Today's word is hubris. It has a long and colourful history going back to the Trojan War. According to Herodotus, our primary authority of all things in the Ancient Greek world, the Trojan War was not fought for the sake of a woman for he states 'if a woman does not wish herself to be taken, she will not be taken'.
Hubris was a crime in Classical Athens and is described thus by Aristotle (384BC - 322BC)
to cause shame to the victim, not in order that anything may happen to you, nor because anything has happened to you, but merely for your own gratification. Hubris is not the requital of past injuries; this is revenge. As for the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this: men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater
This got me thinking about the students in my class. I have noticed students that are the only child in their family tend to have this 'What about me!?' mentality (all except one little girl but there might be other reasons for her behaviour). Then I was thinking about my own childhood. I am the eldest in a family of 3 children. For me to even think about myself first, let alone think that I was better than my brother or sister, would be the ultimate act of hubris and would most assuredly bring with it some form of parental retribution.
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