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By Dr. Arthur Schwartz 

Humility.

That was the first word that popped into my mind when I heard President Biden had withdrawn from the 2024 race. 

Others described his decision as an act of courage. Some say he was simply being a realist.

I must confess that my initial word choice was influenced by a new book on the virtue of humility that I had just started reading. Written by Daryl Van Tongeren, a social psychologist at Hope College (MI), the book is titled Humble: Free Yourself from the Traps of a Narcissistic World

As a virtue, Van Tongeren places humility as a Golden Mean between arrogance on one side and timidity on the other. He unpacks a plethora of definitions, but ultimately defines humility as “knowing yourself, checking yourself, and going beyond yourself.” Much of the book focuses on these three dimensions of humility.

After he had debated with President Trump, it took President Biden 21 days to determine whether he should step down as his party’s candidate. There is no doubt in my mind that during those three weeks he conducted his own self-assessment, taking stock of his strengths and weaknesses. Or, as Socrates suggested, “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.”

The second dimension—“checking yourself”—is probably the hardest for most people. Built into our DNA is a selfishness gene that too often turns us into narcissistic creatures who yearn for power and dominance. I would think this is especially true of most politicians. Yet Van Tongeren reminds us that pride, what he calls “the unreasonable conceit of superiority,” is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. 

But it’s the last dimension of Van Tongeren’s definition (“going beyond yourself”) that I believe was what President Biden reflected on the most. I know from my research that soldiers who received the Medal of Honor placed their lives at significant risk to protect or rescue others. In President Biden’s situation, I think he checked his ego at the door because he realized that this election was not about him. Ultimately, he was willing to risk public shame and embarrassment for a cause larger than himself. 

My hope in writing this article is not to glorify President Biden. Rather, it’s to suggest that humility is a character strength that can help us become more grateful, generous, and wise. Can we imagine a future where everyone strives to develop a humble mindset?

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3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. Doug Stech

    Great thoughts! I also greatly appreciated your focus on Van Tongeren’s definition of humility as “going beyond yourself”. It reminded me that one of the most important lessons we can learn ourselves, and one of the most important lessons we can help young people to learn, is that some level of humility is required to truly be able to form relationships with others. We must set aside our own interests at times to truly be available to connect with others. Thanks for these great thoughts on humility!

  2. Harris Sokoloff

    At this point, it is difficult for me to imagine such a world, mostly because most people don’t understand the true nature of humility by any of its definitions. I am not sure whether most people see humility as a virtue. And of course, I might be mistaken.

    One way of characterizing the current world is to notice the “me first” or “me only” tendencies of many people. In such a world, there is a kind of irony to think that one way to “glorify” another is to praise their humility.

  3. David

    Knowing, yes. Checking, yes. Going beyond, yes. That’s what the individual can do. It’s so much easier to “try out” humility, though, with some certainty that others will still be there for us. It is about community, isn’t it?

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