Jessica Isserow (University of Notre Dame), "Pride and Investment"
Ethics, 2024
“Some weird words like ‘fittingness’ came up”: The social media users being corrected about ‘pride’
Philosophers attack multiple unsuspecting victims on the internet
Westley Roberts, a first-year interior design student, often spends his free time scrolling Decorgram, a platform where users share home improvement projects. Roberts recently commented on another user’s bedroom makeover: “Hey! We’ve never met or spoken before, but I just came across your profile. I saw your before and after shots and absolutely loved them! I’m so proud of you!”
But his compliment was soon rewarded with pedantry from another user: “Proud of them? That doesn’t sound right. They’re a complete stranger to you. I think you might have simply meant to say that you admire the bedroom layout, or that you appreciate the features of the design.”
Roberts was far from impressed. “I just liked the Japandi look. Decorgram is a place where you can check out people’s home projects. You want to be able to tell them what you think, without someone correcting your words all the time”, he said.
Roberts’s feelings are echoed by Valerie Max, who says that she wouldn’t have joined the Subreddit r/DisneyFans had she anticipated having her posts subjected to conceptual analysis.
Max has made several friends through r/DisneyFans, a space where Reddit users exchange opinions and fan theories about the company’s films and TV shows. A recent discussion focused on ‘Disappointing Disney Parents’.
“It was fun”, said Max. “We were talking about the film Ratatouille. A lot of people were saying how strange it was that Remy’s family was so proud of him at the end, sharing in the fruits of his labor, since Remy succeeded in spite of rather than because of them. His family spent the entire film standing in his way, or discouraging him. They didn’t play any role in his success. So how could they be proud of him for it?”
“And then some random user claiming to be a philosopher rocked up and ruined everything…” reported Max. “She said that Remy’s family didn’t have to be responsible for Remy’s success in order for it to make sense for them to feel proud of him for it. Apparently, this is a common misconception in Philosophy or something. None of us cared. We just wanted to talk about Disney movies”.
Professor Buttercup, a philosopher working at the University of Florin, noted that ‘misconception’ may be a bit strong. “The connection between responsibility and pride—or even fitting pride—is still a matter of ongoing debate”, she said.
“Philosophers going all the way back to Hume have thought that pride is positional in some way; that the object of our pride must stand in some sort of special relation to us. But it is controversial what exactly this relation amounts to,” said Buttercup. “Must we be somehow responsible for a loved one’s achievement in order to be proud of them for it? Does it suffice for us to merely be affiliated with them in some way? Or does the answer perhaps lie elsewhere?”
Discussions targeting such questions usually take place within academic journals, classrooms, or seminar rooms. But rather than taking advantage of these more familiar channels, some philosophers have recently begun forcing these conversations onto unsuspecting victims on the internet.
Earlier this year, several Facebook users founded ‘Stop Socratically Harassing Users Talking on the Internet Today!’ (SSHUT-IT), an action group that aims to pressure the social media provider into tackling the problem. One group member, Fezzik, reported that he was temporarily blocking all of his philosopher friends until the website agreed to adjust its moderation policy.
‘“It was really, really, frustrating”, Fezzik said. “I announced that I was proud of Manchester City for winning the Premier League. And then this academic I met at a party ten years ago just appeared out of nowhere. She kept pointing out that I was a longtime fan and supporter of Manchester United, and that I had never shown any interest whatsoever in Manchester City’s success. Apparently, this meant that I wasn’t allowed to be proud of them or something.”
Vizzini, another participant in the comment thread, also reported on the experience. “Yeah, I guess it is a bit odd to say that you’re proud of a team that you’ve never cared about or supported”, he said. “But there was this super long explanation that came along with it. I think some weird words like ‘fittingness’ came up. I dunno, I didn’t read it all”.
Not all of Fezzik’s Facebook friends shared these sentiments, however. “Maybe that academic had a point”, said Inigo Montoya. “People keep using this word, ‘pride’. But I agree with her; I also don’t think it means what they think it means.”
Jessica Isserow, the academic in question, has shared a link to her article ‘Pride and Investment’ on her Facebook page. She summarized some of its main points thus:
“Philosophers have traditionally focused upon self-regarding pride, or the pride that we feel towards ourselves. They usually neglect other-regarding pride, or the pride that we feel towards others. I think that’s a mistake; focusing more on the latter can illuminate some interesting things about the former as well”, she said.
“As far as the argument of the paper is concerned, the main idea, roughly put, is that taking yourself to be personally invested in some person or group is important for other-regarding pride. One of my main goals in the paper is to spell out what that investment relation amounts to. I think it’s a really promising way to account for the kind of positionality that people have traditionally regarded as central to pride.