Framing the Earth

Believe it or not, when I started professional legal writing, one of the first things I got was a dictionary. If you look in the procedural rules, the Washington Supreme Court specifically endorses a dictionary. The reason is because you frequently have to dive very deeply into seemingly insigificant words.

This "dictionary mind" has definitely lead me down some interesting rabbit trails. I encountered one recently and wanted to share in case this helps anyone else.

"Humility" is one of those positive words. Humility is a good quality for people to have. We complain when people lack it and rejoice when they show it. It shows up on bumper stickers, travel mugs, and in prayer groups.

"Humiliate," on the other hand, is a bad term.

We say things like "this person suffered a humiliating defeat" and usually feel a bit of schadenfraude when we say it. Newspapers love to breathlessly use it as an adjective. When a football team gets "humiliated," the subtext is usually that they should feel overwhelmed with shame for their performance.

So what gives? Why do we like humility and hate humiliation?

Let's do a bit of digging here.

Going to the Latin roots, "humilis" means "low, lowly, small, or shallow." "Humus" (like "exhume") means the earth or soil. Both Latin terms kind of live in the same neighborhood - things that are low to the ground. In that sense, "humiliate" in the Latin usage literally meant to bring someone low to the ground.

As you might imagine, "humiliate" was not a terribly glowing term in a militarisitic culture like Rome.

"Humility," as it is commonly used, got a boost from Christian theology. In the middle ages, writers started talking about making themselves low before their god, describing it as a posivity quality. This echoes themes seen in the New Testament - Jesus washing peoples' feet, keeping company with unpopular people, abandoning kingly trappings, etc. Suddenly you had this paradox where people were supposed to be very mighty but also deeply humble. (Look at the idealized descriptions of knights in Arthurian lore to get an idea of this.)

In a modern sense, why is there this divide between the result and the process? I can't give a definitive answer, but I can share my theory. It is fairly esoteric, so try and stay with me.

Here it goes:

Being humiliated sucks.

It is deeply unpleasant. Go back through your own life and think about the times that you got humiliated. Very rarely do people look back at those times and smile. Most of the time, if you really dig into the stuff that left marks on you, you can even provoke physiological reactions like an elevated heart rate or flushed face just be mentally "going there" for long enough.

People cheer at a good humiliation, but it's usually with the subtext of "thank God that's not me." Very rarely do people see a humiliation and think, "This could be the birthplace of someone's humility."

I think it happens because every time we face a humiliation and get our face smeared in that proverbial dirt of reality, we always have a choice to make.

The easier choice is to run away from it. Try and pretend it never happened. Say and do things to distract and detract from it. Bend over backwards to find ways that it was not your fault, was not an isolated incident, and says nothing about you. In my experience, this is the more common choice people make. It probably explains why "humiliating" is a bad word. The process is unplesant, and therefore bad.

The other choice is to walk into humiliation. See what happened for what it is. See what it says about you for what it is. Then square with that. This process usually involves admitting your faults and acknowledging that one's self-image and their reality do not match up. I think that if you do this enough (and don't get stuck wallowing in the humiliation), you get over that instant aversion to anything humiliating and start to see it as a training ground.

Why bother?

If you have to ask why "humiliation" is a bad word, it is just as fair to question why, in a practical sense, "humility" is a good one.

Again, my own highly scientific theory inbound:

Humility is your feet on the ground. You are open to the fact that you're not perfect and you might be wrong. This makes it easier to learn. It also means that you don't have a big ego that's likely to bump into things on your journey towards learning, or even just connecting to other people.

I think a common lie people tell themselves is that if they walk the path of admitting their faults that those around them will point at them and say "shame!" They will be outcast forever.

In my experience, that is rarely ever true. I cannot think of any time in my life that I've said, "I really screwed that up and I'm trying to get right" and people scorned me for it. If anything, people usually root for you. Heck, there is a whole narrative subgenre called the the "redemption arc." If you do not think people like this... I would humbly suggest you open Netflix and nose around. You won't have to look that far.

I only bring all this up to suggest that words have deep, deep power. Reframing how you use and view them can fundamentally alter how you perceive the world. A dictionary isn't a doorstop - when used correctly, it can be a gateway into a deep understanding of ourselves and those around us.