Humility: Hubris, Nemesis, Tempering

The trait of humility is not spoken of enough. This piece will be short, paradoxically opposite humility's importance to a world that prefers peace to disorder.

Does Western Society and its leaders have much humility? It and they once did, or at least pretended to have some. To assert the king was king by divine right at least carried the notion he was accountable to Him if nobody else.

In today's far more secular world, humility often comes slowly if at all, because those in charge pay large sums to others to keep the real world consequences of their actions hidden and the building tidal surge at bay.

So instead of reality bringing Nemesis coming quickly, we see leaks in the dam. Among those paid large sums to keep it and her out are the media moguls and its apparatchiks.

For instance, in the last weeks, large doses of humiliation were delivered to ('god' according to Meryl Streep) Harvey Weinstein.  And subsequent to that, Kevin Spacey. There are sure to be more.

However harmful these disclosures have been to the principals, they are really small fry compared to those whom wield the real power. That is, those whom enforce or have enforced their rule by the threat of government's guns.

You see, hubris is arrogance taken to its extremes. The Greeks asserted that it was the goddess Nemesis who delivered the well-deserved extreme payback to those filled with hubris. It's most extreme form short of death is humiliation.

Being humiliated though often fails to bring humility since the humiliated will seek payback in the extreme. Fitting is the aphorism: beware a wounded king.

The Left Sinister has been trying -- in the least of their efforts -- to humiliate Donald Trump ever since he won the GOP nomination (not before primarily because he'd been their friend and figured he was sure to lose). But he has had thicker skin than anyone they've ever run up against. So what do you know? Lo and behold we are beginning to see payback. The most former king and his heir may indeed be in for a rough time. Not all the sources of leaks are dead. And it is too late to silence some whom they apparently might want dead. And there are other former kings who know they are not in the clear either judging from their latest uneasy commentary.


Sadly, none of this is a solution to society's long term concerns. Should the current "king" find ways to bring Nemesis to his critics, there is always the danger that his own hubris will rise.

Western society has long eschewed its God fearing base because of all of the successes that science and technology have brought it. It has so beaten back so many of nature's harmful attributes that it has come to believe -- ah religion in another guise! -- that all natural law can be beaten back. Or, at least, that is what those who are largely the power behind the powers want the rest of society to believe so they can skate a bit longer, and perhaps die before that tidal wave breaks down all their tsunami barriers.

The rulers of Western Society have none of the hope for the future of its progeny -- if they have any -- that past rulers have had. And this is why humility could well be the biggest lacking in Western society. It has been putting off the consequences that would bring tempering to its rulers for so long that the Nemesis to come will be crushing as none before for all society.

It is inevitable. Those who rule simply have two things in mind if they have a mind at all.

1. Live for today and enjoy that we are at the highest levels of power of any men before us and screw all those who are to follow -- that's their concern.  
2. Live for today and bring huge losses in human life because then maybe the remnants -- if there are any -- can start afresh. We're doing them a favor that nobody ever did before us. We are gods.

Do you see any humility in those whims? Yeah, me neither.

The last election cycle revealed that we may yet correct our illegitimate overlords -- this is still ostensibly a republic that in principle leaves the people as the last arbiters as written in the constitution so despised by the overlords -- but it will not come without facing the Nemesis of our own making.

We so believed the lies fed to us because the opposite notion would require a type of repentance forbidden by our secular world. The notion long ignored is that "nature, or nature's God," from whom our natural rights were bestowed, has also placed limits on what we can actually do freely.

There are always costs, and to deny any of those costs sets us up to be visited by consequences we will not enjoy. Western society, however successful it has become, has too frequently sought shortcuts that showed we lacked humility.

The larger humiliation to come may temper the coming generations so that they, at least for some time, will see to it that our Ceausescu's pay and that new ones will fear to arise, but not also at terrible costs to all of society.

That is the only bright spot I can see in the future.

If anyone else can see a better one, please console me in comments.