hubris

{{short description|Extreme pride or overconfidence, often in combination with arrogance}}

File:Paradise Lost 12.jpg's Paradise Lost by Gustave Doré (1866). The spiritual descent of Lucifer into Satan, one of the most famous examples of hubris.]]

Hubris ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|h|juː|b|r|ɪ|s}}; {{etymology|grc|{{wikt-lang|grc|ὕβρις}} ({{grc-transl|ὕβρις}})|pride, insolence, outrage}}), or less frequently hybris ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|h|aɪ|b|r|ɪ|s}}),{{cite Collins Dictionary|hybris}} is extreme or excessive pride{{cite web |title=Examples and Definition of Hubris in Literature |url=https://literarydevices.net/hubris/ |website=Literary Devices |date=2020-12-01 |language=en-US |access-date=2021-04-23}} or dangerous overconfidence and complacency,{{cite Merriam-Webster|hubris|access-date=2016-04-22}} often in combination with (or synonymous with) arrogance.{{cite journal |last1=Picone|first1=P. M. |last2=Dagnino|first2=G. B. |last3=Minà|first3=A. |title=The origin of failure: A multidisciplinary appraisal of the hubris hypothesis and proposed research agenda |journal=Academy of Management Perspectives |date=2014 |volume=28 |issue=4 |pages=447–468 |doi=10.5465/amp.2012.0177}}

Hubris, arrogance, and pretension are related to the need for victory (even if it does not always mean winning) instead of reconciliation, which "friendly" groups might promote.{{cite web |url=https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201705/what-makes-the-arrogant-person-so-arrogant |title=What Makes the Arrogant Person So Arrogant? |website=Psychology Today |language=en |access-date=2020-04-16}} Hubris is usually perceived as a characteristic of an individual rather than a group, although the group the offender belongs to may suffer collateral consequences from wrongful acts. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence, accomplishments, or capabilities.

The term hubris originated in Ancient Greek, where it had several different meanings depending on the context. In legal usage, it meant assault or sexual crimes and theft of public property, and in religious usage it meant emulation of divinity or transgression against a god.

Ancient Greek origin

In ancient Greek, hubris referred to "outrage": actions that violated natural order, or which shamed and humiliated the victim, sometimes for the pleasure or gratification of the abuser.

= Mythological usage =

File:Atlas Typhoeus Prometheus.png (550 BC) depicting Prometheus serving his sentence, tied to a column]]

Hesiod and Aeschylus used the word "hubris" to describe transgressions against the gods.Eds., [https://www.britannica.com/topic/hubris "Hubris"], Encyclopædia Britannica. A common way that hubris was committed was when a mortal claimed to be better than a god in a particular skill or attribute. Claims like these were rarely left unpunished, and so Arachne, a talented young weaver, was transformed into a spider when she said that her skills exceeded those of the goddess Athena. Additional examples include Icarus, Phaethon, Salmoneus, Niobe, Cassiopeia, Tantalus, and Tereus.{{Cite book|last1=Roman|first1=Luke|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tOgWfjNIxoMC&q=%22Hubris%22+Icarus,+Phaethon,+Salmoneus,+Niobe,+Cassiopeia,+Tantalus|title=Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology|last2=Roman|first2=Monica|date=2010|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-1438126395|language=en}}

The goddess Hybris is described in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition as having "insolent encroachment upon the rights of others".{{cite EB1911 |wstitle=Themis |volume=26 |page=758}}

These events were not limited to myth, and certain figures in history were considered to have been punished for committing hubris through their arrogance. One such person was the king Xerxes I as portrayed in Aeschylus's play The Persians, and who allegedly threw chains to bind the Hellespont sea as punishment for daring to destroy his fleet.Spurgeon, C. H., The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit—Sermons Preached and Revised by C. H. Spurgeon, During the Year 1877, Volume 23 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1878), [https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sermons_of_the_Rev_C_H_Spurgeon_of_Londo/QSlOAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA303&printsec=frontcover p. 303].

What is common in all of these examples is the breaching of limits, as the Greeks believed that the Fates (Μοῖραι) had assigned each being with a particular area of freedom, an area that even the gods could not breach.Cornelius Castoriadis. Ce qui fait la Grèce, tome 1: D'Homère à Héraclite, chapitre V. Editeur: Seuil (9 mars 2004).

= Legal usage =

File:Νέμεσις πατά την Ύβριν, ρωμαϊκό αναθεματικό ανάγλυφο, 2ος αι.μ.Χ., Πάτρα 01.jpg as protector of gladiators treading on Hubris, 2nd-century, Archaeological Museum of Patras, Greece]]

In ancient Athens, hubris was defined as the use of violence to shame the victim (this sense of hubris could also characterize rape).{{cite encyclopedia|title=Hubris|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/hubris|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=21 April 2016}} In legal terms, hubristic violations of the law included what might today be termed assault-and-battery, sexual crimes, or the theft of public or sacred property. In some contexts, the term had a sexual connotation.David Cohen, "Law, society and homosexuality or hermaphrodity in Classical Athens" in Studies in ancient Greek and Roman society By Robin Osborne; p. 64 Shame was frequently reflected upon the perpetrator, as well.{{cite book|title=Nomos: Essays in Athenian Law, Politics and Society|last=Cartledge|first=Paul|author-link=Paul Cartledge|author2=Paul Millett|year= 2003|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn= 978-0521522090|page= 123 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3nCSw5Cr4PUC&pg=PA123|access-date= 2011-11-14|author2-link= Paul Millett}}

