"The outcome of too much humility is that you end up listening to the counsel of some mediocre individual." Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406)
As long as you're not immediately acting on that counsel at worst all you've done is wasted time.
Are You Intellectually Humble?
71–80 of 112 posts
Re: Are You Intellectually Humble?
#72A bit unrelated, but one pet peeve of mine these days is the explosion of humble brag. It used to be a little annoying, but it's now everywhere. Name dropping, inserting casually possessions, social status or achievements, using "I'm humbled by" all the time... Doing your best to not sound pretentious is great. I wish I worked on that way sooner. But faking humility, often badly, is such a mood killer for me. I also…
Stay off of LinkedIn, then. That seems to be the place people practice it[0]. I don't humblebrag, and it doesn't win me friends. There's some things that I'm really, really good at, and lots of things that I'm mediocre, to really bad, at. I don't hide any of it. Most folks on venues like this, assume I'm arrogant (I'm not). I just don't pretend to be bad at stuff I'm good at, and don't pretend to be good at stuff I'm…
> There's some things that I'm really, really good at, and lots of things that I'm mediocre, to really bad, at. I don't hide any of it.
That is a very good sign you are intelectually humble. I see the discussion here veering in many directions but in the end being humble is just being honest to yourself and others about what you know and what you don’t know. Perhaps with the capacity to empathise with people who know less and not making them feel bad for not knowing certain things.
Re: Are You Intellectually Humble?
#73"The outcome of too much humility is that you end up listening to the counsel of some mediocre individual." Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406)
Islam is hardly the best place to go looking for advice. A mediocre person is not a dumb person and may well be proficient in certain views.
Re: Are You Intellectually Humble?
#74One of the most difficult things is to know when it's really good to be humble and when it's really good to assert yourself. None of them work the whole time.
Re: Are You Intellectually Humble?
#75"The outcome of too much humility is that you end up listening to the counsel of some mediocre individual." Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406)
Really bad advice. I have learned a lot from people way less experienced than me. Even if I usually know more than some individual I still find things that he may know and I do not. Let's not talk about classifying an individual as "mediocre". It just seems the old "noble blood" fallacy as if some people is just "better" than others instead of everyone being being complex and with flaws.
Unfortunately this point of view do get to the extreme. "There's no such thing as a gifted child", for example, and schools for gifted children are downgraded or closed. Paths to early math education are closed, math curriculum downgraded.
Yes, it happens just now in America.
Re: Are You Intellectually Humble?
#76The world is full of leaders who are everything but humble.
Arrogance is an ego booster which obviously comes with downsides that will likely lead you on the wrong path.
Re: Are You Intellectually Humble?
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very true. I try to stay humble but at work I definitely have lists of people I always listen to and a (longer) list of people I generally never listen to. Maybe they have a good thought from time to time but I don’t have enough time to listen to all bad ideas to maybe find the one good idea.
It has nothing to do with being humble though. Being humble is about being honest with yourself or others. Learning who to listen to and take advice from is a different problem.
That definition of humbleness seems more about sticking to your values and being transparent.
Re: Are You Intellectually Humble?
#78Exodus 20:3 (KJV) "thou shalt have no other gods before me". As a Christian I'm forbidden form holding any belief that isn't directly in the bible and not a provable fact. It is amazing how many people claim to believe the bible, but then add a ton of beliefs on top of it that are not from the bible.
Re: Are You Intellectually Humble?
#79[deleted]
Re: Are You Intellectually Humble?
#80I’ve noticed in myself and anecdotally in others that a lot of stubbornness in conversation simply comes from the desire for validation. Having someone acknowledge what I’m saying is generally enough to get a conversation moving forward, where ignoring or not responding to my input can cause me to fixate until I recognize what I’m doing and break myself out of it. But if I feel mild validation, even if it is conclude…
Absolutely. And you can use that fact to steer conversations on a smoother course.
ME: We need to load the catalogue data into the app for this feature.
SOME IDIOT I WORK WITH: Well that's in the database of course, so that's easy.
ME (inside voice): It's not in the database. Why would you assume it was in the database? Because you are an idiot who makes assumptions.
ME (outside voice): Ah, well if the system was well-structured, of course you would be perfectly correct, but in this case, there is an unfortunate quirk, so, to my great surprise, that data is stored in XML files on this tape archive ...