Sermon 15—On Pride – II
Last week we reviewed some general definitions of “pride”, read some scriptural reflections on “pride”, and also a lengthy excerpt from the Summe Thelogica of St. Thomas Aquinas. We discussed the possibility that pride is the ESSENTIAL sin from which all other sins derive, and we talked about the false character of the term “self-respect. This week we will review some comments on the subject, especially the subject of self-respect, from a few more modern authors.
The following is a section from William James’ Consciousness of Self:
“Let us proceed to the emotions of Self which the self’s constituents arouse. These are primarily self-complacency and self-dissatisfaction. Of what is called 'self-love,' I will treat a little farther on. Language has synonyms enough for both primary feelings. Thus pride, conceit, vanity, self-esteem, arrogance, vainglory, on the one hand; and on the other modesty, humility, confusion, diffidence, shame, mortification, contrition, the sense of obloquy and personal despair. These two opposite classes of affection seem to be direct and elementary endowments of our nature.
Associationists would have it that they are, on the other hand, secondary phenomena arising from a rapid computation of the sensible pleasures or pains to which our prosperous or debased personal predicament is likely to lead, the sum of the represented pleasures forming the self-satisfaction, and the sum of the represented pains forming the opposite feeling of shame. No doubt, when we are self-satisfied, we do fondly rehearse all possible rewards for our desert, and when in a fit of self-despair we forebode evil. But the mere expectation of reward is not the self-satisfaction, and the mere apprehension of the evil is not the self-despair, for there is a certain average tone of self-feeling which each one of us carries about with him, and which is independent of the objective reasons we may have for satisfaction or discontent. That is, a very meanly-conditioned man may abound in unfaltering conceit, and one whose success in life is secure and who is esteemed by all may remain diffident of his powers to the end.
One may say, however, that the normal provocative of self-feeling is one's actual success or failure, and the good or bad actual position one holds in the world. "He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum, and said what a good boy am I." A man with a broadly extended empirical Ego, with powers that have uniformly brought him success, with place and wealth and friends and fame, is not likely to be visited by the morbid diffidences and doubts about himself which he had when he was a boy. "Is not this great Babylon, which I have planted?" Whereas he who has made one blunder after another, and still lies in middle life among the failures at the foot of the hill, is liable to grow all sicklied o'er with self-distrust, and to shrink from trials with which his powers can really cope.
The emotions themselves of self-satisfaction and abasement are of a unique sort, each as worthy to be classed as a primitive emotional species as are, for example, rage or pain. Each has its own peculiar physiognomical expression. In self-satisfaction the extensor muscles are innervated, the eye is strong and glorious, the gait rolling and elastic, the nostril dilated, and a peculiar smile plays upon the lips. This whole complex of symptoms is seen in an exquisite way in lunatic asylums, which always contain some patients who are literally mad with conceit, and whose fatuous expression and absurdly strutting or swaggering gait is in tragic contrast with their lack of any valuable personal quality. It is in these same castles of despair that we find the strongest examples of the opposite physiognomy, in good people who think they have committed 'the unpardonable sin' and are lost forever, who crouch and cringe and slink from notice and are unable to speak aloud or look us in the eye. Like fear and like anger, in similar morbid conditions, these opposite feelings of Self may be aroused with no adequate exciting cause. And in fact we ourselves know how the barometer of our self-esteem and confidence rises and falls from one day to another through causes that seem to be visceral and organic rather than rational, and which certainly answer to no corresponding variations in the esteem in which we are held by our friends.”
[Sidebar: I am especially attracted to the sentence,
“This whole complex of symptoms is seen in an exquisite way in lunatic asylums, which always contain some patients who are literally mad with conceit, and whose fatuous expression and absurdly strutting or swaggering gait is in tragic contrast with their lack of any valuable personal quality.”
This sentence proclaims, in no uncertain terms, the idea that excess of pride can lead to a kind of madness wherein the object of the behavior, namely self-affirmation, leads to the opposite internal attitude: one of despair and hopelessness, not to mention self-loathing on top of everything else. Thus, in a madhouse peopled by Napoleons and Julius Caesars, we encounter a whole population of puffed up egotists who proclaim rhetorical palaces of self-affirmation, but who live, emotionally, in ghettoes of self-loathing. It seems like such a waste for these people to suffer endlessly from ego-affirmation, when one simple act of humility might relieve their unbearable burdens.
As you know I love this paragraph from the Screwtape Letters about the great architect; with his usual piercing clarity C.S. Lewis declares the only possible wholesome expression of self-respect—God-respect:
“You must therefore conceal from the patient the true end of Humility. Let him think of it not as self- forgetfulness but as a certain kind of opinion (namely, a low opinion) of his own talents and character. Some talents, I gather, he really has. Fix in his mind the idea that humility consists in trying to believe those talents to be less valuable than he believes them to be. No doubt they are in fact less valuable than he believes, but that is not the point. The great thing is to make him value an opinion for some quality other than truth, thus introducing an element of dishonesty and make-believe into the heart of what otherwise threatens to become a virtue. By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools. And since what they are trying to believe may, in some cases, be manifest nonsense, they cannot succeed in believing it and we have the chance of keeping their minds endlessly revolving on themselves in an effort to achieve the impossible. To anticipate the Enemy’s strategy, we must consider His aims.
