Pride

[rowyn]

kc_risenphoenix wrote an interesting commentary on pride here. It's worth reading, but if I might summarize the main point, I'd say it's "Be proud of what you are."

It's not the way I usually think of pride, which is more like "be proud of what you've accomplished." I'm proud of having written two books. I'm proud of being financially self-sufficient. I'm proud of having an eleven year relationship with Lut. I'm proud of completing several online RPG campaigns. These are things I worked hard on. I didn't do any of them alone and I could not have done them without help and support, but they're still all things I can take some credit for achieving, and I take pride in that.

But the things I was born with -- it feels wrong to be proud of them. It's not that they're bad things, or that they're not worth celebrating. But they're not things I worked to achieve. I'm not proud of being white, or having German ancestors, or being bisexual, or having green eyes. I'm not ashamed of those things, either. I'm glad to be white and bisexual, etc., but they're not things that makes me feel proud. Which makes internal sense as far as it goes.

Except that there are other things I was born with that I am proud of. I'm proud to be an American, and proud to be a woman, and I'm even a little proud to be half-Jewish (the wrong half to be actually Jewish: my father is, my mother isn't). I didn't pick any of this, although I suppose I did in the sense that I haven't emigrated to another country or transitioned to male. But really, they're just happenstances of fate. I'm proud of my figure, and while to some degree that's something I've worked on by exercise and diet, the hip/waist/chest ratio that gives me an hourglass shape is mostly genetics, not anything I can take credit for. But I take some pride in it anyway.

And feel vaguely wrong for being proud of it. Glad, grateful, appreciative, celebratory -- sure, all that would make sense. But proud? Of an accident of fortune? Isn't that mere vanity?

In fact, I think being proud of being gay would make more sense than being proud of being a woman, because being openly gay requires courage and conviction. It's a struggle, and a recent struggle at that: a situation that's improved tremendously in America even within my own lifetime. It's gotten easier, but it's still not easy, not effortless the way being straight is. But I'm not proud of being bi; maybe if I were in a relationship with a girl I'd feel differently, I don't know.

But I do know that the emotion I have about being a woman isn't that different from the one I have about writing two books. The former is not as intense or unconflicted, but still: pride.

And ... I don't know how I feel about that. I want two different words, one that means pride-in-accomplishments and another that would mean grateful-for-heritage, to describe celebrating the things you are born with. But I don't know that the underlying emotion beneath the two is really that much different. Yet the latter feels like I'm taking unearned credit for something I had no control over, and that's what makes it seem wrong. I don't know how to resolve that, or even whether the answer should be "don't feel proud to be American" or "be proud of your green eyes, too." Pride is a difficult emotion, tangled up as it is with shame and vanity. Moreover, pride seems like the emotion most likely to lead to a sense of superiority and entitlement, neither of which are warranted or useful. And which I do not intend to imply: I may be proud of being a woman, but I don't see any reason why men shouldn't be equally proud of being men. Anyway, maybe that's why it's particularly hard to sort out.

Comments

[sebkha.livejournal.com]

If you're looking for terminology, you might be able to start with grace (which you have by happenstance) versus virtue (which you have by merit). I can't think of a split in terminology between pride in either of these, though.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

I like that distinction.

It's a shame that "pride" is vague in this area -- especially since price is mentioned negatively in the Bible in a great many places.

"Accomplished" is a fair word for the "virtue" sense, but it is cumbersome by comparison. And there's another aspect: it's limited to a sort of inventory of actions.

There's another sort, it seems to me, one that spans the grace and virtue ends of the spectrum: the extent to which the person you were has become the person you are by dint of your own will. We are born with traits, and strengths, and limitations, but our internal operating systems can change with time and does. And not always for the better.

Rowyn has crafted her own mentality to a large extent. I have seen it grow, and change, and I have some awareness of aspects of her thinking from long ago. While the way she thinks today is not an "accomplishment" in the traditional sense, I think that she can be quite justifiably proud of the mind that she has shaped from the raw materials she started with.

She had good clay! And the clay was good enough to reach out and shape itself in good directions. But this was no mere happenstance; she in substantial part brought it about.

===|==============/ Level Head

[rowyn]

Feeling "accomplished" doesn't convey the same intensity as "proud". "Accomplished" sounds lukewarm, not triumphant. Which is funny, since I feel more strongly about my accomplishments. :)

Also, you're much too nice to me, sir. *^_^*

[rowyn]

Good distinction! Though I'd feel even more vain taking pride in 'my virtues'. :)

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

For me, this distinction seems kind of false, since the willpower, cleverness, etc. that let you accomplish things were granted to you anyway. To be proud of winning a race and to be proud of being a fast runner are the same thing.

[sebkha.livejournal.com]

It comes down to whether or not you believe there are difficult choices that test how you apply your free will. If winning the race involved such a test, for example in training for it beforehand, making strategic decisions at the start, or not giving in to exhaustion near the end, then there's some measure of virtue involved.

The existence of free will is pretty tenuous at a strict philosophical level, but it's a cherished illusion one won't easily talk anyone out of.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

There are difficult choices that test you, the same way you test a car by crashing it into a wall, or a stick by trying to break it.

"This car is well designed."
"This stick is strong."
"This racer is determined."

So it makes sense to consider those who pass the test better than those who don't -- it means they have a quality you consider positive, so passing is something to be proud of.

But you don't want to be (caught being) proud of being Polish because it's politically incorrect to consider one nationality better than another. And the lack of physical disability is uncomfortable to celebrate because on some level you feel like you're beating up on the handicapped.

[rowyn]

The distinction is important to me. I could've chose to play several hundred extra hours of Puzzle Pirates instead of writing a book, and playing Puzzle Pirates would've been a lot easier. But I didn't: I wrote a book and I'm proud of that.

Yes, it's arguable that whatever is in me that gave me the willpower to stick with the project is something I was born with, just like the color of my skin. Or even a product of my environment, something my parents inculcated in me. And in either case no more "my" doing than my height or the shape of my nose.

But I'm big on free will, so I choose to place a different and greater emphasis on things that result from choices I've made than things that I had no choice about. :)

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it's just the suffering that people feel proud of?

I know when I read... ugh, what was it? This really horrible, tedious Russian novel about a murderer, or for that matter, the Silmarillion, that I felt proud for finishing them. Because it was so hard!

Maybe it's an adaptation to keep people from getting conditioned against things they've decided need to be done? "That hurt, but I know it was the right thing to do, so I'm going to feel good about it, damnit, and reinforce those pathways."

[rowyn]

Crime and Punishment? I had that assigned by a class in college ... and I still never finished it. x.x

I don't think it's suffering alone, though. I spent three years getting an EQ character up to 55th, and some of that was pretty painful, but it's almost the opposite of an accomplishment. More like "man, what a loser I was". >:)

I think pride in an accomplishment comes from a combination of three things:

* how much effort/time/suffering accomplishing it involved

* how much value others place on the accomplishment, either yours specifically or that sort of accomplishment -- ie, you might be prouder of a bestselling book than an unpublished one, but even an unpublished one has value, because "writing a book" is widely considered a significant activity.

* how much value you place on the accomplishment. Ie, I'm prouder of /Silver Scales/ than I am of /Prophecy/, even though /Prophecy/ took a lot more effort, because /Scales/ gives *me* pleasure to re-read

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much what I was saying. I'm not really sure if it's a good definition of pride, or one type of pride, or just one thing pride is used for, though.