Probably the best definition of arrogance is “thinking that one is better than other people.” By that standard, I have been arrogant at some points in my life and not at others.
Someone once said that he wasn’t the kind of person who thinks that one person is better or worse than another person. I very much am the kind of person who thinks that one person is better than another person. That is even the case if the comparison does not work in my favor, such as when I compare myself to great people. I do not consider it a grave sin to be worse than Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson. If you are worse than Tucker Carlson or Donald Trump, then you are in trouble.
Now the creative types are accused of arrogance a lot. In fact I have seen arrogance all across the board.
I have seen arrogant construction workers who think that they are the only real workers and that everyone else is a parasite.
I have seen arrogant engineers and academics who think that they are the only sane and rational people in the world.
I have seen arrogant doctors who think that they are better than everyone else because they have finished medical school.
I have seen arrogant businessmen who think that they are the only winners and that everyone else is a loser.
I have seen arrogant military people who think that they are the only real men and that everyone else is a sissy.
I do not think that it will ever be possible to do away with arrogance. It appears part of the human makeup. It can however be worked with, and of course it is all the time – both for good and for ill.
The biggest problem with the concept is that all kinds of things are seen as arrogance that aren’t arrogance. People think that kids who take school seriously are arrogant. People think that women who want to be loved are arrogant. People think that people who think in original ways are arrogant. This leads them to destroy their best minds, rendering them non-competitive.
According to some people’s definitions of arrogance, arrogance is all around us. That people live till age 80 instead of 30, enjoy the benefits of democracy and capitalism, and don’t have to bow to the queen or be drafted into feudal armies, would be regarded as arrogance by a lot of people. The people championing positive changes have always been accused of arrogance. This appears to be an occupational hazard, and we expect to see this again and again to anyone who champions anything good. This is something on which Ayn Rand would agree with Karl Marx. They blew their trumpet, so they were thought arrogant. Instead they simply had original ideas, and everything we have started as an original idea. Which means that, according to this view of arrogance, we owe to arrogance everything that we have. You need to have some chutzpah in order to blow your horn or pursue original ideas; and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.
Why are creative types regarded as arrogant while construction workers and engineers aren’t? Probably because, if you exist on the sides, you will have to do more to call attention to your work than if you are in a field that is respected. But in my experience artists were not more arrogant than the rest of people. In many ways they were much less so. I once walked into an art class and read them my poems, and they welcomed me. Fancy a meeting of doctors or businessmen doing the same.
At this point in my life, I don’t know where I measure on arrogance. As I said, I think that some people are better than me and some people are worse than me. What I do know is that people change all the time in all sorts of ways; and if you start out badly it doesn’t mean that you have to remain that way.
With arrogance, there are a number of ways that it can be dealt with. It can be worked with as is done by business, politics and academia, or it can be overcome as is done by priests and monks. The same people can be arrogant and not arrogant at different times in their lives. Some arrogant people will do well; sometimes they won’t. Same with non-arrogant people. And arrogant become non-arrogant, and vice versa, all the time and for all sorts of reasons.