THALATTA! TARAMASALATA! When you see the sea, do you swell with pride? Why not? Sixty per cent of you is water. That's coal over there, isn't it? A sprawling seam. Watching it must inspire you to quiver with vainglory. No? But a fifth of you is carbon. I'm being obtuse, of course. No one experiences pride over things they had no hand in. Why, then, does your pulse gallop when your national team triumphs? Your heart hurt when your favourite artist is awarded a Turner/Grammy/Emmy/Oscar? You played no part in these circumstances either. Okay, you may assert a modicum of agency in the second instance. Congratulate yourself on having had the good sense to patronise a figure worthy of veneration. Hmm — That good sense — Where did it come from? SHOW BLINDNESS These days, everything makes me cry. The usual suspects: Tragedies. Real/imaginary. Anyone done in. Anything done well, too. The first time I experienced the latter was in the Royal Opera House. At a performance of Lohengrin. The moment the titular hero disclosed his name. The strings swelled. And I with them. As if I had learned his secret identity along with the characters on stage. At first, I thought this was what used to be known as a rush. Wherein the blood quickens. The hairs on the face stiffen. I had presented symptoms of cultural contagion since I can remember. After captured slaves leapt to their feet and proclaimed, 'I'm Spartacus!' in Kubrick's classic. When Kenobi's disembodied voice said, 'Use the force, Luke', in A New Hope. The moment Clark Kent parted his shirt-front for the first time in The Movie. And many, many more. This time, though, there were additional attributes. First off, my eyes sprang a leak. As if to relieve the pressure on my heart and lungs. Then came something else. A sensation that properly belonged to the person who had written the work: Proprietorship. In those days, I would purchase a ten-quid day ticket — The only one I could afford — Then move to an empty seat in the stalls come the first interval. (I virtue-rinsed this as being a con that Wagner — Lifelong socialist — Debtor — Might have worked himself.) Down from the gods — Seated among social demiurges — I felt like leaping to my feet — Turning to fellow stallers — (Most of whom were, surely, tourists — Opera-goers rather than Wagner-goers — ) And saying: See! This is Wagner! My Wagner! Consequently, I suspected that the new symptoms would be restricted to the Master of Bayreuth. That I was congratulating myself on being an acolyte of the sorcerer who magicked that effect. But — no — that wasn't it. Couldn't have been. Because the fresh sensation wouldn't limit itself to his works. I went on to suffer it after witnessing anything well done. Watching Rachel Berry — A character in my wife's favourite TV series at the time — Sing Don't Rain on My Parade made me dash to the bathroom. Not to puke up. Rather, because I knew I would be incapable of speaking up — Doing anything — Without betraying myself. I blubbed last time I visited the National Gallery. And saw Hendrickje Stoffels — My Rembrandt — In the flesh for the first time in some time. I could only get through The Deer Hunter — A film previously dismissed as not-Apocalypse Now — In ten-minute chunks for show blindness. Tragedy — Romance — Comedy — Every scene demanded a demisting. And not just on account of the in-drama elements. But for the actors — Cinematography — Music — Everything. The singer and the song. And me in the mix, somehow. An emotional admixture that felt like pride. Or what — Never having done anything to merit it — I imagine genuine pride must feel like. Over what, though? Being of the same species as the creatures who initiated the sensation? YOU ONLY SING WHEN THEY'RE WINNING I used to experience something similar after my football team won a title. A sudden awareness of its power. Intense desire to claim a share of it. An ancillary feeling, too: Equanimity. That all was well with everything. And all shall be well with everything. This is why sports fans — Unlike devotees of any other form of entertainment — Become irate when things don't turn out as anticipated. Take it personally. I'm wearing your shirt. So, you must win. Not least to maintain my standing in the league of life. That is why we persist in asserting pride inappropriately. Over properties we don't own. EPIPHANY OF VICTORY We know why supporters go apeshit when their team loses. But why do some go berserk after their team wins? I said that I used to experience elation when my football team won. These days, I suffer something else a second or so after the final whistle shrieks. Numbness. Recognition that the win isn't — Never was — My own. Or mine to own. Knowledge that my heroes' fortunes have changed. But mine not a whit. A consciousness of the gulf between us. And this isn't limited to sport. I patronise this artwork — Share this attribute with the author — But have no hand in the triumph of either. What is this? Despair sublimated into joy. Desublimated into despair again. Discombobulating. A psychological bungee jump. THEORY OF GOOD FORM The two modes of