"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.
“In certain other self-accusations he also seems to us justified, only that he has a keener eye for the truth than others who are not melancholic. When in his exacerbation of self-criticism he describes himself as petty, egoistic, dishonest, lacking in independence, one whose sole aim has been to hide the weaknesses of his own nature, for all we know it may be that he has come very near to self-knowledge; we only wonder why a man must become ill before he can discover truth of this kind.”
Almost as if it takes more than 5 years of self-reflection to be clear about ones wellbeing, and not a "woe is me" ways as well. https://archive.ph/LiGDo
This is a really interesting spin on Dunning-Kruger I hadn’t considered. Maybe there is a DK effect for suffering that leads people to exaggerate their hardship and cast about for someone to blame for what is ultimately a rather small helping of the human condition.
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.
“In certain other self-accusations he also seems to us justified, only that he has a keener eye for the truth than others who are not melancholic. When in his exacerbation of self-criticism he describes himself as petty, egoistic, dishonest, lacking in independence, one whose sole aim has been to hide the weaknesses of his own nature, for all we know it may be that he has come very near to self-knowledge; we only wonder why a man must become ill before he can discover truth of this kind.”
Brilliant. Thanks for the pointer.
https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Freud_MourningAndMelancholia.pdf
Word. If the mourning is too loud, it is more likely to be masochistic moaning instead. Dunning-Kruger of the self-reflective kind are worse than the ones regarding skill or knowledge. https://archive.ph/lf6pE https://infovores.substack.com/p/irrational-institutions-4/comment/11833422
Almost as if it takes more than 5 years of self-reflection to be clear about ones wellbeing, and not a "woe is me" ways as well. https://archive.ph/LiGDo
This is a really interesting spin on Dunning-Kruger I hadn’t considered. Maybe there is a DK effect for suffering that leads people to exaggerate their hardship and cast about for someone to blame for what is ultimately a rather small helping of the human condition.