In Christian tradition pride is regarded as the worst of the Seven Deadly Sins. In today?s secular society it is seen, rather, as a virtue. How has such a change come about and what does it tell us about ourselves? A novelist gives her answer. ONCE upon a time, Lucifer, the great angel of light, fell from heaven into the vast vacuity, banished from bliss for ever because, in his overweening pride, he challenged the Almighty. His sin was disobedience, but it was a disobedience of the will, not an act as such (his natural superior at that point had given no orders or instructions for him to act against). The source of Satan?s fall was pride.

Now upon a different time we sing a different tune. Pride is a virtue. We march the streets proclaiming our pride: Say it loud, I?m black and I?m proud. We have no natural superiors, and to accept anyone as such, far from being a virtue, is cowardice at best, and psychopathic at worst. Independence, self-sufficiency, autonomy, self-respect, pride itself ? these are characteristics to earn and hold to. We teach children history so that they can have pride; low self-esteem is deemed the cause of most personal woes; reducing the self-esteem of another is sinful rather than educational; assertiveness is desirable.

I?m proud of you we say to our loved ones. To be able to say I?m proud of myself is a sign of well-being. Shame is wrong, guilt is neurotic. In this case we have not even bothered to change the language as we usually do: from the virtue of humility to the sin of self-hatred, from the sin of selfishness to the virtue of being fulfilled, from discourtesy to frankness, from disobedience to freedom. Normally we have needed euphemisms to help us make substantial shifts in moral values, but with pride we have not bothered. Pride used to be a bad thing and now it?s a good thing.

Over a couple of thousand years of Christianity we have managed to alter all sorts of moral codes. Usury was once a most serious offence; now, to earn interest on our savings is more than a personal convenience, it?s taking responsibility; we encourage our young to save; we accept mortgages as opportunities, not immoral solicitations. Jesus would be hard put to it to find a dinner party today where he could sit down together with employees of the Inland Revenue and prostitutes, as he used to do; his association with the former would make him a model of bourgeois respectability.

Corporal punishment, once the painful duty of parents, is about to become a criminal offence. Slavery appals. Female submission is discouraged. Divorce in the face of unhappiness is an acceptable, even courageous, decision. Paintings (images) of the Christ Child are our cultural boast; and adoration of the reserved sacrament is now old-fashioned.

But for something to stop being sinful is not the same as its becoming virtuous ? that is the longest trajectory, and pride has travelled it. Traditionally it was the most deadly of the deadly sins; it was the source of all sin. No one thinks that Eve bit the apple because she was greedy, lazy, angry, envious, lustful or covetous: she ate it because she was proud. All other sins stem from that sin ? the sin of having ideas above your station; of believing that you can go it on your own, that you know better; that you don?t need anyone, that you can make up your own mind. I remember having it explained to me that the reason why suicide was ethically unacceptable was that despair was a sin of pride ? to believe you were beyond redemption was as arrogant and self-important as believing that you did not need redemption.

It is interesting to think about why, and how, pride has changed position on the morality league tables. In part it is just our contemporary easy simplifications about the pre-Enlightenment mind. Even in the Middle Ages people did not see pride as one-dimensional. Pride has always had a moral ambivalence. A right or proper pride has been recognised for very nearly as long as the sinful, arrogant kind has. Indeed, the word proud derives from the Latin prod-esse, to be of value, be good.

In addition, we have radically changed our ideas about how we acquire values ? not through precept or intellectual argument but through example, through role models. If we look at the founders of our faith, at Abraham or Paul, or at most of the saints, we do not find immediate models of humility. Indeed, as the poet Michelene Wandor has Lilith point out to God, to whose virtues we are supposed to aspire: The irony is/I am made only too well/in thine image. . . I have not learned meekness from watching you.

But there are more complex reasons for the change in the moral status of pride. We have, for example, discovered a brand new sin, which today probably comes between more people and their God than pride does: indifference. There is a word to describe people who are indifferent in matters of religion ? adiaphorism. Although it is little used, I actually know far more adiaphorists than theists, deists, agnostics and atheists put together. Moral relativism has moreover meant that large numbers of people have become adiaphorist in matters of public ethics as well. In the light of this unconcern pride, competitiveness with God, at least has the merit of engagement.

Along with this new sin we have learned new virtues, or at least have put a new spin on old ones. We have, for example, revamped sincerity: we now believe it is important to say what one feels; that truth is felt rather than thought, and ought to be expressed.

We have shifted the emphasis on justice to mean something like equality. It is no longer enough to treat your slaves well ? you simply shouldn?t have any slaves. With this has come the realisation that justice cannot be handed down from on high ? it can only be gained by the oppressed for themselves; so servility cannot be a personal virtue of self-giving any more, it is a sin against justice.

ABOVE all, perhaps, we have, since the Enlightenment, created a set of virtues around individuality ? originality, independent thought, creativity, self-expression. We desire and value these; we train children in them. We have lost respect for authority and given truths.The statement of Leonardo Boff that he would rather walk together with his Church than alone with his theology would not have seemed extraordinary even 100 years ago. Now many people find that not so much extraordinary as morally dubious. We admire Paracelsus for burning the books and slightly despise Galileo for giving in and recanting when he really did believe that eppur se muove (but it does move).

This is the profound change: we have shifted our ideal model of what it is to be a whole person, to have a healthy psyche. Now the healthy self is an autonomous self; a person who is integrated and independent; a self with a clear sense of boundaries ? and those boundaries are finite: they start and therefore inevitably stop at the margins of the body. This is a self that has a primary duty to itself ? you can?t love others until you love yourself. A healthy person is fulfilled. Filled full of self.

Now in terms of this sort of personal wholeness, Sigmund Freud was obviously right and religious belief is an anti-social neurosis, because if you believe in a God ? in the Other, beyond, other than and therefore potentially over against the self ? as something which has at least equal value to yourself, then your ego boundaries are necessarily going to be shaky; they need to be shaky. If there is God outside the ego, then the self that is permeable, whose boundaries can be broken through, who can be penetrated, who can slip out of its own skin as it were and meld into Otherness: such a self has greater access to truth and health than the boundaried self.

But pride bolsters the boundaries of self (just as national pride, patriotism, strengthens the boundaries of a nation state). Inevitably then, pride is a virtue in a society based on the rights of the individual. Equally, pride is a sin in a society that believes in God, for precisely the same reason ? because it strengthens the boundaries of the individual and makes them less permeable to the intrusion of Otherness.

As Christians we tend to live somewhat schizophrenic lives: seeking justice in individual rights which requires pride; and seeking ultimate truth ? God ? in Christ?s redemptive acts which requires passivity and humility. I do not immediately see a satisfactory resolution to this profound division of the self ? but I think we need to meditate upon it, or at least to acknowledge its existence.

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