I’m proud of you, those of you I know, and many of you I’ve never met in person, and I feel that pride well up whenever you do or say something noble and good, or show your spirit of creative love or compassion to another person, or in reference to some event that brings out the deepest and best in you, though it might not affect everyone that way. And this raises a question.
What does it mean to be proud of another person, or for someone else to be proud of you? Proper pride seems paradigmatically to do with our own actions and hard won accomplishments. Is pride in someone else then just metaphorical, a poetic tip of the imaginary hat? No, actually, I suspect not. I think it’s literal, real, and true. If you have invested any measure of time, attention, energy, or kindness in the life of another person, however directly or indirectly, and they go on to do especially good things, it’s natural and proper to think that, in however small a way, you have tended the garden. And even in the most extended sense, to the extent that we all invest in the human family, I think we can even feel something like moral pride for a stranger seen in doing something fine, something good, compassionate, and honorable. As a self-regarding attitude, pride can be a healthy thing, within its proper measure, but beyond a healthy dose, it can become dangerous and distorting. By contrast, well placed, morally and spiritually keen pride for another person is itself at no risk of unhealthiness, whatever its measure, even though it could in principle give way to something else that is a distortion rather than a grace. But in a well formed heart, boundless pride for the goodness in others can flourish and inspire the heart itself that honors the good.
