Pride in the Ancient Greek and LDS Cultures

The ancient Greek culture and the Latter-day Saint culture are comprised of strong-willed, disciplined, and obedient people. Both of these cultures also have a strong belief in and worship of some form of deity. When principles of their faith are followed, an increase of blessings are received. This is a wonderful thing, except that it can go wrong when a person forgets who granted those blessings, and feel as if they obtained those blessings out of their own will power. This tends to lead to self-glorification and admiration. Contrary, a lack of a reception of these blessings when one thinks it is deserved, leads one to become spiteful and envious. When either of these events occur, it is known as pride. Pride has a very similar influence on the ancient Greek and present Latter-day Saint cultures primarily through their cultural understanding of pride and the consequences of pride. While there may be similarities, there is also a major difference that changes the entire culture.

Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, in a talk called “Pride in the Priesthood”, gives a wonderful insight on what pride is. He says, “I believe there is a difference between being proud of certain things and being prideful. I am proud of many things. I am proud of my wife. I am proud of our children and grandchildren”. This is a very important principle to realize. People can love, be happy, and even be excited about who they are and the events that have happened in their life. Many would quickly term this as being prideful, but in fact, it is not. Both, ancient Greeks and Latter-day Saints, have immense appreciation for their heritage and for the life that they have. A great example of pride comes from Achilles in The Illiad. Achilles was one of the greatest and mightiest warriors in all of Greece. While his fellow soldiers were fighting in the Trojan War, Achilles was not. He did not trust his leader, he felt as if he was not being compensated correctly and that he was not receiving as much honor as he had deserved. The actions of Achilles is a pure definition of pride. He was too concerned about himself to care about the protection of those around him. Eventually, Achilles went to war, but it was only to appease the death of his best friend, Patroclus. This is another way of Achilles looking inward instead of outward.

Elder Uchtdorf in the same talk said that “we don’t discover humility by thinking less of ourselves, we discover humility by thinking less about ourselves”. The less we think about our self, the less prideful we will become. A perfect example of this comes through the conversation between Croesus and Solon in The Portable Greek Historians. In this story, Solon is visiting from the extremely successful city of Athens. Croesus is a wealthy ruler and believes he has the happiest life of any man that has lived. Croesus asked Solon who the happiest man who ever lived was. Croesus had expected Solon to proclaim that he, the wealthy king, was the happiest man who ever lived, which would give Croesus a self-esteem boost. However, Solon answered, he gave the name of another man. Taken back, Croesus asks who the second happiest person ever was, and Solon quickly follows up with a set of brothers, again it was not Croesus. These responses angered and highly offended Croesus. This is the perfect definition of pride because Croesus’ only intent was think more about himself than other people.  

There are serious consequences to pride in both cultures. One of the biggest fears for Latter-day Saints is to become distanced from God to the point that we no longer feel his love. In 2 Peter 5:5 it says that God “resisteth the proud”. The only way to experience true joy is to be in line with God’s will. It is us, through our pride, who create that distance. A similar consequence was given to Odysseus as he gratified his pride of making sure Cyclopes Polyphemus know that it is he who escaped and blinded him. Polyphemus’ father was Poseidon, the God of the Sea, who cursed Odysseus and sent storms to hinder Odysseus’ course home and lengthened his already long journey. For both cultures, gratifying prideful desires leads to temporary abandonment of blessings from the particular deity.

One of the most major differences in pride between the two cultures comes in their motivation to be humble and obedient. For Latter-day Saints, humility and obedience is exhibited to glorify God whereas it seems as if the Greeks are humble and obedient to avoid punishment from the Gods. This is evident in The Odyssey as Odysseus uses the displeasure of the Gods as a motivator to Cyclopes Polyphemus to accept his xenia. This difference requires a change of heart rather than just a change of action. More can be accomplished and higher levels can be reached with this change of heart.

Pride is universal. The way pride effected the ancient Greek culture and the present Latter-day Saint culture are very similar with similar consequences. However, for Latter-day Saints, there is a higher reason to attempt to put of pride. Either way, pride will continue to be a part of every culture in every part of the world unless the society is able to truly humble themselves.