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Is there any use for humility in the West now?

Hawkeye10 said:
By humility I mean what passes for humility now...the not speaking up....not standing up......not speaking truth to those who dont want to hear the truth because to do so is to make the willfully ignorant morons feel bad about themselves....it causes them to have "bad" emotions about their failure to learn.

I am firmly in the HELL NO! camp....as that sort of moronic behavior is why the West is dying.
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Yes, there is...Ecclesiastes 3:1-8...verse 7..."A time to be silent and a time to speak"...
 
Hawkeye10 said:
One listens because one wants to know.....humility is not required for that.

Do you have any better answers?
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The one who is not humble, who thinks he knows it all, does not listen...he thinks he already has all the answers...
 
Elvira said:
The one who is not humble, who thinks he knows it all, does not listen...he thinks he already has all the answers...
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Right, this was the original purpose of humility....we have a tendency to think that we know more than we do know, because of quirks in the Ego, humility was intended to be a prophylactic against that.

My point is that this turned cancerous....it became a general Prohibition against speaking up, those who do speak up with truth tend now to get labeled as full of themselves and are to be punished for not being humble..... which is actually a cover for shutting up those who make the ignorant uncomfortable about their ignorance because we dont want them to feel bad even if they have earned it....thus it is time for this idea of humility to get tossed overboard for now that the West is dying from lack of truth. We must prioritize.

I am not interested in those around me being humble, I am interested in those around me speaking as much truth as they can manage.
 
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Elvira said:
Yes, there is...Ecclesiastes 3:1-8...verse 7..."A time to be silent and a time to speak"...
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When the West is dying primarily from lack of truth telling telling the truth is essential.

Now is the time.
 
Praxas said:
You just aren't Zen enough to comprehend. Come back when you have the patience and understanding of Zen. right now you do not and therefore do not understand the simplistic of Zen.
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The question is not about me.

Please attempt to focus.
 
Drawdown said:
Speaking truth to those who dont want to hear the truth doesn't seem to work then....
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Noting that this thread is not about me that is a problem, which is why good teachers get the ground ready before planting ideas..... but when the West is dying from lack of Truth there must be more truth in the societal conversation.....there is an obligation to expose others to truth so that they at least have the option to recognize it...to learn. It is not unusual for people to come to the realization that they have been lied to, and to make adjustments, to for instance rededicate themselves to their education.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
Noting that this thread is not about me that is a problem, which is why good teachers get the ground ready before planting ideas..... but when the West is dying from lack of Truth there must be more truth in the societal conversation.....there is an obligation to expose others to truth so that they at least have the option to recognize it...to learn. It is not unusual for people to come to the realization that they have been lied to, and to make adjustments, to for instance rededicate themselves to their education.
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You won't be planting anything if you don't have a victory garden. The gestalt of the West has little to nothing to do with "truth".
 
Drawdown said:
You won't be planting anything if you don't have a victory garden. The gestalt of the West has little to nothing to do with "truth".
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Those who live in fantasy tend to die, the West did not become so successful without a supreme interest in following truth.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
In the East what we might call humility has to do with the condition of the Ego....is has nothing to do with some idiotic Prohibition on speaking the truth...and lets be clear....it is the lack of truth that is killing the West first and foremost.
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What makes you think humility is any way different in the West? There are plenty of people with false humility. That doesn't mean that humility is somehow different here, or that there isn't a robust tradition on the subject in the Western canon.
 
ashurbanipal said:
What makes you think humility is any way different in the West? There are plenty of people with false humility. That doesn't mean that humility is somehow different here, or that there isn't a robust tradition on the subject in the Western canon.
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Because I live here....all too often I see people speaking up trying to help only to be jammed for lack of humility. Now this is not humility as it was originally envisioned in the West, but this is the corrupted bad for us version of humility that we have now. Those who could help bring more truth to our lives are all too often punished for doing so, those who bring outside the conventional wisdom ideas to the table are now almost always punished for doing so, on the grounds that they lack humility, on the grounds that they are defective. The real reason for this I say is because Truth Tellers make those who have chosen to be willfully ignorant uncomfortable, because the willfully ignorant know somewhere with-in them that they have failed to follow truth, and that they should have done so.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
Right, this was the original purpose of humility....we have a tendency to think that we know more than we do know, because of quirks in the Ego, humility was intended to be a prophylactic against that.

My point is that this turned cancerous....it became a general Prohibition against speaking up, those who do speak up with truth tend now to get labeled as full of themselves and are to be punished for not being humble..... which is actually a cover for shutting up those who make the ignorant uncomfortable about their ignorance because we dont want them to feel bad even if they have earned it....thus it is time for this idea of humility to get tossed overboard for now that the West is dying from lack of truth. We must prioritize.

I am not interested in those around me being humble, I am interested in those around me speaking as much truth as they can manage.
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When you are asked, yes, speak the truth...
 
Hawkeye10 said:
When the West is dying primarily from lack of truth telling telling the truth is essential.

Now is the time.
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What truth exactly is not being told?
 
Elvira said:
When you are asked, yes, speak the truth...
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Speak truth asked or not I say, civilization is in decline and humanity is in big trouble, we need the wise and the bold to be spreading truth, not keeping quiet because the lessors are offended.

