Is humility a deception or a safeguard against vanity?

In the context of this website, what I am asking is this: Is calling myself a “polymath” contrary to, a) the spirit of modesty or, b) the spirit of truth?

Introduction

When I was thinking about how to introduce this site, I debated with myself whether to use the word polymath because it might come across as vanity. The following were amongst the thoughts that led me to go ahead with using the word.

My Primary School Experience

I don’t know whether it’s still the case, but when I attended primary school in Iran (before the 1979 revolution), we were encouraged to read and learn life lessons from Sadi of Shiraz, a thirteenth Century Persian sage and ethicist. In one of his famous works, Golestan (The Rose Garden), he proceeds, at length, to extol the virtues of tavazo’, which, we were told, means modesty (in the sense of humility). As a child, I took this to mean not being too vociferous about what I know and what I can do. This, coupled with the Persian proverb, “what is obvious does not need to be stated” [the original Perisan is more poetic and rhythmic than my translation here], meant that I never directly told people what I know or what I can do unless the situation arose, such as when I was asked directly or when something needed to be done and I could do it.

What my PhD supervisor told me

When I was studying for my PhD in pharmacology, I had also started a chemical manufacturing company where I developed novel chemical solutions to everyday problems. One of the products I developed was a solution that you would put on surfaces that would normally become charged with static electricity. The solution dispersed the charge so that the surface would not attract so much dust. I donated a bottle to the pharmacy department. Many years later, my PhD supervisor, mentioning the product, said to me, “You know, the problem with you, Bijan, is that other people do a small thing and sing its praises over the rooftops and yet, you have done so many great things but live in obscurity.” I remember thinking, “But it’s so unethical to sing one’s own praises over the rooftops, especially over a small thing.” Much later, I learnt something that began to change that (although, old habits do die hard).

The big misunderstanding

Many years later, I was told by a literary scholar that the root of the word, tavazo’ (a borrowed word from Arabic), which has now come to mean ‘humility’, is the word, vaz’ which means ‘situation’ and tavazo’ [the apostrophe here indicates a glottal stop] literally means, “informing people of your true situation”, i.e., neither exaggerating nor under-stating one’s capabilities.

Is society selling us a big lie as a virtue?

If exaggeration is deception, isn’t humility also deception? If so, why is it that we are told that exaggeration is ‘bad’ but humility (or being humble) is ‘good’? This reminds me of the following song called, ‘it’s hard to be humble’ performed by Mac Davis which became a big hit in its day – obviously it struck a chord. Stating that something is ‘hard’ implies that it’s valuable.

On the one hand, I can see how we do have a tendency to exaggerate and I can see the benefits of society trying to do something to tame such tendencies. On the other hand, I believe this can,
a) Be a soft route to promoting deception [which reminds of the ‘Gateway Hypothesis’ for drug addiction that suggests that nicotine exposure may prime the brain’s reward pathways, potentially increasing susceptibility to other substances], You can read an article that I’ve written about this here.
b) Promote low self-esteem. You can read an article that I’ve written about this here
c) Deprive society of potential talent. You can read an article that I’ve written about this here

Is anyone here a genius?

Some years ago, representatives from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Foundation held a meeting at the Institute of Education in London where they were promoting the idea that if only 1% meditators were reached in the general population, that would be a threshold whereby further intervention would no longer be needed for a continual drop in crime rate. They were asking for £100 donations to implement their idea in London. I remember thinking to myself, well, the foundation is valued at £13 billion (at the time) and that, with that kind of money, they could implement their program at a fraction of the cost and reach well above their target 1% of the entire world population if they promoted their programme in India rather than in London.

As I was thinking this, and being very skeptical of their reasons for being there (we educators tend to be eternal optimists and are suckers for programmes that might lead to world peace and prosperity :-), one of them asked, is anyone here a genius? I hesitated briefly and then was the first to put my hand up. The person asking the question looked somewhat surprised and kept looking at me whilst others began to also put their hands up.

I don’t know why he asked the question, but I felt that it was what psychologists call, appeal to authority, the idea being that if you are not a genius, then you must trust those who are (and help us with our programme). You can read an article that I’ve written about this here.

Conclusions

To wrap up, the distinction between false modesty and true humility lies in their underlying cognition, emotion, and motivation. While false modesty is characterized by insincerity, strategic concealment driven by social motives, true humility reflects an authentic, balanced self-view rooted in genuine self-awareness and emotional acceptance. Nevertheless, given that modesty inherently involves some degree of concealment or self-limitation, the question remains whether pure, ‘true’ modesty exists or whether all modesty functions as a form of social or internal concealment. Ultimately, modesty appears to be about balancing authentic self-perception and social behavior, with genuine humility representing the ideal but possibly imperfect realization of this virtue. You can read an article that I’ve written about this here

My invitation to you: Please join the debate

In addition to commenting below, I invite you to join our forum on this topic, where you will meet like-minded people.