Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler has accused Elon Musk of felony vote buying and he has called for the billionaire's arrest if he comes to the state.
Hubris is a kind of boastful pride–like a sense of invulnerability. It also implies a kind of dramatic irony, that this sense of invulnerability will eventually prove false. (The term comes from ancient Greek theater, where it’s often the Heroic Flaw that will eventually be the undoing of the tragic hero.)
Chutzpah is more…audacity, nerve, gall. A person with chutzpah doesn’t believe they can’t be harmed; they’re just willing to bald-face it out in the hopes you won’t actually call them on it. In English it can have a positive connotation, the way “cojones” tends to, but it can also have a negative connotation, like “cheek” or “gall.” It comes from Yiddish, where apparently it’s more uniformly negative. (Leave it to us Americans to interpret a condemnation of shameless effrontery as somehow laudatory.)
I guess I would say the key difference is that someone with hubris thinks they are invulnerable, whereas a person with chutzpah is aware they are vulnerable and absolutely refusing to act like it.
They’re definitely kind of related, but they just have really different feels to them
Ah that’s interesting, I had thought of it more negatively. It’s not a common word where I am, so my knowledge has been gleaned from American media, mostly.
Would you mind explaining how chutzpah and hubris differ please? I’m not sure I get it.
Hubris is a kind of boastful pride–like a sense of invulnerability. It also implies a kind of dramatic irony, that this sense of invulnerability will eventually prove false. (The term comes from ancient Greek theater, where it’s often the Heroic Flaw that will eventually be the undoing of the tragic hero.)
Chutzpah is more…audacity, nerve, gall. A person with chutzpah doesn’t believe they can’t be harmed; they’re just willing to bald-face it out in the hopes you won’t actually call them on it. In English it can have a positive connotation, the way “cojones” tends to, but it can also have a negative connotation, like “cheek” or “gall.” It comes from Yiddish, where apparently it’s more uniformly negative. (Leave it to us Americans to interpret a condemnation of shameless effrontery as somehow laudatory.)
I guess I would say the key difference is that someone with hubris thinks they are invulnerable, whereas a person with chutzpah is aware they are vulnerable and absolutely refusing to act like it.
They’re definitely kind of related, but they just have really different feels to them
Thank you that’s good to know. I wasn’t aware of any positive affiliation with it. I’ll bear it in mind moving forward :)
Put simply: Chutzpah has more of a positive connotation, while hubris is almost always negative.
Ah that’s interesting, I had thought of it more negatively. It’s not a common word where I am, so my knowledge has been gleaned from American media, mostly.