The Enemy wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the, fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. The Enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favor that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbor’s talents—or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognize all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things. He wants to kill their animal self-love as soon as possible; but it is His long- term policy, I fear, to restore to them a new kind of self-love—a charity and gratitude for all selves, including their own; when they have really learned to love their neighbors as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbors. For we must never forget what is the most repellent and inexplicable trait in our Enemy; He really loves the hairless bipeds He has created and always gives back to them with His right hand what He has taken away with His left.”
I never cease rejoicing in the sentence:
“The Enemy wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the, fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another.”
I myself, never tire of rejoicing in my own magnificence, without ever forgetting that everything I am and everything I’ve done comes from God, such that I can take no credit for any of my accomplishments; therefore, adopting a prideful attitude about any of them would be just plain silly. All my works of art are blatant plagiarisms of the truths God has written on my heart for OTHERS to read.
I found this wonderful article by the late Alexander Elchaninov; it reiterated many of the points made above, and concludes with the bottom line: “Increasing vanity gives rise to pride.”
Bottom of Form
The Demonic Stronghold: On the Characteristics of Pride
“One of the foremost experts on the depths of the human spirit, St. Isaac the Syrian, says in his 41st homily:
“The one who has come to a realization of his sin is higher than the one who raises the dead through prayer; whoever has been able to see his own self is higher than the one who has been granted the vision of angels.”
It is for the purpose of self-knowledge that we will examine the matter we have stated in the title.
Pride, egotism, and vanity – to which we can add haughtiness, arrogance, and conceit – are all different varieties of one basic manifestation: “turning towards oneself.” Out of all these words, two have the most concrete meaning: vanity and pride. According to The Ladder, they are like youth and man, seed and bread, beginning and end.
The symptoms of vanity, this initial sin, are: intolerance of criticism, a thirst for praise, a search for easy paths, and a constant orientation toward others. What will they say? How will it appear? What will they think? Vanity sees an audience approaching from afar and makes the wrathful affectionate, the irresponsible serious, the distracted concentrated, gluttons temperate, and so on – all of this as long as there are observers around.
The same orientation towards an audience explains the sin of self-justification, which often creeps unnoticeably even into our confession: “I am no more sinful than the rest… only insignificant sins… I have not killed anyone or stolen anything.”
[Sidebar: Notice the reference to AUDIENCE. Clearly no vanity is possible without an audience of admirers. This brings us back to the idea previously stated that self-respect is, in many cases, founded on social convention, and manifests not as SELF-RESPECT, but MORAL or SOCIALLY RECOGNIZED RESPECT, a regard that comes from without rather than within.
Back to Elchaninov:
“The demon of vanity is overjoyed”, says St. John of the Ladder, “seeing our virtues increase: the more success we have, the more food for vanity.”
“When I keep fast, I am vain; when I hide my spiritual labors, I am vain over my piety. If I dress pleasingly, I am vain; and if I put on old clothes, I become even vainer. If I begin to speak, I am consumed by vanity; if I keep silent, I become still vainer. No matter how you turn this prickly plant, it always has its thorns sticking upward.”
As soon as a kind feeling or a sincere movement arises in a man’s heart, immediately there appears a vain, backward look at oneself. Thus these most precious movements of the soul disappear, melting like snow under the sun. They melt, which means they die; therefore, because of vanity, the best in us dies. Thus we kill ourselves with vanity and we replace a real, simple, and good life with phantoms.
Increasing vanity gives rise to pride.
Pride is supreme self-confidence and the rejection of all that is not of itself; it is a source of rage, cruelty, and malice; it is a refusal to accept God’s help; it is a “demonic stronghold.” It is an “iron curtain” between ourselves and God; it is an enmity towards God; it is the origin of all sin; and it is present in every sin. Every sin constitutes a willing yielding of oneself to one’s vice, a conscious flouting of God’s law, an audacity against God. “The one who is subject to pride is desperately in need of God, for no man can save such a one” (The Ladder).
Where does this vice come from? How does it begin? What does it feed on? Through what stages does it pass in its development? What are the characteristics by which one can recognize it?
The latter is particularly important, because a proud person usually does not see his sin. A wise Elder once counseled one of his monastics to shun pride. The latter, blinded by his intellect, replied: “Forgive me, Father, but there is absolutely no pride in me.” The wise Elder said to him: “There is no better proof of your pride, child, than such an answer!”
