Physical: The most animal, the least objective, and most understandable form. In a society where beauty and performance are usually considered to be absolute (we all know what a "perfect" body looks like and what a sports victory is), this from of pride is expressed simply by sight and activity. The individual feeling the pride typically uses it, whether for their own self-worth or for things like athletic success and successful physical relationships with a sexual partner. This pride is both most hated and admired.
Intellectual: Comes from different angles but, like all pride, is fully evinced by self-awareness. The physically proud knows he or she is good looking and/or dominant. Intellectual pride is expressed in different ways. Basic knowledge is the most understandable. If you know more things about more things than anyone you know, it will often manifest as pride (though it can also come as shame if you feel you know too many trivial things!) Pride can also come via intelligent insight. This can be a form of street smart instead of book smart. You have the ability to read people and situations on your feet and on the fly. This kind of insight is usually not seen as intellectual but I believe it definitely is as it frequently comes from the great mental ability to assess and analyze on your feet. A form of overall self-awareness and self-knowledge also qualifies. "Knowing thyself" can often be the hardest thing humans can aspire to. Those that greatly achieve this can be intuitively brilliant without being book or street smart.
Existential: This is pride for the sake of pride. It's expression is simply the individual feeling proud for no real reason. "I feel proud!" However, unlike happiness and sadness, existential pride seems silly. Whereas it's understandable we can feel things like happiness or sadness just for the sake of it, pride seems ridiculous if we're not actually proud of something. "What are you proud of?" "Uh...nothing in particular! I just am!" This attitude may be encouraging and empowering to the individual but it makes you look like an idiot to everyone else.
Positive, healthy pride: This pride comes from being proud of all the right things. If you're a good parent, a good role model for your children, if you work hard to support yourself and your family, if you do charity work, if you want the best for people, etc, etc, etc. This is really the only kind of pride that's vital to the individual (though there are combinations like a proud pro athlete who uses his skills to support his family.) This is the responsible pride that is much more about self-worth and self-esteem. It's the "good person" pride that makes mankind positively evolve as a species.
Religious and Social pride : Now we're getting into the infinitely more abstract and potentially dangerous forms of pride. Though many religions preach against feeling proud, as a human emotion, it will seep into everything we do that we feel is right. Most religions preach good things. However, the interpretations of these "good things" and the perception of implementation has been responsible for many, many atrocities in human history across the globe. At an equal level is social pride, though that level often comes in the form of the potential more than the actual. People on the right of the political spectrum tend to feel more pride in religion as a social factor. People on the left side feel the social pride that comes from a feeling of self-righteousness in the form of ideas and beliefs on issues like social justice. Religious fanaticism is much less a problem in the Western world today than it is in the Middle East, where ideas of religious righteousness go back thousands of years and can result in acts of terror against perceived opponents like 9/11. Social pride is the major issue in the Western world today. A more integrated society, invariably seen as the moral, righteous path by those in the mainstream, often degenerates into the worst aspects of human pettiness, such as tribal behavior based on racial or sexual identity. We're supposed to get along but, as a GroupThink species, we often don't nor do we even care to. Now we have group pride, which is the most dangerous form of social pride as it usually comes at the cost of individual decision making or sensible reason. It becomes a social contagion fueled by aimless emotion and passion where people profess to believe the same things, no matter what or how competent they are, as the orthodox standard of right vs. wrong. If you stray from that, you are suddenly considered "the enemy" and a terrible person, even if what you believe is correct. Individuals are usually held accountable for what they do as individuals, whether socially or legally. Group pride often takes the form of mob justice grounded in peer pressure based on perceived evils, ideas of racial or sexual extermination of those different, and racial pride in believing your race is superior simply because it exists and you're in it. This is the lowest, dumbest, most disgusting form of pride because it takes no intelligence or insight to achieve. It's humanity as a group of apes in the jungle. At least physical pride is an expression of individuality mixed with awareness. Social pride is pure act and react and, in a civilized society, is very dangerous.
Thank you for reading!
