Humility In David Brooks The Road To Character

Humility is a modest or low view of one’s importance or in other words, humbleness. Humility is expressed in David Brooks book, The Road to Character with respect to V-J day and American pride and nationalism. According to David Brooks, humility is a virtue in all human beings and it is important to balance that trait out. For example, a person in some circumstances should feel humble and aware of what is going on, but in other circumstance, one should be confident and not feel inferior to whatever is being faced. In The Road to Character, a football player had no humility as he celebrated for only a two yard gain. On the other hand, for World War II in David Brooks book, humility is appropriate for the situation as it was a generation that was involved and witnessed massive amounts of death and as a result these people felt weak as they realized what humanity as a whole could do. There was no celebration for the victory as Americans did not feel “morally superior”(4). In addition, Brooks states that “the most striking feature of the show was its tone of self-effacement and humility”(3) which implies that Americans felt somewhat despondent in response to winning the war as it involved so many

I constantly think of humility in terms of embarrassment rather than feeling inferior. I don’t always think about humility but it is an important attribute to take note of in my opinion because, it can affect what your place is in society and your importance. The overall significance of humility is quite high because you want society to perceive you as a confident person. This view is quite different from David Brook’s explanation/example of humility during V-J Day. Brooks demonstrates the humility as sorrow and the importance of things going on, while based on an individual standpoint, humility is quite different as it relates to me in different