Thought 4: What is humility, really?

I have won a vote of confidence.

From: Friend

To: Everyone

Who is more brutally honest: [Me] or [Some Other Person]?

My vote is [Me]! He does it with so much more confidence.

I received this dubious distinction recently after hearing a story about me sharing a rather blunt truth. I had been very honest about something and the other people at the table hearing the story were struck by my brutality. That isn't the first time something like this has happened.

However I have not been particularly good in my life about being brutally honest with myself. That is something I've been working on for the last year or so. It has brought me to an interesting place, part of which involves writing this blog. I am prone to starting projects and not finishing them. After being honest with myself about this I am trying to have several weekly goals that I meet for an entire year.

One thing I have noticed this year while reading articles was other people talking about this problem. I love playing the card game Magic the Gathering. Many of the top players do a lot of writing. One recurring them I saw among the top professional players was the idea of how to improve your game. I saw the phrase "take responsibility for your mistakes" over and over again. Players talked about how their bad habits and stubborness cost them game after game and until they were able to acknowledge that and work on changing the way they acted they weren't able to break into the top tier of the game.

As I'm trying to implement similar things in my life (which is one of the most difficult things I have done in a long time) I started seeing how this meets one of the definitions we have of humility. As a side note I'm not very humble (by almost every definition). I definitely have a natural tendency to arrogance and condescension. Without conscious effort I quickly fall into a pattern of relating with lots of criticism. It has taken a lot of time and failtures to lose the deep down conviction that if I just tried really hard I could be better at anything than everyone around me.

Back to the point, a willingness to take responsibility for mistakes and admit that you fail because of choices instead of circumstances is a key component of (my definition) humility. It naturally leads to a mastery-oriented mindset over a performance-oriented mindset. The mindset here is failure is okay as long as you're learning from your mistakes, rather than attempting to make oneself appear competent at all times and hiding deficiencies.

I think this approach to life is key to humility, but I don't think that it is humility. A dictator could do plenty of research on how to more effectively run his regime, be willing to admit his mistakes, and even make his operation more efficient without being truly humble. I think we all recognize that humility has an additional component to it.

So recognizing one's own faults or objective ranking is not the only part of humility. It is a valuable tool however it is not something that left to itself will make us better people. It might make us more effective, more competent, and even more productive but we will not be morally better because of it.

When we pursue humility I don't think we are only trying to have an accurate view of our own abilities relative to others. That is a definition I've heard before and I think it misses out on the heart of humility. It is built to allow for a person to still be humble but acknowledge their own superiority in something that can be objectively measured.

It sets the center of humility as accurate knowledge of the world. That isn't right. When we turn to the Incarnations display of humility what do we see? We don't see someone rigidly enforcing an accurate ranking of people in the world. By that definition of humility Jesus could've come to be served instead of coming to serve.

After spending a lot of time trying to come up with a description of humility (and failing) I realized it is easier to describe what humility produces than what humility is. So pardon me as this terrible segue is followed by an abrupt jump in logic.

We all value people differently. Some people (like me) will always value family over friends. That is part of the value system I grew up with. Other people will value loyalty over anything else. Some value keeping to a set of standards. Others value people by how similar to themselves each other person is.

But that isn't what we see in Jesus. He valued every person. While his personal responsibilities did change the way he interacted with people (he setup someone to care for his mother when he died, but not for every woman in the world) his valuing of people wasn't based on any of the above methods. It was based on valuing people because they are people. Giving human being intrinsic value instead of value based on any measurable quantity.

I think this is one of the most important things humility produces in a person. It is a change from a performance or value based measurement of one's self and others to a view of people as being inherently valuable. It pushes us away from a pragmatic valuing of individuals to a place where loving each other person as much as ourself is possible, but all people are equally valuable and wonderful.

Thought 3: Do I have the right to not be offended?

I've been thinking about offensiveness a good bit lately. There are a couple of different perspectives. Do I have the right to not be offended by you? Do I have a responsibility to not be offensive? Is there a time or circumstance where being offensive is ok? Would that line be subjective or objective? If it is objective what criteria need to be met to ensure my actions are objective and not subjective?

I'm going to start with the first question. Do people have an inherit right to not be offended. In other words is it morally wrong to be offensive.

Now let me say that I'm not approaching this from a legal angle. I'm very much a defender of the right of people to express themselves free from legal repercussions outside of a few narrowly defined cases (slander and libel). I think the proper response to people expressing themselves through speech is return speech. If you act like a jerk then I have the right to call you a jerk. Freedom of expression is not freedom to express yourself without criticism. My approach is one of what is my responsibility in dealing with offending other people.

Offense is very broadly defined in our language You can be offended because I am purposefully trying to offend you. You can also be offended by a statement of my beliefs.

