Pride: The Seven Deadly Sins

Arrogance is an emotion which almost all cultures love to hate. Even from antiquity, this most human of emotions, sometimes given names such as “pride”, “hubris”, “elitism”, and “pretentiousness”, has appeared as a force of undoing, evil, and destruction in drama, mythology, scripture, poetry, art, and literature. Historical examples abound, from the view of hubris as the principal crime one could commit in ancient Greece (and therefore its use as the principal flaw by which the protagonist is undone in Greek tragedy) to the mention of Pride as one of the Seven Deadly Sins in Christianity. The modern era doesn’t escape either: “pride comes before the fall” has become a common maxim, while commonly sought-after qualities in an employee include …show more content…
It grows and changes through the efforts of… whom? Certainly, corporations, groups, collectives, organizations, and teams all have a significant impact on social progress; one need only look at a professionally produced movie, video game, building, or even a theoretical field of inquiry to know that such things were built by the labors of many, in service to a common goal. However, it is important to differentiate the doing with the thinking. Who directs the motions? Who set the goal? What is the meaning behind the extensive and continuous service that most workers tolerate in exchange for a paycheck? Where does it all …show more content…
At the low end of the spectrum, one only shapes oneself, realizing that there is a problem with one’s current ability but retaining enough self-efficacy to believe it can be improved through changes to one’s values or behavior. This crisis is ultimately resolved when self-efficacy is sufficient for a feeling of self-contentedness; completeness in one’s own knowledge that his value system is effective and inline with his goals. Following this crisis, one moves on to the level of other individuals and begins to express his own values in dialogue, subjecting them to scrutiny and debate by others. Positive resolution of a clash at this level would take place through acceptance of others’ views, with a degree of self-efficacy capable of realizing that they present no threat to one’s own. Next, one begins tackling the problems one perceives within a local community. This stage never truly ends until one leaves the community altogether (and could possible continue even then, depending on the nature of the community), as for the first time one is taking up the problems of a system, rather than those of its individual members. As one’s self-efficacy grows through successes within the community, the size of the community one attempts to change grows with it. Finally, one takes up the problems of