The question of what pride and arrogance are, what is the difference between them, can baffle even a philosopher. Dictionary searches and everyday experience social personality may lead to the conclusion that pride is a very positive feeling. Pride is contrasted with it and is considered a negative manifestation of arrogance and vanity.
Words that are similar only in sound?
Words that are similar in spelling and sound are paronyms. They are so similar that they may seem to have the same root, but unlike really related words their meaning varies greatly. Based on the meanings indicated in dictionaries, it is usually concluded that positive pride and negative pride are both similar friends in other words. This implies that their meanings are very different /
But what is the difference between pride and arrogance? It is generally accepted that pride is a natural and positive emotion when achieving success. A person may be proud of a job well done, winning a sporting event, or acquiring knowledge or things. Speaking about pride as a positive feeling, they give examples of joy for own child who entered a university, or respect for another person who has achieved some success.
Pride is defined as the tendency to consider oneself better than others, extolling one’s own personality, but belittling the dignity of other people. At the same time, it is often confused with arrogance (the tendency to judge a person’s merits by their position in society), and with vanity (the desire to receive recognition or praise for owning something), and with self-affirmation (the desire to increase self-esteem by judging another). Of course, the listed qualities are difficult to name positive features personality.
But is it rare that parents, proud of their child’s achievements, consider themselves to be the reason for this? They have such a high opinion of their teaching talents that they do not notice the achievements of their son or daughter’s peers, especially if they themselves have little interest in the area in which other children achieve success. Extolling the virtues of their child, who has won a small victory, they form in him vanity, a desire for self-affirmation, and arrogance.
Pride in one's country can lead to chauvinism. In this case it is also rare we're talking about about respecting neighboring state or other peoples. The victory of the football team is equated to the exaggerated value of every citizen of the country who supports the team, although real success belongs only to athletes.
There are many examples. They all boil down to this: where pride is found, pride is always present. Positive emotion at some elusive moment it becomes its opposite. How big is the difference between pride and arrogance and does it exist at all?
The concept of pride in religious teachings
Almost all religious and philosophical systems agree that pride and pride, which sound similar in sound, are not so different in the spiritual sense. The presence of the Creator, whose existence is recognized by all world religions, makes any human achievement exclusively the will of the supreme being. From this point of view, the difference between pride and arrogance is completely invisible.
The primary act of showing pride, as high self-esteem and comparing oneself with By higher powers, belongs to the antagonist of the supreme deity. Being a creation, he imagined himself equal to the Creator (like Lucifer, for example). The lack of humility and recognition of himself only as a product of someone else’s activity led him to his fall, that is, to the deprivation of the Creator’s protection. Similar moments are present in every religion.
The main virtue of a person of religion is called humility. It is interpreted as the ability not to humiliate ourselves before arrogant proud people who try to humiliate everyone around them and enjoy their goodness, success or strength, but to recognize only the will of the Creator. From the position of spirituality, a person who is aware of his existence is not able to humiliate another. But religions also consider it a manifestation of arrogance (pride) to judge another as a proud person: after all, in this way a person begins to consider himself better than him. The meaning of humility is precisely to make neither good nor bad judgments about others, leaving it to the judgment of the supreme deity, and pride and arrogance merge into one.
Should you be proud of yourself?
A secular person may not understand this position. We are brought up in the spirit of constantly striving to become better than others at something: tying our shoelaces more accurately, getting an excellent grade in school, getting into prestigious university and get good job. Having the best, modern, expensive things makes a person successful in the eyes of society. Therefore, questions arise about what feeling an arrogant and vain man: Pride or arrogance controls his consciousness?
It is often said that the pride that drives us to gain recognition is not such a bad feeling. Thanks to pride, new technologies are developed, qualifications are acquired in professional activities. For the sake of the moment of experience positive emotion people are able to work tirelessly.
To achieve the title of Olympic champion, athletes train to the limit human capabilities. When one of them achieves a brilliant result, the media and fans only say that this is entirely the achievement of the champion. There are also examples of how an insignificant accident leads to injury and sometimes death of an athlete. But these are also consequences of his pride in his strength or dexterity, his desire to achieve more high altitudes and get another dose of fame and experience a new attack of self-satisfaction.
Are religions really so wrong that they consider both pride and pride to be the same mortal sin? When achieving success in any business, you must always keep in mind that inexplicable fact that not everything depends solely on human efforts. And even in legitimate pride, there can always be a little negative desire to look in the eyes of others as the best, superior to everyone who is not currently on the podium.
Pride and arrogance. Two different manifestations human essence. Arrogance can be compared with the pride that so plagues those in positions of power and wealth. Some argue that arrogance or pride is a sign of a personality disorder, and pride is a quality of the present.
Pride
In the life of one of famous commanders there was a case in point. His army advanced through the desert for a long time, unable to replenish water supplies. The liquid was running low, some began to become delirious and show signs of panic. Finally managed to find big lake, full of clean and clear water. Almost all the warriors rushed to drink water, filling their stomachs, washing and splashing.
