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As my wife and I prepared for a family Thanksgiving gathering at our home, we had the TV set to the Macy’s parade. Big balloons, floats, marching bands; the whole shebang. At some point, a modestly sized float came into view, a large urban landscape crowning a giant apple. But it wasn’t the float itself that took my attention away from some last-minute cleaning-up. It was the commentator announcing the float with something more or less along the lines of “and here’s the float for New York City, the greatest city in the world.” My first reaction: Sorry, but New York is not the greatest city in the world. My second reaction: What is this obsession with being “the greatest?”
We see this everywhere, this need to not only be great, but to be greater than anyone else. The greatest. Better than everyone else. Superior. When Americans landed on the moon, how easy it was to consider it an American accomplishment – after all, didn’t Kennedy launch this push for the moon to outdo the Soviets? – on behalf of all humankind instead of, simply, a universal human accomplishment. When considering Dubai, all its fantastical architectural/engineering excesses can be said to represent this drive for being the greatest; bigger, better, more expensive than anything else. Never mind the labourers who will never partake in the paradise of the haves, the have-mores, and the have-a-lot-mores. Never mind the large amount of resources necessary to accomplish it all. Dubai aims to be number one in the world in everything, from artificial islands to underwater hotels and huge mega-malls.
But there are more fundamental questions: How many countries beat their own chests to the declaration of being the greatest country on the planet? How many of the world’s religions consider themselves God’s greatest gift to the world? It makes me wonder: Could this drive for being the greatest be a reason why we can’t get along?
The Value of Humility
It’s important to distinguish between pursuing greatness and aiming to be the greatest. Pursuing greatness, whatever it is that constitutes “greatness,” is a lifelong process, another turn of phrase, the drive to improve, to better, to progress. But being “the greatest” implies putting others down. To be the greatest means that others are lesser, inferior. To be the greatest implies an unhealthy competitiveness in which the winner must step over, or on, the losers. When we talk about relatively harmless things, like sports or arts, talk of “the greatest” may simply mean a heated discussion here or there. What constitutes the greatest is blatantly subjective and conversations usually don’t lead anywhere sinister – although soccer fandom in Europe may serve as a counterexample. But the problem stems when “the greatest” involves that diseased tribalism we call nationalism, or religion, or political ideology; ideas that kill. Where it’s one thing to die for one’s belief, the conviction of being in possession of the greatest idea leads to a willingness to kill. Are we truly so arrogant to believe that we know the truth with such certainty that we are willing to kill?
While science is not tasked with telling us how to live our lives – science is a means of gaining knowledge about the world (which includes knowledge of ourselves, of course) – the scientific method does embody an attitude of inquiry that is all about humility. The systemic reluctance to accept statements without verifiable and coherent evidence is an attitude that would be very helpful in other areas of human endeavour, whether political or religious. Life shouldn’t be about being the greatest, but about being the best one can be, about practical skepticism as opposed to unreasoned doubt or unquestioning belief. As the world reels at the tragedy and horror of the terrorist attack in Mumbai, I cannot help but think that the world’s people could use more humility in pursuing their goals.
Agree? Disagree? Frédérik invites you to discuss this week's column and more at his blog (frederik-sisa.blogspot.com).
