Arrogance is a way of pushing others down socially while using that push to lift yourself up above others.
Nerds often come out as arrogant by merely offering unsolicited advice or opinions. It doesn't matter if you actually do know what you think you know: you can still be arrogant even if you're right. This sort of arrogance is basically about stepping onto someone else's lawn.
For the general arrogance, I don't have answers. I haven't much felt the need for setting myself above others outside of a special context where I believe that my skills will benefit everybody so I'm not quite sure what's driving that.
For the nerdy arrogance, there's one thing I do: I usually negotiate responsibilities first before acting, i.e. I claim the territory before I pull out my tools.
If I've agreed with someone that I should take a look at fixing something, then I can rightfully and confidently exercise my knowhow myself because finding the solution has become my own territory. If it turns out to be a problem, I'll just return to negotiating: "I understood you wanted me to fix this so do you want me to continue or do you want to fix it yourself?" Conversely, if there is no agreement about territory I won't step in but just let them know they can contact me if they need me. I might know exactly how to fix something but I realise it's not my place until we've first cleared who's going to do what.
Also, getting into a debate with someone you don't know who actually does like debating, can easily be considered arrogant. Likewise there: while debating can be fun with the right person, however, most of the time with most people it isn't so I'll just skip that unless I specifically know the person.
Nerds often come out as arrogant by merely offering unsolicited advice or opinions. It doesn't matter if you actually do know what you think you know: you can still be arrogant even if you're right. This sort of arrogance is basically about stepping onto someone else's lawn.
For the general arrogance, I don't have answers. I haven't much felt the need for setting myself above others outside of a special context where I believe that my skills will benefit everybody so I'm not quite sure what's driving that.
For the nerdy arrogance, there's one thing I do: I usually negotiate responsibilities first before acting, i.e. I claim the territory before I pull out my tools.
If I've agreed with someone that I should take a look at fixing something, then I can rightfully and confidently exercise my knowhow myself because finding the solution has become my own territory. If it turns out to be a problem, I'll just return to negotiating: "I understood you wanted me to fix this so do you want me to continue or do you want to fix it yourself?" Conversely, if there is no agreement about territory I won't step in but just let them know they can contact me if they need me. I might know exactly how to fix something but I realise it's not my place until we've first cleared who's going to do what.
Also, getting into a debate with someone you don't know who actually does like debating, can easily be considered arrogant. Likewise there: while debating can be fun with the right person, however, most of the time with most people it isn't so I'll just skip that unless I specifically know the person.