Pride: The Seven Deadly Sins [Paperback]

Michael Eric Dyson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 23, 2006 | Series: Seven Deadly Sins

Of the seven deadly sins, pride is the only one with a virtuous side. It is certainly a good thing to have pride in one's country, in one's community, in oneself. But when taken too far, as Michael Eric Dyson shows in Pride, these virtues become deadly sins.

Dyson, named by Ebony magazine as one of the 100 most influential African Americans, here looks at the many dimensions of pride. Ranging from Augustine and Aquinas, MacIntyre and Hauerwas, to Niebuhr and King, Dyson offers a thoughtful, multifaceted look at this "virtuous vice." He probes the philosophical and theological roots of pride in examining its transformation in Western culture. Dyson discusses how black pride keeps blacks from being degraded and excluded by white pride, which can be invisible, unspoken, but nonetheless very powerful. Dyson also offers a moving glimpse into the teachers and books that shaped his personal pride and vocation. Dyson also looks at less savory aspects of national pride. Since 9/11, he notes, we have had to close ranks. But the collective embrace of all things American, to the exclusion of anything else, has taken the place of a much richer, much more enduring, much more profound version of love of country. This unchecked pride asserts the supremacy of America above all others--elevating our national beliefs above any moral court in the world--and attacking critics of American foreign policy as unpatriotic and even traitorous.

Hubris, temerity, arrogance--the unquestioned presumption that one's way of life defines how everyone else should live--pride has many destructive manifestations. In this engaging and energetic volume, Michael Eric Dyson, one of the nation's foremost public intellectuals, illuminates this many-sided human emotion, one that can be an indispensable virtue or a deadly sin.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the final book in a collaborative series between the New York Public Library and Oxford University Press on the seven deadly sins, Dyson examines pride in its many iterations, invoking pop culture icons and events to lend accessibility to a potentially didactic subject. (Francine Prose wrote earlier of gluttony, Wendy Wasserstein of sloth...) "If pride is a sin," Dyson writes, "it is no ordinary sin, to be sure." Indeed, Dyson, a prolific author, professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an ordained Baptist minister, takes his time in explicating the virtues and dangers of pride. Although an initial chapter on the "philosophical and religious roots of pride" proves less than engaging, Dyson's discussions of "personal pride," "white pride," "black pride" and "national pride" are thoughtful and exhibit a fine balance of scholarship and philosophizing. In the black pride section, the book's liveliest, Dyson (Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?) talks about political figures such as Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice and the effects they do and do not have on the black electorate. He analyzes Halle Berry's and Denzel Washington's acceptance speeches at the 2002 Academy Awards, concluding one was "brave," the other "cool." Readers already familiar with the "sins" series will welcome this final volume, as will those interested in issues of race.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

In this final part of a series on the seven deadly sins sponsored by Oxford and the New York Public Library, Dyson, in his distinct style, examines the sin of pride. Dyson posits Aristotle's notion of "proper pride," reflective more of virtue when used as a shield for survival, as reflected in a black man's struggle in America. However, the form of pride that "precedes the fall" is reflected in the practices of some black elites who are cold and condescending to the less fortunate. The nation's pride, however, especially post-9/11, provokes great trepidation for Dyson, who fears that patriotism is viewed too narrowly and truth is deflected by hysterical distortion that denies foreign policy vices.^B Dyson moves from pride as a vice on the human plane to pride as a sin in the sacred realm. He admonishes fundamentalists, whose rigid perceptions of right and wrong carry a tinge of hubris. This is an excellent essay on pride in its various dimensions. Vernon Ford
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (August 23, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195312104
• ISBN-13: 978-0195312102
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,025,070 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Astounding Lack of Critical Reflection, July 15, 2006

By 

K. Nishikawa (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pride: The Seven Deadly Sins (Hardcover)

I was drawn to the New York Public Library's series on the seven deadly sins for its stated aim of examining the ways in which faith, belief, ideology, and politics shape our contemporary world. I read this last book in the series first and was left bitterly disappointed.

Dyson pays lip service to the long and intriguing history of pride as a sin (pp. 7-26); in truth, he is a poor chronicler of the theological and philosophical roots of the notion of pride, or self-regard. It's tempting to suggest that Dyson composed this short chapter based on only a cursory reading of a handful of books that address the topic more substantively. His analysis of pride from Pope Gregory I to Stanley Hauerwas rings hollow and reads like a middle-school book report.

