The Paradox of Pride
A personal opinion on the meaning and consequences of pride in different contexts.
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Have you ever wondered why some people are proud of things they have nothing to do with? Like their alma mater, their country, or their religion?
I have. And I think it’s a fascinating topic to explore.
In this newsletter, I’m going to share with you my personal opinion on what pride means and why it can be both good and bad. I’m also going to tell you about a recent incident that made me rethink my own pride in a few things.
Recently, my alma mater, Jadavpur University, was on the news for all the wrong reasons. A fresher committed suicide after he was allegedly ragged and sexually abused. I don’t want to go into the details of that incident. It is heartbreaking and I hope the culprits receive the due punishment. What followed the incident is something I want to write about today.
We had a long list of people criticizing the institute for different reasons. Some of them were justified, and some of them were just plain idiotic. And we had another group of people (mostly ex-students) defending the institution with slogans like “Proud to be an X”, “Once a Y, always a Y”.
This is something I have a hard time understanding. How can one be proud of an organization or institution just because they were a student or employee there once? Let me break it down further. You should be proud (or ashamed) of your institution if you have directly contributed to the positive (or negative) reputation it is currently getting.
One of the things that made me proud of my alma mater was the recognition of my research guide as one of the top 2% of scientists in the world by Stanford University. I felt a sense of accomplishment knowing that I had contributed to some of his citations. Pride naturally followed that feeling.
Recently ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) made history with the successful landing of Chandrayan-3 on the moon. It was a remarkable achievement for India, which became the fourth nation to accomplish this feat. However, I wonder if every Indian would feel proud of it. Pride is not a transitive property that passes on by association. If I had been a scientist at ISRO, it would have been the happiest day of my life. I can only imagine how much it would mean to them. But I am not super proud of this. I am happy that some of my fellow countrymen have achieved this. And I hope research and development will be taken more seriously after this. But that’s that.
I think one exception can be the sports team. But there, you’re doing something. You’re emotionally invested in them. You’re spending your time and money on them. You are there through thick and thin and everything in between. So once the team achieves something, it feels like we have done it together.
But in general, whenever the sense of pride is being treated as a transitive property, it tends to cause problems. Especially when the matter is religion. What does one achieve by being a proud Hindu, Muslim, Christian or anything else for that matter? One belongs to one of these religions by accident. If you were born in a different area, in a different lifetime, then your religion would be different too.
What are some of the things that you are proud of and why? Do you agree or disagree with my opinion on pride? Let me know about it in the comments section!