Self Confidence and Empowerment vs Arrogence, an Exploration

What do you consider the difference is between empowered self confidence and arrogence? The two can look remarkably similar and I am not sure there is a true difference, but more of an individual bias in interpretation in many cases. Yet I can think of some instances of arrogence that shows without self confidence and empowerment. What is your take on it?

The devil hates being mocked, is a saying I heard recently. I think arrogance blocks empowerment out of the picture, so a thumbrule is - is the person willing to learn, or are they arrogant, i.e, thinking they already have it all learnt.

melodiccolor wrote:What do you consider the difference is between empowered self confidence and arrogence? The two can look remarkably similar and I am not sure there is a true difference, but more of an individual bias in interpretation in many cases. Yet I can think of some instances of arrogence that shows without self confidence and empowerment. What is your take on it?

Self-confidence is good and arrogance is bad because...

Self-confidence leads to not being passive, and instead being assertive. Passive is bad, assertive is good. (Aggressive is bad too because its coercive. Note that passivity is coercive too, but its coercion done to oneself where aggressiveness is coercion done to other people.)

Self-confidence is great as long as the person continues to be skeptical of his ideas/skills. If he crosses over to the point of no longer doubting his own ideas much, then this is arrogance.

Arrogance is bad because it leads to complacency, which is a sort of passivity. This sort of passivity causes one to make more mistakes.

Self-confidence is great as long as the person continues to be skeptical of his ideas/skills. If he crosses over to the point of no longer doubting his own ideas much, then this is arrogance.

This is a good point, it often shows in arrogance, in thinking your way of seeing things is the only correct one. It even shows in those willing to learn if they discard anything that is not in furtherance of a point of view and/or agenda.

I think a difference between arrogence and empowered self confidence is that the arrogent one needs to control in some way wheras the empowered one does not.

melodiccolor wrote:I think a difference between arrogence and empowered self confidence is that the arrogent one needs to control in some way wheras the empowered one does not.

That's a good way of summing it up.

Self confidence, being confident in one's self, trusting yourself enough to just go with what you feel. I suppose Empowerment would be the same thing then?

Arrogance however, arrogance is not listening to others if they tell you, you are wrong due to a fear or a simple pridefulness. Self confidence you'd not be shaken when someone says 'hey your wrong' and instead listen to them, consider their thoughts, and use them. Arrogance, you would tend to ignore them, as they would be considered wrong to you.

I agree. Those who are arrogant are not generally open to being challenged or presented with other observations.

An arrogant person refuses to see their own limitations. You can understand what your own limitations and still have a great deal of confidence. You can admit both what your strengths and weaknesses are. If you simply take it for granted you don't have any weaknesses and possess every strength, you will tend to rest on your laurels and neglect to work on the weak spots you've failed to identify to begin with, which will really hinder your growth.

rombomb wrote:
Self-confidence is great as long as the person continues to be skeptical of his ideas/skills. If he crosses over to the point of no longer doubting his own ideas much, then this is arrogance.

I think I understand what you mean, but I don't think this is the right way to put it. "Skeptical" has a negative connotation. If you look at the synonyms from Merriam Webster, you get:

disbelieving, distrustful, doubting, incredulous, mistrustful, negativistic, questioning, show-me, suspecting, suspicious, unbelieving

I don't believe this is healthy. Self confidence means that you trust your ideas and skills. You know them, but you need to also recognise your limitations. Being self confident without being arrogant means being ready to accept the fact that you may be wrong, or that someone else has a better way, or more knowledge...but this does not mean that you have to doubt your ideas. At some point in life/career you can gain enough knowledge to know that you know! That does not make you arrogant. Assuming you are superior in knowledge to others without really knowing that you are is arrogant...and really, why would you want to make such an assumption? Chances are you may well be wrong.

I find it interesting that everyone is focusing on arrogant and little on empowerment.

Dreamspace, that's a good point on one of the differences between the two. When you are empowered you are not threatened by areas you perceive as weak. They simply are part of the mix and you find little need to be perfect.

melodiccolor wrote:What do you consider the difference is between empowered self confidence and arrogence? The two can look remarkably similar and I am not sure there is a true difference, but more of an individual bias in interpretation in many cases. Yet I can think of some instances of arrogence that shows without self confidence and empowerment. What is your take on it?

Empowered self confidence does not assume superiority over others. Arrogance does.

frmthhrt wrote:

melodiccolor wrote:What do you consider the difference is between empowered self confidence and arrogence? The two can look remarkably similar and I am not sure there is a true difference, but more of an individual bias in interpretation in many cases. Yet I can think of some instances of arrogence that shows without self confidence and empowerment. What is your take on it?

Empowered self confidence does not assume superiority over others. Arrogance does.

