Burning Question About Humility

[cactus12]

Hello, I'm new here. I couldn't figure out what topic to post this under, please forgive me.
Here is my quandry:

If nice = humble
If humble = not pride
If pride = self-estem
Then nice = not self-esteem

This has been driving me crazy. I refuse to make "niceness" or kindness part of my identity, because it would mean that I must continue to hate myself.

Thank you so, so much for any and all responses, it would be nice even just to hear that someone else has had this thought.

Cheers,
cactus12.

[Sy Borg]

Is self esteem dependent on pride?

Nearly all that we are stems from our evolutionary and cultural histories. Our individuality - including gifts of which we may be proud - is just the visible tip of the iceberg that we actually are which reached back to our earliest evolutionary history. From the start we have been endowed with the qualities handed down by survivors, all the way from microbe to human.

Just as scientists often note that they "stand on the shoulders of giants", in truth everyone has ancestral titans who made their lives possible. Such a perspective makes it easy to feel humbled, yet strengthened rather than enfeebled.We are the latest chapter of a grand tale and, unlike many, I think we are a long way from being the final chapter.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Hello, I'm new here. I couldn't figure out what topic to post this under, please forgive me.
Here is my quandry:

If nice = humble
If humble = not pride
If pride = self-estem
Then nice = not self-esteem

This has been driving me crazy. I refuse to make "niceness" or kindness part of my identity, because it would mean that I must continue to hate myself.

Thank you so, so much for any and all responses, it would be nice even just to hear that someone else has had this thought.

Cheers,
cactus12.

I think that kind of deduction is running underneath a lot of human behavior. And the more empathetic people are the ones who get controlled by it often. But those ideas are all without context. If someone asks me to teach them engineering, however cool I think that might be I need to be humble about my skill set with that. I think nice is a decent default. IOW unless someone give you reason to treat them otherwise, start with that. Or unless you get a pile of warning signals off the other person, that they may pull something. But having nice as a default, does not mean one has be nice in all contexts. What are you proud of? Who are you nice to and when? What is your self-esteem based on? Etc. If you are a rapist and have some kind of mental gymnastics to keep your self-esteem up, it's got a lot of lies in it.

[TheoDoesBurg]

While being humble does mean recognizing one's weaknesses, it does not mean one have to ignore one's strengths as well.
A humble astronomer concedes and listens when an economist say how space projects are costly, and how it should be funded.
But when a person say that the earth is flat, the humble scientist will still dispute them.

At least that is what I perceive when I hear people describe someone as being humble.
Humbleness is not the same as a lack of self-esteem. "Being humbled" merely means that you are being made to recognize what you are still lacking, not that you do not have any strengths, although it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking it as such.

Being nice is also the same thing, a person who does what others asks of them out of fear (of being punished, or being disliked) is not being nice. A nice person is one who knows he/she has the option to refuse, but decided to do otherwise, and be nice.

I hope this helps untangle your quandary a bit.

[Judaka]

Being nice doesn't mean you're humble, generally nice refers to very superficial things where you're not being challenged to be humble in the first place. I can smile, greet, welcome, give hospitality and all it shows is that I'm considerate and caring, however, I know many surgeons for instance who are very nice to their co-workers and patients but they are far from humble by any definition.

Being humble doesn't mean no pride either, it means identifying what you're proud of in a way that doesn't influence your behaviour to act or think in ways which are detrimental to others or invalidate the experiences and opinions of others.

[LuckyR]

Is you replace all of the equal signs with "similar to", then your equations will be more accurate and your conclusion can be different.

[Lone Wolf]

I had a dream that said, "You don't know the meaning of humility." When I woke, I looked it up in the dictionary and found that I did know the meaning, but then realized that while I know the definition, I am not humble. I am at times quite arrogant and/or pompous. My favorite example of an humble person is Roger Staubach who made the following statement following a college bowl in which his team lost. The Heisman trophy winner was asked what happened, he said, "We played a better team today." No excuses, no blame, just recognition of the other team's efforts.

[Sy Borg]

To the perspective of the Earth, each of our lives is a brief microscopic moving pimple in (not on) the surface. In context, this begs the question: are you are proud pimple? If you are a proud pimple, why? What raises you in value and importance over other momentary bumps in the Earth's crust?

All animals and plants, not just humans - are in the same boat. We are all born clueless and vulnerable, have a period of relative empowerment and then are destined to soon weaken, break down and have our components recycled. Some of us are proud of this.

Pride is a shield against the fear of being a "loser", a concept that acts as as a "whip" in human societies to drive one another to greater effort. The device may be effective as a spur to action but it's not truth. In a broader existential sense, there are no losers, only roles and players of varying influence.

Everyone is a loser - we all die. Everyone is a winner, playing their own small part in the construction of the Earth's developing forms, presumably to something far more complex and sophisticated than humanity.

[h_k_s]

Hello, I'm new here. I couldn't figure out what topic to post this under, please forgive me.
Here is my quandry:

If nice = humble
If humble = not pride
If pride = self-estem
Then nice = not self-esteem

This has been driving me crazy. I refuse to make "niceness" or kindness part of my identity, because it would mean that I must continue to hate myself.

Thank you so, so much for any and all responses, it would be nice even just to hear that someone else has had this thought.

Cheers,
cactus12.

@cactus12 has not been back to this website since he/she posted his query back in January of the present 2019 year.

So now we are simply speaking to each other about the issue, not to him/her.

[h_k_s]

Hello, I'm new here. I couldn't figure out what topic to post this under, please forgive me.
Here is my quandry:

If nice = humble
If humble = not pride
If pride = self-estem
Then nice = not self-esteem

This has been driving me crazy. I refuse to make "niceness" or kindness part of my identity, because it would mean that I must continue to hate myself.

