| When is a person, a group, a belief, or a nation clearly arrogant, and what does arrogant or arrogance mean in a neutral or literal sense of the word? I have a dictionary that is not the best in the world, but if I can at least find the Greek or Latin root, a definition should be possible. To arrogate (= ad rogare) is to claim or seize without right. We could say that arrogance is an attitude, emotion, or claim assuming superiority by the arrogant without the backing of reason, common sense, or natural right. The opposite of arrogance may be humility, but is humility an attitude or emotion backed by reason or common sense? Is humility really much "wiser" than arrogance? Is turning the other cheek wiser than demanding an eye for an eye? Or vice-versa? Without consulting a dictionary the average Joe knows what an arrogant person is. Someone who thinks he knows better than you do or simply feels superior, like the SS or the Jesuits, to name a few obvious secular and clerical groups that have done an awful lot of damage to humanity as a result of their "unsubstantiated" arrogance. Are we Americans as a group or nation arrogant? We do not think so, but when we ask non Americans, the consensus among "foreigners" is that Americans are braggers and boastful individuals who think that "everything in America is bigger and better". The image of the Ugly American resurrected. Is our surveillance or spying on China and other nations a matter of arrogance or a matter of natural self-defense? How likely is a scenario of China invading the United States? Is humility, a simple apology by a clearly superior power, America, wiser than arrogance, a refusal to bow, by that same superior power? The luxury of a superior power is that it can "lose face" to an inferior power and still come out a winner. John Van Huizum Acton, CA |
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