In defence of self-deprecation

I think the ancient English art of self–deprecation may be dying.

I don’t mean self-deprecation in its distorted and most exported form: pug-eyed rogues like Hugh Grant getting away with murder — more usually infidelity — by grinning and rubbing their hair. That’s different. That’s ‘bogus self-deprecation’, as my friend Stuart Reid used to say. What I mean is the assumption that you shouldn’t swank or push yourself forward; that in conversation it’s more polite, civilised, to downplay your own achievements, even and especially if you’re a great success.

I began to worry at a conference I was invited to last week: a day of lectures and advice for young people wanting to get ahead. Before the conference began, I met the speakers — a panel of  international success stories in their thirties and forties. They were due to talk about ‘personal branding’, so I suggested, just in passing, that young Brits, brought up self-effacing, might be reluctant to brag.

What had been a genial atmosphere became in an instant frosty. An American woman in banking spoke for the group: ‘I can’t stand that attitude,’ she said, and her top lip tightened across her teeth, which is a sure sign of secret rage. I looked to a British speaker for sympathy, but she averted her eyes and her top lip twitched too. The Yank, the Brit, the Italian and Canadian, they all agreed: self-deprecation is irritating and outdated, moreover antithetical to advancing your personal brand. It belongs, they said, to a sort of Britishness that’s had its day.

Well, that was that. Outgunned and cowardly, I beat a retreat and considered their crossness. Is it that self-deprecation is difficult to decipher? I can see it’s frustrating to hear an Englishman say: ‘Oh, I’m not much good at tennis’, then ace the game.