“According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride.”
– C. S. Lewis
I’ve come to believe that in order to understand what’s broken in today’s culture, you need to understand the basics of human behavior. I believe that two of the most toxic emotions driving our present-day social conflicts are envy and pride. They are rarely discussed anymore, but I see them on display everywhere. They lurk under slogans, fuel online outrage, and power the social “justice” movements that are anything but.
Envy and pride are not strangers; they are siblings. Envy is what I feel when I see someone with more than what I have. More wealth, status, influence. Pride is what I show when I have more than someone else, and I want the world to know it. Envy resents the haves. Pride mocks the have-nots. Each feeds the other.
This is evidently a long-standing issue, as the Bible calls out these issues well. In James 3:16, it says: “For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.” Likewise, Proverbs 14:30 adds: “A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.”
These aren’t metaphors — they’re warnings. Envy doesn’t just eat away at peace; it eats away at society. And pride, its partner, is no less corrosive. Proverbs 16:18 also tells us: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” This is a well-known saying that we see played out again and again in modern society, as those who think of themselves as invincible are eventually brought down by their hubris.
You don’t need to look hard to see how this plays out in the modern world. Much of today’s social conflict, especially the endless war between classes, races, and identities, is nothing more than moralized envy masquerading as virtue. People don’t just want equity; they want revenge. They want to tear down what others have, not because it’s wrong, but because they don’t have it. And those who have more, instead of showing gratitude and humility, often double down on pride, flaunting their success with extravagant lifestyles, moral superiority, and indifference to those who have less.
Nowhere is this cycle more institutionalized than in Marxist ideology, which has infected modern political thought far more than most realize. Marxism frames the world as a struggle between oppressor and oppressed, but at its heart lies envy — a desire not only to have what others have, but to justify that desire with moral outrage. It says: they have it, so they must have stolen it. It whispers: tear it down and you’ll be free. But envy doesn’t free anyone. It only chains the soul to resentment.
Marxism also thrives on the pride of the revolutionary. It promises moral superiority to those who “see” the injustice. It offers a pedestal to those who rage. It says: You are more virtuous because you hate the powerful. That, too, is pride; a different flavor, but the same poison. The rich flaunt their yachts; the radical flaunts their indignation. Both are telling the world: Look at me. I’m better than you.
The Stoics warned us about this. They didn’t talk about envy and pride in religious terms, but they understood their nature well. The antidote they offered was temperance — one of the four cardinal virtues. Temperance isn’t about abstaining from pleasures or being meek. It’s about self-mastery. It means refusing to let emotions like envy and pride steer your life. It means not being ruled by desire for what others have, or the need to assert what you do.
Marcus Aurelius wrote, “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” That’s temperance: the ability to desire less, to compare less, to let go of status games and live with integrity. Envy and pride die when you no longer measure your worth by what others have or think.
In my own life, I’ve felt both sides of this. I’ve looked at people more successful than me and felt that sharp stab of “Why not me?” And I’ve had moments — I’m not proud to admit it — where I’ve wanted someone to know just how well I was doing. Both feelings are traps. Neither brings peace. And both pull me further away from the person I want to be.
When I learned to recognize those emotions for what they were — just signals of my insecurity or vanity — I stopped chasing the illusion that having what others have would satisfy me. I stopped thinking that being seen as “better” would make me more whole. And I started focusing on becoming better, rather than looking better.
That’s the work temperance demands. Not denial, but discipline. It doesn’t mean we stop fighting for justice, but it does mean we stop using justice as a cover for personal resentment.
Temperance calls us to a higher standard: to want less, to give more, and to rejoice in what we have without scorning those who have more or less. Mastering temperance is the journey I am on - as rough and rocky as the road may seem at times. The more who join me, the better the world will be for everyone, as we all step away from the fight between the envious and the prideful and focus on improving ourselves instead of tearing down others.