The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Rod:

"Pusillanimity" occurs to me as a possible antonym for "hubris". What's hard to pin down, though, is that note of self-destructiveness Xopher was looking for.

To adjust the goalposts on my own request -- you know the guy? Who when you're having a political discussion just has to get in his benign formulations about seeing both sides of the issue and putting aside our differences to make the best of things etc. etc.? And he doesn't even have to have an actual opinion about what you're discussing, because it's just another nail for the hammer of his chosen means to preen his self-image?

I mean sure, we've all been guilty of this, but the guy who makes a lifestyle and/or career out of it. Like horrid horrid Thomas Friedman.

Holly,

Is "nonchalant" expressly pejorative in French? If so, I never knew that!

Christopher,

More the second one.

The only antonyms for hubris that come to mind are "self-contempt" and other formulations with "self-". Not quite aesthetically satisfying, maybe.

In case anyone wonders "in what context?" about my previous post: a desire to privately calumniate Thomas Friedman in the most concise fashion possible.

Um, hi. Does anyone who may happen to read this know a word that specifically means "someone who preeningly cultivates a demeanor of equanimity"? Or have a neologism to suggest?

But where would a sea urchin get a Mitsubishi Zero, is what I want to know.

Chrepublicans? Or has the conversation moved on?

Well I'll be -- I had no idea. Thanks for the FYI, Xopher.

I'm partial to "Pharisees" as an epithet for the confounders of Christianity and far-right Republican Party loyalty. It's got Biblical punch (Matthew 23)!

Comment statistics for Rod on the Making Light blog

Total: 9 comments. View all these comments on a single page.