So, should we try to differentiate between the two types of offense? The deliberate and the incidental? Should we take offense not at idea, but rather at intentions? If someone says quite sincerely and without malice that they believe statistics teach that [Race X] has [Undesired Characteristic Y] can and should we be offended? What if they restate it as [Race X] has a higher probability of having [Undesired Characteristic Y]?

At what point does a statement of fact cross the line between observation and offense? What if instead of race we used cultural? Poor people are more likely to be in jail. Is that just a fact or is it an insult to poor people? What if we go from a fact to an interpretation of that fact? Poor people are more likely to be in jail because they are barbarians who can't control their urges. If we stay away from the conclusion (which is obviously offensive) and just state the fact is that non-offensive?

My parents have a newspaper that is pretty old. I think it is from the early 40's. In it the writer talks about how it is common knowledge that when retarded savages (Native Americans) drink alcohol it inflames their natural brutishness (or something to that effect). The writer talks about it like it is common knowledge. Everyone just knows when those Indians get some firewater in them they just go crazy!

For us this is offensive. At that time it was seen as a simple statement of fact. Everyone knew it was true. I'm sure most people would've made an argument for that knowledge being objective reality.

We have a few categories. Offensive by belief, Offensive by intention, and Offensive by methodology.

Examples of each:

Offensive by methodology - For Muslims pictures of the prophet is offensive. While there are Muslims who are fine with criticism of their religion they would find certain methodologies (comic strips of Muhammad) offensive. Even if they don't find your belief or intention offensive (if you were say a felloe Muslim trying to purify their theology by criticizing certain beliefs) they would find your methodology offensive.

Offensive by intention - Some people are okay with debates about abortion. People that they wildly disagree with in belief they can still debate in good faith with. Others hate people who disagree with them. They want people who think abortion is okay to be put to death. Their intention is not to make the world a better place or to help people, but rather solely to punish people who do wrong. I find that offensive. We don't seek to do right to meet an arbitrary standard but because we love other people and we want what is good for them.

Offensive by belief - [Race X] has [Undesired Characteristic Y]. Merely by believing that (and stating it out loud) without any other conclusions drawn people will be offended.

I think Offensive by belief is the one category I think is defendable. Methodology and Intention is something we should work on to not offend people. But I don't think people should be forced to censor their own beliefs even if I find those beliefs to be revolting and disgusting. One of the reasons is because then there can be no dialogue about those beliefs which I do believe helps a lot more than people think.

Thought 2: Do I have to respect Cartman's authoritah?

Authority is a very pervasive idea. It is everywhere. Humans spend a tremendous amount of time and effort trying to determine who is under their thumb and whose thumb they are under. Pecking orders exist throughout our lives. Most of us try to make sure we're not at the bottom, though not everyone has the drive to try and get to the top.

We see the same thing in animal circles with some very interesting results. Alpha animals tend to have higher serotonin levels which lead to more alpha behavior which leads to higher serotonin levels. It's a small natural positive feedback loop. Of course once you lose status you stop exhibiting alpha behaviors which leads to a drop in serotonin levels. That's the downside. Perception of dominance making us more dominant is a very interesting phenomena.

Since authority and domination of others is a big part of our lives logically it is something that our religions will address. Some have caste systems. Some have delineations between a clergy and a laity. Some have all members being equal. Some have what looks like a pyramid requiring ascension up the ranks. This isn't something that most religions agree on, like say not stealing and murdering.

As someone who was raised in a very independent strain of Christianity the idea of submitting to an authority structure outside of the local congregation was something that never really occurred to me. Interpreting the Bible was always a question of people arguing out which interpretation was the correct one. No one had final authority to say "When Jesus says X what it means is Y". People would of course make the assertion that X meant Y but the appeal was "I know because I am smarter/wiser/older/understand Greek/etc..." not "I have the authority from God to make this declaration".

I imagine this makes a big impact on the way I look at authority. The few times people have tried to tell me what God wanted specifically for me to do I imagine I looked at them like they were crazy. Here I don't mean "give to charity" or "love your neighbor" but rather "Go to this specific college" or "Take this specific job". They got a crazy look because I have always believed they weren't part of the conversation. That conversation happened between me and God, not me and God and them. I am also very willing to argue with people about what the Bible means.

So this is all background to help you understand my thought process on the "biblical" idea of authority. I claim no ability to authoritatively explain the Bible. I'm doing my best to understand it and if I find something true I like to share that with others. If someone disagrees with me I can't threaten them with "You are disobeying God". The worst you'll get from me is "When we're all dead and find out I'm right I'm going to say I told you so."

The Bible definitely talks about authority. It talks about the apostles agreeing on things and Jesus being behind them. I'm not wading in to break that down in its entirety and determine apostolic succession. It's not my goal. My question is more about my every day life. What is the authority given to me in any role of spiritual leadership?