After their thirst was quenched, the warriors lay down near the shore. Some even lost consciousness from excess fluid. Only the commander and some of his comrades waited until everyone had drunk, then slowly approached the lake, also slowly taking the required number of sips.
The fact is that he was a proud man. The commander showed not only patience, but also respect for himself as an individual. If he were arrogant, he would have ordered everyone to stop and tasted the water first. He did exactly the opposite, like a real one.
After the soldiers saw the behavior of their leader, they felt ashamed of themselves. It is quite possible that for some of them this day became a turning point in their lives.
Arrogance
Arrogance is often shown by a person who considers himself better than others. This is often due to high position in society, either by the presence of wealth, which is received by inheritance, or by chance.
As practice shows, a person who has a stable psyche, who has independently earned recognition in society or has amassed capital, will not show arrogance. He understands perfectly well that at any moment everything can be lost, and all the values of the world by and large- convention.
There is a legend about one of the best students of Buddha Sarah, who was the favorite of the local ruler. The ruler, seeing Saraha’s high level of education and spirituality, decided to make him his own and offer to rule the country after himself. Saraha only laughed at this, saying that he was not so sick as to be arrogant towards people and become a ruler when there were so many wonderful opportunities to realize his essence.
For these words, the ruler was greatly offended and ordered Saraha to leave, to which he noticed that the behavior of a noble person was an act of arrogance. After all, they managed to refuse him by expressing their opinion. If there were a ruler more high level awareness, would not have paid attention to Saraha’s remark.
The majority of representatives of the bureaucracy, the parliamentary corps, show business and the film industry suffer from arrogance. Even athletes began to proudly ignore questions from journalists and show disrespect for spectators and fans.
Resume
Pride is a sign of aristocracy, a high level of intelligence, will and spirituality. Not every person can boast that he always remains proud and true to his principles.
Most often, people show unscrupulousness and arrogance, obeying their ego. When a person gets one step higher on the social ladder, he begins to feel dizzy. Yesterday's friends become just acquaintances who are no fun to be with. Arrogance manifests itself - a sign of immaturity of the soul.
Regardless of whether a person is a believer or not, none of the vices will lead him to anything good. Along with envy, anger and greed is pride. Many people confuse this concept with pride, believing that there is no difference between them. Let's try to figure out how and how these two words differ, and whether the difference is big. First of all, let's find out what pride is and how it can be characterized.
Interpretation of the word
According to explanatory dictionaries, pride can be defined as:
- A feeling of satisfaction from an action.
- arrogance, arrogance.
As we see, on the one hand, this is - positive feeling, which a person experiences in relation to himself and others. On the other hand, this concept is negative, since a proud person elevates himself, thereby belittling other people. So what is pride? Is this good or bad? And can this feeling even be called good or bad? It all depends on what underlies the concept in question. If this is a person’s talent, his hard work and success, then the feeling of pride is well deserved. It brings joy to both the person himself and those around him. However, it often happens that the mentioned feeling is experienced without any reason. For example, beautiful girls often elevate themselves and humiliate those who are less fortunate in this regard. Naturally given qualities should not evoke such a feeling as pride. The meaning of the word in this case will be negative.
Different understanding of one word
The same concept in different times can have both positive and negative meaning. A striking example this is national pride. In most cases, this feeling is welcomed. It means a person’s love and affection for his country, readiness to protect and defend common interests. However, history can also provide quite tragic examples of the use this concept: Germany in the 30-40s (the idea of the superiority of the “superior nation”), British Empire in the 19th century (the idea of "burden white man") and so on. What is pride in this case, if not a feeling of superiority of representatives of one nation, race over other people? As the sad experience of past generations has shown, it does not bring anything good.
Pride and its companions
The meaning of the word pride and arrogance are similar, but they also have significant differences. IN modern society The concept of “pride” is used extremely rarely. It is replaced by terms that are similar in meaning: arrogance, ambition, arrogance, vanity, selfishness. Thus, we see that there is nothing positive in the meaning of this word. Unlike pride, it has only a negative connotation. Among the qualities inherent in pride, one can note: hypocrisy, vanity, capriciousness, stubbornness and arrogance. And also suspiciousness, uncontrollability, fussiness, pickiness, selfishness and insolence. In addition, a person susceptible to this mortal sin is characterized by touchiness, hot temper, lust for power, a tendency to harsh criticism, envy and rancor. You can also call these negative traits as intransigence and cruelty, causticity, non-acceptance generally accepted norms and authorities.
What is pride and what is arrogance?
These two concepts may have opposite meaning. And at the same time be equally negative. To understand, you need to know what causes certain feelings and aspirations:
- pride, arrogance - all this suggests that a person desires to gain power and despises people who have lower
- Ambition and ambitiousness are signs that a person strives to achieve more and move up the career ladder.
