"Let a stranger praise you, but not your own mouth; an outsider, but not your own lips" (27:2)
- Is Shlomo ha'Melech advocating self-praise (albeit not through oneself)?
- "Stranger" and "outsider" are funny terms to use. The pasuk should say something like, "Let your friend praise you, but not your own mouth; another person, but not your own lips." Why focus on "stranger" and "outsider"?
Idea:
That is exactly the point. This pasuk is about how to bring about the effect of self-praise. There are three ways to do this: (1) praise yourself, (2) get one of your friends to praise you, (3) get a stranger or an outsider to praise you.
The first option is bad. People are narcissists. We love ourselves, and we love talking about how great we are. Consequently, our ability to accurately assess ourselves is impaired by our ego. We amplify our merits, virtues, and accomplishments, and we minimize (or are blind to) our faults, imperfections, and failures. For this reason, people are skeptical and wary when they hear someone praise himself. Not only that, but nobody likes a braggart. Everyone is aware of that category of person who "loves to talk about himself," and self-praise is sure-fire way to place yourself in that category.
The second option is much better than the first. However, the majority of friendships are based on identification. Identification is where you view your friend as an extension of yourself. The closer the friendship, the greater the identification, and the greater the identification, the more self-love transfers to your friend. Thus, to the psyche, the difference between praising yourself and praising your friend is only quantitative. True, the quantitative difference is huge, but praising your friend is still an expression of self-love. Consequently, our ability to accurately assess our friends is inhibited for the same reasons as our ability to accurately assess ourselves. For this reason, people are often skeptical when they hear one friend praise another friend. They wonder, "Is this person really as great as he says, or is he just saying it because he's this person's friend?"
The third option is the best. If someone praises you who isn't your friend, then it's a pretty good guarantee that he is making an objective assessment, and his praise will carry a lot of weight - assuming that (a) he is qualified to assess the qualities he is praising, and (b) he has no other ulterior motives.
hey yo, it seems like the pasuk is working with a premise that there is a benefit to hearing praise about yourself if its true. Is the benefit of hearing the praise that it is somehow a better way of satisfying a persons need for praise? or is there a benefit there that a guy who doesn't care for praise is also getting?
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteHey yo, back at 'cha. Good question. I think the pasuk is specifically not telling you what to do with this fact - it's just telling you the fact. I've come across many pesukim like this. Shlomo ha'Melech just shows you a certain idea that you might not otherwise see because of some emotion, but he's not advising you to do or not do a particular action.
I recently found out that Saadia Gaon says there are twelve types of pesukim in Mishlei (which I plan to post soon). The fourth type is what he calls "a chacham's observation." Saadia Gaon says:
The fourth is something which a chacham has found to be common among people, such as, “A wealthy person will rule over the poor” (22:7); “A wealthy man is wise in his own eyes” (28:11). The words of this chacham are not a command or a prohibition, but merely a statement of fact - in this case, that he has found wealthy people to be like this.
Thus, there could be many reasons why this idea is useful. It might help you to satisfy your need for praise, as you mentioned. It might be beneficial for other people to hear your praise, for the sake of inspiration to do good (this is what Saadia Gaon says on this pasuk, which I'll write about later). It might help you in a utilitarian way. (For example, someone once asked me to write them a letter of recommendation for Touro because I was the valedictorian. I declined because I felt that it would seem biased if a "peer" wrote a review for another "peer.") There might be other reasons as well.
That's the benefit of this type of pasuk. Shlomo ha'Melech gives you a general idea, and you can apply in many different circumstances as you see fit.
Hey yo, comin atcha with a comment (I think you should demend that every comment begin like this for now on). Matt, I really like your method of understanding a Mishlei pasuk as exemplified here, but I have a question. It seems like you are not continuing on, after the first level understanding of the pasuk to the "big white elephant in the room" questions. Like for example, why would Shlomo advocate a seemingly negative quaulity? Possible my question is not a question because as you have pointed out many times, there are many levels to a Mishlei pasuk and it is up to the individual learning the pasuk to decide how many levels they want to delve into. But bearing that possiblity in mind, I wanted to here your thoughts on the question.
ReplyDeleteSup.
ReplyDeleteI liked your question, and felt it deserved its own post (which I posted two minutes ago).