A question of connotations? --- That's a convincing argument which works because you depict self-sacrifice as noble in each of your examples. I think those who objected to the notion of diminishing oneself (in the context of courtesy and the aggrandisement of the other) did so because they felt the term was negative, synonymous in its connotations with 'self-abasement' or 'putting oneself down' or 'effacing oneself'.

Source author: Biljana Scott biscott@diplomacy.edu