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On Empathetic Defects And Its Relationship To Arrogance
For people who have empathy, consideration for others becomes much easier. For people who have critical thinking skills, that empathy and consideration for others can be guided and filtered for making superior moral decisions. Arrogance hinders empathy, consideration for others, and critical thinking, as the arrogant tend to more frequently disregard the agency of others while they also care less about maintaining bridges and instead of maintaining them, they often just burn them. There are some people who are neurologically incapable of empathy (Often through brain damage), these people are not inherently bad people, it is only when they are also arrogant that such becomes a problem as critical thinking can easily enlighten one on the importance for the agency of others as well as the importance of building and maintaining bridges.
Only the arrogant can truly believe that they need only themselves for everyone has inadequacies as individuals and the capacity for potential growth is limited for each person as individuals have different strengths and weaknesses as well as different passions and motivations while our lifespans limit our possible headway in terms of meeting our full potentials. An arrogant person may mock the overall intelligence for someone based purely on the observation of a single area of that person's intelligence, but the reality is that intelligence is a matter of specialization and thus for every genius, there is an area to be found where that person is effectively a dunce. A truly arrogant person is more likely to suffer from the Dunning Kruger effect than they are likely to acknowledge all of their personal duncehoods.
When one uses empathy, the greatest use for it resides in the best process of moral reasoning we as human beings are capable of, while the second most common use for it resides in media immersion where we are better enabled to enjoy a form of media due to being able to empathize with the characters in said media. It would be intellectually arrogant of course to devalue that second mentioned use of empathy as it is often a key to much needed therapy for people, however it is otherewise irrelevant to the topic being discussed here. The moral reasoning I speak of is one where morality is determined through empathy and consideration for others guided and filtered by critical thinking for the end goal of minimizing harm and maximising merit (Will be referred to from here on as prime moral reasoning) Such is not a system for morality that arrogant people can adequately adhere to, as they tend to be too overconfident in their cognative abilities to be able to consistently think critically all the while their valuation of self is often too great to not be a hindrence on their ability to be considerate and empathetic towards others.
A common trend among significantly arrogant people is where they rely on a sense of morality defined by outdated set in stone guidelines that are either oddly vague, logically verifiable as to being harmful to others, or very oddly specific and often nonsensical when applied to modern times like not wearing garments of mixed fabric. Not surprisingly, it is through arrogance itself that they are able to rely on this psuedo-morality, and through reliance on such rather than prime moral reasoning that their capacity for empathy is able to atrophy as empathy is much like a muscle and will atrophy if not used. You may find yourself saying to yourself "It is through faith, not through arrogance that such people follow such for their sense of morality" however if you do find yourself saying such, then you have failed in abstaining from arrogance by not first asking the question of "What precisely is faith?".
By definition, faith is a complete confidence in a person or an ideology without the necessity for evidence. By definition arrogance is an overconfidence in one's abilities or assessment of self. Any state where someone has a complete confidence in something without the necessity for evidence is an overconfidence regarding one's cognative abiliy to ascertain the divides between fact, opinion, falsehoods, and reality. Hence it can be said with sufficient validity that faith is just a culturally encouraged form of intellectual arrogance. For some, it would be argued that it is not through faith/arrogance that such people believe in such psuedo morality, but through gullibility, but then one has failed once again in abstaining from arrogance by failing to ask what precisely gullibility is.
Gullibility is when someone has an overconfidence in their ability to assess the validity of the words spoken or written by another. Once again, arrogance is when someone has an overconfidence in their abilities or valuation of self. This of course means that once again we have an example of a culturally normalized form of intellectual arrogance, this time less extreme in terms of how normalized it is. Many people seem to believe that gullibility relates to innocence like that in which is held by a child, but the reality is that such is a matter of intellectual maturity in which is not held by a child. Further back in humanity's infancy, a less mature humanity began to define matters of what it means to mature into an adult, phisically, emotionally, and intellectually, but leaving the immature to define maturity is foolish without the expectation that said immature state would lead to defective reasoning and thus flawed standards on maturity. In short, yes, it could logically be argued that arrogance is a remnant of humanity's infancy that in many ways humanity has not matured enough to be able to recognize as a matter to relate to immaturity, particularly intellectual immaturity.
At the pinnacle of arrogant people there are those who have narcissistic personality disorder. No matter how much you try to explain to someone with narcissistic personality disorder that empathy and consideration for others are traits of the fittest in the scheme of survival of the fittest, they are highly unlikely to ever even so much as convincingly pretend to agree with you, as they have a substitute for such in the form of charisma, acquisition/use of power, and manipulation skills. Because everyone has inadequacies as individuals, building bridges and maintaining them by sincerely being empathetic and considerate of others and through one's actions proving one's consideration for others through actions and efforts (Helping hands are better than lips that pray). To someone who is arrogant and manipulative by nature such as someone with narcissistic personality disorder, it is much easier to simply lie, cheat and manipulate others into building bridges for them and the instability of those bridges is much preferable for them than the extra work that would come from the efforts required in being considerate and empathetic towards the needs of others in meaningful ways. Sadly for us and luckily for them, the commonality of arrogance in humanity itself is great enough for them to manipulate and use people effectively enough for the instabilities of the bridges built for them by those whom they manipulate to not even matter to them. The more arrogant people are in terms of their gullibility towards those whom use charisma money or power to manipulate, the more stable that manipulation will be and thus the less likely the bridges built through manipulation are to burn. If you wish not to be manipulated, then rid yourself of your arrogances.
