Hubris and Charisma

Interbane · Graduate Student Joined: 09 Oct 2004 Posts: 418 Gender:

There's a person I know that is very intelligent, yet has some personality flaws that hinder his progress in life in many ways. It is not just myself who interprets his actions in this way, it includes many others, including his sister, mother, father, and friends. He lacks what I consider 'wisdom', which is more of a philosophical understanding of life and relationships.

He is 25 years old, is taller than most people, well built, and has supermodel looks. Along with his intelligence, he also possesses a lot of charisma and is an adept wordsmith. This allows him to be a very good salesman, negotiator, and entertainer.

My reason for posting here is that I'm not sure how to explain his problems in order to make him better understand. One of his problems is that once he has an incorrect idea in his head, you cannot win an argument with him, even though he is wrong. Not to say that he will out argue you, just that he will continue to justify and revise and equivocate until 3 hours go by and he is still 100% confident that he is correct.

From his perspective, everyone else argues with him all the time about the issues at hand, making him feel as if everyone else sees him as stupid(why else would they argue when he 'knows' he is right?) His reaction to this is that 2 months down the road when he has a success where someone else told him he would fail, he generalizes that "everyone who ever argues with me and still thinks I'm wrong can eat this!" That only bolsters his stubborn confidence.

The most apparent solution is to show him that it is impossible to know so many things 100%. As MadArchitect said, it is impossible to know anything 100%. Yet there lies the problem. When he knows that he knows something 100%, any amount of explanation that it's impossible will lead to circular debate.

The majority of the conversations we have entail me trying to make him understand that his assessment of risk/reward is askew. Since if you believe something will work 100%, the risk is zero, which is false. You see my chain of logic here. On the other hand, determination is the biggest factor in business... so not believing fully could be a bad thing.

any comments?

MadArchitect · Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 12:50 am Post subject: Re: Hubris and Charisma

If he's putting his risks into practice, then he'll learn on his own his own fallibility. Since it's unlikely that you'll convince him by argument alone, I would say that the best you can do for him as a friend is to watch closely, anticipate his downfall, do what you can to keep him from getting killed, and don't rub it in when he realizes that he isn't infallible.


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