Dirtside's Journal: Thoughts on Pride

It's a common enough meme to hear people say something like, "I'm proud to be an American." What does that mean, exactly? Let's ask Dictionary.com:

1. Feeling pleasurable satisfaction over an act, possession, quality, or relationship by which one measures one's stature or self-worth

There are other definitions, but that's the first one for "proud." Taking pride in the fact that you were born in a specific country seems like a bizarre thing, to me. It's more reasonable to take pride in your accomplishments: writing a book, raising a child, helping the homeless. But taking pride in an accident of your birth? Or an aspect of your physique or mind that you had no control over? Absurd. Sure, be happy or thankful that you were born to good parents in a peaceful country... but pride?

Then there's the other kind of pride:

4. Filled with or showing excessive self-esteem.

This is the kind of pride that prevents someone from admitting they're wrong about something, the kind of pride that causes people to make up outlandish excuses to justify some past behavior or belief. Everyone does it, even me. I've had arguments with my wife where I ended up claiming that I meant something besides what I really did, just so that I wouldn't have to admit to being wrong. (Usually, she manages to extract a confession from me anyway. ;))

This pride is the same thing that makes American politics (and probably most politics worldwide) such a complete debacle. Each side -- and there's usually more than two -- insists, insists that they and they alone have The Answers To Our Problems. With occasional exception, politicians and other social leaders will never publicly admit that they made a mistake, made a false claim, or were just plain wrong about something. The usual tack is to change what they're saying, without acknowledging that something they said last week runs directly contrary to what they're saying now. Just pretend you never said any of those things. Someone calls you on it? Talk around it, change the subject. If one of your policies goes into effect, two years later, you can claim that whatever problems were caused by it were actually caused by something else -- after all, so many other things happened in the past two years, who can say what the real cause is?

Never admit that you were wrong. Because being wrong is a sign of weakness, and how can you respect someone who has weakness? We even propagate it ourselves: having weak leaders is bad. So any leader with any weakness is bad. And I certainly wouldn't make a mistake like voting for someone who's weak, would I? Therefore the guy I voted for is strong! He has no weaknesses! He never does anything wrong!

Meanwhile, the guy I voted against, if he won... well, everything he does is wrong. Everything. He can't do anything right. He's a vicious, evil, greedy, misguided, insane, criminal sonofabitch. There's no way he could have any redeeming qualities -- because I wouldn't have ever made a mistake like voting against someone who is actually a good person. Therefore the guy I voted against must be evil!

Is this a conscious decision people make? Not usually. Most people don't really think about it. They don't delve into the reasons for why they do things. Imagine a world where people did thoroughly examine their beliefs, even only once in a while; a world where people would always admit that they were wrong, because nobody would laugh at them or mock them or insult them for being wrong. That's part of the problem. Pride is sometimes a defensive mechanism. If I don't admit to being wrong, then I don't open myself up to people criticizing me for being wrong. I can just pretend I'm not wrong -- in fact, they're the ones who are wrong, the ones who are insulting me for no reason (since I'm clearly right)!

But hey, that's just my opinion... I'm probably wrong. :)