Humbler Than Thou

The following is a short piece I wrote for Adam Mastroianni’s 2nd(?) Annual(?) Blog Extravaganza. It’s also the perfect opportunity to say something I’ve been thinking which doesn’t quite necessitate its own blog post. People are still doing cool things on the Internet. That’s it. I know it’s popular to whinge about ads, slop, and Algorithms (I love to bring up the Dead Internet theory myself). More people than I can count claim to want to spend less time online while doing nothing to support that claim. There are even some real harms which I won’t name here.

But the Internet is also a big place. A lot bigger than 5 or 10 sites. I wish I had more time to spend surfing the web (and not just to be a contrarian though that is part of it). When I do, I’m constantly running across really interesting people. Rather than link to any here, I’ll teach you to fish. Go find one blogger you like and see who they link to, either in posts or elsewhere on their site. Repeat. If you’re not sure where to start, I suggest Adam’s contest winners or yours truly. You can also try searching on Marginalia Search though I don’t use it as much.

One of my favorite parables is that of the Pharisee and the tax collector in the temple¹. The Pharisee prays, “Thank God I’m not like that sinful tax collector.” The tax collector prays “Have mercy on me, a sinner”. In case you can’t glean the moral from the story alone, Jesus explicitly says the tax collector’s prayer was better² and that “those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted”. Somehow, there’s not a time I’ve heard it without thinking, “Thank God I’m not like that self-righteous Pharisee.”

Still, I expect (and desperately hope) that my reaction is not unique. Anyone who hears this story automatically becomes morally superior to the Pharisee by virtue of knowing not to look down on others. The story is working against itself. Its message is that it is better to humble yourself, but hearing that message makes you feel superior. Anyone who can hear the story without feeling even a twinge of superiority doesn’t need to hear it in the first place. It could easily make people more self-righteous, not less.

It would be great if we could excise the Pharisee from the story. Without him, we’d have no one to look down on, only the tax collector’s good example. Oh wait, of course the tax collector is humbling himself. He’s a sinner! He has no justification to condemn others. If a sinner looked down on someone else, the sin of self-righteousness could be confused for mere hypocrisy³. Then it would be a story about how you’re allowed to look down on others as long as you actually are better.

As written, it’s unambiguous. The holiest man who fasts and gives to the poor who looks down on others is still worse than a sinner who begs forgiveness. It has to be unambiguous to neutralize the feeling of superiority. My second thought, after “Thank God I’m not like that self-righteous Pharisee” is always “Oops”.

If you get to that part, where you say “oops”, then it becomes doubly effective. Not only have you just learned the moral, but now you have a chance to practice. It’s easy to be humble when you feel sinful. It wouldn’t be a virtue if it happened to always be the thing that was easy to do. Even after I say “oops”, it’s hard to say “have mercy on me, a sinner”, but at least I know that’s what I’m supposed to say.

Among parables, it’s a pretty poor one narratively. It’s just two guys in a temple and one is better. Jesus could have skipped straight to the moral, the humbled/exalted part, but it wouldn’t be as effective or nearly as memorable without the characters. It’s easy to weasel out of a moral, to understand it intellectually but forget that it applies to you. It’s much harder when you’re incriminated by a parable.