More than anyone else, a narcissist with charisma will regard that charisma as a virtue, and through that charisma they will manipulate and often times get away with abuse. The reality is that the value of charisma is actually a societal vice as such makes it much easier for manipulators to manipulate through the use of such, especially when forms of arrogance are culturally normalized and encouraged as they are, as manipulation relies on deception and deception relies on enough people failing to ask questions. Meanwhile others with narcissistic personality disorder will acquire money and other means to flaunt power as a means to compensate for a lack of charisma, and often times they inherit this money and/or power rather than having to actually earn it. In other words, a lot of money can compensate for a lack of charisma in terms of manipulation, those with both charisma and power/money are therefore potentially a much greater threat than those with just one of the two, and history backs this up, though this is not to say that all people with charisma and/or money are threats to humanity as such is far from true.
When mob mentalities turn people against wrongfully marginalized people, there is always a beginning to that happening and the beginning is always the same. Firstly, through arrogance (Often in the guise of the faith label, sometimes in the guise of intuition), something false is assumed of an entire group of people and this falsehooded nature is why such marginalization is wrongful. Secondly often through charisma or the influence that comes with power people are influenced by the person who is arrogantly assuming those falsehoods to be true and valid, word spreads through the arrogance in the form of gullibility and thus is gradually pulled into the domain of mob mentality, and since arrogance is also an effective blindfold towards matters of consideration for others, some horrible things tend to happen once such gets to this point.
One man's efforts could have established a change to prevent all these things as his efforts if successful would have established a culture of inquiry through which culturally encouraged and normalized arrogance could not thrive. He was placed on trial for corrupting the youth as his promotion for inquiry also encouraged questioning the very existence of the gods believed in by that populace in that time and era, things were going downhill and he was scapegoated as the cause for it was believed to be that Zeus and other gods and goddesses they worshipped were upset and in need for them to be satiated. Though he was given the chance to argue his case, they insisted that he be punished while he insisted that he be rewarded, but rather than people choosing to ask the right questions regarding why things were truly going downhill for, they chose to scapegoat him and doubled down on him now insisting that he be put to death, in the end he drank a brew of poison hemlock and died as his death sentence. This man's name was Socrates and the way he met his end should sadden and disgust any decent person, but many simply do not know of his story. I strongly wish to right the wrong of his death as the ache of homesickness I feel is much in part due to his end and the level of influence he should have had on humanity's development that it did not have.
© Lokeal Votaro
Only the arrogant can truly believe that they need only themselves for everyone has inadequacies as individuals and the capacity for potential growth is limited for each person as individuals have different strengths and weaknesses as well as different passions and motivations while our lifespans limit our possible headway in terms of meeting our full potentials. An arrogant person may mock the overall intelligence for someone based purely on the observation of a single area of that person's intelligence, but the reality is that intelligence is a matter of specialization and thus for every genius, there is an area to be found where that person is effectively a dunce. A truly arrogant person is more likely to suffer from the Dunning Kruger effect than they are likely to acknowledge all of their personal duncehoods.
When one uses empathy, the greatest use for it resides in the best process of moral reasoning we as human beings are capable of, while the second most common use for it resides in media immersion where we are better enabled to enjoy a form of media due to being able to empathize with the characters in said media. It would be intellectually arrogant of course to devalue that second mentioned use of empathy as it is often a key to much needed therapy for people, however it is otherewise irrelevant to the topic being discussed here. The moral reasoning I speak of is one where morality is determined through empathy and consideration for others guided and filtered by critical thinking for the end goal of minimizing harm and maximising merit (Will be referred to from here on as prime moral reasoning) Such is not a system for morality that arrogant people can adequately adhere to, as they tend to be too overconfident in their cognative abilities to be able to consistently think critically all the while their valuation of self is often too great to not be a hindrence on their ability to be considerate and empathetic towards others.
A common trend among significantly arrogant people is where they rely on a sense of morality defined by outdated set in stone guidelines that are either oddly vague, logically verifiable as to being harmful to others, or very oddly specific and often nonsensical when applied to modern times like not wearing garments of mixed fabric. Not surprisingly, it is through arrogance itself that they are able to rely on this psuedo-morality, and through reliance on such rather than prime moral reasoning that their capacity for empathy is able to atrophy as empathy is much like a muscle and will atrophy if not used. You may find yourself saying to yourself "It is through faith, not through arrogance that such people follow such for their sense of morality" however if you do find yourself saying such, then you have failed in abstaining from arrogance by not first asking the question of "What precisely is faith?".
