Objectivist stance on Collective Pride?

[Anton]

What is the Objectivist stance on collective pride?

Such as nationalism, or particular social groups.

From what I have read Objectivism deals with individual pride and does not mention group pride.

I see it as meaningless and perhaps even a misuse of the concept of pride but I'm still interested what others have to say.

[phibetakappa]

What is the Objectivist stance on collective pride?

From what I have read Objectivism deals with individual pride and does not mention group pride.

You are right it is a invalid use of the word pride.

There is literally no such thing as a "collective," pride, because pride is a mental product of a consciousness, and consciousness is and can only be an attribute of any given individual man.

It is possible for a given individual to feel pride in themselves that they judged or evaluated a certain, team, organization, and/or society as being of objective value to their lives. E.g., it is understandable for an immigrant coming to America to feel pride in themselves for having made a good choice in moving to a good place to live and flourish.

Just as if a given man is a contributing member of a certain group or organization, which has a certain implied or explicit charter (purpose), such as an informal group of friends or a formal team, or political organization or even a book club; then it is understandable to be proud of one's role in that organization and their contribution to the overall production of the organization.

One can play their part in making a good team, in making a good business, in making a good home owners association, or making a good society. But, a good requires a chosen beneficiary and a chosen standard. A given good (value) begins in an individual man's consciousness with a process of evaluation, and ends with a certain chosen and/or sustained course of action.

Legitimate pride is a virtue, i.e., pride itself is a tool for sustaining and/or enhancing a given man's life. Like all values it must have both a standard and a beneficiary, i.e., pride is an emotional enhancement to some individual man's life for some individual man's reason.

Now contrast the above with the idea of having a sense of pride because of where one happens to be born or what race one happens to be part of. Or having a sense of pride for where one has happened to end up as one aimlessly drifts through life. Or having a sense of pride for some group which happens to accept him, or which he identifies with because it he feels safety can be found in numbers.

The common denominator for a false sense of pride is the unchosen, the unselected, the unevaluated, and thus the uncaused by a given individual.

A rationally validated sense of self is an objective value, i.e., possessing a personal knowledge and positive evaluation of one's own identity and value is itself an objective value, i.e., it is a necessary condition for sustaining motivation for living one's life.

Therefore, if one can not obtain (produce) a legitimate sense of self and/or a legitimate self-identity by earning it via shaping their lives into the image of their chosen values, then often people look for someway to fake it.

Feeling a relief from anxiety is not the same as earning a positive sense of joy. An the feeling of relief one gets from being a member of a herd-collective, is a cheap substitute for all the thought required to make good choices. Where a herd is herded, can seem like having a legitimate purpose to an aimless and out of focus man.

Therefore, I believe Ayn Rand was correct when she stated man's three cardinal values are: reason, purpose, and self-esteem.

Regards

Michael

Edited June 5, 2009 by phibetakappa

[Anton]

Thanks Michael, I was surprised to receive a very eloquent well formed reply.

[Howard Roark]

This was analyzed here by Leonard Peikoff and his discussion group.