Comments on: The Virtues: Be Humble

By: Contest Winner

Contest Winner — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:57:46 +0000

I agree with Blacksun. If winning isn't everything, they wouldn't keep scores :)

By: Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 06:24:42 +0000

Good post, Ebonmuse. With a bit more humility of the type you describe, those around us would lose the justification for much of the religious violence in which they engage.

Your concept of "selfless competition" reminds me of one of the "cardinal virtues" presented by Walter Kaufmann in his (now out-of-print) book, Faith of a Heretic. He calls it "humbition":

"The first lacks any single name but is a fusion of humility and aspiration. Humility consists in realizing one’s stark limitations and remembering that one may be wrong. But humility fused with smugness, with complacency, with resignation is no virtue to my mind. What I praise is not the meekness that squats in the dust, content to be lowly, eager not to stand out, but humility winged by ambition. There is no teacher of humility like great ambition. Petty aspirations can be satisfied and may be hostile to humility. Hence, ambition and humility are not two virtues: taken separately, they are not admirable. Fused, they represent the first cardinal virtue. Since there is no name for it we shall have to coin one-at the risk of sounding humorous: humbition… Meekness says: Judge not, that you be not judged! . . . Humbition replies: Judge, that you may be judged!"

I wrote more about Kaufmann's ideas regarding morality at Dangerous Intersection: http://dangerousintersection.org/?p=887

By: Ebonmuse

Ebonmuse — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 01:57:26 +0000

The point of competition is to win, yes, and to prize that winning when it occurs. I don't think the point is to gloat. Unless the competitors are so mismatched as to make the outcome a foregone conclusion, in which case there's no reason to take pride in winning, there will be an unavoidable element of contingency in every victory. However the contest turned out, it could have gone differently. That alone, I believe, is sufficient reason both for the victors not to congratulate themselves too extravagantly, as well as for the losers not to take their loss too badly. And when the contest is to achieve something of importance - a scientific breakthrough, say - then everyone has a reason to be glad about the outcome, even if they're not the ones who directly brought it about.

By: BlackSun

BlackSun — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 04:26:00 +0000

Everything else I agree with. This statement seems self-contradictory:

I propose is a spirit of selfless competition, one that strives to outdo others in virtue and achievement yet takes the same satisfaction no matter who the winner is.

What is the point of good and friendly competition, if not to win? And when winning, what is the point if not to take pride, and even gloat a little bit?

This process creates the incentive for the guy you beat to win the next time. If everyone feels good when they win, we all ultimately win.

By: anti-nonsense

anti-nonsense — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 23:32:30 +0000

excellent post Ebonmuse, I must admit that this is one of the things I struggle with, I have a hard time sometimes keeping things into perspective and reminding myself that just because people don't agree with me about the way things ought to be doesn't mean they are bad people or stupid. I think it's good for all of us to be reminded on occasion that the universe existed for a long time before our planet did, and that our planet existed for a long time before our species did, and our species has existed for quite a while before we did, and all these things will exist for a long time after we are dead (hopefully) so we shouldn't feel like the universe exists for our sake because it doesn't exist for any reason, it just is.