I think this question is inherently flawed. I'm not saying there isn't an answer but the emphasis of the question is approaching the situation from the wrong direction. Spiritual leadership has very little if anything to do with authority. It has everything to do with responsibility. The question being asked is "What can I do?" The question that needs to be asked instead is "What needs to be done?"

Changing the emphasis pulls us from a mindset of seeing others as resources into a mindset of seeing others as people to help. A simple analogy (which I'm stealing because it's so good) is we stop seeing people as water faucets and start seeing them as buckets. I think this is what spiritual leadership is about.

Our example is the Incarnation. Jesus is remarked upon as being someone who spoke with authority. He commanded nature in a variety of ways. He explained who God was and spoke with God's backing. Yet the description of his leadership style is that he came to serve not to be served. This needs to be what drives our view of authority. Jesus comments on humanities natural tendency to accrue power so they can turn people into resources for themselves.

Jesus pushed his disciples to stop thinking in those terms. Rather they were to make themselves resources for other people. People become the goal rather than the means to another goal. For leaders people are a responsibility not a tool.

Note that this doesn't do away with the ideas of organization and direction. Having a leader to direct effort in an efficient manner doesn't necessarily break away from this idea. Jesus definitely assigned tasks to his disciples. I'm not advocating anarchy, but rather a change in perspective.

Leadership isn't about pushing or pulling people to a path. It's about walking our path and helping the people who walk beside us.

So if someone starts listing out all the verses in the Bible that talk about the different rights and privileges that people in authority have over others they may need a gentle reminder. Jesus' view of his own authority was not what abilities it gave him, but rather what responsibilities it placed on him.

Thought 1: Do time travelers have a different morality than the rest of us?

I've been thinking about the Incarnation a lot lately. Jesus does a lot of things. One of those things is making God expressable in a way we can understand.

Frequently people look at God in the Old Testament and tell me they find Him very confusing. He does things that don't seem to mesh with the morality Jesus taught. He does things that don't mesh with what we think of as moral today.

There are two important ideas that we run into as we work through this issue.

Point One: The Question of Perception

There is a thought experiment I came up with many years ago thinking about the way people see the world.

Man A stands up in a crowd and shoots another Man B.

Man A is a murderer.

Then we learn that the Man A shot Man B because he saw the Man B preparing to blow up a bomb.

Man A is a hero.

Then we learn that the Man A was actually delusional and what he thought was a bomb was a colostomy bag.

Man A is a murderer.

As information about a situation changes our perception of whether or not actions were moral changes. Perception of morality is controlled by point of view.

Point Two: The Question of Ability

A question a lot of people have bandied about with me in leisure time - If you could go back in time and kill Hitler would you?

No matter what answer you come to it is a great question to consider. I think the problem most people have with the question is they don't consider how a change in ability changes morality.

One thing that is debatable is whether or not taking a human life to save one or many is ok. I'm not going to address that as the situation could be changed to not include death, but I like the impact the situation has.

Let's consider this hypothetical and see where it takes us. I can travel through time. I don't know what the effects of changing time will be.

I know that Hitler will cause the death of many. If I kill him though, do I save those lives? What if that makes things worse? What is more people die? Without knowing this I can't claim to be saving lives by killing Hitler.

I guess my morality hasn't changed. Let's add another dimension though. Let's say now I know exactly what will happen if I kill Hitler. 1 million fewer people will die.

So, does killing Hiter change in morality? What if you knew a bomb was going off tomorrow that would kill millions and you refused to stop the person who was going to arm it?

Is that immoral? Are you killing people through neglect? We have a hard time with this question because we never know exactly what the consequences of our actions will be. There will be lots of repercussions and we can guess, but never know.

So, does adding this ability to change the past and perfectly know the future change fundamental aspects of morality?

We don't understand His decisions because our morality is based on having imperfect information. Our entire way of thinking is deeply rooted in the concept making decisions based on partial information and possibly being wrong. We have to account for not knowing what will happen based on our choices.

God doesn't haven't to deal with that and therefore He will act differently.

Conclusion: Incarnation is God Expressed

I think it does and I think here we have one of the biggest problems with knowing God. His knowledge and power are qualitatively different from ours so His morality will be fundamentally different. That just compounds our misunderstandings.

This is why the Incarnation is important. Jesus is God expressed in a language we can understand. His abilities match ours so he will act in the same moral framework.

This is in no way an exhaustive analysis of the situation. I'm just sharing the approach I've been taking when considering questions of the morality of God's actions in the Old Testament and how they mesh the message Jesus shares of "Who God Is" in the New Testament.

I welcome discussion and criticism and will hopefully learn from it.