The early fathers of the Church had it in for pride-Pope Gregory the Great, the
one who considered us to be Angels and not Angles-considered it the worst of the Deadly
Sins.(1t) In consequence the proud merchant or priest could be relied on to get his
punishment-in this world in The Canterbury Tales, in the next in Dante's
Inferno. By the Age of Enlightenment pride was beginning to regain its, well,
pride. David Hume first hinted that it may have had a bad press-"The term pride is
commonly taken in a bad sense-but this sentiment seems indifferent, and may either be good
or bad, according as it is well or ill formed, and according to other circumstances which
accompany it."(2) Hume accepted that it could be a positive emotion: "It is a
sentiment of conscious worth, the self satisfaction proceeding from a review of a man's own
character." He also drew attention to the difference between happiness and pride-I am
happy to read a good editorial in the BMJ, but proud to have written one myself. I am
familiar, sometimes, with the former emotion but still await the
latter.
The modern clergy continues to keep faith with the Church
fathers. When a theologian turned counsellor carried out a survey asking clergy to rank the
deadly sins in the order of seriousness, pride came fourth on the list.(3) Not as high
as Pope Gregory would have wished, but still above greed, anger, gluttony, and envy. I know
this makes eight, but apparently there are good theological grounds for considering
melancholy as the eighth deadly sin. Women were thought to be particularly prone to pride.
The author concluded that "for the clergy there is something suspicious about wanting
praise for one's accomplishments."(3)
Back in fashion?
It is the staple of
the better class of journalists to bemoan how out of touch with modern mores are the clergy.
Theological attitudes to pride are as up to date as the judge who asked: "Who are the
Beatles?" In contrast to their pastors, the God fearing natives of New Jersey placed pride
at the bottom of their sin list.(1) For the rest of us it does not even rate a place.
Pride is "in." Psychologists see it as a positive emotion-Richard Lazarus, one of the
most influential of contemporary psychologists, lists it with love, joy, and
gratitude.(4) Sociologists regard pride along with self worth and note how it leads to
the ultimate social nirvana-high social status.(5) Pride is classified with
happiness, satisfaction, loving, and being loved.(5)
In most psychological texts
pride is a rather archaic word, yielding few references on a quick trawl through the
bibliographic databases. But type in self esteem and it is as well to warn the librarian
first. "No matter what ails you, self esteem is the cure."(6) Money cannot buy you
love, but self esteem guarantees money, love, health, and fulfilment. In the film
Wall Street the motto "greed is good" became the epitaph of the 1980s. A 1990s
remake would have Michael Douglas as a psychologist telling us that "Pride is good." High
self esteem is not only desirable, it is a marker of good psychological adjustment.(7)
In contrast, low self esteem is blamed for nearly everything. Delinquency, drug taking,
alcoholism, jealousy, self harm, eating disorder, depression, racism-all are the products
of low self esteem.
So much has the search for self esteem become the contemporary
zeitgeist, a paper that argued the opposite, that high esteem was associated with
violence-the bar room situation of "Are you looking at me, kid?"-came as something as a
shot across the bows of conventional psychological wisdom. Some knowledge of history would
have helped. Lord George Sackville refused to fight at the Battle of Minden because his
pride had been injured, and nearly cost the battle, while the pride of the Prince of Orange,
unable to admit that he had mistaken a French regiment for a British one, led to one of the
most famous and tragic incidents of the battle of Waterloo-Colonel Von Omteda leading the
King's German Legion to certain destruction.(8)
To be genuine pride must be earned.
Telling people to think more of themselves, or that by right or membership of some social,
sexual, or ethnic group, they are automatically entitled to pride, is meretricious. In his
magnificent Culture of Complaint Robert Hughes expressed it thus: pride "comes from
doing things well, from discovering how to tell truth from lies, and finding out what unites
us as well as separates us."(9) Edward Gibbon knew what he meant: "People elated by
pride ... are seldom qualified to form a just estimate of their actual
situation."(10)
Department of Psychological Medicine,
King's College School of Medicine,
London SE5
9RS
Simon Wessely,
reader in psychological medicine
References:
1 Capps D. The deadly sins and saving virtues: how they are
viewed by laity. Pastoral Psychology 1989;37:229-53.
2 Hume D.
Enquiries concerning the human understanding and concerning the principles of
morals. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902.
3 Capps D. The deadly sins and
saving virtues: how they are viewed by clergy. Pastoral Psychology
1992;40:209-33.
4 Lazarus R. Progress on a cognitive-motivational-relational
theory of emotion. American Psychologist 1991;46:819-34. Kemper T. How many
emotions are there? Wedding the social and the autonomic components. American Journal of
Sociology 1987;93:263-89.
5 Brown J, Dutton K. The thrill of victory: the
complexity of defeat: self-esteem and people's emotional reactions to success and failure.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1995;68:712-22.
6 Taylor S,
Brown J. Illusion and well-being: a social psychological perspective on mental health.
Psychological Bulletin 1988;103:193-210.
7 Howarth D. Waterloo: a near
run thing. London: Fontana, 1972.
8 Hughes R. Culture of complaint. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1993.
9 Gibbon E. The decline and fall of the Roman
empire. London: Chatto and Windus, 1968.
