global warming, which itself is a
strange pride in the idea that man could destroy the earth. Not to mention the arrogance of those who
declared the debate on the subject "over".
Over and over pride, vanity, arrogance, whatever you want to call it, has been the cause of political ills we have examined. It appears that the one thing we are sorely in need of, even more than honesty, or economic knowledge, or courage, is
simple humility. If we had that, I think we would be in much better shape.
Then again, I don't have much confidence we will see it anytime soon.
This weekend I asked myself a question. If every politician running for election were asked this question, how would they answer: "If you knew as a certainty that the nation woudl be better were your opponent elected, would you withdraw from the race?"
My assumptions about the answers, provided they replied honestly, do not fill me with hope for seeing a display of humility in office anytime soon.
POSTSCRIPT
Please note I do not fault a man for justifiable pride in his own achievements. What I fault is perhaps better called hubris, a false pride in our inflated sense of self-importance. The problem is not that these people are proud of themselves, but that they think themselves better than they really are. They think they know more than any of their fellows, that they can measure things that cannot be measured, that they know things that they do not.
That is what I fault. A false pride. But, then again, the best way to avoid a false pride is to simply attempt to be modest. You really lose little by forgoing justifiable pride, and you definitely benefit when you avoid the false pride that so often commingles with it.