pride: Personal: What we do/possess/admire. Sectional: What we are/have been. Part of same. One authored by self entirely. The other an aspect of self exclusively. Yet another dynamic duality. Instance of particular and universal. PURPOSE FULL The prospect of pride — The feelings it arouses — Encourages us to accept applause for things we had no part in. You aren't responsible for your aptitudes. Strengths. Attitudes. But claim acclaim for the fruits of same. While maintaining plausible deniability. So you can crow 'Cock!' when guilt by association is insinuated. Point up the many distinguishing features. Dissimilarities. A similar motive applies to your carcass. Gender. Race. Nationality. All are accidents of time and place. A consequence of life choosing for you. Not you choosing for you. IF YOU HAVE TEARS Back to the wet stuff: We take away the two-thirds of us that is wishy-washy — The half of what remains that is mighty mitochondria — (Sharing DNA with every other creature in existence.) And fixate on the one-sixth left over. Why? Extra-terrestrials would suspect we would be proudest of what constitutes our mostest. The two-thirds closest to two-thirds of the earth. Carry Blue Supremacist banners at our rallies. NOBODY OWNS ANYTHING William Goldman's Adventures In The Screen Trade slugs out the beats of his career as a screenwriter. It is best known for the maxim: Nobody knows anything. Which the author elaborated as: 'Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work. Every time out it's a guess and, if you're lucky, an educated one.' To illustrate this, he quoted Hollywood executive David Picker: 'If I had said yes to all the projects I turned down, and no to all the ones I took, it would have worked out about the same.' Something about this — The acknowledgement of the arbitrary allocation of worth — Its rhythm, even — Chimes with pride's random ascription of value. We are A, B and C. Therefore, value A, B and C. Were we X, Y and Z, we would value them as much. Precisely. So, were an alien force — Out of an episode of The Outer Limits, say — To turn us into X, Y and Z — Then, total all recall of us having been A, B and C — And implant memories of us having been X, Y and Z — We would feel as much pride in X, Y and Z as we did in A, B and C. Immediately. Comprehensively. Earnestly. And be indifferent to/loathe A, B and C. Continue to do so were the ET's — At the end of the episode — To reveal what they had done. Run film of our old selves being in thrall to what we now regard as inferior. CULTURAL MISAPPROPRIATION National pride is unobjectionable as long as it concerns itself with the conservation of culture. Custom. Cuisine. Dallies with divertissement only. For the amusement of tourists. As soon as it injects itself into politics, it poisons. Turns myopic. Nonsensical. The nationalist who believes their country is right always — Pre-eminent in all ways — Has a faith that forestalls inquiry. Takes the place of it. So, the more they profess this belief — The fiercer the desire to do so blazes — The less inclined they feel to substantiate it. Fearful that objective world rankings will upend their worldview. Dissonate their cognisance that their worst day is better than the best anywhere else. Have they been anywhere else? Seen everywhere else? Read about somewhere else, even? No. Why? They are certain that their contention will remain true for so long as — Because — They don't do as much. Blinkered, they may remain convinced that — Given the choice — They would have selected the nation fate allotted them. That their pride in it is warranted objectively. This encourages double-think. Assures them that their respect for homeland is a recognition of genuine superiority. Whereas everyone else's is biased. Prejudiced. Racist. ASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU, ASK WHAT IT CAN DO FOR WE Pride in nation is unfounded. It chose you. Not you it. Unless you are an immigrant, of course. One, moreover, who was free to migrate to any country on earth. Chose your current homeland only after rigorous research. Were indifferent to immediate concerns. Personal. Pecuniary. Immigrants are sometimes discouraged from participating in national celebrations. But they are the only citizens whose presence at such events carries objective heft. Unnonsenses patriotism. Who aren't stating: This nation is pre-eminent because — well — I was born in it. And I'm eminent. Was prenatally. So, my opinion isn't parti pris. GREAT BY ASSOCIATION I'm a member of this set. Other members of it have achieved X, Y, Z. Therefore, I will achieve X, Y, Z. Have — in a sense — achieved X, Y, Z. On account of the racial characteristics I share with those who have done so. Why should similarity with just these features of an achiever confer greatness on the claimant? Why not a shared shoe size? Navel scar type? Earlobe shape? Championing these associations would earn scorn. But they are no more incidental than place. No less unlikely lightning rods of pride. Equally irrelevant to the prospect of whether the possessor will achieve anything deserving it