- Insolence, impudence, impudence, selfishness and impudence indicate a person’s readiness to achieve his interests at any cost, on those around him.
Many people confuse definitions such as “pride” and “arrogance.” This question is very significant because, without knowing the main differences, you have to pay for your ignorance. So how is pride different from arrogance? Let's look at the main points.
One of the 8 deadly sins is pride. Moreover, this sin is present in Catholicism and Islam. The word can most accurately be translated as “arrogance.”
Pride is the embodiment of a selfish attitude towards any people, a disrespectful attitude towards them and the desire to rise above them. This is the so-called enthronement of one’s own “I”. Its main companions are rancor, anger, and selfishness.
Pride is what it is great feeling deep joy and delight for another person is dignity and honor. The ability to protect what is valuable to a person. The main companions of pride are love, kindness, responsiveness and empathy.
These two concepts are opposite. And therefore they cannot go in parallel.
Main differences
Pride is born from a person’s fear that he may be humiliated or offended. To protect himself from possible attacks, he elevates himself above others so that they don’t even have the thought of somehow belittling him. As a rule, he is not confident in himself and is afraid to admit it. Such proud people look for flaws in others, but simply try not to notice their own.
How to overcome pride in yourself?
If you realize that pride lives in you and want to quickly get rid of it, you need to follow a few tips.
Saints and strong people solve this problem quickly. They go into a wandering life, starve themselves, live as hermits and constantly beg the Lord to forgive them. But it is very difficult to find such people in the world who sincerely want to be cured of their vices. Therefore, in order to overcome pride in yourself, you need to act in stages:
- Remember that a person is born to bring joyful moments to other people and spread the light of kindness. Without understanding this, it will be very difficult to free yourself from pride.
- Try to benefit society. Try to do what you love, learn new and interesting things.
- Cultivate traits such as submissive humility, daily hard work, hope and gratitude. If you can develop these qualities, consider that you have conquered your sin.
Pride has greatly affected the heart if a person thinks that everything is fine with him, he does not need to develop any of the above qualities. Hard-heartedness, indifference and a smug grin took root in his heart. Think and feel how pride differs from arrogance, and then the soul will find calm happiness and gentle peace.
Svetlana Rumyantseva
Modernity gives a contradictory interpretation of two similar concepts “pride” and “pride”. Eastern peoples traditionally they are considered one sense, carrying negative character. IN Western world pride takes on a positive connotation and is seen as the engine of progress and the basis for personal growth. Contradictions and misunderstandings arise from differences in cultures and worldviews. What is the nature of pride? How to deal with pride? What are the differences?
What is pride?
Pride is a feeling self-esteem, so says Western philosophy with its free view of man. You can be proud of both your own achievements and the successes of those around you: your beloved son, dear friend, beloved wife. It’s as if a person becomes an accomplice in someone else’s success, an assistant and a companion. He not only shares the joy, but takes upon himself part of the achievement. The son is his own blood, he raised, fed, educated himself. And my friend and I have been together for 20 years, both in sorrow and in joy. My wife and I went through fire and water. How can one not share successes and not rejoice?
Closedness
To a closed person, pride says: “You are not like everyone else.” He concentrates on himself and carefully builds own world. His miraculous universe of personality is a great pride, elevating the hermit above other people with their poor little worlds. A person who has isolated himself from those around him with his own fantasies is smart and not lacking in talent. He is a creator, inventor, artist. Such people choose the path of development. And the more they learn, the more proud they become: “Everyone is stupid, but I am smart and talented.” Hermits do not allow others into their world, thinking that it is too complex to understand. They are afraid of not being accepted, so they prefer to stay away. Many have already been rejected by society once, and isolation has become a defense of pride. Hermits hide complexes and fears in their worlds. They would be happy to go out into the world with people, but pride does not allow them to part with their chosen tactics of behavior. To establish contact with society means to recognize oneself as equal, the same as everyone else. This is disgusting to pride, which has cultivated the seeds of narcissism in the individual.
A person enslaved by pride needs sympathy. This is a lost personality, a prisoner of an invented image. Freeing yourself from shackles on your own is an impossible task for an egoist or self-centered person. His real “I” is locked between complexes and, which destroys the personality.
5 Differences between Pride and Arrogance
For those who doubt and are still waiting for an answer:
Pride can become the engine of progress, but pride leads to inevitable regression.
Pride is obvious and conscious, pride is hidden from a person and is not realized by him.
Pride arises both after one’s own and as a result of other people’s successes; pride does not go beyond the boundaries of one person.
Pride is a support, and pride is an abyss.
Pride gives confidence, and pride undermines self-confidence.
Each person decides for himself whether he is proud or not and where to look for the measure. The main thing is not to cross the line by stepping onto the thorny road of vanity.
April 19, 2014
