Have you no pride?

[Fingolfin II]

Boro said:

Patriotism is another trait the Boromir seems to represent, as he's always talking about the "Men of Minas Tirith," and the "Men from my country."

True, but Aragorn also bandied his patriotism around a lot- the Dunedain, his heritage, Rangers of the North etc. Don't forget the incident with Hama at the doors of Meduseld- 'Death shall come to any man who draws Elendil's sword, save Elendil's heir'. So, as you said, patriotism is another type of pride.

This leads me to ask another question; how much pride is too much? As already illustrated in this thread, you need a certain amount of pride to have confidence in yourself and to accomplish things (e.g. Aragorn), yet too much pride and overconfidence in one's abilites can corrupt and bias decisions negatively (e.g. Denethor).

Humility is an important attribute in LotR. Aragorn possessed it and therefore his pride was counterbalanced, as Lhunardarwen said. Denethor on the other hand may have started off humble, yet he became more proud and this ultimately lead him to disaster. His pride led him to enforce his will on others, such as his Council and Faramir, and therefore, I believe that too much pride is bad (duh) and Tolkien used it as an example of one of the 7 Deadly Sins in LotR as a measure against humility.