themselves. RACIAL INDETERMINACY Would your opinion of your sectional attributes — Yourself — Change if you discovered you had been adopted? That one/both of your birth parents had been members of another race? Or would you continue to profess the superiority of your former heritage? Promote proxy ownership of its achievements? RACE TO THE BOTTOM Pride in race is as nonsensical as pride in place. A post hoc prenatal imposition of passion. Physiologically arbitrary. Tribally tautologous. The only instance of it that might be redeemed sounds oxymoronic: Pride in someone else's race. One that you have no vested — Under the vest — Interest in. Not, then, what we regard as pride currently. More simple respect. RELATIONSHIP COUNSELLING Despite your current concerns — Momentary missteps — You rate your relationship as better than those of your fellows. Why? Because you are in it. It is commanding your emotions. The ardent romantic aims to maintain that their love is a star-crossed affair. Across spacetime. But even if they could prove they had been feted to be together — Foaled for each other — Would that give them the right to bow before a mirror — Rather than a statue of the goddess Aphrodite? TERRIBLE PARENTS To the best mummy in the world — You scrawl in that Mother's Day card. And the sentiment is strong. True. For you, she is the best mother in the world. Because she bore you. And without you, there is nothing. Yes — But that gives you no right to bore us over her ever after. TERRIBLE CHILDREN Parents feel similarly — Illogically — Regards their offspring. Though they suspect that more intelligent — Talented — Diligent — Attractive — Children exist — Theirs remain superior in some indeterminable — Unprovable — Regard. Again, this is true in a sense. They are superior to/for you. Because — Well — They are yours. FAITH OF OUR FATHERS/MOTHERS/SIGNIFICANT OTHERS Even if you didn't adopt the faith of your guardians — In which case, it chose you — Won it after a grailquest as torturous as Parsifal's — What you believe is a gift of the demon determinism. Born at another time — In another place — It is unlikely you would have pauled that epiphany. Succumbed to Christianity, say, had you been born in the second millennium BC. Emerged during that flutter of a butterfly's wings — In terms of our 200,000-year history — Rather than that. Or had you dropped from eternity's womb — At its whim — Onto the place currently called Iran — A handkerchief-sized patch when set against the planet's 510 million km² surface area — Rather than onto the patch dubbed America. Or do you consider it mere, sheer coincidence that these worshippers — All of them — Live in this region and those in that? YOU ARE THE AUDIENCE! I AM THE AUTHOR! I OUTFLANK YOU! Genius. Here we are on safe ground, surely. This permits anyone who exhibits it the right to self-inflate. Sorry. Better hold off on that, too, for a moment. Just in case. Why? If determinism is as hard as alleged, we have no more right to take pride in what we make — Let alone what our antecedents made — Than what fate made of us. You were born with raw talent. Inculcated with the knowledge to acquire it. Induced to develop it. Or a blend of all three. In any case, genius — Capitalised or sentence-cased — Isn't willed. And, even if it were — Could be — Schopenhauer would object: What caused your will to will it into being? A genius, then, is as much a passenger in fate's train as their audience. Hegel's world-soul on horseback? Yes — But with Tolstoy's reservation that fate determined that there be a horse. And that Napoleon would get to giddy-up on it. Consequently, Bonaparte was as much a puppet as the lowliest La Grande Armée caporal. Our highest cultural earners would have remained paupers without those Bialystock & Blooms of fate: God-given ability — Opportunity — Luck. Thus, Übermenschen would have stayed determinedly unter unless history had deigned to meet them halfway. Drive is something they discovered in themselves. Didn't manufacture. Claimants to the contrary escher a mechanism as sui generis — Ingeniously circular — As Baron Munchausen dragging himself out of a bog by his own hair. So, it is as illogical to take pride in one's achievements as one's colour. Height. Weight. All are accidents of fate. On another day, in another place, the dice might have fallen differently. Free will must play no part. However labyrinthine, then, the journey towards an instance of genius appears from without — In retrospect — From within — As it is occurring — Each step is as inevitable — Unavoidable — As a tightrope walker's. INTELLECT, YET You know it is dumb to take pride in things you had no role in determining — Race — Face — Et cetera — But you hold on to your intellect. Insist it is a result of personal self-determination. All right, I'm not responsible for my physicality — Locality — But I have a right to take pride in the products of my mentality. Psychology. After all, I applied myself in school. Did the homework. All that extra reading. Commendable — But what determined that you should have that self-drive and your