Pride and Politics of Pride

This study is aimed at reconstructing the philosophical conceptualizations of the notion of “pride” in order to elaborate on that from a social science point of view and thus offer a diagnose on our current social and political affairs. The starting point of the study is Hume’s notion of pride. The social science conceptualization of the notion is made with an eye on David Riesman’s theory. According to Riesman, it is possible to distinguish the self-dominated character of early capitalism from the outside-dominated character of  late capitalism. Pride means slightly different to these two types. Another point of departure to map our current affairs is the Frankfurt school. It is important, that in the context of affirmative culture, satisfaction is created by pride that exists as a starting point. This results in a paradox situation where a type of pride is born that seems to be already existing as a personal trait even before the positive feedback. The question about the existence of pride prior to the positive feedback has already been raised by the interpretation given by Hume. A type of this notion of pride is the national-nationalistic unity, the basis of the “politics of pride”.