The Insanity of Arrogance

Humility suggests strongly
 openness to seeing what is not working.

     Martin Luther King, Jr. said that Gandhi criticized himself and whenever he made a mistake, he would confess it publicly. Here was a man who would say to his people, I'm not perfect, I'm not infallible. Gandhi was considered a great man for this quality of humility. When we confess our weaknesses or imperfections we make ourselves more vulnerable. We open ourselves and are thus able to grow through the confrontation with that which is most weak or negative in us. Arrogance is the opposite of vulnerability; it represents a closeness of mind and usually, a selfishness of purpose. Arrogance hardens the heart. In the end, the only medicine for arrogance is humiliation. Humiliation is the process that brings things that are up high down. Humility is what is most low; it is familiar with the soil. Humble people cannot fall for they are already on the ground and do not want to leave it. 

Seventh Principle of World Psychology
Arrogance is Insane.
Never trust arrogant people.

     People like Joseph Stiglitz, talking about the $190 billion subsidy act for farmers passed in 2002, a man who won a Nobel Prize in Economics said, "This is the worst form of political hypocrisy, we have lost all credibility all over the world. The insanity is that our government does not care about such things, does not care about how people feel, and this is the very nature of American arrogance.” Arrogance is a painful spiritual disease and it psychologically provides major life difficulties that are hard to address. Arrogance is one of the worst characteristics of human consciousness and is a normal by-product of the mind flying in the stratospheres of its own conceit. The main problem with arrogance is that it only listens to itself, and in that, the mind's light goes out. It has been said that the mind cannot know itself, cannot get out of its own skin so to speak, and yet it is not able to perceive this. When it comes to the heart or to any pure process of communication, arrogance interferes dramatically with communication flow and leads directly to absolute walls of separation between one being and another. 

The attitude above all others which I feel sure
is no longer valid is the arrogance of power.
                                                        Senator J. William Fulbright 

      HeartHealth talks much about the dualities below, which are always happening on a continuum. Though Victor Frankl said, “From all this we may learn that there are two races of men in this world, but only these two - the "race" of the decent man and the "race" of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people,” it would be more correct to state that no individual either is completely good and decent, and no individual completely bad or indecent. Arrogance is an extreme and totally indecent human characteristic and does take us into the darker side of mankind.

What marks a person with little or no heart, what we might call the indecent or truly mental man, is an attitude that scoffs at the suffering of others; an attitude that sees others who feel, suffer, cry and experience the occasional agony of being a being on this planet as beneath their dignity. These people loose all sense of compassion and these attitudes block all capacity for empathy. Dangerous to be around, such people truly challenge the souls of the descent people they touch. A great aspect of life and suffering is seen in the struggle between these two groups, the decent and indecent. In the bible and in most films this is framed as the struggle between good and evil. Scott Peck uses the terms sick self and healthy self when referring to the internal nature of this battle that goes on even in the most noble of noble souls.                                                                                                                                                               HeartHealth

Good – bad
Right – wrong
Positive – negative
Open – closed
Listening - non listening
Healthy – sick
Decent – indecent
Honest – dishonest
Caring – uncaring
Remember – forget
Acceptance – denial
Sensitive - insensitive
Strong - Weak
sane - insane
humility - arrogance
love - fear

     HeartHealth frames everything on a continuum, not a this or that, black and white, good and bad.

 “From the point of the pure heart, that is not separate from itself and what it feels, we can see almost all of human life as manifesting different degrees of uncaring, rejection, and denial of feelings. At one end of the spectrum we have the pure heart that cares totally and at the other, the sociopath and psychopaths who have clearly lost all capacity to feel, all capacity for empathy. And the rest of us are some where in-between.”

      If arrogance is insane and at the same time part of the basic nature of many people in society and government, a World Psychology that enlightens us to this basic fact needs to be really clear about this and include this in any plan or solution. How do we deal with arrogance? How do we deal with human darkness? These are important and crucial questions to be asking if we are looking for any kind of movement forward in the human race. Obviously if we take the insanity of arrogance as “accepted” behavior, meaning we do not really see it, being invisible and hidden behind the “normal” business as usual façade, we will not and can not do anything about it. Only a system of communication and listening that is potent enough to actually penetrate through the walls of the ego, through the barriers of separation and arrogance that maintains those walls and barriers, can we work with the bane of human existence.  

      The chapters on insanity are offered as feedback. What is feedback after all but people getting information essential for keeping their lives on track? In systems theory feedback means the exchange of information about how one part of the system is functioning with the understanding that one part effects all other parts of the system. This for the purpose of helping and guiding any particular part of the system that is going off course and providing that part with information to help it get back on course thus changing it for the better. In organizations, communication and feedback are the lifeblood of the system and the quality of that reflects most directly to the overall quality, efficiency, and heath of the group. People need feedback so they know if the job they are doing is going well or needs to be fine-tuned, upgraded, or redirected entirely. 

     It is important to look closely at human issues of insanity broadly defined as well as the insanity of arrogance because what is insane can become so common and accepted that it actually ends up defining the baseline of ‘normality.’ The normal thus becomes insane and in the realization of this we begin to have a chance of moving toward healing and sanity. As long as the forces of denial, ignorance and arrogance live on in the main body of humanity is as long as real hope remains dead. Thus the first step is to confront these things a most difficult thing to do. It would seem easier if this change could be demanded of only our leaders but where do they come from? They come from us, they are us, and all to often they represent the worst most arrogant of us.

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