Pride: The Seven Deadly Sins

The New York Public Library's seriesNew York Public Library's series on the 7 deadly sins, which invites authors to reflect on the contemporary relevance and meaning of the 7 traditional deadlies, is an excellent idea. Unfortunately, the series is uneven, as exemplified by Michael Eric Dyson's rather self-indulgent volume on pride. Dyson has made his name as an acute cultural critic and a commentator on the politics of identity. He's very good at what he does, and I've learned a good deal from reading his other books, especially Is Bill Cosby Right, Come Hell or High Water, and Debating Racism. I also think that his reflections on the politics of racial identity in this book are interesting. My problem is that they're misplaced. What Dyson has wound up doing is writing a book on the dynamics of black and white pride as defined by the American experience. What he's not done is write a book on pride as one of the 7 deadlies. Apart from the opening chapter, in which Dyson provides a quick and sketchy rundown of pride from Aristotle to the contemporary theologian Stanley Hauerwas, and the concluding chapter, in which Dyson distinguishes between legitimate national pride and gung-ho, uncritical patriotism, his treatment focuses on what pride, self-esteem, and ethnic identity should mean to black Americans. In focusing this narrowly, Dyson necessarily moves away from pride as a moral vice to the social construct of black pride. Again, his discussion is interesting and worthwhile. But it leaves the reader with the sense that s/he's been taken in, given something quite different from what the book title and series title promised.