Recovering the lost virtue of humility for the common good

Whatever happened to humility? And why should we care?

Humility helps us see the common good. Take masking during the pandemic: all the messaging was, “Wear a mask to protect others.” But do we care as much as we should about others? Do we put others first? If the messaging was, “Wear a mask to protect yourself,” there would have been fewer objections — and that’s where the disease of myopic “me-ism” comes into play.

Think of humility as a base or center point: the hub of a wheel from which other virtues radiate. It’s a disposition, a fundamental posture. Discretion, perspective and proportion follow to fight against tribalism, which is hubris placing my ethnic group, race, nationality, religion, profession or some other identity marker above other people’s.

Being humble forces us to ask, “Where do I fit — in my family or at work? How does my viewpoint stand up to others? Why must my country be the best? Why do I need to brag? Why must my values be the only ones that count?”

Humility promotes moderation. Today’s civil discourse is not so civil. Moderation is no longer praised as the way to go. Extreme wings frequently set the agenda for faiths and political parties: both sides are always yelling. For some, political affiliation is based on faith, not principle or fact. Aligning with a particular political party, interest group or identity plays out with religious zeal. Speeches sound like sermons, slogans sing like hymns, symbols are wielded as sacraments. The marketplace of ideas has become a zero-sum game: I have to win and you have to lose.

Humility can help us see the gray between my black-and-white and someone else’s black-and-white. Stepping back from this fervor is the first step in finding not the differences but the middle ground that’s shared on a basis of fairness, equity and justice for all.

Humble moderation slows conversations down, gives closed minds and cold hearts a chance to pause, and can build consensus. We can find that other ideas and needs have merit, even if I may not like them. I don’t have to agree totally, but a political conversation that takes the best options from among several competing ideas and avoids their worst elements can help build a more perfect union.

It’s time for radical moderation on the local, national and international levels. This is especially the case now, when swaggering patriotism and xenophobia around the globe are threatening democracies. Extremism dominates — or at least fringe elements get more media coverage and more financial backing, which could well create tyrannies of minorities that feel threatened and so lash out.

Such groups seem to be happy to triumph, even if it means burning their entire systems and their own communities down around them. They don’t want to yield to compromise and coexistence —ways of getting things done for the common good, which are now dismissed as signs of weakness. The arrogant tail of extremism is wagging the dog of humble moderation. We all lose.

But lacking a humble attitude makes you dig in and double down because admitting you’re mistaken becomes humiliating. Willful people impose their views on others. They badger and bulldoze in place of persuading and discussing. They don’t care about your feelings, but cry if you offend theirs. Cancel culture is bad, but great when you’re the one doing the cancelling. Athletes and entertainers should shut up, except when they support my candidate.

There’s another way. By choosing to be humble, we’re choosing to be upset, disturbed, confronted. We start with the premise that there’s more we don’t know. That attitude makes it easier to correct course while also promoting persistent curiosity. Humility helps us restore the idea that there is yet something to be learned from somebody else. It gives you an out.

Without humility, the arrogance of power inevitably causes the death of shame. We’ve come to learn that some people will never do the right thing. Why? Because they have no humility.

Without humility, there can be no honor. Never expect honor from people without shame. Don’t expect empathy from such people, either. That empathy gap is a serious hole in our communities today, robbing us of our humanity.

The antidote: Humility’s time has come again.

Christopher M. Bellitto, Ph.D., is professor of History at Kean University in Union, NJ. His latest book, from which this essay is adapted, is “Humility: The Secret History of a Lost Virtue” (Georgetown University Press, 2023).