On Humility

Last Sunday, the Gospel was one of my favourites. The Pharisee and the tax collector go up to pray. In essence, the Pharisee says “Lord, I am good, reward me”, while the tax collector says “Lord, I am wretched, save me”. It is not hard to work out who got the more favourable response.

The story reminds us of humility, a lovely virtue. It is one of the troika of Humour, Humility, Humanity, that I use all the time, for example in assessing the candidates to be our new choir director. Last time I blogged on HuHuHu I self-assessed at one and a half out of three, and someone commented that was arrogant. Maybe true, and indeed humility was not the one and not the half.

Humility can be confused with modesty and deference. While “Lord, I am wretched, save me” is admirable, “Lord, I am ignorant, teach me” might be even better or at least more useful. (There you go, I am even claiming to better St Luke, or even Jesus. Not so humble, Graham).

Modesty and deference have a habit of becoming self-fulfilling. If we do not recognize our own strengths, if we do not volunteer to take the lead sometimes, then our capacity to do good and to improve can be compromised. If a team needs to achieve a task and we have relevant skills, it is counter-productive to hide them out of modesty. A good team has meaningful contributions from everyone, and one can recognize a strength and utilize it without losing humility.

Deference is even more dangerous, since it can become a substitute for thinking or acting and an excuse for abrogation of responsibility. If the boss must always be right, many of the opportunities to learn have been lost.

The same is true in families and in societies at large. It is right that we honour our elders, but that should not mean that we defer absolutely to them. The risk is that no one learns. The elders become excessively sure of their own expertise, while the rest do not even try to understand the issue.

I have connections to three countries prone to flooding, and it is instructive to examine the difference in approach. In the USA there is the denial of arrogance. Here is the Pharisee at work. We are a great nation so we will be fine. Even if we are not fine, we will respond well. Climate change cannot exist, in part because we are God’s chosen people. We are right, so he will reward us.

The Philippines show the opposite extreme, closer to the tax collector (though the analogy is ironic, since one thing The Philippines certainly needs is the ability to collect more tax). Typhoons, earthquakes and floods strike every year, killing many and destroying the lives of many others. Yet little is done to improve defences, just a lot of praying. There is a fatalism preventing action. Corruption does not help either, but a less humble nation, rather a less deferent nation, would not have put up with things as they are for so long.

The Netherlands lies largely below sea level, and a hundred years ago used to be subject to the same frequency of death from flooding as the Philippines is today. But they did something about it. The Dutch have become the world’s leading water engineers, and have built dykes, barriers and everything else to make their coastline safer. Still, they remain humble enough to devote a lot of budget to continuous improvement, and never to declare victory over nature. By many measures you would not describe the Dutch as humble, certainly not compared with Asians, but I find some definitions and preconceptions of humility rather misleading.

In my experience, the most humble people on earth are the Swedes. There is a civility, a willingness to learn and a respect for other people that is a delight to be among. Some find Sweden dull and formal. I found it humble. It is no coincidence that Scandinavians lead many international well-being tables.

Norwegians can be more nationalistic than Swedes, but still have much to teach the rest of us. The national response to the Brevik outrage was superb. Last month, I read that Brevik is now enjoying the chance of education in prison. “Who are we to deprive him of the right to learn?” was one quote. Humility often comes with an unwillingness to condemn or judge, even in the most extreme cases.

This contrasts with some attitudes in the US. We often read of outrages in the US: this year has seen the Boston bombings, Washington navy yard shootings and the woman losing it in Washington. One conclusion must be about a society with too many guns, but there are other similarities. In each of those cases, the police killed or injured the perpetrators in a questionable way. I believe the Washington woman was unarmed. The surviving brother in Boston was holed up in his boat, severely injured, and no longer a threat.

Now, I allow for more than a little fear in law enforcement officers in these situations, and mistakes do happen, but training should keep them to a minimum. What was really striking was that in none of these cases, nor in many smaller ones I have seen on the news this year, has there been any questioning of excessive force by police. That is very different in Europe.

At its heart, this is the Pharisee at work again. In the eyes of the American public, and probably the police too, these people had foregone their human rights by their actions. There is a self-righteousness about such a mindset. We are right, and should be protected. Violate our principles and face the consequences. That is a dangerous way to think. It can leads to many unwelcome places, starting with the dysfunction of congress.

In foreign policy it is worse. What is amazing in the debate about big brother NSA is that Americans, even senior ones, do not seem to consider how they must look to their allies. As the guy said yesterday, the actions may indeed be legal and professional. That does not make them right. Or humble. Drone policy and Guantanamo Bay start from the same dangerous premises.

I witness the same when I read otherwise thoughtful articles in Time about various foreign policy dilemmas, for example about Iran or Syria. Various sensible options are put forward, some belligerent, other cautious. One thing I never read is a policy which considers addressing the grievance of the other side. Why are these people “enemies of the USA and its interests?” It would be a good question to ask. Yet it never is.

“Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way”. It is worth looking up the lyrics of that lovely ironic song, made famous on the (American) muppet show years ago. I know I have a lot to learn about humility, and I slip backwards more often than I make progress. Even though I find Asian attitudes do not always promote my ideal of humility, being among my Asian relatives certainly provokes positive thoughts about humility in me.

And the Gospel helps too. I don’t believe a lot of the bible literally, but the most important thing for me that the concept of God gives is the humility of remembering ones own smallness, ignorance and powerlessness. If things are going well, it always pays to remember that. The deacon gave a nice homily on the Gospel on Sunday, though at the time I felt he missed some opportunities to make some points about judging, referring to examples from his own nation.

But then I realized that very thought was dangerous. It was what the Pharisee would say and think. Whenever I have my periodic rants about the USA, I will try to remember that Pharisee and return to learning mode. Lord, I am ignorant, teach me.