Arrogance & Pride in Stoicism | Q&A #4 | June 2019

Hello everyone, welcome to the QA of June 2019! How are you all doing? Man, oh man, it's been so hot the last few days in the Netherlands. I understand why they take afternoon naps in some warmer countries because when it's above 30 degrees outside, you can't really do anything, at least not here. Nevertheless, I've been looking at the comments again and selected a few nice ones for this month's Q&A, which is the fourth edition already.

In this video, I will talk about pride and arrogance in stoicism. First of all, thank you, Temple, for becoming a supporter on Patreon! Very much appreciate it. I want to dedicate this video to a question from one of my Patreon supporters named Huang Saman about pride and arrogance in stoicism. It was quite a detailed question and enough food for thought to dedicate one video to.

Here's the question and a quote: "I'm very fond of this philosophy, but I also consider you military value because of this. I think, and I include myself, stoicism can be bound to arrogance. I'm sure you know what I mean. Stay away from the common or vulgar topics. Determining someone that insults you is out of ignorance, not getting offended by disloyalty or ill-will. You are better than them. It's like there's a very thin line between virtuosity and arrogance as this way of thinking often compares itself to the rest of the world, encouraging feelings of superiority and to accept ignorant or imperfections in others. Who am I to be that condescending? I feel myself often trapped in these thoughts. I often don't consider a woman as worthy of me because of her beliefs, her way of thinking, her interests, and I hate doing that. It pulls me away from most people. So I guess the first question of mine is: how can you find good balance between potential arrogance hidden in stoicism and humility in the contemporary era?"

First of all, once again, I want to thank you for this amazing question about the phenomenon that turns almost every spiritual, philosophical, or religious pursuit. The question is challenging, and I hope that my answer can live up to the profundity of it.

Now, the first thing that comes to mind when I read your question is something called spiritual pride, which we see happen very often. It's the classical example of someone embarking on a spiritual journey and feels superior to others as a consequence. For example, we see a contempt ingrained within religious communities towards the non-believers that are seen as merely lost souls to actual wicked people that we should stay away from as far as we can.

Also, we see spiritual pride among practitioners towards one another - which transforms what could be a spiritual experience into a game of one-upmanship. These people say, "Look, I'm more enlightened than you, I'm more God-loving than you, I'm more grateful than you, I'm meditating more than you." In the same way, Stoics could say to each other, "I'm more stoic than you." If one lives his or her spiritual life in that way, yes, I think there's a degree of arrogance involved. It's just the ego telling a story and makes the practice of spirituality nothing different from being, let's say, a buffed bodybuilder that takes pride in the ability to bench more in a weight room than others or taking pride in having a more expensive car than your neighbors.

I'm not saying that this is wrong; it's just that I don't think that this is what any spiritual practice is about. Nonetheless, people tend to make everything a competition, or at least a way to distinguish themselves from others and feel better than others. Again, it's the ego at work. The ego is always competing with other egos and only looks at the world as better or worse, inferior or superior, etc. It's a never-ending cycle, and I think that a philosophy like stoicism could actually be a vessel to weaken the ego and be more compassionate and humble.

Marcus Aurelius, for example, if you read the "Meditations", you will see that he is a very humble man, especially for an emperor. He selflessly sacrifices himself for the greater good and actually wants us to not be prideful but virtuous instead. I've got this part from a website called the Daily Stoic, and I quote: "This idea that humility kills dangerous pride is at the core of stoic philosophy. Marcus Aurelius was constantly humbling himself so the purple cloak of his emperorship didn't go to his head. Seneca experimented with poverty so his wealth didn't change him or become a burden. Cato would walk outside bareheaded and barefoot, an appearance far below his station, so he wasn't corrupted by success and power."

As far as I understand, you say that stoic ideas like staying away from the common or vulgar topics, determining someone that insults you is out of ignorance, not being offended by disloyalty or ill will somehow implies that quote-unquote, you are better than them. Well, I don't think this is necessarily the case. It really depends on how you see it.

You could stay away from common or vulgar topics because we think that people and the topics they talk about are beneath us. I admit that when you read the "Enchiridion", it acts as if he indeed speaks from a superior position with contempt towards the vulgar. I don't know if this was the case, but if this was the case, I would say yes, there is indeed a degree of arrogance involved.

However, we could also look at the situation from a place of wisdom. If we hang around long enough with people that only talk about sex, Netflix, Tinder, and drink beer while they are doing so, for example, we eventually become those people. Now, at some point, let's say you discover that this life is making you miserable. It could be the booze; it could be the pointless topics; it could be both. You see that these people aren't really going anywhere in their lives and that you don't want to be one of them.

Instead of numbing the mind with alcohol every night, you want clarity to read, to work on a business, to do something good for society, etc. You realize that life takes away second after second, so you don't want to spend so much time discussing Kim Kardashian or sports on TV. So is it because you feel better than those people that you stay away from them, or because you want to live a better life? Because their way of living, the common way, makes you miserable. I think these are two different things.

Also, what Epictetus points out is that we should stay away from vulgar topics if you want to be philosophers. I quote: "You must cultivate either your own ruling faculty or externals and apply yourself either to things within or without you. That is, be either a philosopher or one of the vulgar." Indeed, from this statement, we see that the philosopher sets himself or herself apart from the common people.

Epictetus describes the vulgar person as someone who isn't wise, someone who relies on these external things. He describes it at the beginning of the "Enchiridion". This isn't good because according to the Stoics, we should focus on the things that are within our control and not the things that are not in our control.

Now, here's the thing with arrogance: arrogance is an emotion that comes from relating to other people that aren't within our control. Thus, when we engage in spiritual pride and focus more on feeling better than the vulgar instead of keeping our attention to our own faculties, I think that we actually aren't doing stoicism the right way. In this case, being stoic has become just another badge of honor to elevate ourselves above other people instead of improving our own position in the world.

So by being arrogant, we already make the mistake to measure ourselves to other people. It's the "Look at me, I'm a stoic, and therefore I'm better than you", which is nothing more than a covert way to achieve a certain degree of reputation among other people. Reputation is outside of our control, so this shouldn't be the focus. When someone insults you, saying that this person does that because of ignorance doesn't have to mean that this person is inferior.

It's simply the observation that insulters either have an opinion about something that they don't know about or that the insult is a product of not having their own faculty in order. It doesn't mean that you're better than them. I just see it as a human flaw that we all have. In a more compassionate way, such a stance is more acceptance-based instead of fault-finding.

So to answer your question: how can you find good balance between the potential arrogance hidden in stoicism and humility in the contemporary era? Now that we have explored potential arrogance hidden in stoicism, I think that the solution is very simple: don’t be arrogant; be humble.

In regards to judgments about other people, I would say that there's a difference between stating the facts in an objective manner and judging. Indeed, I think it's better to avoid the latter. Personally, I see that I've got many flaws myself, so who am I to judge about the flaws of others? Then it's not up to me. What's up to me is my own faculty.

In the contemporary era, it's difficult to be a philosopher in the way that Epictetus describes. It's a bit extreme. I think that most people nowadays are vulgar to a certain degree, and avoiding them all may not be the best idea. Arrogance will only push people away. By replacing arrogance with humility, we might see that no matter how vulgar someone is, there's always something about them that we can admire, even if it's just a fact that they've been able to cope with life, especially because their lives aren't blessed with stoic philosophy.

So that's it for the public Q&A in the patron edition. I respond to a selection of comments concerning the following topics: the Stoics and free will, stop caring what others think, inner peace and hateful comments, being ugly, and walking away from toxic people.

Thank you for watching! [Music] [Music] You.