I swear to god there's been like 3 pride months in the past year
(media.kotakuinaction2.win)
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There's healthy pride, and then there's overweening pride, and hubris. And oh, there is SO much hubris in modern humans of all stripes and creeds ....
I’ll be the one to get the hate:
There is no such thing as healthy pride in Christianity, multiple passages in Romans and especially in Proverbs condemn all forms of pride (including the LGBT kind in Romans), and ask that you humble yourself instead of giving into your own conceit.
I’m very prone to this (“I know better than you!!!”) so it’s something I try to work on (poorly, unfortunately).
To a Christian it is an inherently dangerous attitude to deny the providence of God's work in your life. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't move in confidence and assuredness, it only means that you shouldn't credit yourself alone for your successes. Pride is a sin in the lethal sense because it supplants God's greatness with your own, looking at your accomplishments and doing the "I made this" meme when you owe your existence, circumstance, and talents to the One who created you.
It comes off very strange to a non-believer, especially in the West in the modern era, because we grew up with the "You're Special for Just Being You" Mr. Rogers philosophy ratcheted to a billion in public schools and applied to everything. We have a deliberately bred generation of egomaniacs who treat the world and everyone in it as extras in their story instead of trying to get along humbly and peacefully.
So proud you must be to wear a forehead dildo and scream "Suck it, bigot!" while in broad daylight on main-street in your parade of thousands doing the same toward the kids the school bussed out to watch.
I never connected the dots between the self-esteem movement and the deadly sin of pride. That's amazing.
Your post also reminded me of old school athletes constantly throwing it up to God after winning the big game. Lefties loved to mock those athletes because "why would God care about a football game", but that was never the implication. Those athletes were demonstrating humility.
I didn't either until an English teacher in college who was covering Shakespeare's Othello made the point. She interpreted Iago as the poster-child for unfettered praise heaped onto a person through their life. When they reach their peak as adults they are confronted with the tragedy of being mere second-best at something and that is the toxic frame of mind that can fester into the jealous rage that exemplified Iago's character. He conspired to destroy a national hero just because he cast a long shadow.
Enough people tell you you're the greatest, and you believe it, you may even be tempted to kill to make it so.
People will always react poorly to smugness borne from belief (or join in for unearned self gratification). That's not to say that it is always smugness, but it often comes off that way. I can suffer it if it promotes a baseline of actual virtue, though. Much better than the other forms of smugness borne from belief.
I meant the basic kind of pride that keeps you from looking like a total bag of shit in curlers and sweat pants when you go out to run errands, that sort of thing. Because to lack much isn't a good thing, either.