Very true but what if...what most of the people know is everything there is to know in this world? How do you resist not answering with anger to all the existing systems and people and opinions? I'm learning control right now. I rarely show any anger but there is a hell inside me that doesn't sleep. I don't even think it ever will. Thanks for answering but in reality sometimes silence feels like denying what and who you are. Raped by the world, as I call it.By remembering that THEY have the problem (arrogance, the delusion of knowing it all, etc), NOT you; and by realizing that what they are saying/doing, is an expression of emotional disturbance/imbalance on their part-its not YOUR problem, how they are-its THEIR problem. So, you must be emotionally detached when forced to deal with such unfotunates, and not make an investment (of your energy) in THEIR imbalance!
By remembering that THEY have the problem (arrogance, the delusion of knowing it all, etc), NOT you; and by realizing that what they are saying/doing, is an expression of emotional disturbance/imbalance on their part-its not YOUR problem, how they are-its THEIR problem. So, you must be emotionally detached when forced to deal with such unfotunates, and not make an investment (of your energy) in THEIR imbalance!
So to answer our friend's question (they say) when we deal with arrogant people we deal with the reflection of our own arrogance which we have to fix somehow. Not a walk in a park though to fix hidden issues....
Ok, but to be careful about is, and present another side...
Humility has to go both ways. Sometimes other people really do know more than us about some things, maybe even many things. Particularly if we are young. And we shouldn't forget that if we see somebody else as an "Arrogant Know It All" that's a judgment we're making on them, through our eyes. That's our interpretation of this person. It's not "the truth" about them. They aren't objectively, intrinsically "know it alls."
Maybe, sometimes, the Know It All has something of merit to say that we can take with us, and leave the rest of it behind...
I see your point and I understand that a lot of people who know more than me (and vice versa) and I know its a judgement, its just the arrogance that grinds my gears. If someone was humble with their knowledge and opinions I will listen, respect and admire them. But if the person is arrogant and obnoxious it oftentimes makes me frustrated, pissed and causes me to distance myself from that person. That doesn't mean I will ignore them or cast them off immediately. Or that they don't have anything of value to say. It just that it makes it harder to want to take anything from them or even listen to what they have to say. By the way my judgement is based on my truth not theirs. To be blunt and truthful, I don't care about their truth because mine will always be of higher value to me.
In my industry (academia) it's the exact opposite. To come off as humble with our knowledge and opinions is a death sentence. Pomposity IS our currency! By the way, I absolutely hate it. But I know the people I deal with daily aren't actually arrogant. They're actually quite the opposite. Always worried they won't be taken seriously - maybe even lacking in confidence - and so they have to cultivate this pomposity because it's the industry standard. It's the norm and the expectation.If someone was humble with their knowledge and opinions I will listen, respect and admire them. But if the person is arrogant and obnoxious it oftentimes makes me frustrated...
That's a quick road to an isolating and psychologically painful life of solipsism, my friend.By the way my judgement is based on my truth not theirs. To be blunt and truthful, I don't care about their truth because mine will always be of higher value to me.
Ok, but to be careful about is, and present another side...
Humility has to go both ways. Sometimes other people really do know more than us about some things, maybe even many things. Particularly if we are young. And we shouldn't forget that if we see somebody else as an "Arrogant Know It All" that's a judgment we're making on them, through our eyes. That's our interpretation of this person. It's not "the truth" about them. They aren't objectively, intrinsically "know it alls."
Maybe, sometimes, the Know It All has something of merit to say that we can take with us, and leave the rest of it behind...
Hi Nickidian,
Nice thoughts.
Annoyingly, I have two responses, just to keep the puzzle pieces up in the air...
First, when you say it's just the person's arrogance that grinds your gears, it's actually our judgements about another person's arrogance that I'm trying to suggest we should be humble about. I mean, I understand that every now and then you're going to run into somebody who's just an out-and-out jerk, but I actually suspect that's rarer than we think - an easy judgment like that is a rare luxury. More often it's a mis-match of norms, expectations and perceptions.
My Response: I should be humble about my judgement of someone’s arrogance. This is what I read from your words. Does this mean I must lower the importance of my judgement? Virtually reduce, decrease my judgement, a judgement made from careful observation. What for? Awareness of social norms?
Individuals are shaped far more powerfully (I'd say primarily) by the social norms they're exposed to in life than most of us realize (if you live, like I do, in a Western country where the social norms impress upon us the idea that we are all self-made individuals). Sometimes what we read as arrogance is to the other person the right way to act. For example, I'm not American but have lived in this country for quite a while now. The culture I came from values deference and humble self-presentation, and comparatively America values self-promotion. To my way of thinking, aggressive self promotion. So to my eyes, everybody in the US looks arrogant - and clueless to it! Are they actually, intrinsically, arrogant people - or do I have to be aware of different standards and ways of being compared to my own? As another example, you wrote:
In my industry (academia) it's the exact opposite. To come off as humble with our knowledge and opinions is a death sentence. Pomposity IS our currency! By the way, I absolutely hate it. But I know the people I deal with daily aren't actually arrogant. They're actually quite the opposite. Always worried they won't be taken seriously - maybe even lacking in confidence - and so they have to cultivate this pomposity because it's the industry standard. It's the norm and the expectation.