Standards of behavior always must change with the times, we no longer have the luxury of hoping that there will be willing students showing up to be taught, we know very well that most moderns are not interested in learning, look at how little they try.

Also, those who do want to learn, the people like me, would have a much easier time of it if they spoke up, if they were not waiting for me to come to them and ask them stuff.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
Those who live in fantasy tend to die, the West did not become so successful without a supreme interest in following truth.
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Those who live tend to die
 
Elvira said:
As is the world...
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The West at least, the systems of rejuvenation have failed, for reasons that are not clear to me.

I am not sure about the East, about how vital the East is....they are certainly more successful in recent times but China looks to me like it is headed for a dystopian nightmare that they intend to spread around the world, with them being in charge...it is hard for me to call that vitality.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
I am Zen, my mind was trained in the East....When I say West I mean the Western World....which is rapidly dying.
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It seems like much of the world is becoming less pure in terms of many traditionally identifying traits.

China seems ready to move past ping pong and embrace American Basketball.

The NBA seems ready to move past America and embrace China.

Things change...

Even the B1G has 14 teams. What's up with this stuff?
 
Hawkeye10 said:
Because I live here....all too often I see people speaking up trying to help only to be jammed for lack of humility. Now this is not humility as it was originally envisioned in the West, but this is the corrupted bad for us version of humility that we have now. Those who could help bring more truth to our lives are all too often punished for doing so, those who bring outside the conventional wisdom ideas to the table are now almost always punished for doing so, on the grounds that they lack humility, on the grounds that they are defective. The real reason for this I say is because Truth Tellers make those who have chosen to be willfully ignorant uncomfortable, because the willfully ignorant know somewhere with-in them that they have failed to follow truth, and that they should have done so.
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Well...if you're railing against false humility, sure, I agree. But it sounds like you're saying that there are truths that some people just know, those truths are of a political nature or are connected to the praxis of politics in some way (such as truths in education, medicine, ecology, etc. are so connected), but because those truths are outside the mainstream, their bearers are shouted down.

Well...again, I agree that such as that happens. Most of the ideas we accept today as true were once radical. I also agree that right now the many sides of the public discussion just aren't listening to each other, with few exceptions. At the same time, merely being outside the mainstream is no guarantee of being correct.

There are certain truths that I know, beyond the least doubt. I know that I love my wife and my daughter. I know that I exist, though as what I am uncertain. I know that there is something like a God, though It is only vaguely like anything that human beings (including this human being) can conceive. I know a few other things, but the rest are open to revision. If the mainstream is shouting people who know some truth down due to lack of humility, the proper response is not to respond in kind. Balance overcomes imbalance every. single. time. And though it may take a while, people will eventually recognize that those who are humble have done their epistemic due diligence, and will follow them.

The debates between Martin Luther and Johannes Eck are instructive in this point.
 
ashurbanipal said:
Well...if you're railing against false humility, sure, I agree. But it sounds like you're saying that there are truths that some people just know, those truths are of a political nature or are connected to the praxis of politics in some way (such as truths in education, medicine, ecology, etc. are so connected), but because those truths are outside the mainstream, their bearers are shouted down.

Well...again, I agree that such as that happens. Most of the ideas we accept today as true were once radical. I also agree that right now the many sides of the public discussion just aren't listening to each other, with few exceptions. At the same time, merely being outside the mainstream is no guarantee of being correct.

There are certain truths that I know, beyond the least doubt. I know that I love my wife and my daughter. I know that I exist, though as what I am uncertain. I know that there is something like a God, though It is only vaguely like anything that human beings (including this human being) can conceive. I know a few other things, but the rest are open to revision. If the mainstream is shouting people who know some truth down due to lack of humility, the proper response is not to respond in kind. Balance overcomes imbalance every. single. time. And though it may take a while, people will eventually recognize that those who are humble have done their epistemic due diligence, and will follow them.

The debates between Martin Luther and Johannes Eck are instructive in this point.
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You ignored the lead....my assertion that humility is now often redefined as "Shut your pie hole, you are spoiling this FantasyLand I live in and this upsets me", and that this has a lot to do with why we in the West are in so much trouble now.

Thanks for the decent post though, quality is certainly a problem around here.

:2wave:
 
Hawkeye10 said:
You ignored the lead....my assertion that humility is now often redefined as "Shut your pie hole, you are spoiling this FantasyLand I live in and this upsets me", and that this has a lot to do with why we in the West are in so much trouble now.
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I have not encountered that particular attitude, and some of my views are fairly radical. Or, let me rephrase: I've had plenty of people tell me to sit down and shut up, but it was never connected to humility per se. If you've encountered that attitude, and the person telling you to sit down and shut up was trying to connect their command to humility, then that is truly egregious, and I would agree that such an attitude is to be deplored.

Hawkeye10 said:
Thanks for the decent post though, quality is certainly a problem around here.

:2wave:
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I try. When I first joined back in 2005, there were a lot more posters making reasonable posts and listening to the other side. Somewhere around 2010-2011, things started to shift pretty rapidly to shorter posts, lots of insults, and very few instances of actual reasoned argument being posted. That said, I am sometimes guilty of such behavior myself. These are angry times, and I am not immune.
 
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