But the lack of "critical reflection" to which I refer in my review title stems from Dyson's mobilization of his own self-regard in the rest of this unfortunate book. Aside from the brief chapter mentioned above, Dyson offers blustering criticism of contemporary errata -- almost every example of which does not illuminate the complexities of pride as both concept and practice.

If anything, Dyson's examples shore up his own rhetorical self-worth and display an astounding lack of concern for broader social, political, and cultural views on pride. A chapter devoted to "Personal Pride" (pp. 27-42) is an insincere reflection on the ups and downs of Dyson's childhood and career, while his later discourses on versions of white and black pride are so simplistic (e.g., the KKK espouses a "bad" form of pride; Halle Berry's winning the Academy Award in 2002 evinces a "good" form of pride) as to insult the reader's intelligence. Finally, Dyson's profound ignorance of the posturing of his own critical voice is exemplified in two moments of particular resonance: when he defends himself against critics of his biography of Martin Luther King Jr. and, in a scene of unintended humor (for the reader) and false modesty (on Dyson's part), when he takes two black female students to task for being disruptive in a class he taught at the University of Pennsylvania.

These are just some of Dyson's prideful follies; the book as a whole replaces meaningful consideration of this purpoted "deadliest" of sins with Dyson's all-too-familiar -- indeed tiresome -- hobby horses and sound bytes. This book is about him, then, and I suppose to that extent it is a book about pride.

On a parting note, let me offer this retroactive disclaimer. As someone who identifies with progressive political and social causes, I am dismayed by a book like this because it displaces genuine critical reflection for brash but ultimately hollow showmanship. The series of which this book is a part offers up the possibility of doing some real *thinking* about important issues in our contemporary world. Progressive politics, in my view, should flow from the primary act of thought, reflection, critique -- whatever you want to call it. Dyson, although nominally a progressive, is in the business of repeating political ideologies that have become old hat. This book could have been written, and imagined, otherwise.

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pride: The Virtuous Vice, February 18, 2006

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P.B. (Valrico, Florida United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pride: The Seven Deadly Sins (Hardcover)

Pride has often been viewed as being the worst of the seven sins, yet it is the only sin known to also be a virtue as well as a vice. The first part of this book looks at historical views of Pride, from Plato to Aquinas, who clearly labeled it as a terrible vice, to Aristotle, who not only did not condemn it but also encouraged it. The tone then shifts to racial pride, and the author's take on the damaging affects of identity politics and the negative influences of white pride upon black pride.

Though all that is probably a must for those interested in race issues, the gem of this book is the chapter on national pride (My Country, Right or Wrong?). In it, the author examines the differences between patriotism, a love of country and its values, and nationalism, an uncritical support of a country's national and international interests and affairs. He also brings to light religious extremism and the injustice of the American government upon its own people during times of war or crisis. I strongly urge anyone interested in issues of patriotism, racial prejudice, and the war on terrorism to read this chapter.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars You can't judge this book by its title (and that's not so good), February 24, 2008

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Kerry Walters (Lewisburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pride: The Seven Deadly Sins (Paperback)

The New York Public Library's series on the 7 deadly sins, which invites authors to reflect on the contemporary relevance and meaning of the 7 traditional deadlies, is an excellent idea. Unfortunately, the series is uneven, as exemplified by Michael Eric Dyson's rather self-indulgent volume on pride.

Dyson has made his name as an acute cultural critic and a commentator on the politics of identity. He's very good at what he does, and I've learned a good deal from reading his other books, especially Is Bill Cosby Right, Come Hell or High Water, and Debating Racism. I also think that his reflections on the politics of racial identity in this book are interesting. My problem is that they're misplaced. What Dyson has wound up doing is writing a book on the dynamics of black and white pride as defined by the American experience. What he's not done is write a book on pride as one of the 7 deadlies.

Apart from the opening chapter, in which Dyson provides a quick and sketchy rundown of pride from Aristotle to the contemporary theologian Stanley Hauerwas, and the concluding chapter, in which Dyson distinguishes between legitimate national pride and gung-ho, uncritical patriotism, his treatment focuses on what pride, self-esteem, and ethnic identity should mean to black Americans. In focusing this narrowly, Dyson necessarily moves away from pride as a moral vice to the social construct of black pride. Again, his discussion is interesting and worthwhile. But it leaves the reader with the sense that s/he's been taken in, given something quite different from what the book title and series title promised.