In Praise of Humility

New York Times columnist David Brooks recently wrote a column prompted when he listened to an old radio program called "Command Performance" that was originally aired on V-J Day (September 2, 1945). It was a variety show that went out to the troops around the world and featured, among others, Frank Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich, Jimmy Durante, Dinah Shore, Bette Davis, Lionel Barrymore, and Cary Grant. What was most striking to Mr. Brooks was the "tone of self-effacement and humility. The allies had, on that very day, completed one of the noblest military victories in the history of humanity. And yet there was no chest-beating. Nobody was erecting triumphal arches," he wrote.

"All anybody can do is thank God it's over," Bing Crosby, the show's host, said. "Today our deep down feeling is one of humility," he added.

The show included Burgess Meredith reading part of an article written by war correspondent Ernie Pyle, who had been killed a few months before, but could anticipate the coming victory. In the article he wrote that there were many things that made the winning of the war possible, but he added: "We did not win it because destiny created us better than all other peoples. I hope that in victory we are more grateful than we are proud."

Mr. Brooks found that subdued sentiment was widespread. He notes, "The Dallas Morning News editorialized, 'President Truman calls upon us to treat the event as a solemn occasion. Its momentousness and its gravity are past human comprehension.'"

Mr. Brooks wrote, "The war produced such monumental effects, and such rivers of blood, that the individual ego seemed petty in comparison. The problems of one or two little people, as the movie line had it, didn't amount to a hill of beans."

There was also a negative reaction to the "grandiosity, pomposity, boasting and zeal" that marked fascism and that to some degree was also part of the Allied propaganda. "By 1945, everybody was sick of that," wrote Mr. Brooks. "There was a mass hunger for a public style that was understated, self-abnegating, modest and spare."

Mr. Brooks argues that in the decades since then, western society has turned unbecomingly to narcissism. "Humility, the sense that nobody is that different from anybody else, was a large part of the culture then."

Ralph Sockman was a Methodist minister in New York City whose popular NBC program National Radio Pulpit aired for more than 30 years, beginning in 1928. He said, "True humility is intelligent self respect which keeps us from thinking too highly or too meanly of ourselves. It makes us modest by reminding us how far we have come short of what we can be." It seems to neatly summarize what David Brooks said we once were.

He thinks it is something we no longer are. In the 1950s, Mr. Brooks wrote, "Self-effacement became identified with conformity and self-repression." Think of The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, and women, who had had a taste of what they could do during World War II, being returned to their home and hearth tending. That was followed by what Mr. Brooks describes as "expressive individualism," when we were taught to explore our inner strengths - not necessarily a bad direction, but Mr. Brooks thinks we have taken immodesty too far: not just to the point of unbecoming self-promotion, but to rudeness.

The column was also inspired by a week when discourtesy seemed to be everywhere: "There is Joe Wilson using the House floor as his own private 'Crossfire'; there is Kanye West grabbing the microphone from Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards to give us his opinion that the wrong person won; there is Michael Jordan's egomaniacal and self-indulgent Hall of Fame speech."

But David Brooks did not write his column to bemoan those events. He was simply suggesting that perhaps we might take a hint from V-J Day and tap into our better selves. "This isn't the death of civilization," he wrote. "It's just the culture in which we live. And from this vantage point, a display of mass modesty, like the kind represented on the V-J Day "Command Performance", comes as something of a refreshing shock, a glimpse into another world. It's funny how the nation's mood was at its most humble when its actual achievements were at their most extraordinary."

Is a Responsibility Revolution Taking Root?

Richard Stengel, writing for TIME magazine (September 10, 2009) suggested that western consumers are beginning to take responsibility for their actions.

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals," FDR said in 1937, in the midst of the Great Depression. "We know now that it is bad economics."

I'm not sure how socially responsible the average consumer was in 1937. Chances are, for example, that if families ate organically-grown vegetables, they came from their own gardens, which were planted as an economic necessity, not to ease global warming. In those days, few fruits and vegetables were shipped cross country, much less from around the world. Sixty years ago, it seems as if there were fewer opportunities to be socially irresponsible.

What is surprising to Mr. Stengel is that in these dire economic times, when we might more easily make excuses to cut corners, more and more people are making responsible choices and expecting corporations to do the same. He writes, "People have been trading in their SUVs for Priuses, buying record amounts of fair-trade coffee and investing in socially responsible funds at higher rates than ever before. What we are discovering now, in the most uncertain economy since FDR's time, is that enlightened self-interest - call it a shared sense of responsibility - is good economics."

