When did you last wake up asking how to become a better person?
Noted journalist advocates channelling "Adam II" to build good character
With my time so precious, I rarely read just for sheer enjoyment. A book must teach me something before I commit to completing it.
The text I’m reading now is both a joy and touches on our most essential tasks as human beings: How do we become more moral, happy and centered people with a focus beyond what the author calls “the big me.”
The Road to Character, by New York Times columnist David Brooks, is a series of biographical sketches of historical figures, none of them perfect and some even deeply flawed. None is a saint, not even St. Augustine, the renowned fifth-century Catholic theologian whose life Brooks explores.
It is a series of easy-to-read moral tales about people who were aware of their own ethical failings — we all have them — and struggle against them and attain inner peace. They include social and African-American activists, a former U.S. president and his mother, a 19th-century novelist, as well as prolific 18th-Century English and 15th-century French moralists.
The book is premised on the notion that tales about flesh and blood humans are far more potent than an encyclopedic collection of sermons. By its nature, it is judgmental. Yet it treads lightly and is rarely heavy-handed or stern.
This is not a self-help book in the modern sense. It is not meant to make us better at our careers, pad our bank accounts, build our abs or organize our time. It is meant to diminish the part of us that Brooks refers to as “Adam I” — which is self-centered, seeks wealth, career success and social status, and which uses others for self advancement but that ultimately risks alienation and disappointment.
Brooks encourages readers to seek out their inner “Adam II,” the person who wants “a serene inner character … to love intimately, to sacrifice self in the service of others, to live in obedience to some transcendent truth, to have a cohesive inner world.”
“We live in a culture that teaches us to promote and advertise ourselves and to master the skills required for success but that gives little encouragement to humility, sympathy and self-confrontation,” Brooks asserts.
In short, Brooks is asking us for more self-assessment of our core morality, call it “soul” if you like. He does not ask that we wallow in guilt for our moral failures, though his biographical characters often do. He does, though, ask that we confront our flaws and attempt to exorcise or diminish them. And he makes it plain — through his biographical sketches — that doing so can be uncomfortable and disorienting. It’s hard, after all, to admit our faults.
As Brooks himself acknowledges, his preoccupation with morality is somewhat of an anachronism. When was the last time you woke up in the morning asking how you could make yourself a better, more compassionate and loving human being?
Moral development used to be common theme among writers, starting with the ancient Greeks and continuing with the Bible of course.
Something as simple as Thoreau’s Walden, in which the American transcendentalist advocates simple living and exposure to nature, was a kind of morality self-help book.
John Milton wrote a famous sonnet in which he asks, in an echo of the biblical parable, “When I consider how my light (talents and energy) is spent…”
Moby Dick is not so much about an obsessive, revenge-driven hunt for a whale as it is an allegorical warning not to abandon our religious and spiritual moorings. Loss of these drive Captain Ahab mad at the prospect that human life has no significance.
It would take a book or two to explore all the reasons for the decline of focus on inner character: The rise of consumer marketing; the moral failings of so many public figures; the retreat from social and political life; the boastful comportment of athletes and performers — certainly these are among them.
The decline of church, religious and spiritual influences also no doubt comes into play. Most religions teach that there is a dimension to life beyond what we see, something transcendent that we experience if we are devout and spiritual.
Satan, sin and hell were once major, palpable forces and preoccupations for common people. Not many people speak in these terms any more, and it is better not to be raised in terror of what lurks in the afterlife. Still, it’s fair to ask, what has replaced those quaint old admonishments for creating good character?
“With immortality before me, altruism would be a paying business proposition,” scoffs the antagonist in Jack London’s 1905 novel, The Sea Wolf.
There are many reasons for us to seek a moral life beyond the historical inducements of heaven and hell. Good people make good citizens. They are the core of Democratic and social life.
People of good inner character are tolerant. They are respectful. They are honest. They help others. They honor justice. They don’t cheat or worship money. Human intercourse is more fulfilling when people are good to one another.
Brooks, who wrote this book in 2015, did not link the decline in moral thinking to the nation’s political upheaval. Yet, many of our political problems are traceable to moral failings such as hubris, self-centeredness, greed, prejudice and lust for power. Democracy will not endure in a society that is morally weak and excessively self-centered.
Our politicians — and we as the body politic — would do well to channel Adam II.
I read or listen to Michael Singer daily. He wrote The Untethered Soul. I think it is similar to the text you are discussing.
Reading or listening to things like that, for me, Michael Singer, does help me to keep in the forefront of my mind how can I be better today? What can I bring to this universe to make it a better place. And that is harder and harder, it seems for most people, in a world that is very egocentric. As you said, it’s not easy work where the ego is involved but it does get easier the more you do it. :)
Well done Andre. This book is now on my list! Thank you.