The Road to Character
David Brooks begins this book by looking at the virtues our culture values – outward values such as ambition, creativity, status. He calls those resume values. He also looks at the inward values – morality, “a serene inner character, a quiet but solid sense of right and wrong, not only to do good, but to be good…to sacrifice self in the service of others.” He calls these the eulogy values.
The chapters in the book focus on people throughout history who worked to develop character through working to build those inward values. They weren’t necessarily born with those values, but by seeing those values as important and working on them themselves or by having people in their lives that modeled those values, or by going through some kind of pain or struggle and wondering what they are supposed to learn and do next, they were able to see and develop the importance of those values.
Some of the people that Brooks writes about are Frances Perkins, Ida Eisenhower, Dorothy Day, George Marshall, Augustine. All of them developed a Humility Code that leads to character building.
“ Character is a set of dispositions, desires, and habits that are slowly engraved during the struggle against your own weakness. You become more disciplined, considerate and loving through a thousand small acts of self-control, sharing, service, friendships and refined enjoyment.”
These may sound familiar. Teachers, caregivers, parents provide opportunities for children to develop character by encouraging helping, empathy, caring for themselves and others, respectful behaviors so that children can become people who embrace both resume values and eulogy values, in other words, whole people.
This article is part of our Newsletter 2024 Issue 3. See all articles.
