KEY POINTS:
"The real hero," Italian writer Umberto Eco once declared, "is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else."
It may seem an unduly cynical assessment, but it rhymes with the experience of heroism invariably recounted by those who have shown uncommon valour.
Corporal Willy Apiata, the first New Zealander - and just the 14th person anywhere - since World War II to be awarded the Victoria Cross, is plainly a man who would feel uncomfortable with the hero appellation. As he sat before the cameras - alternately squirming with discomfort at all the attention, and holding his head as proudly high as he deserved to - he said that he was "just doing what I'm trained for ... [doing] my job."
Tellingly, he added that his heroic act - carrying a wounded comrade across broken, fire-swept ground to safety - was one performed "in the heat of the moment".
In doing so, he confirmed the truth of Eco's observation that acts of heroism are never deliberate. Real heroes act on impulse - or just because any action other than the one that will eventually be hailed as heroic is unthinkable.
Versions of Apiata's explanation occur regularly in civilian life. "Anybody else would have done the same thing," is the regular refrain of people who perform courageous acts. Those of us reading about it in the newspaper cannot imagine ourselves acting in the same way, but that is because we are in the comfort of our homes, with time to calculate the odds and assess the relative consequences of various courses of action. Faced with having to make an instant choice between helping and turning our backs, most of us would probably surprise ourselves.
None of this is to depreciate even slightly the gallantry of Apiata's actions. Yet we all feel that his humility is an integral part of his heroism. A popular Maori proverb, which the new VC-winner would doubtless know, says that the kumara does not sing of its own sweetness, and Apiata's behaviour during his reluctant moment in the spotlight has exemplified that perfectly.
Modesty, of course, is a virtue most often urged by those who have accomplished nothing that they run any risk of being immodest about: their liking for others' modesty is a cousin to jealousy, because it seeks to cut down to size those who excel. This is the real meaning of what has become known as the tall-poppy syndrome. Lesser celebrities are fond of trotting out the phrase as a way of deflecting criticism, or indeed any assessment. The truly excellent never hide behind the idea because they welcome criticism as the price of excellence and they know, in any case, that dispassionate assessment is unlikely to find them wanting.
For all that, New Zealanders like their achievers to be quiet. "Modest" and "unassuming" are the default adjectives for plonking in front of the word "hero". Sir Edmund Hillary - who may unmistakably be identified with the single-syllable moniker "Ed", is regarded as the apotheosis of the Kiwi hero simply because he has never acted like one. From the minute he descended from the summit of Everest and remarked mildly that he and Tenzing had "knocked the bastard off", he has always spoken of himself not as an achiever but as a bloke who was in the right place at the right time.
But it is worth wondering whether self-effacement is always an absolute virtue. To punch, as this little nation does, habitually above its weight is to believe in our unlimited possibility. Big-headedness is never a virtue. But modesty is not always the best policy. And it is certainly not, if self-deprecation is just another way of professing modest ambitions.
