Advertising Week, the largest and most prestigious annual gathering of advertising and media industry leaders in North America, has named the United States Marine Corps an inductee to the “Walk of Fame” for advertising slogans. Voting took place via the World Wide Web Aug. 28 through Sept. 25. “This slogan [The Few, the Proud, the Marines] reflects the unique character of the Marine Corps and underscores the high caliber of those who join and serve their country as Marines,” said Maj. Gen. Richard T. Tryon, commanding general, Marine Corps Recruiting Command. “Such recognition reaffirms the special relationship we have with the American public.” All right. The above examples are not meant to, in any way, reflect negatively upon the Marine Corps, Barbie, or Barbies who may be serving in the Marine Corps. I want to talk about Pride.

“You should be proud of yourself!”

“Gay Pride!”

“Black Pride!”

Leviticus 26:19,

King James Version: And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:

Latin Vulgate: et conteram superbiam duritiae vestrae daboque caelum vobis desuper sicut ferrum et terram aeneam

Obviously we have a disconnect here. Pride, as a word, is currently more positive than it used to be. Oddly enough, this is also how it started. The Norman knights who conquered Britain were, in Old French, prude “brave, valiant,” but the English who eventually adopted this word thought the Normans were “stuck-up and arrogant.” So pride and proud came into our language with a taint. When the Bible was translated from Latin, the word was superbia, a root I’m sure we all recognize and, again, one that doesn’t currently have a negative taint. “Dawling, that was superb!”

In this century we have a thing about esteem, particularly self-esteem. We tell kids they are special, each and every one. We worry about damaged self-esteem. This is probably not a completely new concept in history but it is one that goes in waves. After all, how could you love thy neighbor as thyself if you really despised yourself? Maybe that’s what was happening with a lot of those wars. Maybe they were visiting their own self-revulsion on their fellow man?

However, in many of the listings of the Big Seven, Vanity is the Sin.

The words that are often listed with Pride are vanity, arrogance, narcissism, and hubris. Now we’re getting into the tainted words. We don’t usually associate these with positive attributes. Yet, in all of them, is an element of a virtue that has been changed, usually through exaggeration.

Vanity is an appreciation of ones own appearance, after all, but an extreme version, a valuing of appearance over personality and ability.

We certainly don’t say of someone, what a nice, arrogant guy! This is someone with a degree of confidence in his abilities or place in the world that goes way over the top–usually where their perception of their abilities is quite in excess of their actual abilities or status.

Narcissism is just self-esteem, right? Steaming esteem. Love thyself because you’re way more lovable than your neighbor.

And hubris.

Remember hubris?

Well, lest I go down that path myself, let’s talk about MY sins.

Egomaniac. That about describes it. I was a newly published author attending my first WorldCon (Denver, I believe). I had access to the SFWA suite (cough, cough, cough–”No, there isn’t a non-smoking section.”) and I was on my first WorldCon panel. And I hung out with WRITERS! (At least I wasn’t like the newly published author who explained to his friends at NESFA that now that he was a writer he must put fannish things behind him…right before Isaac Asimov came out of the back room and said, “Hey, we’re all out of page eight! Can we get some more?”)

Then there were the women. I won’t go into details but the nickname was, “Red Herring of Romance.” Why no, I don’t think it was because herrings are, uh, limp. Perhaps, “inability to commit” had something to do with it.

It’s waves. From the peak of arrogance, to the trough of humility, I go up and down as my fortunes change. This is probably not unlike the peaks and lows of depression, but in my case I’ve been generally happy. Just more or less arrogant. Presumptuous. Proud.

And I’m still proud. I’m enormously proud of my daughters. I’m moderately proud of my writing career. I am happy that they’re making the movie, but of this I’m not particularly proud, just glad. The movie will succeed or fail on so many factors and only a bit of that is the original material. It’s a giant collaborative project, the Hollywood Blockbuster thingy. I’m proud that various librarians tell me they use Jumper as their first recommendation when they want kids to trust their later recommendations.

Let’s hear it for a bit of quiet pride, a bit of honest humility, and some moments of quiet satisfaction. Let’s hope for good things and prepare for bad. Treat other as you would be treated.

Anything else is hubris.

And that’ll bite you on the ass.