One More Effort to Understand the Human Nature with an
Ignorance-Arrogance Approach
(https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/one-more-effort-understand-human-nature-ignorance-arrogance
-guven/)
Emin Guven
Have you ever wondered to describe the human being with a single and a simple formula? I
mean, maybe just to make sense especially in some difficult times. Like when you were
frustrated at your workplace, and wanted to yell “Why, why!” And, when the insights you found
among the thousands of relieving quotations cycling on social media did not help at all. What are
the main parameters behind these negative behaviours? How can someone be described as good,
or bad? And based on which basic traits do people find themselves in that mind-feeling
composition? I questioned and experienced this for many times, and finally have come up with a
simple model that helped me understand the human nature much better.
I know that many philosophers, psychologists, poets, and even prophets pondered on this issue
for centuries. However, a few of them came up with some concise, deep, and comprehensive, but
at the same time easily understandable, so magical, and a very true formula for the humanity. I
should confess that I was not able to find a good fit for myself among them. Then I started to
work on this, not to win a Nobel prize, but at least to relieve my mind and my soul. And finally, I
figured out that the two very basic traits of human being -ignorance and arrogance- construct the
basis of human character. Most of the other characteristics and behaviours are like derivatives of,
and shaped by ignorance and arrogance.
When individuals, groups, and nations are arrogant, they begin to think, to feel and to act like
they are superior than the others. They claim that they are more powerful, generally richer, and
sometimes more prestigious. Some assume that they are more royal, or more good-looking. And
some men think that they have more privileges than women. Then, they assert that they have the
right to own many essential valuables like land, government, justice, freedom, and many
resources. Because they think they are always right, they can easily press upon the others and see
this behaviour so normal. So, the arrogance is the potential and the more dangerous part of the
formula. And, it is more related to feelings and perceptions.
What about the ignorance? Lack of knowledge and information makes humanity careless.
Especially when the ignorance is intentional, people do not want to learn, or to know. They
prefer to be unaware. Instead of spending effort to learn, the ignorant tends to follow some other
people, and repeats what they say, does what they do almost without questioning. By the way, the
main source of the ignorance is generally laziness. Unfortunately, we as humans have tendency
to be lazy by default. Nobel laureate Kahneman (2011) points out that human being has two
cognitive systems: System 1 and System 2. System 1 is faster and comes up with decisions
based on instincts and past experience. However, System 2 is slower, more logical, and has
questioning mechanism. Most of the time, our behaviours are shaped by System 1, again
because we are lazy by default.
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At first, I just tried to formulate this problem by using simple math like the equation for
humanity.
Humanity = 1 / (Ignorance + Arrogance)
The sum of the arrogance and the ignorance is inversely proportional to the humanity. When the
total value of the combination of ignorance and arrogance increases, the number symbolizes the
humanity decreases. When this sum decreases, then the humanity value has higher values. If they
both become zero, then the humanity value can reach the infinite humaneness. Again, that was
my first attempt to formulate the ignorance and arrogance. Then, I tried to make it more visible.
As in Figure 1, this approach is summarized with a simple example based on the thought and the
feeling about climate change. I related the ignorance with brain, and the arrogance with heart.
On y-axis, when the ignorance is low, the opinion is “Climate change is fact.” However, it
becomes “I have no idea about climate change” when the ignorance gets higher. Then on x-axis,
if the arrogance is low, the feeling is “We should respect others.” And this feeling switches to “I
always have the last word” when the arrogance has higher values.
Figure 1. Ignorance-Arrogance Model
So, the individuals, organizations, and even the nations can fall into one of these four sections.
This can be continuous, or temporary. The ideal section is certainly the low ignorance and
arrogance, “big brain-big heart”. However, we can sometimes find ourselves in one of the other
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three sections because nobody is perfect, right? For instance, when we become a victim of a
charity fraud, it means that we are caught in “small brain-big heart.” Or, imagine the exploitation
of people who have high feelings on their countries, or an ideology, or a faith and religion. They
can easily find themselves misused in some “pray-pay-obey” environment. The terrorist
organizations in some developing countries, and gangs manipulate young individuals because
these youngsters have big hearts, but they sometimes cannot question, and think critically.
The other interesting section is the “big brain-small heart” one. Even though these ones are
aware of the facts, they still prefer to see themselves as superiors. This is because of the lack of
feelings about others. We generally encounter this kind of situation in politics, and high-level
managements of the organizations, or even in the smaller groups such as families. Since these
guys have already educated and experienced, they feel themselves more powerful. Then, the taste
of authority makes it more difficult for them to realize each and every one is equal with no
exception. The term respect for them is gradually converted to more one-way feature from its
inherently mutual characteristics. Needles to designate here the authoritarian characters among
the leaders of countries and big organizations, in small neighbourhoods, in social media, at
schools, and even in the families. These characters show themselves by dominating, intimidating,
and bullying.
The worst-case scenario is the combination of ignorance and arrogance (“small brain-small
heart”). According to Pianka (2011), “Ignorance can be overcome by education, but arrogance is
more difficult to combat. When combined, arrogant ignorance is virtually impossible to defeat.
Because of this, it is spreading rapidly. People in denial refuse to examine evidence, often
adamantly.” Now, imagine and visualize this merge of negativity of ignorance and arrogance! In
my humble opinion, the humankind has difficulty to act upon the global issues such as wars,
tyranny, pollution, and poverty because of the combination of these two features.
OK, let us assume that the detection of the problem is somewhat correct. Then what could be the
solution? It seems that we should try to have big brains and big hearts, but how? On the
ignorance side, we can spend some more effort to use our System 2s rather than System 1s as
both individuals and groups. Then, there can be some impact on education, culture, and common
narratives towards rationality. For the arrogance part, the very basic solution is “empathy”. When
we try more to look at the things from others’ perspective, then we can understand their situation
better, and start to respect others. The third important point is the collaboration of the mind and
the feelings. When one part fails, the other one should help the other by pumping rationality and
motivation. So, a little bit more effort and patience to think critically, and to share the feelings of
others can empower the collaboration of brains and hearts. If I should stay on my “keep it simple
principle”, the protection against ignorance and arrogance can be summarized as:
Solution = (Effort + Patience) x (Critical thinking + Empathy)
In short, other than my personal philosophical adventure, my goal is to take attention to
ignorance and arrogance in order to analyze better both the local and the global issues, and to
focus more on the protection methods -critical thinking and empathy- for the sake of humanity.
Even though it seems that our world is flowing into a negative direction like global warming,
conflicts, gender inequalities, and intolerance, it is always possible to beat the arrogance and the
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ignorance by providing a strong collaboration of our minds and feelings. I would like to end my
article with a quotation of the great philosopher Kant (1785), "If a Rational Disinterested
Spectator looked down at the world - the good will would shine like a jewel."
References
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Kant, I. (1785). Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in Practical Philosophy. Mary J.
Gregor (trans., ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. [Originally published in
1785.]
Pianka, E. (2011). Combating arrogant ignorance. Daily Texan. Retrieved from http://www.
dailytexanonline.com/ opinion/2011/09/08/combating-arrogant-ignorance
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