Is Our Pride Killing Us?

The last part of our National Anthem asks a serious question: Is America still the land of the free and home of the brave? Let's take the first part of that question. Is America the land of the free?

Here we should note that freedom implies the willingness and ability to change with the times. However, we should note that there is another American mindset to consider: pride. Pride resists change.  Pride says that how one was in the past or is in the present is good enough for now.

We see this pride in many, but not all, who refuse to take the Covid-19 vaccinations. They are self-assured that either the virus is not serious or that they don't need the vaccine. They believe that they possess more medical competence than those who are highly trained in medical science.

We see this pride in many who reject the findings of climate science. They reject those findings because those findings serve as indictments on our nation's treasured way of life with its capitalist economy and materialism. They reject those findings because those findings imply that we must undertake major changes from how we either have done or are doing things.

We see this pride when my fellow religiously conservative American Christians refuse to acknowledge how the notions of white supremacy and racism have so permeated the beliefs of so many of us both in the past and present. Instead of listening to Blacks as they describe how they experience racism, we tell Blacks how racism cannot be defined lest we start to feel our own guilt.

We see this pride when conservative pundits appeal to Americanism anytime our nation considers imitating anything that Europe does. They proudly implore us to ignore what Europe does because we are America and we should only do what America has been doing differently from Europe. 

 We see this pride when some challenge our capitalist economic system. That pride tells us that our economic system is the greatest in the world and while the wealthiest are getting extremely wealthy, our system floats all other boats better than any other system. But we seem to ignore how capitalism has hurt our relationships with others both those from other economic classes and from other nations. We also ignore how Capitalism is waging war against the environment.

We see this pride in how different ideological sides demonize  each other and canonize themselves. Borrowing from the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., that pride is demonstrated when each ideological side acts as if it has everything to teach others while having nothing to learn from them. That pride severs any need or want in us to listen to and collaborate with those who think differently. 

Though most of the above examples pertain to conservatives because they often resist change, pride is an equal-opportunity inflicter of ignorance-based foolishness. And the problem with pride is that it is rendering us either unwilling or unable to make life-prolonging changes in how we live in this world. 

It is out of pride that many of us Americans have put ourselves and others at risk in terms of our physical survival and our chances for a peaceful coexistence with others. It is out of pride that we reject criticisms of how we currently live and suggestions as to what changes we could make.  That pride is creating a combative future with both nature and others where either nature might turn against us or we might do ourselves in by fighting with each other. 

So when we see more and more fellow Americans who, out of pride, refuse to change when they should change, we can then answer the question asked at the end of our National Anthem with a tragically resounding 'NO!' But lest we scapegoat any group for having such pride, we need to remember the times in our own lives where we demonstrated such pride.