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Rather than the pleading and subjectivity, because I cannot edit my previous reply by now, let me separately try the approach you attempted, and articulate what I think is the salient difference you're missing, and where the misunderstanding comes from. Let's define arrogance as someone "not being able to imagine an alternative due to hubris". I think that's a fair definition, at least in-context. The core of my point then is that the exhibited part of that, "not being able to imagine an alternative", can actually happen in at least two different ways: - one cannot imagine an alternative because they're so taken by their own capabilities and track record, or because that'd make them wrong and thus inferior (hubris) -- what you're supposing - one genuinely, honest to god, just plain cannot imagine an alternative, and are simply candidly reporting that impression, encoding it directly, intensity-matched, in their language use I think the author is actually a lot simpler soul than you take him as. And so what I'm positing then, is that I think you're conflating these two as a result of all this, especially because they present the ~same. And that further, this may not be a distinction you've ever considered, because if you did, the blogpost would have read blatantly different, and you wouldn't report running into this "strange" type of writing so often. This is not to say the author would be immune to hubris either, or that it's one or the other, but rather that the signal you've been picking up on may not actually be as diagnostic in the way of that as you think it is. They started out with some amount of hubris, let it grew dominant, realized it grew dominant, decided that's not what they want(ed) to be and that they've been deluding themselves. If they did not care about reasoning correctness, that recognition process and conclusion I'm not sure would have facilitated, certainly not this way. If this was about hubris like you framed it as, they wouldn't have stopped and made an exit. They'd have just dug their heel in further and kept enjoying the ride. |