Arrogance is about the way they deliver the feedback.
For some, diplomacy is hard since they can't understand why others fail to meet their technical/knowledge/... expectations.
At work, I'm surrounded by smart people. They often outsmart me but a common trap they fall into is not doing enough meta thinking. They seem stuck on level 1 of things.
You are describing it as a mere packaging problem but I think it goes deeper than that. I think arrogance is exemplified by being closed-minded, refusing to even consider the other persons point of view.
And once you do that you will almost always moderate your statements, whereas those that think they are structurally in the right do not feel the need to do so, they will treat the rest of the world as though they're slightly stupid children and their tone will reflect that.
Yes, agreed. While I have known some very smart people who were arrogant, I think, contrary to what a lot of people are saying here, that intelligence and arrogance are actually orthogonal. There are plenty of people in the world who are not so smart and are still arrogant. Arrogance is an emotional problem, not a natural function of intelligence.
While your definition of arrogance is not bad at all, I will offer a variation: refusing to consider the possibility that one might be wrong.
I used to be one of those smart, arrogant people myself (arguably smart, anyway; certainly arrogant). I have found the conscious practice of humility to be very valuable.
Comments
Arrogance is about the way they deliver the feedback. For some, diplomacy is hard since they can't understand why others fail to meet their technical/knowledge/... expectations.
At work, I'm surrounded by smart people. They often outsmart me but a common trap they fall into is not doing enough meta thinking. They seem stuck on level 1 of things.
You are describing it as a mere packaging problem but I think it goes deeper than that. I think arrogance is exemplified by being closed-minded, refusing to even consider the other persons point of view.
And once you do that you will almost always moderate your statements, whereas those that think they are structurally in the right do not feel the need to do so, they will treat the rest of the world as though they're slightly stupid children and their tone will reflect that.
Yes, agreed. While I have known some very smart people who were arrogant, I think, contrary to what a lot of people are saying here, that intelligence and arrogance are actually orthogonal. There are plenty of people in the world who are not so smart and are still arrogant. Arrogance is an emotional problem, not a natural function of intelligence.
While your definition of arrogance is not bad at all, I will offer a variation: refusing to consider the possibility that one might be wrong.
I used to be one of those smart, arrogant people myself (arguably smart, anyway; certainly arrogant). I have found the conscious practice of humility to be very valuable.