True. But it is also easy to assume someone is being arrogant if they really do know more about an area or have a wide range of interests and like to share; many assume this when that is the case. The empowered person will listen and learn from others just as readily.

True.

Humility does go a long way toward tempering perceived arrogance...

I just had a thought about this in terms of Mel's thread about taking responsibility for our lives., and how every one of our actions has a benefit and a cost. Self-confidence and empowerment is trusting ourselves that we are making the best decisions for ourselves, having confidence that the benefits of our actions outweigh the costs to us, and accepting responsibility for any costs. Arrogance is blaming others when we want the benefits of a certain action without being willing to "pay the piper", so to speak.

I fully agree. Not only arrogant people do this however, about blaming when things don't go their way, but it is one way that expresses itself.

A good definition of using power positively in self empowerment: Stepping into one's true power with compassion comes from first of all fully loving and believing in oneself, fully trusting that. Once you do, there is no reason to not fully step into it and use it wisely. You just trust that you will, trust your sense of where the line is and trust your decisions. The fear of failure, damage or great responsibility simply fades away.

rombomb wrote:

melodiccolor wrote:What do you consider the difference is between empowered self confidence and arrogence? The two can look remarkably similar and I am not sure there is a true difference, but more of an individual bias in interpretation in many cases. Yet I can think of some instances of arrogence that shows without self confidence and empowerment. What is your take on it?

Self-confidence is good and arrogance is bad because...

Self-confidence leads to not being passive, and instead being assertive. Passive is bad, assertive is good. (Aggressive is bad too because its coercive. Note that passivity is coercive too, but its coercion done to oneself where aggressiveness is coercion done to other people.)

Self-confidence is great as long as the person continues to be skeptical of his ideas/skills. If he crosses over to the point of no longer doubting his own ideas much, then this is arrogance.

Arrogance is bad because it leads to complacency, which is a sort of passivity. This sort of passivity causes one to make more mistakes.

Can I ask you rombom why you feel a person should continue to remain skeptical of his ideas and skills? If you share your ideas and skills, do you live in a space of doubt yourself when you share....like remain open to other ideas and skills that might change your own.....to help you see a better idea or skill that might be better to the goal you are seeking?

If not would you consider yourself arrogant when you are not being skeptical in yourself?

Alethia wrote:Can I ask you rombom why you feel a person should continue to remain skeptical of his ideas and skills? If you share your ideas and skills, do you live in a space of doubt yourself when you share....like remain open to other ideas and skills that might change your own.....to help you see a better idea or skill that might be better to the goal you are seeking?

If not would you consider yourself arrogant when you are not being skeptical in yourself?

Nobody is infallible, so of course you need to always question yourself and what you know. Anything which is capable of being explained through logic, reason and evidence can always be challenged and upended in the face of new evidence or crisper reasoning.

If you're talking about what it is which is important to you, your values, then this is a different matter. You don't need to have any evidence to support your opinions, and you can speak quite confidently in what you think is good or motivates you.

melodiccolor wrote:I think a difference between arrogence and empowered self confidence is that the arrogent one needs to control in some way wheras the empowered one does not.

Control of what? Of people? Or of the "flow" of discussion? Or something else?

Havonej wrote:Self confidence, being confident in one's self, trusting yourself enough to just go with what you feel. I suppose Empowerment would be the same thing then?

I think melodicolor meant self-confidence and empowerment as one concept. I think she meant that a person is empowered because of confidence in himself.

BTW, I don't agree with the concept of trust:

Trusting X means not doubting X, or irrationally believing X. It means believing that X is true without reasons.

Distrusting X means irrationally believing that X is false. It means believing that X is false without reasons.

Havonej wrote:
Arrogance however, arrogance is not listening to others if they tell you,

In other words, if someone presents you with an idea that contradicts your idea, do you consider it? Or do you reject it without reason? If you reject it without reason, this is an irrational way to determine the truth, and often people do this because of their arrogance. This is a bad approach because it arbitrarily chooses which idea is true.

Havonej wrote:
you are wrong due to a fear or a simple pridefulness. That is one cause of arrogance, but there are others.

I don't understand how arrogance can be due to fear. Fear of what? Fear of being wrong in front of a social group and of the resulting social punishment? Or something else?

Havonej wrote:
Self confidence you'd not be shaken when someone says 'hey your wrong' and instead listen to them, consider their thoughts, and use them.

Right. In other words, if someone presents you with an idea that contradicts your own, and if you lack self-confidence, then you would reject your idea without reason, thus accepting their idea without reason. This is a bad approach because it arbitrarily chooses which idea is true.

Havonej wrote:
Arrogance, you would tend to ignore them, as they would be considered wrong to you.

Right. And its being considered wrong without reason. Its an arbitrary method of determining the truth, which is why its a bad method.

