SOME would argue that true modesty – unlike other virtues such as courage or patience – requires a degree of ignorance. Ignorance, that is, of superior talent, intelligence, beauty or self-worth. To claim modesty as one of our personal virtues is a bit of an own goal. Excessive modesty can be equally irritating and invoke just as much resentment as blowing your own trumpet.
Helen Mirren seems to have whipped up more than just a little hostility last week when, in an interview with Allure Magazine, she claimed she hated being perceived as ultra-sexy at the outset of her acting career and that she had no confidence in her appearance, “my cheeks were too fat, legs were too short, breasts too big ... ” Enter stage left, cries of: "Give us a break, Helen! If that’s really what you feel, what hope is there for the rest of us!”
Featured on the Allure's front cover this month, Mirren is strident, sophisticated, sultry. Much of her magnetism lies in her awareness of the power of self-esteem. She knows the torque of image (her film career and lucrative contract with L’Oreal cosmetics will have left her in no doubt about that). But does this necessarily mean that her modesty is false?
Most of us will know someone who is infuriatingly, falsely modest. From the bog-standard perfect size eight pal who sips meagrely on flat black coffee as she berates herself for being fat (as you sit there, discreetly nibbling on your millionaire shortbread and wondering if, after all, you'd actually look slimmer if you wore, say, a size 16 rather than a 12), to the colleague whose just won "Best Employee Ever Award" but insists they didn't deserve it and reassures you their performance is “no better than anyone else’s and, really, it’s an award for the team”.
Yeah, right. The problem with modesty is that it is a paradox. According to Aristotle’s Golden Mean theory, actions can only be virtuous if we are consciously aware and choose to act in a particular way. You can’t be courageous if you’re not aware of danger. Courage means you understand and feel the fear but do it anyway (often for the greater good). Being "courageous" without knowing your act is brave, is just plain daft. It's the same with kindness and generosity: if there is no conscious decision to put the wellbeing of others before your own, your actions can’t really be considered as virtuous, just more a happy accident.
But when it comes to modesty, it doesn’t quite work that way and tends towards the "damned if you do/damned if you don’t" category of awareness. Many would say that for modesty to be genuine, it demands a lack of, or under-estimation of, our own self-worth. Maybe that’s why some folk reacted adversely to Helen Mirren’s affirmations that she hated being sexy and doesn’t really give a damn about how she looks. Perhaps her intention was simply to avoid invoking envy in others by downplaying her obvious talents and beauty. But rather than reassure, this type of defensiveness cancels out the reality that her allure and giftedness have been critical factors in her success and popularity.
For those of us who are less beautiful/talented/successful/intelligent, this kind of denial can feel like a put-down. For those who are falsely modest, their basic assumption is that, so bowed are others by their superior talent and worth (in contrast to others’ lack of it) that they cannot bear to hear about it. This leads to all kinds of shenanigans and moral sleights of hand. It is this – rather than envy – that creates hostility in others when faced with false modesty.
For someone to be truly modest, it must surely mean that they are adequately aware and conscious of their exceptional qualities and attributes but at the same time are sensitive to the absence of them in others. At its core, modesty is a finely-tuned awareness that – in the end – we are all equal, all mortal. While we might excel in one dimension of our lives, we can be average or failing in another. Einstein always felt that while he was "quite talented" as a physicist, there were many more who were more talented than him. “I have no special talents," he said. "I am only passionately curious.”
Perhaps curiosity about others is a sort of safeguard against false modesty. In wondering about how other folk feel, think, hope and fear, we open a door to empathy and with that, the realisation that most of us feel fear and hope in very similar ways.
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