"Meekness, then, is a weakness. Why would you ever want to be meek? The same goes for docility, often characterized as a near neighbor of meekness. We can get a feel for its usage these days from the Corpus of Contemporary American English, where one finds that a docile person is slow, controllable, obedient, submissive, compliant, passive, and under control."
"Meekness, docility, and condescension: three traits with no cultural capital today. And yet, our ancestors typically understood these traits to be virtues. How in the world could that be? As any philosopher will tell you, in a case of seeming disagreement, you need to settle the definitions of the words in play."
"When we check the meaning of these three terms, I think we come to see that there's been a switcheroo. As I've found in my philosophical research and teaching, some of the virtues that were most celebrated in yesteryear but now go undersung are traits that can help us lead good lives, even now."
Modern culture dismisses meekness, docility, and condescension as weaknesses and vices. Meekness is seen as timid submission to oppression, docility as passive obedience, and condescension as arrogant superiority. However, historical understanding treated these traits as virtues. This apparent contradiction stems from semantic shifts in how these words are defined and interpreted across time periods. Philosophical examination reveals that clarifying precise definitions often resolves seeming disagreements. Historical virtues that now lack cultural recognition may still offer practical benefits for leading meaningful lives today, suggesting value in reconsidering these underappreciated character traits.
Read at Fast Company
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