Our lives have been periodically changed by inventions - the light bulb, the automobile, television and microwave ovens - which have an influence that goes beyond the new product and affects how we interact with one another. Mr. Stengel argues that "We are again entering a period of social change as [we] are recalibrating our sense of what it means to be a citizen, not just through voting or volunteering but also through commerce: by what we buy." He suggests that we have begun to realize "that we can serve not only by spending time in our communities and classrooms but by spending more responsibly. We are starting to put our money where our ideals are."

He cites these examples:

• An increase in the purchase of energy-efficient lightbulbs and organic products.
• Of the 1,003 adults TIME magazine polled this summer, 82% said they have consciously supported local or neighborhood businesses this year. Nearly 40% said they purchased a product in 2009 because they liked the social or political values of the company that produced it.
• Since 1995, the number of socially responsible investment (SRI) mutual funds, which generally avoid buying shares of companies that profit from such things as tobacco, oil or child labor, has grown from 55 to about 260. SRI funds now manage approximately 11% of all the money invested in U.S. financial markets - an estimated $2.7 trillion.

Mr. Stengel notes that "Corporate America has discovered that social responsibility attracts investment capital as well as customer loyalty, creating a virtuous circle. With global warming on the minds of many consumers, lots of companies are racing to 'outgreen' one another, a competition that is good for their bottom lines as well as the environment. The most progressive companies are talking about a triple bottom line - profit, planet and people - that focuses on how to run a business while trying to improve environmental and worker conditions."

He continues: "The Quaker notion of doing well by doing good - popularized by Ben Franklin, the patron saint of social entrepreneurs - predated the predatory capitalism of the Gilded Age." While the 'Greed is good" mentality seemed to triumph for awhile, there is a growing sense that people "want to be part of something larger than themselves," to paraphrase President Obama.

But according to Mr. Stengel, the beginnings of this responsibility revolution began at least as far back as the 1990s when "companies like Nike and Walmart were attacked for discriminatory and unfair labor practices. People became alarmed about 'blood diamonds,' or 'conflict diamonds' - gems mined in war zones and used to finance conflict in Africa... Companies also began to realize that just as some consumers boycotted products they considered unethical, others would purchase products in part because their manufacturers were responsible.

Some companies like Gap (clothing), Hewlett-Packard (printers/technology) and Timberland (shoes) were early adapters, providing transparency in relation to the materials used, the energy used in production and the overseas companies that were their suppliers. "Since 2004," notes Mr. Stengel, "Gap has been publishing information about the factories it uses and those it has stopped doing business with."

In spite of the recession and historic unemployment, nearly half of the people who responded to the TIME poll said "protecting the environment should be given priority over economic growth." A vast majority would be willing to pay $2,000 more for a car that gets 35 m.p.g. than for a similar one that gets only 25 m.p.g., but, of course, the likely long-term savings would make up for the upfront cost.

Other companies that are "ratcheting up their responsibility commitments" according to Mr. Stengel, are as varied as Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, and Cadbury chocolates. Many companies participate in the "(RED) campaign" which contributes part of its revenues to the Global Fund that helps AIDS programs in Africa, which has raised $135 million in three years.

Admittedly, some companies are just trying to look good. New York environmentalist Jay Westerveld coined the term "greenwashing" for companies that spin their products as being more environmentally friendly than they really are. According to Mr. Stengel, "Chevron is among the firms that have been sued for greenwashing, accused of undermining a biodiesel project while attempting to enhance its green cred. (Chevron denied any wrongdoing.)"

But if doing good to look good in consumer eyes improves a company's bottom line, it's likely to benefit everyone. "I don't care whether companies change for the love of the environment or because of their financial interest," says Geoffrey Heal, a Columbia Business School professor and the author of When Principles Pay. "The most sustainable solution is to have companies responding to financial incentives rather than their own feelings."

In other words, writes, Mr. Stengel, "Good stewardship is good business," a sound bite that is backed up by research. More and more companies are taking socially responsible steps, but we have a very long way to go in educating and influencing both consumers and business owners. Even Jeff Swartz, CEO of Timberland and a leader in corporate responsibility, noted recently, "The vast majority of our consumers buy Timberland products because the shoe fits... not because we maintain a measurably higher standard of human-rights practice."

The TIME poll divided respondents into three categories they call the Responsibles, the Toe Dippers and the Skeptics, names that readily define their actions. The Responsibles, according to Mr. Stengel, represent 38% of Americans 18 and older, or about 86 million people. They are more likely than people in the other categories to be female, married, young and college-educated. They are ethnically and politically diverse. "They tend to be well-off but not wealthy, and they have done many things that people in the other groups haven't, such as buying a household appliance on the basis of its energy rating or a product because they like the values of the company that made it."

Mr. Stengel suggests that there should be more people like them. Businesses respond to consumers, and consumers can make ethical choices that begin - but do not end - at the cash register.

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