House of Eratosthenes

You have heard it said that humility focuses on what’s right, while the Sin of Pride is concerned with who’s right. Everyone wants to be right all the time. It’s understandable, but all sins are understandable or they wouldn’t be sins.

Women aren’t being held to standards. You find one little shortcoming with a woman or with what she’s done, people swarm out of the woodwork to point out a man did something just as bad or worse. Which changes the subject. What the woman did wrong, doesn’t get addressed. And they’ll be right. But, it’s not a contest. Very few people care about whether men are better than women, or the other way around, and the question is as unanswerable as it is useless. But what’s wrong with the men anyway? Their shortcomings are pointed out all the time…men engage, get criticized, they disengage and get criticized some more. Many have gotten to the point where they just don’t care. They self-isolate and play video games. Two sexes, two entirely different problems. They are diametrically opposite problems. Neither one gets effectively worked, either by the person showing the shortcoming or by anybody else. Humility.

Our so-called “leaders” want us to curb our carbon emissions while they fly around on jets. That’s a humility problem. Do as I say, not as I do. Everyone can see what’s wrong about it. So many people don’t do anything about it, in fact a lot of people sign up to help the phony carbon misers chide the rest of us. Scolding is fun.

There are a lot of bold new decisions being made about how to write and produce movies. “Reimaginings,” and so forth, with this-or-that white straight character made black or gay. But these decisions are not really bold, because when the ticket revenues fall short and the poor reviews come rolling in, the people who made the movie blame the audience for not liking it. They’re steadfastly unready to receive any criticism. Humility.

People say it is of paramount importance that Donald Trump be kept as far away as possible from the presidency, or any office of trust, honor or authority. Ever again. It’s certainly their right to vote that way, and to voice their opinion about it. But their attempts to prosecute him reveal that if the majority is still with them on this, they’re not too confident about it. And the content of the cases against him reveal a quality control problem. They’re laughably stupid. Such cases exist only because of this drive to keep Trump out of office, which should be limited to votes and speech. Everyone knows it’s wrong to abuse the justice system this way, but people are doing it anyhow because they’re afraid to lose. Humility.

As far as Trump’s wealth, I keep hearing about how he inherited it. But nobody anywhere is asserting that he inherited all of it; he’s worth more than what he got. He made money. If people are so fixated on it, shouldn’t they be more concerned about what Trump knows how to do, to make this money? You don’t get to inherit it and then just stick it in a mattress and expect it to grow.

Now we have people talking up the Biden presidency as some edifice of greatness. Joe Biden, so goes the narrative, far from being senile has it all together. He’s sharp; he’s energetic; can’t keep up with him; gets more done in an hour than some people do all day. Silly. Not even worth arguing, just risible nonsense. People, seeking to attend to their social standing, making asses out of themselves. They don’t want to admit voting for Biden was a mistake. Don’t want to admit the lesson they got, when you kick a guy out you need to think more about the quality of his replacement — which they didn’t do. A mistake, followed by a second mistake of refusing to admit to the first. Humility.

Social media has woven people together with a net of social engagement, that’s a bit too effective; the strands of the web are just a bit too thick. People are making judgment calls, and decisions about what to do, based on how these choices will affect their social altitude, whether they’ll generate lift or drag. They want to be “right” all the time, but only right in the judgment of their peer group. To make a decision that’s right from the perspective of nature and nature’s God, in the sense that it will make things better, is of decidedly second priority to them. That’s the Sin of Pride.

In fact it’s worse than that; we have a month where we actually celebrate pride. We’re proud, and making dreadful decisions, about everything, often. It’s hurting us.

Humility. We’re missing some. Need to get it back again.

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We Need HumilitySunday, February 25th, 2024

We Need Humility
Sunday, February 25th, 2024