neighbour not? That your ride would be a Ferrari 812 Superfast and theirs a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe? THE PIG THAT WANTS TO EAT ITSELF Even those who regard themselves as constitutionally sceptical — To the point of being cynical — Prove susceptible to this form of vanity. Namely, nominally, philosophers. When they claim that the unexamined life is not worth living. Why? Because examining life is what they do. Discovered that they can do. Born with this disposition, they sanctify it. Insist it is not good for them only — Easy for them to do — Easier than it is for most others at least — But is, also, what they ought to do. What we ought to do. Again, why? Well, if this proves true, who seems extra special suddenly? ALL SHALL NOT HAVE PRIZES A sportsperson scrapes through a tournament. Prevails on points. So is judged undeserving of the prize. And pride. If that were the critical criterion, none would escape title-stripping. Success is the result of privilege. Always. Proof that the winner was advantaged. By virtue of a god-given gift. Or circumstance. The X factor? The symbol denotes the unacknowledged — Indeterminable — Advantage that enabled its possessor to wow. GREATER SCOTT! On another day, what garnered success might have guaranteed failure. Amundsen and Scott led expeditions to the South Pole. The former's party returned to base camp. The latter's passed over on the journey back. The relative abilities of each team were never tested. Their fates might have been reversed. Both parties planned for every eventuality. Amundsen's every eventuality more closely corresponded with actuality. His success, then, might be dismissed. Put down to the fortuitousness of the conditions encountered. Scott wrote: 'Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman.' Would he have had a greater right to pride had this come to pass? If determination — Pig-headedness — Weren't gifts that would have made the counterfactual outcome inevitable? FORTUNATE FORTUNE Pride attempts to claim reward for hard work undertaken by a larger party: Luck. Beyond everything, we are proudest of the beneficence of destiny. Our fortuitous thrownness into the world. Set against the unfortunate thrownness of others. The sensation is occasioned by the sudden realisation of the fortune of our station. It is the joy of the lottery winner. Not delighting in the sudden abundance of moolah merely — The bounteous blackening of their bank account — But what it signifies: A nod from the gods. A commendation — Special mention — From fate. Most often, a wisp of lichen rather than a laurel wreath — Whisper across the suffocating silence of space — But welcome, nevertheless. We have been following your progress, it signals. And, moreover, care. This inspired Achilles' vainglory. Not that he was a fast runner merely — Fearless fatally — But that the gods had determined he should be both. Out of all others on earth. HUBRIS IS MY NEMESIS The ancients regarded those who trumpeted their financial fortunes as vulgar. As indulging a hubris that invited nemesis. It is the same with figurative fortunes. Achievement — Status — These are products of a fortuitous turn of events. Environments. Temperaments. Circumstances their possessors had no hand in. WHAT WILL SURVIVE OF US IS LOVE OF SELF Pride in all its forms is vanity. What we would like to proclaim is that the finest creature to be — Objectively — Is me. We can't bring this off. Not convincingly anyway. So, we do the next best thing. Hint that the ideal is to be a creature like me. Born and raised in my neighbourhood. Believing what I believe. Occupying themselves the way I do. Et cetera. We do this so that a disinterested party must reason: Born and raised there — Believing that — Occupied thus — Wait a minute — That's you, isn't it? This obviates the need to declare: Even if fate hadn't created me as it did — Hadn't placed me in this physiological vessel — Allotted me this timespace — I would have selected it all anyway. Out of every collision of options on the planet. Throughout all history. WHY SELF-ISHNESS? Self is what we take pride in principally. Principly. The simple realisation that others aren't us. This is why we regard them coolly. They are a breathing riposte to our supremacy. An organic argument against our way being the high way. How to assert our validity? Pre-eminence? Take pride in our life choices. Though it would be truer to say that they choose us than we them. That none of us do any of the things we do do without inspiration. Nevertheless, pride vindicates our choices. Gives us the motive to go on. Defeat arbitrary actuality. LOUDNESS VERSUS SOUNDNESS One out of the fifty thousand on the terraces who chant: We won the cup! Will go on to constitute the we who will have just cause to proclaim as much in the future. That a Brit wrote Hamlet suggests that someone not unlike me is capable of doing as much. That, though unlikely, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility. It doesn't mean that I did write Hamlet. Will one day write Hamlet 2. The distinction, then, is between