Are you proud?

If you say that it is all relative, and that you can be proud of anything, then why can't you be proud of Uganda having had an ignorant tyrannical buffoon like Idi Imin as a leader? And, again, if it is all relative, then why can't someone be ashamed of being a Ugandan, and there being a 12% growth in 2008? Remember, it is all relative-so you wrote.

I didn't say you can be proud of anything. Or should be proud of anything. Achievements (i.e. things to be proud of) should be judged on the situation of a people. That's what I mean when I say it's relative. So Japanese may be proud that their country introduces the newest technology but Ugandans should be no less proud that their country has achieved 12% economic growth following years of being on the brink of economic collapse. Achieving 12% growth is nothing compared to the contribution of Japan on a global level, but it's still a good achievement for a war-torn country.

So do you think Ugandans have nothing to be proud of but Americans do?

Fortunately, the laws of modern societies do not work in such a manner.

I disagree with this...maybe. Take affirmative action as an example.

Of course it was originally meant to increase equality and correct wrongs that were currently being committed. And so it is used to correct current wrongs and imbalances today.

However, it can easily seen as a pay back for sins created long ago. In that scenario, maybe there is no need for balance since no wrongs are currently being executed. In fact, many times the policy tips the scales so that they are unbalanced.

There are pleanty of examples of affirmative action's pros and cons. I was just giving you an example of how societies of today still have laws on the books that reward/punish others for the actions of their ancestors.

---------- Post added 01-12-2010 at 04:38 PM ----------

As far as being proud or not:

People subconsciously group things together...and sometimes not. Many time when people say that they are "proud" of something they are referring to a social category which they are part of. It is true that being proud involves a relationship bond or sense of being part of a group.

So I can be proud of my hometown football team winning because they represent where I came from and the indirectly represent me. Of course I am my own man, but your environment and association does add to one's character set.

Yes, I believe it is mistaken to be proud of your son unless you believe you had something to do with his accomplishments or what he is (i.e., his character). You may, of course, respect and admire him regardless of whether you had anything to do with his accomplishments or character. Presumably, if you raised your son, you had something to do with his character, so it is likely that feeling pride in your son, if he is good, is not misplaced; though, of course, it could be that the son turned out well in spite of (rather than because of) what the father has done, in which case, the father ought not feel proud.

I've been proud of friends in the past for accomplishments, but did not think that I had anything to do with their accomplishments. But, I suppose, in this case, you would say that I could have pride in their accomplishments because my being friends with them constituted some sort of reflection on myself?

But I've been proud of many people that have little, if no, affiliation with me. For instance, and this is a silly example: My friend and I were out at a bar, and my friend decided to call up a close friend of his whom I had never met prior. My friend had told me previously that this person was of the shy sort, and so the point of inviting him was so that he could be exposed to some females his own age. Well, long story short, he finally mustered enough courage to go talk to a very attractive woman who was seated across from us. I was very proud of him for having done so, since I knew he was very reserved. I knew I had nothing to do with him going up to the woman (we had not prodded or instigated that he go up to the woman at all), I barely knew him, yet I was proud.

How do you explain this?

Well, it's simple. We can admire and be proud of people who have little, if no, affiliation with us. It can be looked upon as a sort of empathetic gesture, a way for us to understand and appreciate other's accomplishments, qualities, or characteristics. Isn't this true? And this is where, I think, the self-reflective aspect of pride comes in that you note. But let's not mistake this as meaning that you have to be affiliated with the person for this to be so. I can self-reflect over anything and empathize with anyone.

How would we be able to know that the feeling was like the standard feeling of pride?

Can I be proud of Albert Einstein for having won two Nobel Prizes?

I imagine one can always find something to be proud of if you look hard enough,

I think it is as you say, there is no "standard feeling of pride". What if I roughly felt the same thing when I admired someone as I did when I simply enjoyed someone's company, but I called it admiration and not friendship? The interpretive words of feelings from each end of the spectrum: Am I sad, depressed, lonely, etc., or am I happy, ecstatic, pleasant, etc.

I was proud of the lad. Maybe I did admire him, too, for what he did. But I was also proud. I feel comfortable using the word in this circumstance.

Good topic, though. You raise a valid point.

