“Durwin was eventually handicapped almost completely by members of the administration of his congregation who would not allow any progress unless they could take credit for it; hence the strife and rivalry continuously. This is not to say that people should not feel good about helping others or doing church work. Durwin always, and without fail, encouraged others to do things their own way in church activities, provided it was within the bounds of church polity. It had always been the policy of Durwin to encourage the laity to use their own creativity in church activities and administration. The problem Durwin had was when the belittlers blocked him at every turn from doing his ministry his way and using his creativity. If the church was going to improve and grow, it had to be by their hand, and not Durwin’s, not any part of it.”
“There is one other book I would bring to your attention before we go on with the sad story of the Lawtons. That book is simply the Dictionary. As you no doubt already know, the dictionary has two different meanings for the word pride:
‘1. An undue sense of one’s own superiority; arrogance, conceit.
2. A proper sense of personal dignity and worth.’ (Funk & Wagnalls Standard Desk Dictionary. New York, 1975).
“‘Pride’ and ‘proud’ are very commonly used words today, especially in Terraprima where it is quite acceptable and the thing to do, to say one is proud of oneself or of someone or something else. To take pride in something worthwhile is considered good decorum. This corresponds with the meaning, ‘A proper sense of personal dignity and worth.’ That is good. But people who keep up an undisciplined, false, or empty pride by belittling others are establishing that ‘undue sense of one’s own superiority.’ A person cannot be superior to another if he has to put that other person down in order to feel superior. That would be false, empty, improperly developed pride.
“Now this false, empty, or undisciplined pride, as I will refer to it in future story telling, is wayward pride, established upon ‘an undue sense of one’s own superiority.’ It is conceited and often arrogant, as is stated in the first dictionary meaning I quoted. Being proud this way is a false, undisciplined, hollow pride, and it is easily pricked.
“Belittlers, as much as pride is a part of their life, are not willing to share in the pride of another, especially when they perceive that other person to be a cut above them. Going further afield, they are not willing to recognize that other peoples and other countries have their reasons to feel proud, and that we should at times acknowledge that some of their accomplishments may be greater than ours. Belittlers are wanting, not just sometimes, not even most of the time, but always, to be first and out front, which is not so and cannot be. They are not willing to let others have the credit that is due them, but wanting it all for oneself or one’s own country. People like these, although a minority, are the ones who have caused people, even in the well developed and generally friendly parts of the world to cry out to Americans, ‘Yankee go home, Yankee go home, we don’t like you.’ It doesn’t have to be that way. It can easily be corrected by omitting the belittling and giving credit where credit is due.
“Of course there are the less friendly and usually less developed countries that have a more harsh envy and hatred for the United States that cannot be corrected in such a peaceful manner. It is of a different strain, intermingled with much evil and ignorance and/or a different philosophy of life, and often a grave disregard for civilization as most of the world knows it. This kind of envy and hatred responds only to strict curtailment and strong discipline.
“But as for the first mentioned kind, belittlers in the media have been among the foremost of those who cause this reaction in various parts of the world. For example, they do a write up on another land. The first mistake they make is they compare it to the better parts of America; or worse still, compare a rural part of it to a very large and progressive city in which they themselves perhaps live, instead of seeing that land for what it is in itself. From there they concentrate on the down side of that land, barely or not at all mentioning its better side. Their pride and envy won’t allow them to mention anything in it that may be better than anything in the United States of America.
“I have seen write ups, with pictures, of other lands which would give you the impression that there is absolutely nothing good at all about that country. But having either lived or visited extensively in that land we can know differently. To take one case in point, there was an article with pictures of a remote land with many problems indeed. The article concentrated on the land’s remoteness and the problems of its main city. What the article failed to acknowledge in any way was that most of the people of that city had a standard of living as good as the average in the United States. No credit was given for this.
“Of course, the United States has its better side, its world leading side, no doubt about it. But some other lands have their better side too; sometimes a leading side if ever so small. Some belittling Terraprima media people cannot acknowledge this in their articles. It is as if someone were with pen and camera, to tour one of the poorer areas of the United States, add a few pictures of the less desirable parts of some major city; then in another not very geographically knowledgeable country, publish the article saying this is the United States of America.
“Belittling media who try to promote their own country as superior by belittling other countries, succeed in doing so only in their own mind and in the eyes of some of their own people. In the eyes of the people they write about they diminish it. Belittlers in the media, and belittling tourists as well, are a disgrace to, and do disgrace their own country when they cannot, because of undisciplined pride, acknowledge the things about other countries that may be as good or better than their own. They bring on the ‘Yankee go home’ syndrome. The media needs to give credit where credit is due. People of other lands also need to have ‘a proper sense of personal dignity and worth.’ (Ibid).
“Belittlers in many walks of life are the dominant force and influence in some parts of the United States. The part I speak of as Terraprima is one of the parts in which they are a powerful and controlling factor.
“People who practice belittling behave as though they are quite justified in doing so. Occasionally, when their true colors are showing through, you may hear them mutter, ‘O well I have my pride to keep up.’ So they feel quite justified in putting others down. The trouble with that is that when carried out on a sufficiently large scale, as it often is, it robs other people of their right to feel properly proud of themselves, with ‘a proper’, not a false, but ‘a proper sense of personal dignity and worth.’
“There are some proud ones who do not belittle, but only pout when their pride is hurt by the attainments of others. These may readily admit that their pride has been pricked. These people may not be harmful, but nevertheless it goes to show the great need for people to learn to accept and co-exist in a friendly, peaceful manner with people they perceive to be a cut above themselves in one or more ways.
“I have often wished,” said Collin, “that linguists would take such a word as pride, trace it back to its origins in our own or some other language, and find two separate, usable words for the two different meanings; to invent or re-invent a new name for at least one of the meanings. In that manner, each of these two human characteristics could have its own distinct name.
“Christian scholars have almost accomplished a similar feat by dividing the English word ‘love’ into the Greek words ‘eras’, ‘philia’ and ‘agape,’ three very different aspects of love, with agape being the most noble of them all to Christians. However, the word agape is not adaptable enough to the English language, nor appealing enough to the average person to be commonly used.”
Collin added, “While we are focused on the dictionary, let us look very briefly at what the dictionary says about the word ‘envy.’ The meaning given for envy is:
‘1. A feeling of resentment or discontent over another’s superior attainments, endowments or possessions.’ (Funk & Wagnalls Standard Desk Dictionary, New York 1975, P.213).
“Once again then we are told it is a wayward characteristic, or as Barclay says, ‘the most warped and twisted of human emotions,’ aimed