In a book called “Peace of Mind,” a famous psychiatrist says that “The supreme foe of inner-victory is rigid pride.”1 The Bible often calls it being “stiff-necked.” In Biblical terms it means a kind of know-it-all arrogance that excludes the possibility of admitting the need to change. The stiff-necked person is saying, in effect, “No one, not even God, can enlighten me further.” Oscar Wilde’s “De Profundis” contains a powerful and moving passage describing the author’s personal experience with stiff-necked, rigid pride:
I bore up against everything with some stubbornness of will and much rebellion of nature, till I had absolutely nothing left in the world but one thing. I had lost my name, my position, my happiness, my freedom, my wealth. I was a prisoner and a pauper. But I still had my children left. Suddenly they were taken away from me by the law. It was a blow so appalling that I did not know what to do, so I flung myself…
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