[Vision2020] The Power of Pride: Vice or Virtue?

[nickgier at roadrunner.com]

Greetings:

This was last week's radio commentary/column.  The full version is attached as a PDF file.

I wonder what Luther and Calvin did with the passage from Matthew that I've used as an epigraph?  And I would like the theologically astute Keely Mix to comment on this topic.

Nick Gier

THE POWER OF PRIDE: VICE OR VIRTUE?
By Nick Gier

Let your light so shine before men, 
that they may see your good works 

--Matthew 5:15

When a man is proud, he violates the dharma;
and when dharma is violated he goes to hell at once.

--the Dharmasutra of Apastamba 1.13.4

Our founders were intellectuals who drew moral and political lessons from Greek and Roman philosophy. With regard to pride, our founders would have been aware that the Greek philosopher Aristotle ranked it as a virtue second only to wisdom. They would also have known that in the Christian tradition pride was one of the seven deadly sins. 

Our founders seemed unaware of this fundamental tension in the hybrid culture that they developed from pagan and Christian roots.  Most Americans today are not aware of this conflict either.

In Sunday School we are taught that boasting is a sin, but the previous Friday or Saturday we were out rooting for our athletic teams with unabashed pride.  It is also still common to see the 9/11 bumper sticker “The Power of Pride.”

Aristotle said that pride is knowing what we have accomplished and freely acknowledging that we have done it.  Aristotle does not respect a person who hides her light under a bushel. It is clear that pride can be collective as well as individual.  We take pride in the accomplishments of our children because we know that we have contributed to their success.  

The same is true for national pride.  Any number of U.S. achievements could be named, but I think that the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II was one of our greatest efforts.	American exceptionalism—"we are the greatest nation in the world"--is to me false pride. When President Bush boasted that the U.S. had the best health system in the world, he either did not have his facts straight (certainly a possibility) or he was deliberately inflating the nation’s ego.

What sort of national pride can we have after the International Committee of the Red Cross has determined that the Bush administration violated the Geneva Conventions on torture?  There is definitely nothing to be proud of in these shameful cases.

National Public Radio's inspiring series "This I Believe" has just ended with an essay by Muhammad Ali, and he sounds just like the brash young boxer we knew in the 1960s.  Ali says that he is still the greatest and that everyone can succeed just as he did.  Although I’m sure he does not know it, Ali was following Aristotle when he once proclaimed "It ain’t bragging if you can do it."

Normally we would not tolerate people who say that they are the greatest even though they may have accomplished much. Do we give Ali a pass because he is a unique personality or because he now has Parkinson’s disease?  Early in his career he was roundly criticized for being a braggart. 

Aristotle believes that humility is a vice because the accomplished person (and all of us have achieved something) is not being true to herself or himself.  Genuine pride is a mean between the excess of boasting when nothing has been attained and the deficit of failing to acknowledge what has been achieved. Perhaps the key is to learn how to talk about our accomplishments without bragging about them.  This of course is not an easy line to draw.

The phrase "hiding your light under a bushel" comes from the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus also says: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works" (Matt. 5:15).  Are the first Christian and Aristotle actually in agreement? It would be amazing if Jesus and Aristotle, usually assumed to be a odds, actually agreed and solved our problem.

The fifth chapter of Matthew chapter begins with "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid." Many U.S. presidents have used this passage to instill national pride, but this is genuine pride only if we remember to refrain from claiming that we are the greatest.

Nick Gier taught philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years.  
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