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I
don't have nearly as much of a problem with arrogant
people now as I used to. I used to take their arrogance
personally, as if it meant something to me when an
arrogant person treated me as an inferior. Now, though, I
realize that arrogance is merely a mask for people who
feel even more inferior than I do. The only way they've
learned of compensating for their own insecurities is to
put others down, to try to make them feel like crap, so
that they can feel better themselves. Redfield touches on
this dynamic in The Celestine
Prophecy--by putting others down,
they're draining energy from them, and taking it for
themselves.
I don't give them the satisfaction any longer. An
arrogant person can't make me feel bad any more, because
it's so easy to see through them once you know that they're
faking it. They've put on this mask because they fear
that others will see through them, will understand that
no, they're not happy. I see arrogance as a sad state now,
a state in which people try to hide behind their money or
their breeding or their social standing or their
positions of "power," but a state in which they'll
never be able to let their true selves shine through.
The film
Regarding Henry
gives a glimpse of what could happen if one sort of
arrogance-- the power-based kind --were taken away, and a
man were to allow his own fundamental honesty shine
through. Of course we could enter into an hours-long
discourse about his diminished mental capabilities, but
we don't need to do so. Fundamentally, Henry (Harrison
Ford) becomes a happier man because he no longer needs to
hide behind the power of his position in order to make
himself feel better.
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It's interesting that Hollywood so often equates humility
with diminished mental powers. I read an interesting
column about the parallels between Regarding
Henry and Forrest
Gump, in which the author examined
the fact that two Hollywood heroes of the same year were
basically shown as not very intelligent, to be diplomatic. The beauty of these two films is in the lack of arrogance
of the characters, not in their mental abilities. Robin
Williams regularly makes films about nice men who are
doing their best to live life, without being arrogant. In
his films, the arrogant people are often shown as the
weak people they truly are. (The exception is Mrs. Doubtfire, in
which his character is so arrogant that he never sees the harm
he's caused his family, and even blames his current situation
on his wife, who stuck by him as long as she could through his
broken promises and lack of responsibility.)
In
the world of literature, possibly the most effective
arrogant character ever created is Ivan Ilych, in Tolstoy's
"The Death of Ivan Ilych." This is a man who
married because it was the right thing to do, who started
to stay out with his friends because his family started
annoying him, who loved the power of the bench (he was a
judge), but who comes to the end of his life and finally
admits to himself: It was all wrong. Everything he ever
did--his whole life--was wrong. His funeral, at which his
friends wonder who's going to get his job and his wife
complains that she won't be able to live on the pension
she'll receive, is incredibly painful. Ilych is very
similar to Dickens' Scrooge, but Scrooge gets a second
chance, an opportunity to change his ways. Ilych sees the light,
but only upon his death bed when it's too late to do anything
about it.
Be
arrogant if you wish. Look down on others and treat them
poorly, if you wish. But realize that if you do so, you're
only allowing your own inner weaknesses to shine through,
and you're not fooling anyone. Not the people around you,
who hold you in disdain, not the God who made you and
loves you and knows all about you, and not yourself.
And for those who must deal with arrogance on a regular
basis, please keep in mind that arrogant people treat you
poorly only because they're needier than you, and they
haven't yet admitted to themselves that they are needy. They need and deserve your compassion, not your anger.
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