Dreamspace wrote:An arrogant person refuses to see their own limitations. You can understand what your own limitations and still have a great deal of confidence. You can admit both what your strengths and weaknesses are. If you simply take it for granted you don't have any weaknesses and possess every strength, you will tend to rest on your laurels and neglect to work on the weak spots you've failed to identify to begin with, which will really hinder your growth.

Right. Note that when I say that one should doubt his ideas, by "ideas" I'm including one's methods/skills/abilities. If he takes it for granted (aka assumes) that his methods/skills/abilities are perfect, then he will not look for the weaknesses (aka mistakes) in his methods/skills/abilities, thus causing him to not improve his methods/skills/abilities.

Its important to note that "arrogant person" is an approximation. No one is arrogant about *every* single idea in their minds. They are arrogant about some things and not others, e.g. a physicist might be arrogant about his idea of how a certain type of physics problem should be approached, when in reality he's wrong because there's an easier way that hasn't yet been invented for another 100 years, or his own student created a better way but the professor rejected it without reason because of his arrogance.

frmthhrt wrote:

rombomb wrote:
Self-confidence is great as long as the person continues to be skeptical of his ideas/skills. If he crosses over to the point of no longer doubting his own ideas much, then this is arrogance.

I think I understand what you mean, but I don't think this is the right way to put it. "Skeptical" has a negative connotation. If you look at the synonyms from Merriam Webster, you get:

disbelieving, distrustful, doubting, incredulous, mistrustful, negativistic, questioning, show-me, suspecting, suspicious, unbelieving

I don't believe this is healthy. Self confidence means that you trust your ideas and skills. You know them, but you need to also recognise your limitations. Being self confident without being arrogant means being ready to accept the fact that you may be wrong, or that someone else has a better way, or more knowledge...but this does not mean that you have to doubt your ideas. At some point in life/career you can gain enough knowledge to know that you know! That does not make you arrogant. Assuming you are superior in knowledge to others without really knowing that you are is arrogant...and really, why would you want to make such an assumption? Chances are you may well be wrong.

Exactly! "Chances are you may well be wrong" is the reason that one should doubt (aka be skeptical of) his ideas. I think our disagreement is superficial, not substantive. I think our disagreement is due to words, not ideas. So, to help us agree on this, I suggest that we both don't use the words that we are disagreeing over, e.g. skeptical.

I noticed that you didn't mention the fact that I said "doubt". Do you disagree with this one too?

I see that you like the "trust" concept. I don't. But I bet that if we agreed on what trust means, that we would end up agreeing on the overall subject of "doubting/being-skeptical of one's ideas".

I think trust means this:

Trusting X means believing that X is true without having a reason that its true.

Distrusting X means believing that X is false without having a reason that its false.

You might say that trusting a specific skill you have is good. But I'd say its bad because it means believing that your skill is perfect, meaning that you won't look for flaws, which means you won't improve your skill. Now this doesn't mean that you shouldn't be confident that your skill works. It does work, as evidenced by the fact that it has worked in similar situations. So you *judge* that your skill is good, while knowing that your skill has flaws that you can look for and fix, thus improving your skill... without limit!!! With each flaw you find and fix, your skill improves.

melodiccolor wrote:I find it interesting that everyone is focusing on arrogant and little on empowerment.

Dreamspace, that's a good point on one of the differences between the two. When you are empowered you are not threatened by areas you perceive as weak. They simply are part of the mix and you find little need to be perfect.

One should never "need to be perfect" since its impossible to be perfect. Its bad to want something that's impossible.

melodiccolor wrote:

frmthhrt wrote:

melodiccolor wrote:What do you consider the difference is between empowered self confidence and arrogence? The two can look remarkably similar and I am not sure there is a true difference, but more of an individual bias in interpretation in many cases. Yet I can think of some instances of arrogence that shows without self confidence and empowerment. What is your take on it?

Empowered self confidence does not assume superiority over others. Arrogance does.

True. But it is also easy to assume someone is being arrogant if they really do know more about an area or have a wide range of interests and like to share; many assume this when that is the case. The empowered person will listen and learn from others just as readily.

But, if someone "assume[s] someone is being arrogant if they really do know more about an area", this is being arrogant. Right? I'm not sure why you said this. Maybe you were making the point that I just made. Not sure.

melodiccolor wrote:A good definition of using power positively in self empowerment: Stepping into one's true power with compassion comes from first of all fully loving and believing in oneself, fully trusting that. Once you do, there is no reason to not fully step into it and use it wisely. You just trust that you will, trust your sense of where the line is and trust your decisions. The fear of failure, damage or great responsibility simply fades away.

Why do people fear failure/damage? Whats the worst that could happen?

Why do people fear great responsibility? Whats the worst that could happen?

Alethia wrote:

rombomb wrote:

melodiccolor wrote:What do you consider the difference is between empowered self confidence and arrogence? The two can look remarkably similar and I am not sure there is a true difference, but more of an individual bias in interpretation in many cases. Yet I can think of some instances of arrogence that shows without self confidence and empowerment. What is your take on it?

