Don't be humble, be an anarchist
I spent a lot of my life trying to be humble, but it always seemed a little weird, false and annoying. And I noticed the same in others around me. There was someone at my school, let’s call him Phil, who would always get the top score on tests. He’d play humble by coming out of exams saying that things were hard and he probably wouldn’t do well. But then he did do well, and it was all quite annoying. I was also annoying like that, but doing slightly worse on the tests than Phil. And I didn’t know what I could do that would make it less annoying. Saying ‘yeah it went fine’ would also probably get an eye roll.
You might not think that 'Annoying Phil' has much in common with Kendrick Lamar, but in ‘Humble’, Kendrick is wrestling between bragging about wealth, power and sexual pursuits in the verses, and then yelling back at himself to ‘sit down, be humble’ in the choruses. He’s also torn in this strange position, where he wants to be visibly ‘successful’ as has been drilled into him, but also to downplay his achievements to avoid being a ‘lil bitch’ (I guess both sides of him are still misogynistic).
So why is Phil annoying, and why is Kendrick torn, and why do both feel like there is no way out of it? I think it’s because it’s mixing up being humble with putting yourself down, and sacrificing honesty and pride. It comes from the mistaken belief that to make other people feel better, you have to give the impression that you’re ‘equal in rank’ or ‘lower rank’ than them. Our current systems put everyone in ranks that have large effects on your safety and agency in life. We had a lot of pressure put on our exam scores, because they determine what job you get, which determines whether you’re at risk of poverty or how much choice you have over what you do for work. Given that this ranking system exists, there’s no good way for someone who is ‘ranked high’ to not be annoying, given that their high rank reminds the other person of how they are disappointing their parents and teachers and loved ones, who are scared for their future wellbeing. I felt shit for annoying people, and didn’t realise that the only way to solve it was by opposing the whole ranking game.
So what could we have instead of this humility, that will always be a little fake? I’ve tried to stop playing games of ‘climbing ranks’, whether that’s brownnosing employers to get a better CV, doing boring things to make myself ‘more attractive’, or doing well on tests. This isn't saying that I've given up my high status by the way. I haven't given away all my inherited money for example, and I still feel pretty torn about it. But I’ve wasted so much of my life climbing ranks, and have been pretty good at it, but still felt like shit.
Why should I have to work in a shit job for ages to own a home? Or get the top 10% of exam results to have any choice over what I spend my days doing? Why should I have to be toned to be found sexy? I’ve been spending more time in spaces where these hierarchies are getting discarded. I love being weird, disabled, and queer, and being in spaces with others who are called ‘losers’. Sure, we’re not ‘winners’, but we can’t be losers if we’re not playing the game. Come and join us. If enough of us agree that we should all have a secure home, and food, and spend our days doing things we genuinely find meaningful, then it will come true. I think it's the only way to not be annoying when you're trying to be humble.
But there’s still something to be saved of ‘being humble’. There’s something nice in there, that we can also have in this transformed world without ranking. I’m now avoiding pretending I'm lower in the 'rankings', but I’ve found a new way of being humble. I’m trying to acknowledge that I always have a lot to learn from others. To acknowledge that they have the power to surprise me and to teach me.
I see it that acknowledging that someone or something is ‘alive’ is acknowledging that its inner workings are complex and unknown, so that you don’t know what it will do next. This non-understood complexity is sometimes called ‘free will’. To come into every conversation with a person, and every interaction with the world, with curiousity, care and respect. That is the kind of humility I am looking for. In many ways this looks similar to our old idea of being humble, where those with power and status decrease their own importance. But this time, it’s not annoying.
So I hope you agree, that we should oppose ranking. Opposing ranking, is opposing unconsensual hierarchy. And if you are opposing unconsensual hierarchy, you are an anarchist.
Update: I'm 24 hours into digging non stop through Kendrick lore and wow he worked this out hard. In his legendary beef verse on 'Like That', Kendrick says "money, power, respect/ The last one is better". I feel like this line sums up the deep reason Kendrick beat Drake.