Taking Pride
Aug. 4th, 2012 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
steepholmIt's an odd thing, isn't it, taking pride in other people's achievements? After all, in most arenas we like to talk as if we believed competent adults were responsible for their own deeds, good and bad. To believe otherwise leads to blood guilt, nepotism and many other nasties. Yet even I, churlish to a fault, feel some pride when watching a Brit mounting the podium after achieving gold in an event I'd never so much as heard of until two days ago. And I'm loudly encouraged to do so.
Note, when I say "feeling pride" I don't mean simply being happy for someone, or admiring them. Feeling pride must have some element of identification: you're proud because in some way you associate yourself with the person. Their glory is both reflective and baskable.
In some cases, one may indeed have contributed to another person's achievement. The parent who encouraged their child, and took them to football practice every Sunday, may rightly feel that they played their part in that child's eventually winning Sports Personality of the Year, and take pride in that. But much of the time that simply doesn't apply. While I can take some credit for my own achievements, and perhaps those of my children, I certainly can't take any for those of my remote ancestors, or the fighter pilots of WWII, or Jessica Ennis - but I still find myself taking pride in them, almost against my will. In fact, I find myself thinking of this sketch, and feeling a bit silly.
At a biological level, there's no great mystery about it, I suppose. This kind of bonding exercise must have had an evolutionary advantage for social primates such as ourselves, and continues to do so. It can be a hugely pleasurable experience, and an enticing one too, offering a serotonin hit in exchange for nothing more onerous than a willingness to identify with the group. But I still feel uncomfortable at the awkward fit between "taking pride" in this sense, and the way we like to think we think about issues of autonomy and responsibility.
What's that? Greg Rutherford won the long jump? Woot!
Note, when I say "feeling pride" I don't mean simply being happy for someone, or admiring them. Feeling pride must have some element of identification: you're proud because in some way you associate yourself with the person. Their glory is both reflective and baskable.
In some cases, one may indeed have contributed to another person's achievement. The parent who encouraged their child, and took them to football practice every Sunday, may rightly feel that they played their part in that child's eventually winning Sports Personality of the Year, and take pride in that. But much of the time that simply doesn't apply. While I can take some credit for my own achievements, and perhaps those of my children, I certainly can't take any for those of my remote ancestors, or the fighter pilots of WWII, or Jessica Ennis - but I still find myself taking pride in them, almost against my will. In fact, I find myself thinking of this sketch, and feeling a bit silly.
At a biological level, there's no great mystery about it, I suppose. This kind of bonding exercise must have had an evolutionary advantage for social primates such as ourselves, and continues to do so. It can be a hugely pleasurable experience, and an enticing one too, offering a serotonin hit in exchange for nothing more onerous than a willingness to identify with the group. But I still feel uncomfortable at the awkward fit between "taking pride" in this sense, and the way we like to think we think about issues of autonomy and responsibility.
What's that? Greg Rutherford won the long jump? Woot!
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-04 09:33 pm (UTC)does it work the opposite way? you aren't feeling vaguely ashamed that GBR just lost at soccer -- pardon, football, but the fabulous arlo white having converted to saying "soccer" for usa broadcasting has left in the dust of remembering that one -- on PKs, are you? please don't!
but weirdly this reminds me of something else i've been wondering about accomplishment and whose hands it's in. a lot of athletes when they win "give the glory to god" or something else indicating that it was god who really did it. i'm really almost certain that, in addition to wanting to speak about their belief in public this way, a secondary goal in saying such a thing is humility. is that wrong or right? but to me it sounds slightly less humble than not saying it. because "i, a human, accomplished x" sounds less boasty to me than "god chose me, out of all the other humans/comnpetitors, to accomplish this." i would love to be wrong about this and i am basically ignorant because raised secular. but i always wonder.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-04 10:32 pm (UTC)But here again we'd have to distinguish between shame as a personal identification with the deeds of others, and the shame I for example might feel because, as a Brit, I am still living on the capital that empire brought to the country.
Yes, the glory to God thing strikes me as ambiguous, too. It also seems odd that, just as we are encouraged to take pride in the achievements of others, we are discouraged from taking pride in our own achievements! Mixed messages or what?
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-05 12:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-06 04:47 pm (UTC)"Pride goes before ... "
" ... of lions".
(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-06 04:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-08-06 04:49 pm (UTC)