My Response: I don’t know anything about the academic world. Even so, to my understanding you must act pompous (arrogant) to be taken seriously. So in your profession you must be something you are not, virtually hate and are opposed to. Ok
A second thought: sometimes people aren't being arrogant, but they really do just know more than us, have more life experience in this area, etc. and they don't really need our response/ affirmation, etc. Sometimes people - especially older people, or people with degrees who have toiled hard for decades to become genuine world experts in a particular field of knowledge, or long-experienced astrologers - have earned that right. And that can look to us, through our eyes, like "arrogance."
My Response: This statement doesn’t really sound humble. I get that people can "know more" than us, have more life experience. But why don’t they need our response/affirmation. Because they know a lot and are comfortable enough in their knowledge that they can’t possibly be arrogant. If that is the case what is the point in being humble, the good humble definition, is courteously respectful. They know enough to not need input or an address back from someone. That sounds arrogant actually. A humble, courteously respectful person can always benefit from others responses.
So because someone is older and have a bunch of degrees in one particular subject they have the right to what? To know more than us on one particular subject? To be humble? To be arrogant?. This statement is confusing. I don’t think knowledge is measureable like that. I don’t think someone can know more than someone else. They can know about a lot of things (by just the fact they have been around longer and have more years/experiences on earth) and be educated. But education, degrees doesn’t make someone automatically intelligent and more knowledgeable than someone else. There are going to be things that this person doesn’t know or understand that the next one will know more about. It’s arrogant to assume that they have earned a right to not hear responses from people that know “less” then them.
Again, I realize this doesn't cover everybody. There are people out there who are just straight up jerks. But again, I think that's rare.
So I suppose, I realize just now as I type this, I'm actually trying to express an answer to your question. "How do we deal with arrogant types?" At least part of that answer, I'm trying to suggest, is to take an empathetic look at where there arrogance is coming from, and ask whether it's really strait up "arrogance" - is it really just a stain in their human character? - or is it something to do with how we read and evaluate what they're doing? I'm sure for many people we think of as arrogant they'd be hurt and surprised to find you think they're arrogant.
My Response: This is reasonable. Even so, oftentimes especially online we don’t have access to taking a look at where someone’s arrogance is coming from. We have our own careful judgements to rely on, and this is often based on various evidence of writings/responses by this person that we have concluded to be arrogant.
Again, not all the time. But probably more often than we think.
That said, to end this post I'm going to turn around and be an arrogant know-it-all.
That's a quick road to an isolating and psychologically painful life of solipsism, my friend.
And I say I'm being a "know-it-all" here because I'm using the word "solipsism" that I assume isn't familiar to a lot of people. But I am trying to communicate an idea and that word best encapsulates it, so if it's unfamiliar please do look it up...
(See... That sounds arrogant, but from my perspective I'm just trying to be helpful...)
Very true but what if...what most of the people know is everything there is to know in this world? How do you resist not answering with anger to all the existing systems and people and opinions? I'm learning control right now. I rarely show any anger but there is a hell inside me that doesn't sleep. I don't even think it ever will. Thanks for answering but in reality sometimes silence feels like denying what and who you are. Raped by the world, as I call it.
I find that my favorite, though maybe not my safest, method for dealing with arrogant jerks(once I'm absolutely certain they're full of sh*t, that is) is to mirror back their "vibes" with an equal amount of arrogance, then throw in a good heap of condescention and ridicule. As I have a well-aspected Mercury for my moon ruler, the ridicule part comes especially easily. I don't discuise it, either. If you aren't quite sure if I just insulted you, I didn't. Like most Sag-ascendents, I have all the subtlety of an atom bomb.
Although this coping mechanism has caused some big complications with social life, I find that the benefit is well worth it; my Capricornian stellium can result in some pretty vengeful emotions, and I prefer not to give those emotions the opportunity to develop.
Yanel, you said:
Raped by the world? Look on the bright side, at least you got laid! All joking aside, I feel like you need an outlet for that insomniac inner hell as soon as possible. I'd like to get an opportunity to look at your chart, and see if I can pinpoint the best choice for your rage outlet. For me it's mockery, as I previously described, but everyone's different. A description of exactly what you're upset about would also help. Just send me a private message contining the specified requirements at your earliest convenience. This goes for everyone on the forum. I could use the experience with chart readings, and I love to help others work out their problems. Confidentiality from other forum members is guaranteed, though the NSA is much harder to safeguard against so please don't discuss any thoughts of assassination or genocide with me.