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One of the principle arguments of my book is that confidence is a modern virtue. So I was delighted to find (via jcgr’s flickr photostream) this billboard:

It comes from an organisation called The Foundation for a Better Life. On their website, values.com, they’ve got loads of these billboards. Each one represents a contemporary virtue - hope, compassion, leadership and so on - with a photo of a heroic exemplar. So perseverance gets Shaq; strength gets Christopher Reeve.

There’s so much to be written about this campaign, from its status as advertising to its political orientation (right of centre, I’d say). What’s fascinating to me though is the way it treats confidence: as a virtue.

Virtues seem to be called values nowadays, at least outside books on moral philosophy, but the principle is the same: both represent the qualities that define what sort of life, what sort of character, what sort of actions and what state of being it is desirable to aspire to.

It’s odd to me that confidence is this age’s particular virtue. Previous centuries have found it pretty irrelevent. Yet for us, it makes perfect sense that a list of virtues should include both confidence and “believe in yourself” (with Shrek as its exemplar). One of the things I hope to do in my book is suggest reasons why this might be the case.

Some virtues are timeless: pretty much all societies at all times have had notions of courage and truth, for example, both of which made Aristotle’s foundational list. But other virtues are specific to their time. This is why, for me, confidence is well compared to honour. Honour appears in a variety of forms on values.com, but it’s virtuous power has faded considerably. Not that I know of course, but the same could well happen to confidence.

That’s not to say that confidence is not important - right now, it might be the most important thing in the world. The billboards section of the website has comments from down the side. Here’s one:

“One morning I took an alternate route to school.It was the day of a big test that I prepared for but yet was uncertain of my ability. I saw this billboard and really felt the message, I knew that was all I needed–to believe in myself and have confidence. When I am faced with a tough situation I remember this billboard. Thank you-all your billboards are great!!”   Teresa T., New York, New York, USA

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