Pride was listed as one of the Seven Deadly Sins. There is a lot to be said for this view.
What do we have a right to be proud of? For me the answer is fairly obvious that there is no reason for rightful and proper pride in matters that are accidental and coincidental. I have no reason to be proud to be English, it was not a choice I made or a prize I earned. The same goes for being male or white or being from a particular place or class. All those things are simply given, I have no control over them, no influence on them and therefore no right to feel pride or shame over them.
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Girl Power, sing if you're glad to be gay, black power. All are wrong. We are who we are, we have no right to be mistreated because of it and we have no right to take pride in it. Fighting discrimination with pride is nonsensical and counter productive. Pride is a wonderful feeling of self affirmation and self regard, faking it does a person no good. We should take pride in our achievements not in our membership of groups we could not choose to join. Seeing crowds waving national flags and getting off on the coincidence of birth is just one step from the abhorrent attitudes of the Ku Klux Klan. Being happy that your man won is one thing but how can the fact that somebody who did well was born in the same general locality, or perhaps the same continent, as you give you a legitimate right to feel proud? Many Americans seem to think that being born in Hicksville Utah in 1979 means somehow they put a man on the Moon, defeated the Third Reich, won Olympic gold medals from Hitler and launched Ford, IBM and Microsoft. How does that work? How can the fact that people you do not know and have done nothing to support have managed to kill some other people half a world away give you a feeling of achievement? People who spend most of their waking hours avoiding paying taxes to fund the evil of their government take one look at CNN or Fox News and leap up and down in joy at their victory, so full of pride. So full of something that stinks. If you spend all your waking energies fighting government and the evils of collectivism then you have no right to feel pride in anything other than your own efforts. National pride should be reserved for those people that co-operate with their nation, who pay their taxes, who support their police, vote in elections and who obey their laws. Every year the Irish around the world make a huge song and dance about St. Patrick's Day, the pride of being Irish. What would the reaction of the rest of the world be if the English, Japanese or Germans did the same? Notable unease I'd wager. History has been kind to the descendants of the Irish, with a few exceptions in the murky world of US politics the Irish have been lucky to be perpetual victims and so it is easy to portray themselves as peaceable and fun loving people who have been picked upon by their nasty neighbours. By being too weak to be oppressors they have inherited the moral high ground. The pride of the descendent of the victim is a corrosive force, as witnessed today in Israel. There is no such thing as honest and wholesome pride. It is a propaganda weapon: lay it down. I am English, that does not mean I starved the Irish, sold the negroes to the plantation owners, murdered the Tasmanians or betrayed the Czechs. Neither did I win five gold medals in successive Olympics or act well in Four Weddings and a Funeral. I am a man, that does not mean I discovered gravity, wrote an opera or raped a goat. My membership of any group I have not chosen to belong to is no source of either pride or shame. Other people who were born male or white or English may have have done many things which are worthy or pride or shame, but not for me. I have my own reasons to feel pride and shame which are my own and belong to nobody else. To share my pride or shame requires a two way sharing of identity of interest, but it can never be a full share. It is just as wrong to hang a man for the crime of his brother as it is to make a woman fabulously rich because of the acumen of the man she got to marry her. If you would take my lashes, pay my bills and join me in exile then you can take pride in my achievements, otherwise keep out and let me bathe in my own glory or shame. Take stock of your life, be quite clear that the wonderful things your heroes have achieved they did not achieve for you: be your own hero. |
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