Plagiarism

“Pride is a form of cosmic plagiarism.” -Tim Keller

The Shape of Pride

 Some helpful words from David Powlison on pride:

Pride is not just about ME. It’s also about you. I must look down on you in some way. Our absorption in judgmental opinions runs very deep. Pride says, “I’m right in myself.” Haughty eyes say, ‘I’m right compared to you.’ Have you noticed that even people who feel lousy about themselves are judgmental toward others? When you feel inferior to others, you don’t respect them or treat them with mercy. Instead, you envy, hate, grumble, and criticize. Even self-belittling tendencies– ‘low self-esteem,’ self-pity, self-hatred, timidity, fears of failure and rejection–fundamentally express pride failing, pride intimidated, and pride despairing. Such pride, even when much battered, still finds someone else to look down on (David Powlison, Stress: Peace amid Pressure, pg. 9).

According to Powlison, pride not only elevates me, it despises the other person. It can just as easily do this from the bottom as from the top. And the other side of the coin with pride which ‘boasts great things’ is a self-pitying mentality.