What is arrogance?
Would it be arrogant of me to suggest a definition of ‘arrogance’?
Well, clearly not, because merely suggesting something would not qualify as arrogance.
Perhaps in order to be arrogant, I would need to declare or proclaim a definition of ‘arrogance’, such as this perhaps:
‘Arrogance’ is an attitude of overbearing, proud, self-importance that shows itself in contempt or disregard for others and their opinions.
Would the very act of hauling myself to a dignified height and declaiming that this is, in truth, what ‘arrogance’ means mark me out as arrogant?
Some people seem to think so. Christians are often accused of arrogance merely for declaring something to be true—that Jesus is “the Way, the Truth and the Life”, for example. And here at The Briefing, we've been labelled as arrogant at different times for being so daring as to say that some things are right and some things, by implication, are not.
I used to think that the ‘arrogance’ accusation was entirely the result of the postmodern relativism that now afflicts our public discourse—that it was impossible to say anything forthrightly and clearly these days without being accused of what has now come to be known as ‘arrogance’ (even though it goes far beyond the dictionary definition of ‘arrogance’, which I quoted above).
But Douglas Wilson, in his little book A Serrated Edge, suggests that the ‘arrogance’ accusation is not new—it's just the latest version of the age-old practice of accusing one's ideological opponent of blasphemy or heresy. Dominant social groups always protect their power by demonizing the arguments of their opposition: “Don't listen to him; these are the ravings of a proud, self-important outcast. What gives him the right to oppose what all of Us know to be orthodoxy?” Wilson tells this story to illustrate his point:
A number of years ago, the first book I wrote came out ... Someone in our church gave a copy of this book to a relative who was from another theological tradition entirely. Some time later, this person told me that the relative had thought the book “arrogant”. This distressed me, and I went back to the book and opened it up. There in the foreword ... was a small forest of the first person personal pronoun I. Big as life—I, I, I. Of course I was humiliated and told my friend to tell the relative that he had a point, and that I was sorry. But she said something like, “Oh, no. That's not why he thought it was arrogant. It was the rest of the book, where you quoted from the Bible all the time.”
In other words, he had no problem with me talking about me. That was humble enough. But when I presumed to say what God had revealed—that was arrogant ...
In other words, the accusation of ‘arrogance’ is not usually an accusation that you have been proudly and presumptuously self-important, and treated others with contempt (which is what the word actually means). It is a rhetorical strategy designed to gut the status and claims of a particular group, while at the same time privileging the claims of another group who is also making an equally strong claim, but simply a different one. I will not engage with what you actually say; I will simply write you off as ‘arrogant’ for daring to challenge my orthodoxy.
As Wilson goes on to point out, there is no neutral ground here. The Christian regards the non-Christian as arrogant for being so ridiculously proud as to defy the God who made them; the non-Christian regards the Christian as arrogant for being so insufferable as to claim that he has a personal pipeline to God through the Bible.
If it's not too arrogant of me to say so, both sides cannot be right.