Self-confidence is good and arrogance is bad because...

Self-confidence leads to not being passive, and instead being assertive. Passive is bad, assertive is good. (Aggressive is bad too because its coercive. Note that passivity is coercive too, but its coercion done to oneself where aggressiveness is coercion done to other people.)

Self-confidence is great as long as the person continues to be skeptical of his ideas/skills. If he crosses over to the point of no longer doubting his own ideas much, then this is arrogance.

Arrogance is bad because it leads to complacency, which is a sort of passivity. This sort of passivity causes one to make more mistakes.

Can I ask you rombom why you feel a person should continue to remain skeptical of his ideas and skills?

Because he's not perfect (aka he's fallible). That means that his ideas/skills are imperfect. That means they can be improved, without limit!!!

Alethia wrote:
If you share your ideas and skills, do you live in a space of doubt yourself when you share....

I don't know what that metaphor ("live in a space of doubt") means. Could you clarify?

Alethia wrote:
like remain open to other ideas and skills that might change your own.....

That is one way to "doubt one's ideas", because another person's idea that contradicts mine might be right, which means mine is wrong.

Alethia wrote:
to help you see a better idea or skill that might be better to the goal you are seeking?

Right.

Alethia wrote:
If not would you consider yourself arrogant when you are not being skeptical in yourself?

Yes.

If someone presents me with an idea that contradicts mine, one of the ideas is wrong, and it could be mine. Acknowledging this is the first step of doubting one's ideas. If I instead do not acknowledge this, then I'm assuming that my idea is right, and assuming means not having reasons for why the other guy's idea is wrong. This is being arrogant about my idea. This is one of the ways that someone can be closed-minded about an idea.

Dreamspace wrote:

Alethia wrote:Can I ask you rombom why you feel a person should continue to remain skeptical of his ideas and skills? If you share your ideas and skills, do you live in a space of doubt yourself when you share....like remain open to other ideas and skills that might change your own.....to help you see a better idea or skill that might be better to the goal you are seeking?

If not would you consider yourself arrogant when you are not being skeptical in yourself?

Nobody is infallible, so of course you need to always question yourself and what you know. Anything which is capable of being explained through logic, reason and evidence can always be challenged and upended in the face of new evidence or crisper reasoning.

If you're talking about what it is which is important to you, your values, then this is a different matter. You don't need to have any evidence to support your opinions, and you can speak quite confidently in what you think is good or motivates you.

Does a reason count as evidence (in the context of your sentence)? If so, then I disagree with you because...

Say a parent values hitting his children as a form of teaching them morals. He believes its moral/good. This is his opinion. Do you think he should not look for evidence/reasons for his view?

Now consider that he knows that some people have the opposing view that hitting children is immoral/bad. So now this person knows that there is an idea out there that contradicts his own. Should he reject that rival idea without reason (aka irrationally)? Or should he go find out the reasons for the rival idea?

By finding out the reasons for the rival idea, he'd have the opportunity to learn that the rival idea is wrong and his right, or that the rival idea is right and his wrong.

rombomb wrote:

Dreamspace wrote:If you're talking about what it is which is important to you, your values, then this is a different matter. You don't need to have any evidence to support your opinions, and you can speak quite confidently in what you think is good or motivates you.

Does a reason count as evidence (in the context of your sentence)? If so, then I disagree with you because...

Say a parent values hitting his children as a form of teaching them morals. He believes its moral/good. This is his opinion. Do you think he should not look for evidence/reasons for his view?

Now consider that he knows that some people have the opposing view that hitting children is immoral/bad. So now this person knows that there is an idea out there that contradicts his own. Should he reject that rival idea without reason (aka irrationally)? Or should he go find out the reasons for the rival idea?

By finding out the reasons for the rival idea, he'd have the opportunity to learn that the rival idea is wrong and his right, or that the rival idea is right and his wrong.

If we're going to play that game then you have to look at from the most fundamental level and consider whether or not the welfare of your child is good to begin with. Most parents will want the best for their children, but valuing the child's welfare is itself is subjective. If you turn outward for evidence or reason for such a moral axiom, you will find none — pure objectivity invariably leads to nihilism, as objects hold no opinions. The universe does not care if your son lives, dies, suffers or thrives.

Only once your values have been determined and a particular goal has been set can you begin to apply objectivity, for then you can discover what my be conducive toward such ends. You can merely calibrate an objective system to be conducive toward those ends. Science tells us how best to achieve certain effects, but we're the ones who decide whether or not such things are desirable.

Why should conscious beings not suffer? Why shouldn't they all suffer horribly? What does science have to say about ethics, really? It doesn't. It can't. Values are subjectively determined.