What is the hybris according to Greek philosophy?
Greek philosophy is crossed by tensions and distensions between humans and gods . Classical are the reflections and narrations that worry about the relationship between the mortal and the divine, the wrong and the perfect, order and disproportion.
In this context, the transgression has been one of the figures found in the background of the myths and stories that gave rise to the most classical Greek philosophy, and that among other things allowed the latter to have effects and functions in the social order.
There is for the Greeks a necessary natural order, which governs the conduct and which must be maintained and respected. The nature (of which gods and humans are a part) organizes and regulates the world, the body and the soul, maintains an order that should not be contradicted. The concept of hibris , which we will see developed below, has to do with that.
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The hybris and the order of the cosmos
In Greek philosophy human beings are part of an order called "cosmos". In that order there is no place for the sharp distinction between the human and the divine, nature and soul, biology or culture. However, it is an order in which human beings recognize themselves as distinct from the divine : humans are limited, they are not immortal or omnipresent like the gods, they are the other way round: finite and perishable.
Having an awareness of immortality, there is also awareness of one's own limits, and there is then a possibility of transgression. The problem is that the transgression is a sign of the ignorance of the limits and of the own condition of human, what means to be equated to the condition of gods through a narcissistic ego.
The hibris is the word with which the latter is represented: it is the state of absence of moderation , which is also the state of the greatest transgression, in which none of the human beings should fall. The duty of humans, contrary to this, is to "know yourself", what it means to know your own limits, avoid excesses and preserve moderation. Hybris is the state that breaks with homogeneity, disrupts the order of cosmos and social order.
Thus, the hibris represents audacity and disproportion, the split of the cosmos and the political order. It is the opposite of prudence, which is closer to the idea of human humility and invites us to think and live in the recognition of our own limits. The hibris represents the act of aspiring to more than what is actually possible , go against the "moira" that means "part", "lot" or "destiny", and refers to what each "being" has been, including the possibilities of "doing".
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Heroes and political ethics
One of the great problems posed by some Greek philosophers is when those who fall into the hibris are the human beings in charge of governing. The tyrant, who stumbles on what the Greeks called "pleonexia" (insatiable motivation, always wanting to have more), is the representation of the maximum transgression .
Who has fallen into the hibris does not regulate itself, is not measured by moderation, which is not the right person to govern. Otherwise it is the figure of the hero of the Greek tragedies, who also has a desire for sometimes insatiable power. This desire causes blindness and closeness to the hibris , but that does not represent a deliberate offense against the gods.
However they do fall into pride and arrogance, so they are not saved from divine punishment: the nemesis; figure that represents revenge, justice and balancing punishment. Herodotus, one of the fathers of History, already said that "the divinity tends to take down everything that is too high".
The Agamemnon of the Homeric Iliad and Trojan attack commander; Oedipus the King, who killed his father and married his mother; and some emperors like Caligula and Nero, are just some of the Greek characters that came to the hibris. Excessive confidence has the consequence of not taking into account the experiences, ideas and mentalities of others, which also does not foresee the consequences or reactions of others, and easily the "nemesis" returns the balance.
The syndrome of hibris
Through the concept and history of the hibris it has been easier to represent the figure of the excess of consumption, the contemporary tendency to "pleonexia" and the feeling of insatiability that crosses the subjectivities , becoming increasingly narcissistic.
A clearer example can be put in the evident ambition of political power of the tyrant subjectivity, or the excessive ambition of knowledge that leads to overconfidence, to the state of impatience or unthinking hyperactivity.
Hybridity is the state inspired by exaggerated passions, thoughtless actions. Represents obstinacy, fixation on preconceived ideas and the rejection of contrary or foreign ideas, arrogant treatment and narcissism.
It is an excess that disorganizes and corrupts , but that is quite far from the individual meaning that we attribute to "madness" in our time, precisely charged with hybris.
However, the figure hibris has been used to represent even in clinical terms (such as "syndrome") the personalities that are characterized by an eccentric and excessive ego that has as a consequence the dismissing of others.
Bibliographic references
- Carvajal, C. (2014). Hybris syndrome: description and treatment. Medical Journal of Chile, 142 (2): 270-271.
- Cruz, J. (2017). Transgression and philosophy. Criticism and artifice, 13 (30): 67-61.
- Editor (2013). The syndrome of hibris, or the disease of power. No more pale. Retrieved June 15, 2018. Available at //nomaspalidas.com/el-sindrome-de-hibris-o-la-enfermedad-del-poder/.
