Friday, August 01, 2003
Pride Goes Before the ________ .
The word "pride" and "proud" are being bandied about a lot lately.
Politicians make speeches, telling soldiers how "proud" they are of them.
My neighbors are talking about "pride" in their children, and how they
want to raise them to be "proud" and to show some "pride" in themselves,
their homes, their race, their ethnicity, their country.
So when did pride become a virtue, instead of a deadly sin?
If I were to say that I didn't feel proud of soldiers who fought an
unnecessary war, or that I didn't well up with pride when a child
learned how to use the potty independently or graduated high school,
or achieved any bare minimum expectation we might have for them,
then I'm not viewed as particularly virtuous for escaping the clutches
of a deadly sin. Instead, I'm labeled as heinous or anti-American.
"It's natural to feel pride," people insist. "It's damaging to repress
feelings."
Gluttony, lust, anger, greed, sloth, and envy are all "natural" emotions,
too. But through the centuries, the human race has learned to
recognize their pitfalls and find ways to express feelings in a way
that's more beneficial for self & society as a whole.
All this "pride" that people are so proud of expressing is sending a
message of hubris to the world. Americans are getting more ugly
by the minute, filled with an ugly pride, and utterly lacking in a true
virtue -- humility.
Instead of feeling pride for almost nothing of consequence, how
about feeling humility in the presence of something truly great?
How about feeling humbled by the beauty of nature, or by the
peaceful works of Ghandi and Martin Luther King?
Humility inspires us to become all we can. Pride blinds us to what
we really might be.
Pride puffs us up, makes us think we're much better than we are,
so we stop growing, stop achieving. We grow fat and lazy in our
pride.
Only humility shows us how much more we can become. ¶ 8/01/2003 09:41:00 AM
The word "pride" and "proud" are being bandied about a lot lately.
Politicians make speeches, telling soldiers how "proud" they are of them.
My neighbors are talking about "pride" in their children, and how they
want to raise them to be "proud" and to show some "pride" in themselves,
their homes, their race, their ethnicity, their country.
So when did pride become a virtue, instead of a deadly sin?
If I were to say that I didn't feel proud of soldiers who fought an
unnecessary war, or that I didn't well up with pride when a child
learned how to use the potty independently or graduated high school,
or achieved any bare minimum expectation we might have for them,
then I'm not viewed as particularly virtuous for escaping the clutches
of a deadly sin. Instead, I'm labeled as heinous or anti-American.
"It's natural to feel pride," people insist. "It's damaging to repress
feelings."
Gluttony, lust, anger, greed, sloth, and envy are all "natural" emotions,
too. But through the centuries, the human race has learned to
recognize their pitfalls and find ways to express feelings in a way
that's more beneficial for self & society as a whole.
All this "pride" that people are so proud of expressing is sending a
message of hubris to the world. Americans are getting more ugly
by the minute, filled with an ugly pride, and utterly lacking in a true
virtue -- humility.
Instead of feeling pride for almost nothing of consequence, how
about feeling humility in the presence of something truly great?
How about feeling humbled by the beauty of nature, or by the
peaceful works of Ghandi and Martin Luther King?
Humility inspires us to become all we can. Pride blinds us to what
we really might be.
Pride puffs us up, makes us think we're much better than we are,
so we stop growing, stop achieving. We grow fat and lazy in our
pride.
Only humility shows us how much more we can become. ¶ 8/01/2003 09:41:00 AM
