Beware Of Pride

“Beware of Pride” is a touchstone in Kyle’s notes for the doctrine that pride is the universal, threshold sin. It functions as the bridge between the secular psychology of pride and the scriptural framing of it. In Kyle’s reading of Charlie Munger — The Psychology of Human Misjudgment, it is tagged (alongside Pride and the Priesthood) on Munger’s passage distinguishing destructive from constructive pride — Munger’s argument that “self-regard in the form of a justified pride in a job well done, or a life well lived, is a large constructive force,” that “Pride” is “a word generally left out of psychology textbooks” wrongly, and that “it is also not a good idea to construe the bible’s parable about the Pharisee and the Publican as condemning all pride.” That same Munger passage sits inside his treatment of Excessive Self-Regard Tendency and the Tolstoy effect, where unjustified self-regard becomes a vehicle for excuse-making.

On the scriptural side, the concept is anchored to the The Pride Cycle — the recurring demonstration in the Book of Mormon that riches breed pride and pride breeds destruction — and to Ezra Taft Benson’s well-known address by the same name (see Pride and the Priesthood).

Context: “Beware of Pride” is the title of Ezra Taft Benson’s April 1989 LDS general-conference address, which frames pride — defined as enmity, “my will against God’s” — as the central, universal sin and “the great stumbling block to Zion.”

Where this appears

• Charlie Munger — The Psychology of Human Misjudgment — tagged on Munger’s passage distinguishing constructive “justified pride in a job well done” from the destructive self-regard of the Tolstoy effect.
• Pride and the Priesthood — the companion concept; together they bridge Excessive Self-Regard Tendency and the scriptural framing of pride as the threshold sin.