By definition, faith is a complete confidence in a person or an ideology without the necessity for evidence. By definition arrogance is an overconfidence in one's abilities or assessment of self. Any state where someone has a complete confidence in something without the necessity for evidence is an overconfidence regarding one's cognative abiliy to ascertain the divides between fact, opinion, falsehoods, and reality. Hence it can be said with sufficient validity that faith is just a culturally encouraged form of intellectual arrogance. For some, it would be argued that it is not through faith/arrogance that such people believe in such psuedo morality, but through gullibility, but then one has failed once again in abstaining from arrogance by failing to ask what precisely gullibility is.
Gullibility is when someone has an overconfidence in their ability to assess the validity of the words spoken or written by another. Once again, arrogance is when someone has an overconfidence in their abilities or valuation of self. This of course means that once again we have an example of a culturally normalized form of intellectual arrogance, this time less extreme in terms of how normalized it is. Many people seem to believe that gullibility relates to innocence like that in which is held by a child, but the reality is that such is a matter of intellectual maturity in which is not held by a child. Further back in humanity's infancy, a less mature humanity began to define matters of what it means to mature into an adult, phisically, emotionally, and intellectually, but leaving the immature to define maturity is foolish without the expectation that said immature state would lead to defective reasoning and thus flawed standards on maturity. In short, yes, it could logically be argued that arrogance is a remnant of humanity's infancy that in many ways humanity has not matured enough to be able to recognize as a matter to relate to immaturity, particularly intellectual immaturity.
At the pinnacle of arrogant people there are those who have narcissistic personality disorder. No matter how much you try to explain to someone with narcissistic personality disorder that empathy and consideration for others are traits of the fittest in the scheme of survival of the fittest, they are highly unlikely to ever even so much as convincingly pretend to agree with you, as they have a substitute for such in the form of charisma, acquisition/use of power, and manipulation skills. Because everyone has inadequacies as individuals, building bridges and maintaining them by sincerely being empathetic and considerate of others and through one's actions proving one's consideration for others through actions and efforts (Helping hands are better than lips that pray). To someone who is arrogant and manipulative by nature such as someone with narcissistic personality disorder, it is much easier to simply lie, cheat and manipulate others into building bridges for them and the instability of those bridges is much preferable for them than the extra work that would come from the efforts required in being considerate and empathetic towards the needs of others in meaningful ways. Sadly for us and luckily for them, the commonality of arrogance in humanity itself is great enough for them to manipulate and use people effectively enough for the instabilities of the bridges built for them by those whom they manipulate to not even matter to them. The more arrogant people are in terms of their gullibility towards those whom use charisma money or power to manipulate, the more stable that manipulation will be and thus the less likely the bridges built through manipulation are to burn. If you wish not to be manipulated, then rid yourself of your arrogances.
More than anyone else, a narcissist with charisma will regard that charisma as a virtue, and through that charisma they will manipulate and often times get away with abuse. The reality is that the value of charisma is actually a societal vice as such makes it much easier for manipulators to manipulate through the use of such, especially when forms of arrogance are culturally normalized and encouraged as they are, as manipulation relies on deception and deception relies on enough people failing to ask questions. Meanwhile others with narcissistic personality disorder will acquire money and other means to flaunt power as a means to compensate for a lack of charisma, and often times they inherit this money and/or power rather than having to actually earn it. In other words, a lot of money can compensate for a lack of charisma in terms of manipulation, those with both charisma and power/money are therefore potentially a much greater threat than those with just one of the two, and history backs this up, though this is not to say that all people with charisma and/or money are threats to humanity as such is far from true.
When mob mentalities turn people against wrongfully marginalized people, there is always a beginning to that happening and the beginning is always the same. Firstly, through arrogance (Often in the guise of the faith label, sometimes in the guise of intuition), something false is assumed of an entire group of people and this falsehooded nature is why such marginalization is wrongful. Secondly often through charisma or the influence that comes with power people are influenced by the person who is arrogantly assuming those falsehoods to be true and valid, word spreads through the arrogance in the form of gullibility and thus is gradually pulled into the domain of mob mentality, and since arrogance is also an effective blindfold towards matters of consideration for others, some horrible things tend to happen once such gets to this point.
One man's efforts could have established a change to prevent all these things as his efforts if successful would have established a culture of inquiry through which culturally encouraged and normalized arrogance could not thrive. He was placed on trial for corrupting the youth as his promotion for inquiry also encouraged questioning the very existence of the gods believed in by that populace in that time and era, things were going downhill and he was scapegoated as the cause for it was believed to be that Zeus and other gods and goddesses they worshipped were upset and in need for them to be satiated. Though he was given the chance to argue his case, they insisted that he be punished while he insisted that he be rewarded, but rather than people choosing to ask the right questions regarding why things were truly going downhill for, they chose to scapegoat him and doubled down on him now insisting that he be put to death, in the end he drank a brew of poison hemlock and died as his death sentence. This man's name was Socrates and the way he met his end should sadden and disgust any decent person, but many simply do not know of his story. I strongly wish to right the wrong of his death as the ache of homesickness I feel is much in part due to his end and the level of influence he should have had on humanity's development that it did not have.
© Lokeal Votaro