I have a problem with the sentence:
“Pride is supreme self-confidence and the rejection of all that is not of itself; it is a source of rage, cruelty, and malice; it is a refusal to accept God’s help; it is a “demonic stronghold.” It is an “iron curtain” between ourselves and God; it is an enmity towards God; it is the origin of all sin; and it is present in every sin.”
My problem is not with the truth of the statement that pride is the origin of all sin (no doubt it is); my problem is with the term SIN itself. I was condemned to Hell every day of my childhood, and I was accused of being a sinner. It was the prideful superiority of the accuser that turned me off to the word sin. At the Anchorage Christian School teachers are warned not to speak harshly to students because that would be a sin. Every such accusation is suspect to me, because the language of it reminds me of my painful childhood days.
Nevertheless, I admit that this is really pretty stupid of me; it makes it sound like I think there is no such thing as sin—like I think it is somehow low class to point at the elephant in the room with an old-fashioned word. Oh well. Not-with-standing, my only cautionary comment, vis a vis “language”, is that we all must be careful never to let the “holier-than-thou” idiom trick us into adopting a superior attitude toward the sinner—the sin maybe, but not the sinner. Everybody’s story is different, and everybody’s fall from grace is equally tragic and equally redeemable. Let us remove the beam from our own eye before condemning the mote in somebody else’s eye. And let’s make sure there are no hidden prejudices embedded in our speech.
Carl Jung has this to say:
“… the experience of the self is always a defeat for the ego.”
Confronting the Divine is never a pleasant experience for the ego. This is because of pride: the ego “does not like to think consciousness might lose its ascendancy.” The ego fancies it is in control and is forced to face its smallness and limitations when the Self appears.”
I particularly like the thought that, “because of pride the ego does not like to think consciousness might lose its ascendancy.” This sentence is crammed with ramifications having to do with the deceptions of verbal structures, which include a fear of death as a fear of losing conscious control. We cling to ego consciousness as a prime reality, even though we know, spiritually, that consciousness is merely the tip of the iceberg of existence. Our SMALL perception of reality makes us vain, and from our self-obsessed vanities spring forth the host of other falsities that ruin our lives and enslave us within the prison of mundanity.
Joseph Campbell proclaims:
“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
By this he means that the constrictions of experience, forced upon us by the definitions of ego, bind us to a prison of mundane banality, and blind us to the possibilities of expansion and growth available to us in the wider world of unknowing and union with the divine intellect.
Going on, Campbell comments on the confusion that verbal structures can create in the observance of religious rites:
“Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.”
Thus, we know that there is no more obnoxious social force than the proselytizing Christian, who is determined to impose his religious doctrine on the world, and condemn to Hell all those who disagree.
In the following quotations Campbell finds himself agreeing with C.S. Lewis and his unself-conscious architect:
“When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.”
“How to get rid of ego as dictator and turn it into messenger and servant and scout, to be in your service, is the trick.”
“He must put aside his pride, his virtue, beauty and life and bow or submit to the absolutely intolerable.”
As I approach the summation section of this presentation I am reminded of the way I began last week:
“When I did my initial internet search for “pride” I found a lot of positive expressions like “Alaska Pride”, “Gay Pride”, “Twin Cities Pride”, “Pride Inc”, etc.; all these prides involve an exultant cherishing of some positive quality of excellence, mostly SELF-EXCELLENCE.”
It is hard not to relate to this kind of pride as a positive thing, because we are used to thinking of pride as a way of rejoicing in our own worth; but when I thought about it some more I realized that this kind of pride has the seed of defensive arrogance in it—why would we need “gay pride” unless it were in defiance of a whole crowd of people who think gays are obnoxious sinners; or why would we need “Lakers Pride” unless there were a whole crowd of Celtics fans who need their rightful come-uppance? Once again, group pride seems to be a pledge of allegiance to one group over another—a rejection of one over another—an attitude that brings us right back to the idea of pride as a theatrical outward compensation for an inward poverty of true self-love. In fact, in this age of political correctness, I would vote for the expurgation of the term “taking pride in” in favor of rejoicing in the rich gifts from the Father. But, I admit it, that expression may take too long to say.
In conclusion, let me repeat that this sermon has been composed for a special audience—it is, in fact, the only actual SERMON I have ever written, because it is intended to instruct. As such, it is difficult to avoid adopting a superior perspective, and thus falling into the same prideful attitude I have been attempting to condemn. The whole idea of a SERMON is kind of a turnoff anyway, so fraught with hypocrisy as it must necessarily be. Indeed all is vanity, and no one can write another’s recipe for success and wholesome affirmation. I only hope that the perspective, from which I have observed self-respect and pride, will provoke a response in my audience that may promote healing, and that some thin blanket of peace may descend on the heart.
Let us pray: Jesus, forbid us to praise ourselves for qualities which do not come from us, and let us cherish the reflection in the mirror that will ever and always resemble You. Amen.
