Home - The Way We Are: The Meek and The Arrogant

I am a spiritual, not a religious person, but I was raised in the Christian tradition. Many Canadians were, and so we share certain common knowledge. Most of us have heard the expression "the meek shall inherit the Earth," and I have taken the concept to mean the following.

The Arrogant

The Arrogant seek to impose themselves on others. They believe they are in some way superior and entitled to take from others to enrich themselves or make themselves feel morally secure. There are many ways they do this:

• Thieves, rapists, and murderers are obvious examples
• The recent epidemic of corporate executives who defraud their shareholders are another
• Less obvious are people desperate to obtain positions of power over others so they can feel superior - these disturbed people range from managers who play favourites to abusive restaurant patrons
• Religious 'leaders' who dictate their twisted ideas of right and wrong, even when these ideas are clearly disconnected from human nature
• Christians who behave in ways that would shame Jesus
• Business or labour leaders who seek laws and regulations favourable to themselves

The Meek

The Meek have a 'live and let live' attitude. They may not like how others live, but they let them find their own way as long as it does not harm anyone else. The Meek do not seek to impose their values or lifestyle upon others; all they ask is that you extend them the same consideration.

The Meek do not claim to know all the answers, and are not afraid to say "I don't know." The Meek will stand up to protect themselves and others; this is how the Arrogant can start wars and send the Meek to die in them. If there were no Arrogant, there would be no wars, no oppression, no murder and lying and stealing.

Let Us Be

To be meek is to be civilized; to be arrogant is to be a savage. The vast majority of people are meek, yet we allow ourselves to be controlled by the arrogant. All we want to do is to live our lives in peace, and the arrogant see this and use it against us. They know we will complain but not resist as long as they stay within lmits.

However, to be arrogant is ultimately to accept no limits. The arrogant are like spoiled children who have never been disciplined and who lack self-restraint. They keep pushing and pushing, trying to take as much as they can get away with, and this is always the eventual undoing of the arrogant. Eventually, the meek refuse to be abused further, and rebel. The French Revolution, the American Revolution, the fight for civil rights in the United States, our own democracy - all are the result of the meek saying, "Enough. We will do what is right from now on." And then the cycle begins anew; the meek go back to living their lives in hopeful peace, and the arrogant begin taking again; first, a little here, a little there, to test the climate, then ever more boldly as time goes by and the meek do not push back.

We Are Both

We all have aspects of meekness and arrogance within us. In most of us, we control our arrogant tendencies and develop meek habits - we become considerate, responsible, caring. However, in some people the arrogance is dominant. These people turn the world into dog-eat-dog, into hierarchy, into good-versus-evil, into systems of power and inequity and control. They do this to benefit themselves. The meek let it happen, until pushed too far.

I believe we are at that point. In fact, we must be, because if we are not, most of humanity will soon enough be gone due to our arrogant destruction of the natural systems that sustain us. The Meek have risen in the past and we must rise again, now.

Inherit the Earth

I have spoken with many people in the course of trying to awaken the meek. Some believe the world is due to end in the next fifty years or so, and that this is prophesied in the Bible. I believe that this is a very arrogant attitude. God is not ending this world; we are. Our actions, taken freely and now in full knowledge of the outcome, will cause first the deaths of millions - billions - of people in poorer nations. Not long after that, we will follow. We will kill others and die ourselves because we didn't want to change the way we live. That sounds more like murder-suicide than God's will.

What sort of an Earth will survive to be inherited depends upon actions we take right now. And what sort of life we and our children and our children's children shall have depends upon what we do today. You don't have to be Christian to agree that our children shall indeed pay for our sins of greed and selfishness when it comes to pollution and climate change.

Humanity's time on this Earth does not have to end now, but it may. The choice is ours.