Lance Phillips • October 29, 2024
As it happens, a rather famous poet is coming to the college where I teach to read from his work and to address the student body. I was asked to contribute a few ideas about which he could, possibly, speak. In the course of thinking about this request, thinking about the coming presidential election, and thinking about what it is we, as members of this society, could be modeling to those around us, I came across a trifecta of clarion calls. Ideas by which we can, if we choose, triangulate a position that is honest, actionable, and, most importantly, replicable.
What do you think of when you consider modesty, integrity, and safety? The face value of each of these ideals may seem completely innocuous, maybe even self-evident. It’s easy to see why we’re taught from a very young age that modesty is best, that integrity, often compartmentalized integrity, leads to higher moral action, and that safety is a universal goal. But let’s turn these ideals on their heads for a moment.
The esteemed writer, dancer, thinking and speaker, Maya Angelou, said in a talk late in her lifie, “Modesty is dangerous.” You may be thinking, “why?” How could modesty be dangerous? Stop for a moment and think. What does modesty ask us to do? Why is modesty so often cited as a beneficial way to be in the world, and to whom? When one gets down to the root of it, modesty places someone else’s expectations on you. Modesty has been used as a way to keep people, especially marginalized people, in check. Stepping into your full confidence or applying the entirety of your abilities is not modest. Acting without propriety is not modest. In both cases, gatekeeping is being used to reinforce a system that already privileges the controlling group. Angelou saw through this subversion of social etiquette. She saw clearly that this kind of control is dangerous BECAUSE it sounds good, when in fact it is about giving away your power. It is about choosing subjugation.
James Baldwin considers the idea of integrity for the artist and ultimately concludes that artistic integrity IS human integrity; they are inseparable. How often is some famed figure lauded for their integrity while remaining completely morally abject in some corner of their lives? Integrity is often weaponized by being parsed when in fact integrity only exists as a whole. One cannot pick and choose for what one has integrity. Either one has integrity or one does not. Of course, we all fail. Of course, we are not our best selves at all times. Of course, we are all human. So why don’t we praise each for the valor it takes to be honestly trying to be our best selves.
I do think there’s a connection between modesty and integrity. Modesty expects conformity to someone else’s idea of what is acceptable (to give away our power) and integrity expects perfection, even when perfection isn’t possible (to have our power taken away). In both cases our human possibility is reduced and our sphere of influence is compromised.
All this is caught up with the idea of safety. Is modesty dangerous to safety? If so, whose? Does a compartmentalized notion of integrity make us less safe? It’s clear to me that the answer to both of those questions is, “yes.”
To land this in the frame of the current (2024) presidential election: Voting is an IMMODEST act. Voting is an act that aims at integrity but will always miss. Voting is what is required of us so that we can choose modesty or immodesty, so that we can choose to try our best to have integrity. Voting is our voice and therefore our power, even if it will never be perfect.
Aristotle says we are what we repeatedly do. So choose to be kind, and to be thoughtful, and to be forgiving, but choose to embrace your full abilities and your confidence too. Choose to help make the world safer.
Sources
Why Maya Angelou Disliked Modesty – The Atlantic
Experience of What It Means to Be Human – The Marginalian
James Baldwin: The Artist’s Struggle for Integrity (full lecture audio)
Recent Comments