[Suzerain of Sheol]

When you mention it as a social need, it makes me wonder if humility, in some abstracted sense, is apathetic in nature. Ascetic traditions tend to be big on humility, and in a way humility is bound up with that sense of self-abnegation. After all, pushing away pride is essentially a suppression of the tendencies of the ego, so I guess then it's a question of the distinction between apathy for the validating needs of the fundamental self or apathy for the judgments of others and society. That's apathy either way, though, I'm trying to think of a mechanism where humility is socially productive, but I'm failing at the moment. I'm sure there must be one, at least theoretically.

I think I tied my brain in a knot there....