Thursday, November 19, 2010

Tonight’s dinner table conversation was in keeping with the usual interesting and thought-provoking discussions my family shares with one another. Tonight’s topic—arrogance.

I wondered aloud how it is that when both parents are consumed by arrogance, they manage to have equally arrogant kids. Wouldn’t it seem that for them to create a new generation of arrogant individuals would pose a threat to their own already arrogant selves? That it would take some of the spotlight off of them?

My youngest son, always a quick thinker, answered my question by stating, no, it wouldn’t pose a threat to the adults, since they would view their kids’ acts of arrogance as a good thing that others would take notice of—in a positive way. (The fact that nothing could be father from the truth seems to matter not.) This, in turn, would make the parents even more arrogant, believing that their children were exceptional. That arrogance somehow made them such. And that it’s a good thing.

So how do we get through to these individuals to enlighten them that arrogance is not a good character trait? That ushering in a new generation of arrogant individuals does not serve the greater good? That, in fact, it only acts as a hindrance?