The problem of incidental pride

"You are not a philosopher so do not act like one. " Attack the position, not the person. "What about parents being proud of their children? You are saying that all pride is wrong and yet, parents are taught to be proud of their family and children. " If you'd like to go back and read my second argument, I stated, "Let others be proud of us. Let them lift us up. Pride for the self is vanity, and vanity leadeth to destruction my friend. " I very clearly made this distinction, not that these simple declarations detract from my argument. In closing I would like to reiterate why I feel that pride in incidental things, like race, gender, and sexual orientation is more divisive than beneficial. Pride in race fosters racism. Pride in gender fosters misogyny and man-hating. Pride in sexual orientation fosters intolerance and separatism. In essence, it masquerades as being genuine. Indeed it's intent is intended for good, it just ends up counter to what the intent was. It is a lot like Affirmative Action. AA was designed to level the playing field in order to get rid of racism in the workplace. But in the final analysis, Affirmative Action ended up being racist demagoguery itself. Incidental pride is no different in how its intended good ends up being the very antithesis. I understand that it's intent was for good, but that doesn't mean that it is good if other people are alienated by it. Isn't it interesting that people that are the most prideful about their race just so happen to be racist? !? !? Do you really think that is a coincidence? . http://www.youtube.com... KKK, Neo-nazi's, black panthers, etc, are all very, very proud that they just so happened to be born their race. They had nothing to do with their own procreation and therefore nothing was accomplished. They simply existed. So why would that elicit any kind of pride in a person? Would you proud that you are human, instead of a squirrel? It sounds silly, but to me it is just as silly to be "proud" of your race, your gender, or your sexual proclivities. And when people do spout rhetoric in defense of some incidental pride, all we see is a backlash. There is a backlash because it is offensive, exclusivist, and divisive. Incidentally, incidental pride just so happens to paint with big strokes as well. It tends to include ALL within their little circle, and condemn ALL outside of that circle. What good will it do my neighbor if I tell him that I'm proud to be Asian and he was a World War II veteran who's friends killed by Japanese at Pearl Harbor? What good will it do that veteran to tell the Japanese man that he is proud to be white when his family was killed by an atomic bomb blast Hiroshima? Are they somehow going to come together, while each remaining ignorantly "proud" of their races, and come to some sort of epiphany or resolution? No! All it is going to do is fan the flames of discord even more. Let us say that there is a homosexual, and he is fed up at being stereotyped and segeragated because of his sexual orientation. But because of his pride, he becomes a co-conspirator in his own misery. What do I mean? People that don't want to be identified by their sexual preference often end up causing, at least in part, the very thing they wanted to avoid. They aren't the lawyer, they're the gay lawyer. They aren't the doctor, they're the gay doctor. These are not the constructs of overall society as nearly as it is the construct of the proud person who simply can't walk two feet without telling someone just how proud they are that they were born a certain way. .. I therefore submit that incidental pride is nothing to be proud about. In fact, it just causes division, for these are where things like racism first take shape. Who can honestly deny that? Not you.