Earlier this year, I was asked to create a new course on Conflict Prevention & Resolution (CPR). Since then, I’ve been thinking a lot about humility and hubris. The hypothesis that I’m currently exploring is that much of our conflict stems from hubris: How we can arrogantly believe that we are somehow superior to another, that we know something that others might not, or that we are entitled to more than another.
I find this quite troubling because I sometimes fall victim to this toxic mindset as well: For example, I cannot comprehend why some people vote against their own self-interest. I bicker over how I think the kids should be raised. I rant against the nonsensical actions of the government, and so on. In each case, I (mistakenly) believe in the superiority of my views relative to that of another, without even seeing the complete picture. In more academic terms, it’s naïve realism at its finest.
In an era where almost everyone seems to have a strong opinion (and a platform to peddle them on), staying humble has somehow fallen out of fashion. There seems to be an unfortunate assumption that we must be loud (or obnoxious) to be heard, while being sensible gets you buried in the bottom of the bin by the algorithms. As if to prove this assumption, a disturbingly large percentage of people are idolizing charlatans, acting without any shred of humility and praying at the alter of aggressive individualism. Unless someone is salient enough, we process inputs passively and swipe to the next content if we are bored even for a second. Or worse, we can’t stand to open the news for the fear of triggering dismay, so we shut it all out. Steeped in this noxious culture, we are forgetting how to patiently listen to others with the intention and the will to better understand and to connect with one another.
C.S. Lewis once said that “humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less”, but when people feel unsafe or unheard, we tend to think more about ourselves. We start portraying conflicts in terms of me-versus-them, when what we need instead is to adopt a “we-and-us” mentality, because we are not fundamentally superior to any another. How we can get there, is by exercising our humility and listening better. I would advocate my CPR course as a potential catalyst as well, but instead, I’ll try to keep my hubris in check.
Mark Kawakami, assistant professor at the Faculty of Law