Is Pride The Never Failing Vice Of Fools

Alexander Pope Quote

Is pride the never failing vice of fools? Yes and fighting pride with pride you are digging two holes but fighting pride with humility you are saving two souls

The battle for the moral victory of who apologizes first is an emotionally draining negative experience that your pride forces you to endure.

It matters not who is right and who is wrong, your pride dictates that the other person, the temporary enemy, must be the first to break the ice with an olive branch.

The silliest of arguments can and do spiral out of control to such a degree they are viewed from the outside with both bemusement and disbelief.

Pride And The Entrenchment Of Opinions

The main cause of this problem is not the actual problem that both sides were arguing about, it is pride. The more someone disagrees with you your pride does not allow you to see anything from another perspective. This makes you more determined to 'win' the argument and it subconsciously reinforces your point of view to be correct regardless of logic.

Your opinion becomes entrenched by your pride and stubbornness becomes the blunt tool to continue the fight.

It sometimes happens that the two people are so full of pride that a single disagreement could spell the death of the relationship, as crazy as it may sound they may never speak to each other again.

When Being Right Is Being Wrong

Do you remember the Billie Holiday quote?

"Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose"

Winning a fight or an argument means someone loses, if that person is a prideful person it could be a devastating feeling for them.

Winning the battle could mean losing the war if too much pride sours the relationship, you may be talking again but the relationship is wounded, sometimes beyond repair.

Building Bridges To The Pride Lands

The blame game is a futile exercise that means very little in the bigger picture of life outside the cocooned bubble of your mini crisis.

If you truly value the relationship then it is better to be the person to cut the ice and start the making up process regardless of who is right or wrong.

Apologising doesn't mean you were wrong, it means you regret the situation and you value the relationship more than you value your ego and by building the bridge back to the prideful person it gives them the opportunity to sit down and talk.

Fighting Pride With Pride

Fighting pride with pride is a recipe for disaster for there can be no winners.

Many times after reflection a prideful person can relent in the face of humility. Sometimes they dig a hole for themselves and they do not know how to stop. I have found serving the prideful with a gracious and humble approach gets better results than fighting pride with pride.

Alexander Pope was born in the late seventeenth century and became a poet best known for his wit and his style of satirical verse.

During the eighteenth century the word 'fool' had a more derogatory meaning than it does today so I imagine the Alexander Pope quote "Is pride the never failing vice of fools" would have been more scathing to the prideful back in his time than it is now.

Pride however, has been the scourge of mankind since biblical times and even in the 21st century it appears to be as unwelcome as it is unwittingly in abundance in the minds of the prideful.

Article By: Michael Joseph Farrelly