{"id":354,"date":"2009-03-26T10:54:58","date_gmt":"2009-03-26T15:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidcprice.wordpress.com\/?p=354"},"modified":"2009-03-26T10:54:58","modified_gmt":"2009-03-26T15:54:58","slug":"cs-lewis-on-pride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/davidcprice.com\/cs-lewis-on-pride\/","title":{"rendered":"C.S. Lewis on Pride"},"content":{"rendered":"
I was re-acquainted this morning with an excerpt from C.S. Lewis’ classic work, Mere Christianity<\/em>.\u00a0 I think it is so profound, I want to share with you the entire section on the subject of Pride:<\/p>\n According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride.\u00a0 Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.<\/p>\n Does this seem exaggerated? If so, think it over. I pointed out a moment ago that the more pride one had, the more one disliked pride in others.\u00a0 In fact, if you want to find out how proud you are, the easiest way is to ask yourself, ‘How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronize me, or show off?’\u00a0 The point is that each person’s pride is in competition with everyone else’s pride.\u00a0 It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise.\u00a0 Two of a trade never agree.\u00a0 Now what you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially<\/em> competitive–is competitive by its very nature–while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident.\u00a0 Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.\u00a0 We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not.\u00a0 They are proud of\u00a0 being richer, or cleverer, or good-looking than others.\u00a0 If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking, there would be nothing to be proud about.\u00a0 It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.\u00a0 Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.\u00a0 That is why I say that Pride is essentially competitive in a way the other vices are not.\u00a0 The sexual impulse may drive two men into competition if they both want the same girl.\u00a0 But that is only by accident; they might just as likely have wanted two different girls.\u00a0 But a proud man will take your girl from you, not because he wants her, but just to provide to himself that he is a better man than you.\u00a0 Greed may drive men into competition if there is not enough to go round; but the proud man, even when he has got more than he can possibly want, will try to get still more just to assert his power.\u00a0 Nearly all those evils in the world which people put down to greed or selfishness are really far more the result of Pride.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n