Pride: Vice Or Virtue? Poem by Ali Rahimi

Is pride a vice or virtue?
Greatness of soul, magnanimity or vanity?
Emptiness, untruthfulness, stupidity,
Proper pride or false pride?
Once a deadly sin,
But promoted these days,
To be humble was the goal,
Civilization could not flourish with pride,
You are not a king, you are a common man,
You are a team player, enjoy self-reflection,
Fulfilled feeling of belonging,
Pride leads to elitism,
Pride is opium of the mass,
Do you have pride? Inflated sense of your personal status?
Are you a proud person?
Proud of your race, nation, color of skin, religion, or your genes?
Nazi regime could be the symbol of false national pride,
Asian Empires, Persian, Ottoman, White, Black pride,
LGTB pride, Stonewall riots,
Your well-proportioned body? Beauty?
You differentiate yourself from other people?
Narcissisms, megalomania, egotism, or
Self-glorification, self-gratification, self-congratulation,
False façade constructed to protect an undervalued self,
Neurotic pride leads to self-contempt and low self-esteem,
In the battlefield of idealized and actual self,
In the crossfire of ought-ideal-real identities,
Proud and honorable before your fall, blindfolded before the hangman,
Hooded medieval, running the gauntlet, under Marcel Chevalier’s hands,
You stand out from the natural contour of population,
You are skewed, you don’t fit the normal distribution,
Your expectations were a sin 5oo years ago,
Hubris, arrogance? Why? Revenge to show your superiority?
Hubristic, pompous displays of group pride,
This is utter insecurity, lowest self-esteem,
Ill-treatment for pleasure? You lift your chin, you smile,
Put your arms on hips to show victory,
Matthieu Ricard’s mental toxin, a mental affliction,
Or you challenge the yoke?
Atlas bears the world’s weight on his shoulder,
Should you be proud?
Should you be rewarded?
Pride is the driving force to excel, Darwin tells us,
St. Augustine’s love of one's own excellence,
No humility no feeling of guilt,
And benefit yourself from neighbors,
Let the cream rise to the top,
Let the strong prevail,
Hierarchy-enhancing emotion to get rid of negotiations of conflict,
Fostering creativity, productivity, and altruism,
If the weak prevail no progress is made,
Pride is a natural emotion,
Primeval mechanism like ignorance,
Forceful consideration of others to one’s emotion,
Pride is diversity,
Institutions put it in place to control,
Yes, be humble, meek, even spineless, you are all sinners,
Shall be divorced from the grace of God,
Results in fatal retribution,
Creon commits hubris in refusing to bury Polynices,
Like Lucifer and Narcissus, or whore of Babylon,
A naked woman holding a comb,
The mirror in devil’s hand,
Ultimate futility of man's efforts in this world?
Evoking the inevitable decay of life and beauty toward death?
Oedipus kills King Laius, Pride or foolhardy?
Is pride vice or virtue? …