potential and actual. An association that inspires creativity. And another that forestalls it. Obviates the need to pursue its promise. That says: I need not write another Hamlet — Anything like it — Approaching it — Because Shakespeare wrote the original. And I had a hand in that. Somehow. By virtue of my gender-race. Yes — I am that trumpen for acclaim. CONQUEST OF GALL Pride is constructive when it inspires effort. Destructive when it fosters apathy. Rome fell when it prided itself on past triumphs. Leaving little time — Less desire — To win new ones. ENTITLED TO ENTITLEMENT Are we entitled to be proud of anything? Perhaps. If we reappraise pride to approximate what it actually amounts to. Retrofit it to mean: I'm lucky in this fashion. And only then if the subject assertion is true. Objectively. THE IRREMEDIABLE REDEEMED Can pride be redeemed? If it is unpacked. Decluttered. Repackaged. And why shouldn't we do as much? It never meant what it is assumed to mean anyway. Why not repurpose it into something useful, then? What? A riposte to anyone who threatens your flourishing. Attempts to put you down. Pull you down. Insist you are worthless. Incapable. Then, you might constructively counter: People like me have achieved A, B, C. Therefore, people like me ought to be given an opportunity to achieve X, Y, Z. Providing you quote the proviso: This doesn't mean that I will achieve X, Y, Z. Am capable of doing so, necessarily. Only that somewhere — At some time — Someone like me — In this one regard at least — Achieved A, B, C. Therefore, I have the potential to achieve X, Y, Z. And must be permitted to realise same. This sounds not unlike the pride that those dismissed as woke champion. Only the motive is distinct. This claim isn't for the sake of being politically correct solely. But against the senselessness of the conventional interpretation merely. The illogicality of it. FATHER, FORGIVE THEM, FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY BOO The riposte argument might be regarded as a justification for nationalism. Sexism. Racism, even. After all, adherents of this politics protest because they feel emasculated. Forgetting, for a moment, that Western democracies are still run by and for Caucasian men — In the main — This interpretation might have motive force if it didn't attribute blame to the blameless: Immigrants. Minorities. If it acknowledged that its true nemeses are aristocrats. Plutocrats. Technocrats. All overwhelmingly — Blindingly — White. That were every immigrant deported tomorrow — Every person of colour too — The status of your average nationalist wouldn't rise one percentage point. Indeed, it would decrease because they would no longer have anyone to look down upon. Would themselves occupy the prole position. Overnight become the most feared and despised members of society. (Chavs, have at you!) See, the authors of their woes aren't those whom they vote against — Never were — But those they vote for. Their social castration is a consequence of policies introduced by politicians they support. Examples? One: The value of the dollar began to lilliput the second Nixon took the currency off the gold standard. Two: Globalisation. A corollary of capitalism. An inevitable outgrowth of same. Industrialists outsourced to factories faraway for the same reason their Industrial Revolution forebears built satanic mills in the north of England. That is, as far away from the chattering capital as possible. Ensuring that unskilled labourers could be overworked secretly. Safely underpaid. If every job lost to the developing world were repatriated, nationalists wouldn't want them. Couldn't afford to live on the wages latter-day mill owners trickle out to have them undertaken. Not that it matters. Technology will render most of these occupations obsolete soon anyway. This is the reason why their political representatives O'Brien an eternal enemy. Eurasia. Eastasia. Goldstein. A perennial other who may be risklessly blamed for everything. A corporeal cover under which these politicos may continue to be lobbied by — And lobby on behalf of — The modern mill owners genuinely responsible for it all. Why don't politicians spill any of this? They fear it would bring about their cessation. Revolution. So, instead, they insist that the problems are soluble. The fault of the victims of their scheme. Is this a novel turn? Every autumn, the Spartans declared war on the Helots. The slave class on which their wealth depended. The reason? Go tell the Spartans, now, obedient to our laws, we lie. COLD CODA: I AM NOT PRINCE ELIOT, NOR WAS MEANT TO BE The determinist deity will forgive all. Must forgive all. So, its day of judgement won't be a grand settling of scores. More a post-match deconstruction summarising what occasioned the final scoreline. A cosmic accountant's day of adjustment. When all will discover why they were what they were. Weren't what they wanted to be. Achieved this because circumstances acted in concert to make it inevitable. Didn't achieve that because circumstances reacted to make it impossible. Negating pride. Obviating it.