Bernard of Clairvaux is one of the brightest lights and deepest wells in the long history of the church. Born in 1090, he has the uniquely rare gift of offering perennially relevant and uniquely insightful counsel. In the first installment of reviewing his ‘12 steps of pride’ outlined in The Steps of Pride and Humility, we saw how the first rung of curiosity caused the devotion of our attention to drift to matters that should not really capture our hearts. The second rung, comparison, leads to increasing instability and superficiality.
If curiosity leads us to subtly begin to spend more time noticing others, the next step is to begin comparing ourselves with them. The points of comparison can be exceptionally diverse or deceptively simple, such as character, personality, achievements, waist-size, schools attended, decisions made, knowledge, vocation, politics, etc.
This comparison, sadly, leads to psychological and emotional instability, along with relational superficiality. Psychological instability comes because our identity and personal worth are uprooted from a relationship with God and now deeply contingent on how we compare to others in our relational circles or social media feeds. Emotional instability also begins to characterize our hearts. If, for whatever reason, we feel superior to someone, there is a sense of “joyous vanity.” On the other hand, if we feel inferior, there is a sense of “embittered envy.” Our happiness and sadness depend on the person noticed and whether we feel better than them or not.
Second rung pride no longer sees others as family, friends, co-workers, or acquaintances. Instead, as C.S. Lewis has pointed out, they become competition. It’s not enough to simply be wealthy, we want to be wealthier than someone else. It’s not enough to have an important position at work, it must be a position with more prestige than the others. It’s not enough to have a nice dress, it must be the nicest dress at the party. “It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise,” says Lewis. Rather than knowing and being known, loving and being loved, serving and being served, life becomes comparing and competing. Liberals can congratulate themselves for not being cultural Neanderthals and intellectual fairy-tale believers like conservatives; conservatives can be thankful to God that they are not sinners like their Communist-Marxist-Socialist-Snowflake neighbors. Much of this, as Bernard comments on often in his work, takes place outside of our awareness. We’re becoming relationally superficial as the poison of pride stains the vision of our soul. Yet, we continue to think we relate to others really well…probably better than most people in fact.
Eventually, in order to not feel the pain of inferiority, the heart will narrow its focus to only notice those it feels superior to which will lead to the third step on the ladder of pride.
Comments