{"id":55784,"date":"2021-07-07T06:00:14","date_gmt":"2021-07-07T10:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=55784"},"modified":"2021-07-03T16:18:47","modified_gmt":"2021-07-03T20:18:47","slug":"how-pride-causes-our-catastrophes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2021\/07\/how-pride-causes-our-catastrophes\/","title":{"rendered":"How Pride Causes Our Catastrophes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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\u201cPride goes before destruction,\u201d says the Bible, \u201cand a haughty spirit before a fall\u201d (Proverbs 16:18).\u00a0 According the Greeks, pride causes<\/em>\u00a0the fall.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Greek tragedies were about the fall of a hero, someone who is admirable in many ways (since the fall of a bad person is not a tragedy but a good thing).\u00a0 He brings the catastrophe upon himself due to a \u201ctragic flaw.\u201d\u00a0 (The word for that in the Greek is hamartia<\/em>, which the New Testament renders as sin<\/em>.\u00a0 Note that sin is not just the bad things that we do, but it\u2019s our tragic flaw.)\u00a0 That flaw or sin in classical drama is usually hubris<\/em>, or pride<\/em>.\u00a0 Not in the sense of taking pride in a job well done, etc., but in the sense of exalting yourself.\u00a0 The Greeks believed that when someone exalts himself beyond the status of mere mortal, the gods\u2013not being beneficent as in Christianity\u2013will send Nemesis and will strike him down.<\/p>\n

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The Bible agrees with that, apart from the pagan fatalism:\u00a0 \u201cOne\u2019s pride will bring him low\u201d (Proverbs 29:23).\u00a0 Pride, the exaltation of the self, is one of the traditional Seven Deadly Sins.\u00a0 But today we are so self-focused that we hardly think of how damaging pride can be\u2013not only spiritually and morally, but also in the practical course of everyday living.<\/p>\n

In his article\u00a0Lockdowns, Unpunished Crime, And Climate Hysteria: The Roots Of Our Three Biggest Disasters,<\/a>\u00a0Christopher Bedford shows how hubris<\/em> lies behind our failures in dealing with the COVID pandemic and other recent problems.\u00a0 But this is nothing new.\u00a0 He writes,<\/p>\n

Over our history, we\u2019ve gotten pretty used to this kind of hubris.<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s the arrogance that believes common sense and time-tested policies can be thrown out as leaders chase utopias. It\u2019s the arrogance that makes men think they can shape the economy and tax and spend without inflation.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the arrogance that makes men think they can install a republic in countries that lack a middle class or a Western and Judeo-Christian tradition of individual liberty. It\u2019s the arrogance that makes men think they can maintain a republic in a West that\u2019s gutted its middle class and banished its Western, Judeo-Christian moral code.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the arrogance that causes people every generation to decide they won\u2019t be held back by dusty old wisdom and tradition, and it\u2019s the arrogance we see playing out every day on our city\u2019s streets, where violent crimes threaten citizens\u2019 lives and property.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bedford, who listed the hubris<\/em>-saturated proposals of the experts whom we blogged about yesterday, quotes the great free-market, free-society economist\u00a0Friedrich Hayek, who described\u00a0\u201cthe fatal conceit\u201d of both totalitarian and benign utopians, the idea \u201cthat man is able to shape the world around him according to his wishes.\u201d<\/p>\n

I would add that hubris<\/em> brought down Donald Trump\u2019s presidency, that if he had just tempered his pride, he would have found much greater success.\u00a0 Hubris<\/em> also brings down marriages, ruins businesses, and destroys ministries.<\/p>\n

But the converse is also true:\u00a0 \u201cOne\u2019s\u00a0pride\u00a0will bring him low,\u201d and yet the converse is also true:\u00a0 \u201cbut he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor\u201d (Proverbs:23).\u00a0 \u201cThe reward for\u00a0humility\u00a0and fear of the\u00a0Lord<\/span>\u00a0is riches and honor and life\u201d (Proverbs 22:4).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image by\u00a0mohamed Hassan<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0Pixabay<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Bible says that pride goeth before a fall. The Greeks said that pride causes the fall. They called it “hubris,” the tragic flaw that brings down the hero in a classical tragedy. As a writer observes, the concept also accounts for many of our national and personal failures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":55828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,15,20,28,37],"tags":[964,10910,4561],"class_list":["post-55784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economics","category-ethics","category-history","category-literature","category-psychology","tag-greek-tragedy","tag-hubris","tag-pride"],"yoast_head":"\nHow Pride Causes Our Catastrophes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Bible says that pride goeth before a fall. The Greeks said that pride causes the fall. 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