{"id":708,"date":"2014-03-05T15:26:37","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T13:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filosofille.wordpress.com\/?p=708"},"modified":"2026-05-12T09:12:45","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T08:12:45","slug":"qa-47-motion-of-confidence-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/qa-47-motion-of-confidence-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"QA 47. Motion of confidence (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"MariaIHaveConfidence\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Last week\u2019s philosophy caf\u00e9 offered another conversation about confidence. As noted before<\/a>, confidence has two levels. One is conditional: the conscious trust in one\u2019s abilities or worth, developed through experience and familiarity (\u201cor entitlement\u201d, as someone pointed out, referring to the social confidence of private-school girls). The other is what John Dewey described as \u201cunconscious faith in the possibilities of the situation\u201d, or \u201cthe straightforwardness with which one goes at what he has to do\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One man, I\u2019ll call him Anthony, spoke about a friend he\u2019d had in his twenties who led the two of them on rigorous mountain hikes. One day they were in a cave, swimming across an underground lake, when the friend became hypothermic. Suddenly, the one who had been happy to follow had to get both of them out alive. Anthony told us he did what he had to, towed his friend back across the lake and then found the way out. He said he didn\u2019t know how he did it, but he has never since doubted his ability to meet whatever comes along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Someone astutely noted that Anthony didn\u2019t become<\/i> confident that day; the confidence was already there when he needed it. We agreed that this kind of confidence is inherent. But do we need to pass a test to make it our own? What if Anthony had lost his head? It sounded like that wasn\u2019t even a possibility for him, which may be the real fact of confidence. As someone else said, \u201cconfidence is when you don\u2019t abandon yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We spoke about how confidence can be undermined, particularly in Western culture. Children learn to doubt themselves when they are taught to measure themselves against various benchmarks of achievement. When confidence in oneself \u2013 in one\u2019s self \u2013 is broken, one strives to find security outside: in another person, in bravado (fake it \u2019til you make it), in accomplishments and accoutrements. This is where we go astray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Security is to confidence as pleasure is to happiness. There is a qualitative difference, and amassing the one won\u2019t get you the other. Confidence doesn\u2019t depend on minimising risk, and happiness doesn\u2019t depend on the absence of pain. Neither confidence nor happiness can be willed into existence: the more we strive, the worse we feel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Confidence is inherent but we have to keep faith with it. Keep faith with faith itself, with our capacity to trust ourselves and our world. That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s all going to work out. We\u2019re still going to suffer and die, and so will everyone we care about. Confidence lets us live with that, straightforwardly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also have to keep faith with each other. Confidence is deeply relational and we read it in each other intuitively. I can support another person\u2019s confidence by trusting them \u2013 not blindly, but with clear-sighted confidence. By lending support when and as needed with care and respect. By being trustworthy myself. Confidence is inherent; it grows with love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week\u2019s philosophy caf\u00e9 offered another conversation about confidence. As noted before, confidence has two levels. One is conditional: the conscious trust in one\u2019s abilities or worth, developed through experience and familiarity (\u201cor entitlement\u201d, as someone pointed out, referring to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,142],"tags":[144,151,146,85,53,152],"class_list":["post-708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-everyday-philosophy","category-thinking-out-loud","tag-confidence","tag-interdependence","tag-john-dewey","tag-love","tag-philosophy-cafe","tag-relation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2337,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions\/2337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}