MODESTY

Modesty is at its most likeable form when it is discouraging people from bragging. Here, modesty provides a valuable social service. It is this anti-bragging kind of modesty that philosophers have been most interested in, but even they have been divided on whether it is any good or not. Modesty evokes an image of being timid, meek, plain and bland. 

If modesty is so bad, then why do we spend so much of our time thinking about it? Because, despite all the unsavoury accumulated baggage that modesty has acquired over the years, we think there is something there that is not only one of the important virtues in life but is actually quite life-affirming. 

The aspect of modesty that has most fascinated philosophers is its elusiveness. Modesty, in the sense that is opposed to bragging, is something that you cannot really brag about. It is alright to say that other people are modest but saying ‘I’m modest’ is usually either self-undermining or meant as a joke. It is the kind of thing that has to be kept out of view because self-awareness spoils it. If you have it, you would not realise it – and if you think you have got it, you really do not.

Modesty has much to do with what you do or do not know. Thinking that modesty is about either ignorance or knowledge is a mistaken way to frame things. Instead, modesty is about what you care about, and how that changes your experience of the world. Whether or not the modest person knows how good he is, he does not experience the world in a self-involved way. His own goodness just is not often on his mind. Understanding modesty in this way makes it less old-fashioned and, at least, something that actually seems worth having.

What you care about affects how you experience what happens in life. It changes how you feel, what you notice, and what you think about. Think about someone who cares a lot about being rich. This person will notice what model car someone else drives, and if it is the luxury edition or not. If the car is more expensive than his own, he will feel inadequate or maybe some mix of jealousy and admiration. He will spend a lot of time thinking about his bank balance and how he can make that number go higher. He is likely to sort people into categories of richer-than-me, as-rich-as-me, and poorer-than-me. He does this consciously or subconsciously, but the fact that he cares about being rich, so much so it structures much of his lived experience.

We can understand modesty as working the same way. The easiest way to see this is to think about its opposite: immodesty. An immodest person’s experience is organised around himself: he cares about how things affect him, about comparative judgments where he comes out on top. A modest person, by contrast, does not care so much about these things, and so his experience is one that is not coloured by these self-regarding concerns.

Caring about comparative superiority is not always as obvious as simply wanting to be better, smarter, faster than other people. Sometimes it is implicit in caring about something that does not seem comparative at first glance. 

Think of the example of someone who wants to be rich. This might mean that he simply wants to have a lot of money. After all, that is what it means to be rich. But wanting to be rich also often involves a deep desire for distinction, to be richer than the people around you. Some people would be satisfied to be a millionaire even if everyone else was one too. For others, being a millionaire is not enough if everyone else is also a millionaire; the whole point of being rich is to have more money than others.

This kind of comparative concern associated with immodesty is deeply self-centred – everyone else’s status is compared with yours. A modest person, on the other hand, does not care about that stuff, and so his experience is not coloured by self-centred concerns. It is not that being modest means you do not care at all about your own health, wellbeing or talents. But it does mean that you do not care very much about comparative judgments of superiority, about being one-up over other people.

Caring about a matter affects what you notice, how you feel, and what you think about – but the same may apply to not caring about the same matter. Someone who does not care about fashion probably would not notice things such as what kind of earrings someone wears or the cut and fabric of his shirt. Someone who does not care about football probably would not feel much when he learns who won the Premier League and would not spend much time thinking about the game at all.

In the same way, someone who is modest would not really spend much time dwelling on how much better he is than other people, or feel a smug sense of superiority when he gets to correct someone’s mispronunciation. This lack of concern can take a lot of forms in a lot of different domains. Some of us will have it more (or less) in some areas than in others.

What is so good about not caring about these kinds of comparative judgments anyway? Is it not good to want to be the best, be at the head of the class, or top of the charts?

Part of what is bad about it is that it structures your experience in ways that cut you off from many of the things that make life worth living. You may hate going to art museums. Not because you do not like art, but because being in that situation stresses you out. You presume that in a room full of great works of art, people will be paying attention to you and how much time you spend looking at different paintings. You assume that, if someone asks you a question, they are looking to size you up rather than get an insight about the art. Your anxieties stem from a view of the world that puts you at the centre. 

Even the trip to the museum is, for you, less about the art than about you viewing the art.

It is worth noting that this is totally compatible with either knowledge or ignorance of your own good qualities. Someone appreciating the art in a museum might know perfectly well that he understands the art more than nearly all of the other patrons. Or he might think he knows more than he actually does. But, either way, if he does not care much about being smarter than others, he can still avoid the kind of sad situation that you find yourself in. This is because we can know things without thinking much about them. You know that the planet Jupiter is bigger than the Earth, but you probably never spent much time thinking about it. The modest person has a similar relationship with knowing that they are better than others; they know it, but still would not spend much time thinking about it until someone else brings it up.

This view of modesty makes it, at bottom, about the deep sense that not everything that happens is about you. It might seem that getting the sense that life is not about you is a downer, but this is what makes modesty life-affirming.

Dropping the feeling that life has to be about you means opening up to all the other great things life has to offer. It allows you to connect with others more deeply, and feel like a more integrated part of the world. When you are not as invested in being better than others, you stop looking at the internal scoreboard so often, and when you do that, your gaze can wander to better places. If you stopped experiencing the museum as all about you; you might actually get absorbed in the art.

This does not mean that being modest is at odds with caring about being great or being really good at what you do. There is a difference between wanting to be a great father and wanting to be a better father than your neighbour. You can care about being a great chef without being invested in being better than everyone else in your class at culinary school. It is no accident that these comparative goals often seem less noble and more petty than simply caring about the underlying value itself. Caring about making great music is more worthwhile than caring about winning the competition of the bands. Being in love with film-making is great. Being in love with the idea of yourself as the most successful film-maker? Not so.

Modesty involves breaking out of a way of experiencing life rooted in comparing yourself with others. Imagine for a second, being able to see a co-worker’s amazing vacation and actually just feeling happy for him. This might seem somewhere between naive and impossible, but living that way, sure would be nice. Achieving this might not be easy, but if you were less invested in comparing yourself with others, it might just improve your life.

This illuminates something important about immodesty. People sometimes associate immodesty with bragging and bragging with confidence, but these connections do not always hold. Immodesty and bragging often come from a place of insecurity, from the sneaking suspicion that you really are not very good at all. Bragging is a way of overcompensating for this feeling, of trying to drown it out with superlatives and stories of success.

It is actually modesty that is linked with security and confidence. People who are not insecure do not need to make conversations about themselves and their accomplishments. They do not need to fish for compliments or nudge conversations to be about them and their latest accomplishment. Modesty involves being secure enough that you can appreciate the good things around you and the accomplishments of other people without reference to yourself. It gives you the security to really listen to others and not just wait for your turn to speak.

It is hard to talk about virtues in isolation. This take on modesty and what might be good about it is no exception; it presumes a lot of background. Some people need to be thought of as being better than others to motivate themselves, to get them out of bed. Some people have a tendency, either naturally or because of socialization, to care too little about themselves. For these people, modesty might not be what they need most. Modesty, like any virtue, works in concert with other good qualities, and might not be what is most important for a particular person in their particular place and time.

Being bothered with sizing up yourself with others is the root of immodesty, but it also cuts us off from connecting with others and engaging with many things of value in the world. When you are not so invested in comparative superiority, you can experience things you would otherwise miss. You can just feel good when somebody else has good fortune. You can help others achieve their goal without the feeling like you are losing out.

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