Thank you so, so much for any and all responses, it would be nice even just to hear that someone else has had this thought.

Cheers,
cactus12.

Like all issues in philosophy, we must first provide definitions of the terms we are using before we can philosophize about anything.

I'm not so sure that @cactus12 has done this at all.

So I will speculate on what he/she may have meant originally.

Nice means pleasant to be around.

Humble means aware on one's weaknesses.

Pride means arrogant and haughty.

Self-esteem means aware and appreciative of one's own worth and accomplishment.

Ergo, being pleasant has nothing to do with self esteem.

This post is simply an attempt at sophistry.

So did he/she fool anybody? Did he fool you Greta .

I like your posts Greta . But I think you got trapped to begin with.

[Lone Wolf]

I have a problem with your assumption of a definition of nice = humble. While it is true that humble people are usually nice, it is not true that nice people are always humble. I know a lot of nice people who have no claim to humility. Ergo your original assumption is incorrect.

[Sy Borg]

This post is simply an attempt at sophistry.

So did he/she fool anybody? Did he fool you @Greta .

I like your posts @Greta . But I think you got trapped to begin with.

Cheers, hks. There hasn't been much of interest here of late so I was ready to leap into any notion even half interesting as task avoidance. Trapped or not, I'm still comfortable with my replies, esp. that we are transitory motile pimples on the surface of the Earth. Some pimples are humble, others are puffed up (inflamed?).

I agree with Wolf about nice people not necessarily being humble. Further, humble people aren't always nice, for instance, those who hold dim view of both themselves and of others. I'm Not OK /You're not OK (http://changingminds.org/explanations/b ... not-ok.htm) appears to be an attitude that was once uncommon but appears to increase with population density. Many today see humanity as a scourge. Many of the rest just see certain cultures as the scourge.

[Steve3007]

On the OP:

If nice = humble
If humble = not pride
If pride = self-estem
Then nice = not self-esteem

Obviously the error here is treating statements about ambiguously defined human characteristics as if they are precisely defined terms in a mathematical equation. If the above four proposed equalities were unambiguously and completely true then, in each one, one of the simple terms on either the right or left of the '=' sign would be of no use to the English speaking world. But that is not the case; they are of use. The fact that they are of use shows that the equalities are either wholly or partially false, simplistic or misleading.

"Pride", for example, is a human characteristic that is generally observed by most people with any experience of human nature to have both positive and negative aspects to it. It can be seen, depending on the details and the circumstances, as either a virtue or a vice but is, in itself, a relatively value-neutral word. "Self-esteem", on the other hand, is more of a value-laden word. It much more strongly implies virtue. The similarly value-laden word "arrogance" is on the same spectrum as both, but strongly implies vice.

Incorrectly asserting precise equality where there are in reality shades of meaning is a common way to progress, by gradual degrees, through those shades, to a conclusion that appears absurd. That is the error made in the OP.

Apologies that some or what I say here has already been said. This is just my take.

[h_k_s]

This post is simply an attempt at sophistry.

So did he/she fool anybody? Did he fool you @Greta .

I like your posts @Greta . But I think you got trapped to begin with.

Cheers, hks. There hasn't been much of interest here of late so I was ready to leap into any notion even half interesting as task avoidance. Trapped or not, I'm still comfortable with my replies, esp. that we are transitory motile pimples on the surface of the Earth. Some pimples are humble, others are puffed up (inflamed?).

I agree with Wolf about nice people not necessarily being humble. Further, humble people aren't always nice, for instance, those who hold dim view of both themselves and of others. I'm Not OK /You're not OK (http://changingminds.org/explanations/b ... not-ok.htm) appears to be an attitude that was once uncommon but appears to increase with population density. Many today see humanity as a scourge. Many of the rest just see certain cultures as the scourge.

I completely agree with your "pimple on the Earth" viewpoint @Greta .

I normally state this concept as "the ants, termites, and humans on the Earth … ."

There is a lot of pollution going on, so the viewpoint of humans as a scourge has some validity. (Note: "lot" is singular so it takes the singular verb "is" as in "a lot is … .")

Chernobyl has shown however that the Earth can get over anything that humans do to it.

Plastics polluting the oceans are a new concern.

Essentially humans drill for and pump up oil out of the ground, turn it into plastics, and then dump them somewhere on the surface. Lots of it go into the oceans. (Note: "Lots" is plural so it takes the plural verb "go" as in "they go".) I hope the oceans survive this scourge too.

Pollution is a poisoning of the land. It is a shameful thing.

Ants and termites are clean-up creatures and very beneficial to the Earth.

Humans are polluters on the other hand. Maybe a scourge as a result. But still pimples at present.

[Sy Borg]

We are very much like ants - colonial organisms that dominate our domain.

However, we are even more like blue-green algae - spreading colonies whose waste products are toxic to most other life. Cyanobacteria precipitated one of the most disruptive extinction events ever, the Great Oxygenation Event. The oxygen they produced was toxic to most other microbes at the time, which went extinct.

Yet, without the oxygen that polluted the Earth, multicellular life would not have been possible. Rather, it would have been endlessly locked in cycling unicellular organisms. Likewise, humans are changing the world from one based on cycling multicellular organisms to, I suppose, something much bigger and more complex again - perhaps superintelligent, autonomous networks.

Humans are not doing this to the Earth. Humans are the change agents being used by the Earth as it develops over time. Both growth and decay tend to be plateau-by-plateau processes rather than smooth progression or recession.