In a month in which some politicians have trumpeted their own virtues and others their opponents' vices, one traditional virtue has gone unserenaded. It is humility.
The reticence is unsurprising. Humility is associated with timidity, self-doubt and a reluctance to put oneself forward. It is monkish virtue. Successful politicians must project themselves, be supremely confident of their abilities, competitive, and lead like strong men.
This popular view merits challenge. It assumes a corrupted form of humility, and it also exempts politicians from ethical reflection about their craft. Effective participation in political life is governed by having the right temperament and by exercising power in pursuing one's goals.
When these views become widely accepted, adulation and contempt for political leaders alternate, both ending in disillusion.
In such a climate it may be helpful to reflect more deeply on humility and on the qualities taken to be essential in politicians. We might also profitably ask what basic approaches to the world nurture these qualities.
As a virtue humility has nothing to do with a retiring temperament. It is about being grounded and having a realistic sense of ourselves, which includes a recognition and acceptance of our personal weakness. It also implies a realistic view of the world in which we live.
It includes a view of other people as persons on whom we are mutually dependent, and not primarily as competitors, let alone as enemies or as things.
In public life humility leads us to focus on what matters for the welfare of the world, and not on our own desires and interests. Where the common good is at stake, humility can inspire us to fight for it and to compete if we see ourselves to be in the best position to forward it. It need not be timid or self-effacing.
But it is accompanied by a reserve, arising from the realistic knowledge that our own policies are not necessarily the best policies, nor our own leadership the best means to secure what matters.
The vice traditionally opposed to humility is pride. But pride does not encompass exactly the qualities seen as necessary for success in political life: a high personal desire to succeed and to lead, a high confidence in our own judgment and ideas, the ability to bend others to our will and confidence that we can change the world.
These qualities are primarily focused on the self: on our desires and needs and on our power to satisfy them.