Hubris

For the album, see Hubris (album).

"Arrogance" redirects here. For other uses, see Arrogance (disambiguation).

Hubris (/ˈhjuːbrɪs/; from Ancient Greek ὕβρις (húbris) 'pride, insolence, outrage'), or less frequently hybris (/ˈhaɪbrɪs/),^[1] describes a personality quality of extreme or excessive pride^[2] or dangerous overconfidence and complacency,^[3] often in combination with (or synonymous with) arrogance.^[4] The term arrogance comes from the Latin adrogare, meaning "to feel that one has a right to demand certain attitudes and behaviors from other people". To arrogate means "to claim or seize without justification... To make undue claims to having",^[5] or "to claim or seize without right... to ascribe or attribute without reason".^[6] The term pretension is also associated with the term hubris, but is not synonymous with it.^{[7][need quotation to verify]}

According to studies, hubris, arrogance, and pretension are related to the need for victory (even if it does not always mean winning) instead of reconciliation, which "friendly" groups might promote.^[8] Hubris is usually perceived as a characteristic of an individual rather than a group, although the group the offender belongs to may suffer collateral consequences from wrongful acts. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence, accomplishments, or capabilities. The adjectival form of the noun hubris/hybris is hubristic/hybristic.^[1]

The term hubris originated in Ancient Greek,^[9] where it had several different meanings depending on the context. In legal usage, it meant assault or sexual crimes and theft of public property,^[10] and in religious usage it meant emulation of divinity or transgression against a god.^[11]

Ancient Greek origin

In ancient Greek, hubris referred to "outrage": actions that violated natural order, or which shamed and humiliated the victim, sometimes for the pleasure or gratification of the abuser.

Mythological usage

 

Black-figure pottery (550 BC) depicting Prometheus serving his sentence, tied to a column

Hesiod and Aeschylus used the word "hubris" to describe transgressions against the gods.^[11] A common way that hubris was committed was when a mortal claimed to be better than a god in a particular skill or attribute. Claims like these were rarely left unpunished, and so Arachne, a talented young weaver, was transformed into a spider when she said that her skills exceeded those of the goddess Athena, even though her claim was true. Additional examples include Icarus, Phaethon, Salmoneus, Niobe, Cassiopeia, Tantalus, and Tereus.^[12]

The goddess Hybris is described in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition as having "insolent encroachment upon the rights of others".^[13]

These events were not limited to myth, and certain figures in history were considered to have been punished for committing hubris through their arrogance. One such person was king Xerxes as portrayed in Aeschylus's play The Persians, and who allegedly threw chains to bind the Hellespont sea as punishment for daring to destroy his fleet.^{[citation needed]}

What is common to all these examples is the breaching of limits, as the Greeks believed that the Fates (Μοῖραι) had assigned each being with a particular area of freedom, an area that even the gods could not breach.^[14]

Legal usage

In ancient Athens, hubris was defined as the use of violence to shame the victim (this sense of hubris could also characterize rape).^[15] In legal terms, hubristic violations of the law included what might today be termed assault-and-battery, sexual crimes, or the theft of public or sacred property. In some contexts, the term had a sexual connotation.^[9] Shame was frequently reflected upon the perpetrator, as well.^[16]

Crucial to this definition are the ancient Greek concepts of honour (τιμή, timē) and shame (αἰδώς, aidōs). The concept of honour included not only the exaltation of the one receiving honour, but also the shaming of the one overcome by the act of hubris. This concept of honour is akin to a zero-sum game. Rush Rehm simplifies this definition of hubris to the contemporary concept of "insolence, contempt, and excessive violence".^[17]

Two well-known cases are found in the speeches of Demosthenes, a prominent statesman and orator in ancient Greece. These two examples occurred when first Midias punched Demosthenes in the face in the theatre (Against Midias), and second when (in Against Conon) a defendant allegedly assaulted a man and crowed over the victim. Yet another example of hubris appears in Aeschines' Against Timarchus, where the defendant, Timarchus, is accused of breaking the law of hubris by submitting himself to prostitution and anal intercourse. Aeschines brought this suit against Timarchus to bar him from the rights of political office and his case succeeded.^[10]Aristotle defined hubris as shaming the victim, not because of anything that happened to the committer or might happen to the committer, but merely for that committer's own gratification:

to cause shame to the victim, not in order that anything may happen to you, nor because anything has happened to you, but merely for your own gratification. Hubris is not the requital of past injuries; this is revenge. As for the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this: naive men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater.^{[18][19][20][21]}

Early Christianity

 

Illustration for John Milton's Paradise Lost by Gustave Doré (1866). The spiritual descent of Lucifer into Satan, one of the most famous examples of hubris.

In the Septuagint, the "hubris is overweening pride, superciliousness or arrogance, often resulting in fatal retribution or nemesis". The word hubris as used in the New Testament parallels the Hebrew word pesha, meaning "transgression". It represents a pride that "makes a man defy God", sometimes to the degree that he considers himself an equal.^[22]

Modern usage

In its modern usage, hubris denotes overconfident pride combined with arrogance.^[4] Hubris is also referred to as "pride that blinds" because it often causes a committer of hubris to act in foolish ways that belie common sense.^[23]

Hubris has also been presented as a positive trait: Larry Wall promoted "the three great virtues of a programmer: laziness, impatience, and hubris".^[24]

Arrogance

 

Look up arrogance in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines "arrogance" in terms of "high or inflated opinion of one's own abilities, importance, etc., that gives rise to presumption or excessive self-confidence, or to a feeling or attitude of being superior to others [...]."^[25] Adrian Davies sees arrogance as more generic and less severe than hubris.^[26]

