Humility: The Secret History of a Lost Virtue
By Christopher M. Bellitto.
Georgetown University Press, 2023.
Hardcover, 176 pages, $24.95.
Reviewed by Isaiah Flair.
Good people around the world have encountered narcissists who love no one and nothing, not even themselves. As empathy for others fades into darkness, empathy for self follows suit. Such narcissists know no boundaries, and reject structures like reasoned discourse that could imperil the indulgence of their narcissism.
In Humility: The Secret History of a Lost Virtue, the virtue of humility is presented as the antithesis of, and thus an antidote to, the narcissism that can adversely affect interpersonal dynamics on both micro and macro levels. It is an intriguing perspective, and author Christopher Bellitto presents it cogently.
As background for the larger discussion of humility as a virtue, Bellitto gives a definition of the term that begins with its etymology: “Where does the word ‘humility’ come from? Its root is from the Latin ‘humus,’ meaning of the Earth, a coarse, elemental start.”
Bellitto follows his definition by acknowledging that there are negative perceptions of the term that obscure its value as a virtue, writing that thesaurus and dictionary definitions for “humility” may bring up words and phrases with negative connotations like low self-esteem, putting oneself down, underestimating oneself, and having a lack of self-assurance.
Interestingly, that list correlates to how a person would feel if he were humbled by someone else, such as a corrosive person in a personal or work situation. It would not correlate, however, to how a person would feel if he voluntarily embraced humility as a virtue in order to be a kind and caring person. This is the difference between humiliation and humility. Naturally, it is the voluntary embrace of the latter as a virtue that Bellitto advocates.
To explore that ideal, the book relies on writings about humility by philosophers and other thinkers from past eras. Fortunately, this is done well, to good effect, and in ways that successfully support the perspective of the book. Bellitto also sprinkles illustrations of humility and its lack to support the lessons of humility. Unsurprisingly, one such story is the timeless tale of Icarus, the young man who flew too close to the sun.
In the traditional telling of the story, Icarus’s father crafted a set of wings with feathers and wax so that he and Icarus could escape from the island of Crete, where they had been imprisoned by King Minos. The escape was successful, at first, for the wings bore father and son into the sky and it looked like they would be able to leave the island of the minotaur behind them and start a new life someplace safe. However, Icarus ignored his father’s warnings about flying too high. He went higher and higher, and because he did, the heat of the sun melted the wax that bound the wings that his father had made, resulting in the wings being rent asunder and Icarus falling to his doom in the unforgiving waters of the cold sea below.
Every account of the story, as is the way with myths and legends, tells it a little differently. Yet the moral remains the same: hubris is dangerous. If Icarus had embraced sufficient humility to keep his own mortality, the limits of the makeshift wings, and the power of the sun at the forefront of his decision-making process, he would have flown low as his father had directed and thus would have survived. Humility is necessary for prudent judgments to be made.
The Sermon on the Mount serves as another reference point for humility.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the Earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.
The importance of including verses from the Sermon on the Mount is self-evident, as it affirms those who put values, and caring for others, at the forefront.
Later in the book, Bellitto discusses mendicant medieval preachers. He says that those medieval preachers often crafted teaching tales to help the people they ministered to incorporate values into their daily lives. One of the values was humility, which was positioned as the opposite of hubris. Bellitto writes about the key morals of those tales, including “humility is a teacher that helps us to bear hardships” and “humility opens hearts to serve others.” Those morals aptly describe the practical effects achieved, for self and for others, by embracing humility as a virtue.
One of the things that the book does well is provide relatable contexts. For example, it refers to social media venues as places where a lack of humility—in the sense of treating others like human beings with feelings—can result in notoriously uncivil discourse, especially when anonymity precludes the social accountability that might otherwise prevail in face-to-face discussions. The workplace is another context where the absence of humility and the corresponding toxicity of narcissistic individuals does a great deal of damage.
The book reiterates the critical distinction between a person embracing humility as a virtue for themselves, presented as a positive thing, and someone seeking to humiliate others, which history shows is a negative thing and a hallmark of narcissism, the opposite of humility.
The book also carefully establishes the central value of humility: by admitting that there are things that they do not yet know and do not yet understand, a person opens himself to learning and gaining knowledge and understanding. After all, a person has to recognize what they lack in order to pursue what they need to gain.
Isaiah Flair is a content creator and marketing strategist who lives in the Pacific Northwest, between the evergreen forests and the sea.
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