TRANSCRIPT
I would like to explore the psychology of arrogance. I have known a lot of arrogant people in my life, starting from certain aspects of my parents when I was very young, teachers in school, other kids in school, popular kids, even people who wrote books, people on television, people who knew better, who always had the right answer, who were always confident, who spoke down to me and spoke down to others. People who thought they were of a higher moral fiber, people who were not insecure, people who always knew the right way, people who had an incredibly strong facade that couldn’t be pierced, people who were always on the right side of conflicts, the right side of verbal battles, people who had quick and smart answers, who made fun of others and didn’t get made fun of themselves. People who often laughed at me when I made mistakes or was vulnerable. I’ve known a lot of these people, and I still do. I still find them; they come and see them all over the place, and they know the right answer and they tell me the right way to be.
What I find is the psychology of arrogance is actually very, very simple, and I will analyze it now. Arrogance is just a facade. It’s a very thin facade that very insecure people project outward. It’s a hologram of themselves. It’s who they would like to be, but on the inside, it’s not who they are at all. But suddenly, what pops into my mind is Darth Vader from the Star Wars films. Super tough, super strong guy. I always had the answer, in control, etc., etc. But when he took off that mask, this lost, weak, soft, hell, ugly, vulnerable, confused, dying creature—that’s the psychology of arrogance.
What I’ve seen with arrogant people is it’s a strategy. And I think even of myself at some points. Like, I think of some time during my college years early on, I was exploring what it felt like to be arrogant because I was realizing, oh, I grew tall and something—I was nice looking—and I realized I could kind of get away with it, be a little bit of a know-it-all. And it didn’t last very long for me, just a little bits and pieces here and there because it felt awful. I realized it was taking me away from my true self on the inside. And even though my true self on the inside at that point was very lost and confused and vulnerable, that lost, confused, vulnerable self was honest. And that lost, confused, vulnerable self was a core for me to really start growing from, to start healing from. It was an honest place to begin, and I couldn’t put on that facade.
So I kept going with the path of being vulnerable, choosing vulnerability over arrogance, choosing humility over arrogance, choosing the honest, insecure answers, saying, “I really don’t know. I’m really not sure.” Not only am I not a know-it-all, maybe I’m kind of a know-it-nothing. I’m lost; I don’t have the good answers. And through that, I could feel my real feelings, and those real feelings were the feelings of a very lost, rejected, hurt, little traumatized boy who happened to be living in the body of someone who was physically a grown man.
What I observed is the more I went along on this path of being my true, vulnerable, humble self and growing as the result of that, the more I was able to get perspective on the people who were not going on this path. And now, at age 51, pushing 52, I still know some of those arrogant people who I knew 40 years ago. Kids who were arrogant when they were 11 going on 12, and now they’re the same age as me, now 51-52, and they’re still just as arrogant as they ever were, or more arrogant.
The key that I’ve seen is that they didn’t emotionally grow because they couldn’t. Their arrogance actually prevented them from growing. So an interesting thing that I’ve learned about arrogance and arrogant people is while at one level, yes, they’re putting on a facade to the outside world so the outside world can look at them and view them as this confident, all-knowing, mature, thoughtful, insightful person—this person who’s got his together—they’re actually doing that in their own self. They’re looking at their own selves that way. So that facade is meant just as much for their own selves. And because of that, they don’t have a relationship with their true and vulnerable self on the inside.
So not only does everybody around them lose because of their facade, they lose also, and they probably lose most of all. So basically, in the world of an arrogant person, the biggest loser is the arrogant person because they never really get to have a self. And then secondarily, because I’ve seen this a lot, the other biggest losers in the world of an arrogant person are their children because their children don’t get a real parent. They don’t get a real mother, and they don’t get a real father. They don’t get someone who can really love them because an arrogant person doesn’t have access to the basic qualities that allow real love, real honest, from the soul nurturance.
Instead, everything has to go through the filter of that arrogant facade. Actually, and I should be a little bit more fair, to the degree that someone has that arrogant facade, that’s the degree to which they are not going to be able to honestly nurture themselves or others. Most arrogant people only have that facade to some degree. Maybe they’re able to drop it in certain situations, or maybe it’s not fully all-knowing. But I think of some people who are so absolutely arrogant that in a way, they’re not even a person. They’re more like an artificial intelligence robot. Everything is going through the program in their mind of what shall I project today? What answer shall I give for this thing? How can I disassociate myself from my real feelings and my truth? Or how can I manipulate my real feelings and my real truth so that I can project this certain facade?
I also want to share another thing that I’ve seen, and that is that sometimes life wallops arrogant people in some really harsh and ugly ways. I have seen some pretty sad things happen to some arrogant people. A few times, I’ve seen it—very, very arrogant people who have had a child of theirs die unexpectedly or in an accident, or even perhaps by suicide. And it’s like suddenly the arrogant person has their facade shattered, like by a baseball bat. And it just—it’s like a glass facade comes shattering down, and inside you suddenly see Darth Vader’s mask gets ripped off, and there’s this confused person who is crying but has nothing to hold on to on the inside. And maybe everyone doesn’t know how to deal with this person, and it’s like they don’t even know who this person is.
Another one I’ve seen is sometimes arrogant people who have some sort of psychological breakdown that comes from within, and it dissolves their mask and they dissolve their facade. And suddenly they’re just full of grieving and tears, and it’s absolutely overwhelming for them. If they’re lucky, they’re going to find themselves at the bottom of all those tears, and that’s going to give them the strength to have something to hold on to in this incredibly painful grieving process. But what I’ve seen in a lot of cases is the mask comes down, the grieving comes up, the person absolutely panics, hates their vulnerability, hates their insecurity, hates their feelings, and so woo, instantly starts figuring out how to rebuild the mask, rebuild the facade, rebuild the arrogance.
Let’s just pretend that that vulnerability never happened, and let’s make this mask and this facade and this wall even stronger. Now let’s figure out how to put up more defenses. I’ve seen that many times with people who are pretty arrogant. And I actually am glad that I’ve seen this because this has given me the real clue. Because early on, I actually thought that arrogant people were better and they knew better and they were smarter. I actually believed a lot of their—I believed the truth of their facade. I was faked out. And yet when I saw it come crashing down, and I’ve seen it so many times, it was like, ah, there is a pattern. This is just a facade, and there is something behind it. There really is insecurity and terror behind it. And it’s so interesting because the people who put up that facade, the last thing they want the world to…
Know is how insecure they are, how terrified they are, how frightened they are, how vulnerable they are, and really how sad. And how lucky are those who can figure out how to drop the arrogance, how to regain the humility, and how to nurture their true self and grow and develop. And in so doing, become useful to others.
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