A friend I respect deeply forwarded an excellent 2015 article from Psychology Today – When Pride Is Nothing to Be Proud of. In it there are rich nuggets about discerning the line where pride becomes unhealthy. Our culture often bows up and relishes the concept, and places it in the virtue bucket. In the future maybe I’ll take a stab at the pride of being an American, and when that creeps over into unhealthy nationalism. Or when is winning a detriment? Both involve pride in the equation. Or the subtlety of showing respect for our fellow humans, which is ironclad; but then feeling like I deserve more respect than someone else due to status, money, race or religion.
There is a healthy form of pride. Watching your kids succeed in life as they learn sports, an instrument, or get their first paying job; all seem to be positive. Being proud of completing a challenging work project, or training for and finishing a marathon.
I could copy and paste the entire article, but this captures the thesis.
This shame-driven pride makes us too uncomfortable to say, ‘I’m sorry, I was wrong, I made a mistake.’ When pride rules, we believe we’re always right. This makes it difficult to sustain intimate relationships; nobody likes being with a know-it-all.
In contrast, dignity can live inside us regardless of our successes and failures. We don’t have to prove anything to anybody, or even to ourselves… If an enterprise fails, this doesn’t mean that we’re a failure. We can experience the dignity of living with integrity, regardless of the outcome.
Love the idea of dignity. It signifies an elegance, a humility, a level of integrity. In other words, there’s no need to parse it. Pride requires follow-up questions. The difference between the words seems so simple, but how many people in your circles have a know-it-all attitude. In other words, how many times have you heard someone say, “You know who I want to be around? The person who talks incessantly and is never wrong! Yessir, gimme more of that, please!”… Said no one ever.
From Mudpies to Peeps
The challenge of pride is an apropos segue. A good friend forwarded my Hellhound on my Trail post to his father. His dad’s response was similar to how my dad often reacted to my faith: curt and dismissive. I offered this idea, a riff I pursue in I’m Not Hitler, not word for word, but close enough. I’d love to hear thoughts from secularists and atheists.
In every area of life, things are designed. I sit at a designed desk working on a designed computer, lifting a created pen, looking at my created watch, drinking from a functional coffee cup designed for that set goal. Every device, fork, shoe, automobile… ALL OF THEM were designed by some manner of engineer. Yet, if there is no God, then evolution was able to create people who use a brain as an engine to design, strategize and produce… without having a brain itself. Unfathomable that a process that cannot course-correct, cannot strategize, cannot decide which direction is the most effective path; is able to then create beings who are able to think, decide, choose and course-correct. How does that work without a master designer pushing evolution along?
In other words, how does mindless mud create a mind-driven person?
“Towauk amungst yuhselves.”