References

1. "hybris". CollinsDictionary.com. HarperCollins.
2. "Examples and Definition of Hubris in Literature". Literary Devices. 2020-12-01. Retrieved 2021-04-23.
3. "hubris". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Retrieved 2016-04-22.
4. Picone, P. M.; Dagnino, G. B.; Minà, A. (2014). "The origin of failure: A multidisciplinary appraisal of the hubris hypothesis and proposed research agenda". Academy of Management Perspectives. 28 (4): 447–468. doi:10.5465/amp.2012.0177.
5. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, p. 63, G. & C. Merriam Company (8th ed. 1976).
6. Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, p. 77 (2d Coll. ed. 1978).
7. Yasmin (2019-06-07). "O que é uma pessoa arrogante? Por que evitar a arrogância?". Definição.net (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 2020-04-16.
8. "What Makes the Arrogant Person So Arrogant?". Psychology Today. Retrieved 2020-04-16.
9. David Cohen, "Law, society and homosexuality or hermaphrodity in Classical Athens" in Studies in ancient Greek and Roman society By Robin Osborne; p. 64
10. Aeschines "Against Timarchus" from Thomas K. Hubbard's Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents ^{[ISBN missing] [page needed]}
11. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Hubris", Encyclopaedia Britannica
12. Roman, Luke; Roman, Monica (2010). Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-1438126395.
13. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Themis" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 758.
14. Cornelius Castoriadis. Ce qui fait la Grèce, tome 1: D'Homère à Héraclite, chapitre V. Editeur: Seuil (9 mars 2004).
15. "Hubris". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
16. Cartledge; Paul Millett (2003). Nomos: Essays in Athenian Law, Politics and Society. Cambridge University Press. p. 123. ISBN 978-0521522090. Retrieved 2011-11-14.
17. Rehm, Rush (2014). Radical Theatre: Greek Tragedy in the Modern World. A&C Black. p. 75. ISBN 978-1472502339. Retrieved 2 October 2018 – via Google Books.
18. Aristotle, Rhetoric 1378b.
19. Cohen, David (1995). Law, Violence, and Community in Classical Athens. Cambridge University Press. p. 145. ISBN 0521388376. Retrieved March 6, 2016.
20. Ludwig, Paul W. (2002). Eros and Polis: Desire and Community in Greek Political Theory. Cambridge University Press. p. 178. ISBN 1139434179. Retrieved March 6, 2016.
21. Skof, Lenart; Hawke, Shé M. (2021). Shame, Gender Violence, and Ethics: Terrors of Injustice. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1793604682.
22. Stanley J. Grenz, Theology for the Community of God, Pub: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000 – "The Greek word hubris, which occurs occasionally in the New Testament (e.g., Acts 27:10, 21; 2 Cor.12:10). parallels the Hebrew pasha. William Barclay offers a helpful definition of the term. Hubris, he writes, 'is mingled pride and cruelty. Hubris is the pride which makes a man defy God, and the arrogant contempt which makes him trample on the hearts of his fellow men.' [...] Hence, it is the forgetting of personal creatureliness and the attempt to be equal with God."
23. Hollow, Matthew (2014). "The 1920 Farrow's Bank Failure: A Case of Managerial Hubris". Journal of Management History. 20 (2). Durham University: 164–178. doi:10.1108/JMH-11-2012-0071. Retrieved October 1, 2014.
24. Wall, Larry; Schwartz, Randal L.; Christiansen, Tom; Potter, Stephen (1991). Wall, Larry; Talbot, Steve (eds.). Programming Perl. Unix Programming (2 ed.). O'Reilly & Associates (published 1996). p. xiii. ISBN 978-1565921498. Retrieved 22 August 2020. We will encourage you to develop the three great virtues of a programmer: laziness, impatience, and hubris.
25. "arrogance". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
26. Davies, Adrian (2011). "How Can Human Nature and Corporate Governance Be Reconciled?". The Globalisation of Corporate Governance: The Challenge of Clashing Cultures (reprint ed.). London: Routledge (published 2016). p. 68. ISBN 978-1317030102. Retrieved 22 August 2020. [...] hubris – a form of overweening pride and arrogance. [...] In modern usage hubris is an extreme form of arrogance, often in the face of facts [...].

Further reading

• Nicolas R. E. Fisher, Hybris: A Study in the Values of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greece, Warminster, Aris & Phillips, 1992. ^{[ISBN missing]}
• Cairns, Douglas L. (1996). "Hybris, Dishonour, and Thinking Big" (PDF). Journal of Hellenic Studies. 116: 1–32. doi:10.2307/631953. hdl:20.500.11820/d7c5e485-cef7-490a-b67d-1b1eb4a200ef. JSTOR 631953. S2CID 59361502.
• MacDowell, Douglas (1976). "Hybris in Athens". Greece and Rome. 23 (1): 14–31. doi:10.1017/S0017383500018210. S2CID 163033169.
• Michael DeWilde, "The Psychological and Spiritual Roots of a Universal Affliction"
• Hubris on 2012's Encyclopædia Britannica
• "How to Use Hubris Correctly". Grammarist. 24 September 2017.
• Robert A. Stebbins, From Humility to Hubris among Scholars and Politicians: Exploring Expressions of Self-Esteem and Achievement. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing, 2017. ^{[ISBN missing]}

External links

 

Look up hubris in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

 

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•   Media related to Hubris at Wikimedia Commons
•   The dictionary definition of hubris at Wiktionary