"Moralists are constantly complaining that the favorite failing of our age is arrogance.
In a certain sense that is true: in fact everyone believes himself better than his neighbor and no one agrees to obey his superior. But in another that is quite false: for this same man who tolerates neither subordination nor equality, nonetheless has so low an opinion of himself that he thinks he is born only to indulge vulgar pleasures. He readily wallows in mediocre longings without daring to tackle any lofty projects; indeed, he can scarcely conceive of them.
Far, therefore, from believing that one should recommend humility to our contemporaries, I should like us to strive to give them an enlarged idea of themselves and their kind. Humility is far from healthy for them. What they most lack, in my view, is pride. For that failing I would readily relinquish several of our trivial virtues."
Jan 20, 2022·edited Jan 20, 2022Liked by Age of Infovores
The observation that depressed people are actually seeing themselves quite accurately was also made by Freud in his essay "Mourning and Melancholia." Part of the puzzle of "melancholia" (i.e. depression) is that it is a situation where truthfulness coincides with mental illness.
My favorite Alexis de Tocqueville quote
"Moralists are constantly complaining that the favorite failing of our age is arrogance.
In a certain sense that is true: in fact everyone believes himself better than his neighbor and no one agrees to obey his superior. But in another that is quite false: for this same man who tolerates neither subordination nor equality, nonetheless has so low an opinion of himself that he thinks he is born only to indulge vulgar pleasures. He readily wallows in mediocre longings without daring to tackle any lofty projects; indeed, he can scarcely conceive of them.
Far, therefore, from believing that one should recommend humility to our contemporaries, I should like us to strive to give them an enlarged idea of themselves and their kind. Humility is far from healthy for them. What they most lack, in my view, is pride. For that failing I would readily relinquish several of our trivial virtues."
The observation that depressed people are actually seeing themselves quite accurately was also made by Freud in his essay "Mourning and Melancholia." Part of the puzzle of "melancholia" (i.e. depression) is that it is a situation where truthfulness coincides with mental illness.