It is Wittgenstein's private language problem. How do we know that what we feel is what we think we feel? It is as if we were to baptize the feeling every time we feel it. We have no way of knowing that what we call "pride" now is the same feeling as the feeling we called "pride" yesterday. Therefore, if we do know that we felt pride today, as well as we did yesterday, it cannot be because we are identifying private sensations. Otherwise, we cannot know that we mean the same thing by "pride" today as we did yesterday.

I've been proud of friends in the past for accomplishments, but did not think that I had anything to do with their accomplishments.

But, I suppose, in this case, you would say that I could have pride in their accomplishments because my being friends with them constituted some sort of reflection on myself?

But I've been proud of many people that have little, if no, affiliation with me. For instance, and this is a silly example: My friend and I were out at a bar, and my friend decided to call up a close friend of his whom I had never met prior. My friend had told me previously that this person was of the shy sort, and so the point of inviting him was so that he could be exposed to some females his own age. Well, long story short, he finally mustered enough courage to go talk to a very attractive woman who was seated across from us. I was very proud of him for having done so, since I knew he was very reserved. I knew I had nothing to do with him going up to the woman (we had not prodded or instigated that he go up to the woman at all), I barely knew him, yet I was proud.

How do you explain this?

Well, it's simple. We can admire and be proud of people who have little, if no, affiliation with us. It can be looked upon as a sort of empathetic gesture, a way for us to understand and appreciate other's accomplishments, qualities, or characteristics. Isn't this true? And this is where, I think, the self-reflective aspect of pride comes in that you note. But let's not mistake this as meaning that you have to be affiliated with the person for this to be so. I can self-reflect over anything and empathize with anyone.

There are a couple of options. First, you could simply be using the wrong term for what you feel. Second, your friend inviting his shy friend was probably done with your consent, and so you would then be a part of the reason why he was there, and so you may end up feeling good about your small part in the matter.

Admiration and empathy are not the same thing as pride. You may feel both of the former, but that does not entail having pride. So if you use pride interchangably with either admiration or empathy, you are simply misusing terms.

But perhaps it is not about sensation entirely, but the rationalization of that sensation. Perhaps there is a thought process, the same, or similar thought process, which accompanies a feeling (I need not know if it is the same feeling as last time). And, I am able to distinguish this thought process from other thought processes, and recall the circumstance and why I said what I said. There must be a consistent reason, or at least a consistent set of reasons, for why I would say I am proud of someone as opposed to saying I am angry at someone, for instance. And I don't think the reason(s) are solely based on me recollecting a feeling. I think it has to do with the rationalization of the feeling, or a set of feelings.

Your point, however, is that if I have no part in the matter, if I have absolutely no affiliation with the person, I cannot be proud of them. There has to be some sort of self-praise going on; my being proud must reflect on me in some way.

Is this right?



...

Yes. See the definition of the term for yourself. If you have been using the word "proud" in a different way, then you have been misusing the term. Whatever you have been feeling, if it has no relation to your value or merit, it is properly called something other than "pride".

But, what is a "definition of a word for yourself". How can you have your own definition of "pride" when "pride" is a perfectly good word in English? What would your own definition of a word be like? And how would you know whether you have been calling the same feeling "pride" whenever you use the term?

Do you know about Wittgenstein's beetle ? If not, come and be acquainted.

Wittgenstein's Beetle in the Box

By the sentence, "See the definition of the term for yourself.", I meant "look up the definition of the term in a dictionary and see it for yourself", rather than simply take my word for it. Given the rest of my post, it would make no sense to suggest that one simply intuit the meaning of the word or make up a meaning for it (not to mention Wittgenstein's objection to such an idea).

But since you raise this other issue, no, I do not think that a private language makes any sense.

But although the dictionary is the beginning of research into the meaning of a term, it certainly is not the last word. You would not begin and end the discussion of the meaning to "knowledge" with the dictionary, would you? The term "pride" does not seem to be simply the name of a sensation, so that to discover whether we feel (or are) proud, what we need to do is to introspect and discover whether the name of the sensation we have is, "pride". That runs up against Wittgenstein's argument, as well as commonsense.

I did not say that looking something up in a dictionary was an end to all possible research into a term. However, for normal usage, it is a good place to start, and it can help one to know whether one is using a term properly or not.