«I’m better than you»: what is the use of arrogance?

Arrogance looks unsympathetic from the outside (upturned nose, protruding lower lip, head thrown up — such a caricature of pride) and lonely inside.

An arrogant facial expression stops any desire to approach and make friends, and the experience of arrogance inside leads to the proud loneliness of Pechorin. Being caught in arrogance is unpleasant, and in some situations, for example, among people striving for general equality and justice, even dangerous.

But if there is such a phenomenon in nature, if there is a word denoting it, then it is worth looking for the tasks that this experience serves. Perhaps this will help us to be more stable and free when meeting with the «Habsburgs» and «Napoleons» and to be more understanding of our own Napoleonic habits.

I will not consider the personal meaning of arrogance: each of us, without much effort, can justify why he is more beautiful than everyone else at one time or another. I will better consider the functions and tasks of arrogance.

Childhood: conflict between two forces

I propose to start from childhood, when a person grows rapidly, becomes stronger, stronger, more resilient, constantly learning new things, becoming smarter and more skillful. Mastering some actions happens easily and naturally, while other things require some effort and self-control, especially at the beginning.

Using a potty is more difficult than using a diaper, eating pasta with a fork is more difficult than using your hand, and reading a book can be pretty exhausting before you get any pleasure from it. And the upright posture itself requires the efforts of the whole body, the efforts of the will and spirit, so as not to get on all fours or at least not to slouch.

And a person finds himself at a point between those to whom all this is given easily and simply, who already owns the secrets of cultural life, on the one hand, and those who live well without this culture and without these efforts, unenlightened savages, on the other.

The child finds himself between adults who have already assimilated cultural patterns of behavior and identify with them, and younger children who have not yet mastered these patterns and can easily behave more directly.

Two attractive figures appear in the child’s field of vision: a skilled, ideal senior, the bearer of a cultural model of behavior, and a free junior, not burdened with efforts and restrictions. And now the child finds himself in a situation of conflict between two forces: the desire to perform an action in a simple and natural way (for example, burying himself in the pulp of a watermelon with his head, immediately report his emotions with loud joyful cries, drive away a competitor from the prey with his elbow and heel …) and the desire to mobilize the will and act in accordance with the cultural pattern.

As long as this cultural mode of action is not assimilated by the child, as long as he is only learning, he needs many special voluntary efforts to maintain the ideal model of behavior. It is necessary to use some way to separate, to delimit oneself from the seductive mode of behavior with which the child has recently identified himself.

And here the primary arrogance of the elder in front of the younger comes to the rescue: “don’t come near me” (or “let him leave”, “little ones can’t be here”, “I will be the first”). The task of the child is to organize a spatial and temporal distance, not to be at the same time next to someone who demonstrates a more “primitive”, “outdated” way of behavior.

The closer this mode of action is to the child himself, the more violently the younger one is rejected. The adult argument, “You just did the same yourself recently,” makes the child feel ashamed and furious, as these examples undermine the foundations of his new identity based on new cultural patterns of behavior.

And starting from the senior preschool and primary school age, that is, from the time the child begins to actively and quite consciously participate in teaching himself, when he tries to appreciate his achievements and be proud of them, arrogance towards classmates allows you to reward yourself for the efforts spent to write smoothly, to sit quietly, when in fact the body wants to run or lie on the desk, and thoughts are also somewhere far away.

Arrogance turns out to be an effective tool of self-support when the child does not have enough ways to regulate the load, recognition, comfort, admiration: everything that he needs to continue working on self-cultivation.

Adolescence: mastering adult roles

And in adolescence, we can observe manifestations of arrogance associated with the development of adult roles. Someone earns money, someone can fill up everyone with one hand, someone is the most beautiful in the world. At this point, it is again impossible to afford to be with the younger ones, although the temptation to merge with a simpler and safer way of being is great.

At this point of growth, it is impossible to receive the usual support from the younger ones through merging, dissolving in the native group, because for this you need to recognize yourself as the same as they are — children, direct, to some extent asexual, dependent. And in order to receive support from the younger ones in the form of admiration, respect, obedience, you need to separate from them and establish yourself in a new status.

Full recognition from the elders is also unattainable, because you still do not reach their level, not yet quite an adult, not quite a man, not quite a woman, not quite independent. At the same time, the way of behavior being mastered (sexual, professional, social and mental) is extremely important for one’s own identity («I am worthy of respect»), therefore, there is a need for such a resource as self-support.

Arrogance as a way to protect your values

In adult life, there are also situations in which people protect their self-esteem by alienating themselves from other people, asserting their values ​​as significant and important.

For example, being in a different cultural space, when the rules and traditions of the majority differ from the norms and traditions of one person, family or group, and boundaries and distance are necessary to maintain these norms.

So, in some situations, the way people wash their hands before eating, say a prayer or say «thank you», read books or wear clean clothes could be perceived as a manifestation of arrogance and swagger. The strange attachment to the cherry orchard is incomprehensible, illogical, but without this the life of some strange people loses its meaning.