"Modesty is a vastly overrated virtue"
About this Quote
John Kenneth Galbraith, the wry economist who popularized the term "conventional wisdom", used provocation to unmask complacency. Calling modesty a vastly overrated virtue challenges a social habit that rewards self-effacement even when clarity and confidence are required. Modesty oils the gears of polite society; it keeps egos in check and prevents boastfulness from poisoning relationships. Yet as a civic ethos it can be an alibi for timidity, allowing comfortable orthodoxies and entrenched interests to go unchallenged.
Galbraith spent a career arguing that power in modern economies concentrates in large organizations and that public policy needs assertive, expert counterweights. That project cannot advance if experts, reformers, or whistleblowers bow before etiquette that tells them to downplay what they know. Vested interests are not modest; they market, lobby, and proclaim. If their critics whisper, the public conversation tilts by default.
There is a useful distinction between humility and modesty. Humility acknowledges uncertainty and respects evidence; it corrects arrogance. Modesty, as Galbraith targets it, is the cultural demand to minimize one’s competence or convictions lest others take offense. Humility serves inquiry; performative modesty often serves hierarchy. When the choice is between sparing feelings and speaking plainly about failures in policy, business, or governance, Galbraith sides with candor.
The line also skewers false modesty, the ritual shrug that masks ambition and invites others to supply praise. Such gestures waste time and distort judgment by forcing audiences to infer merit rather than hear it argued. Better to state claims, accept scrutiny, and be prepared to be wrong in public. That, for Galbraith, is the ethical posture of a responsible intellectual.
Set against mid-20th-century America’s growing affluence and confidence, the aphorism reads as a call to resist complacency. Do not let the etiquette of self-effacement silence necessary truths. Take responsibility for knowledge, argue it without apology, and let humility do its real work: keeping the mind open while the voice stays clear.
Galbraith spent a career arguing that power in modern economies concentrates in large organizations and that public policy needs assertive, expert counterweights. That project cannot advance if experts, reformers, or whistleblowers bow before etiquette that tells them to downplay what they know. Vested interests are not modest; they market, lobby, and proclaim. If their critics whisper, the public conversation tilts by default.
There is a useful distinction between humility and modesty. Humility acknowledges uncertainty and respects evidence; it corrects arrogance. Modesty, as Galbraith targets it, is the cultural demand to minimize one’s competence or convictions lest others take offense. Humility serves inquiry; performative modesty often serves hierarchy. When the choice is between sparing feelings and speaking plainly about failures in policy, business, or governance, Galbraith sides with candor.
The line also skewers false modesty, the ritual shrug that masks ambition and invites others to supply praise. Such gestures waste time and distort judgment by forcing audiences to infer merit rather than hear it argued. Better to state claims, accept scrutiny, and be prepared to be wrong in public. That, for Galbraith, is the ethical posture of a responsible intellectual.
Set against mid-20th-century America’s growing affluence and confidence, the aphorism reads as a call to resist complacency. Do not let the etiquette of self-effacement silence necessary truths. Take responsibility for knowledge, argue it without apology, and let humility do its real work: keeping the mind open while the voice stays clear.
Quote Details
| Topic | Humility |
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