Crucial to this definition are the ancient Greek concepts of honour (τιμή, timē) and shame (αἰδώς, aidōs). The concept of honour included not only the exaltation of the one receiving honour, but also the shaming of the one overcome by the act of hubris. This concept of honour is akin to a zero-sum game. Rush Rehm simplifies this definition of hubris to the contemporary concept of "insolence, contempt, and excessive violence".{{cite book |last1=Rehm |first1=Rush |author-link=Rush Rehm|title=Radical Theatre: Greek Tragedy in the Modern World |date=2014 |publisher=A&C Black |via=Google Books |isbn=978-1472502339 |page=75 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8eanAgAAQBAJ&q=Rush+Rehm+hubris&pg=PA75 |access-date=2 October 2018}}

Two well-known cases are found in the speeches of Demosthenes, a prominent statesman and orator in ancient Greece. These two examples occurred when first Midias punched Demosthenes in the face in the theatre (Against Midias), and second when (in Against Conon) a defendant allegedly assaulted a man and crowed over the victim. Yet another example of hubris appears in Aeschines' Against Timarchus, where the defendant, Timarchus, is accused of breaking the law of hubris by submitting himself to prostitution and anal intercourse. Aeschines brought this suit against Timarchus to bar him from the rights of political office and his case succeeded.Aeschines "Against Timarchus" from Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents by Thomas Hubbard (historian) {{ISBN?}} {{page?|date=December 2022}} Aristotle defined hubris as shaming the victim, not because of anything that happened to the committer or might happen to the committer, but merely for that committer's own gratification:

to cause shame to the victim, not in order that anything may happen to you, nor because anything has happened to you, but merely for your own gratification. Hubris is not the requital of past injuries; this is revenge. As for the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this: naive men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater.Aristotle, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0060%3Abekker+page%3D1378b Rhetoric 1378b].{{cite book|last=Cohen|first=David|title=Law, Violence, and Community in Classical Athens|page=145|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1995|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SJ9GjorvJGkC&pg=PA145|isbn=0521388376|access-date=March 6, 2016}}{{cite book|last=Ludwig|first=Paul W.|title=Eros and Polis: Desire and Community in Greek Political Theory|page=178|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2002|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TvqTEy-til8C&pg=PA172|isbn=1139434179|access-date=March 6, 2016}}{{Cite book|last1=Skof|authorlink=:sl:Lenart Škof|first1=Lenart|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y78TEAAAQBAJ&q=%22Hubris%22+%22naive+men+think+that+by+ill-treating+others+they+make+their+own+superiority+the+greater%22&pg=PA58|title=Shame, Gender Violence, and Ethics: Terrors of Injustice|last2=Hawke|first2=Shé M.|date=2021|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-1793604682|language=en}}

= Early Christianity=

In the Septuagint, the "hubris is overweening pride, superciliousness or arrogance, often resulting in fatal retribution or nemesis". The word hubris as used in the New Testament parallels the Hebrew word pesha, meaning "transgression". It represents a pride that "makes a man defy God", sometimes to the degree that he considers himself an equal.Stanley J. Grenz, [https://books.google.com/books?id=NAPrXVh_56wC&q=hubris&pg=PA183 Theology for the Community of God], Pub: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2000 – "The Greek word hubris, which occurs occasionally in the New Testament (e.g., Acts 27:10, 21; 2 Cor.12:10). parallels the Hebrew pasha. William Barclay offers a helpful definition of the term. Hubris, he writes, 'is mingled pride and cruelty. Hubris is the pride which makes a man defy God, and the arrogant contempt which makes him trample on the hearts of his fellow men.' [...] Hence, it is the forgetting of personal creatureliness and the attempt to be equal with God."

Modern usage

In its modern usage, hubris denotes overconfident pride combined with arrogance. Hubris is also referred to as "pride that blinds" because it often causes a committer of hubris to act in foolish ways that belie common sense.{{cite journal |title= The 1920 Farrow's Bank Failure: A Case of Managerial Hubris|journal= Journal of Management History|volume= 20|issue= 2|pages= 164–178|url= https://www.academia.edu/6081830|publisher= Durham University |access-date= October 1, 2014|last1= Hollow|first1= Matthew|year= 2014|doi= 10.1108/JMH-11-2012-0071}}

= Arrogance =

The Oxford English Dictionary defines "arrogance" in terms of "high or inflated opinion of one's own abilities, importance, etc., that gives rise to presumption or excessive self-confidence, or to a feeling or attitude of being superior to others [...]."{{oed | arrogance}} Adrian Davies sees arrogance as more generic and less severe than hubris.

{{cite book

| last1 = Davies

| first1 = Adrian

| year = 2011

| chapter = How Can Human Nature and Corporate Governance Be Reconciled?

| title = The Globalisation of Corporate Governance: The Challenge of Clashing Cultures

| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=4nC1CwAAQBAJ

| edition = reprint

| location = London

| publisher = Routledge

| publication-date = 2016

| page = 68

| isbn = 978-1317030102

| access-date = 22 August 2020

| quote = [...] hubris – a form of overweening pride and arrogance. [...] In modern usage hubris is an extreme form of arrogance, often in the face of facts [...].

}}