The Road to Character Hardcover – April 14, 2015

I’m a student of moral development, so the idea that a scholar devoted himself to the root of character development pulled me into this book.

I was grateful for the multiple vignettes on various men and women who found themselves on their path to maturity and ultimately character. It was difficult to follow the theme at times, but that was part of the charm of this book — I found myself getting immersed in each real-life story.

The author returns often to the Protestant ethic...one that believes we are inherently flawed and cannot be made whole on our own. I share this ethic, but I was disappointed how forceful the author was at pointing it out (too often). It would have been more effective to allow the reader to arrive at these concepts on his/her own.

The last chapter effectively summarizes the author’s intent, that pride is the root of all that undermines character, and humility is the root of the development of it.

I highly recommend this book to any student of moral development. While morality is can be found on many paths, this one quote from the book is the common denominator:

“Character is built in the course of your inner confrontation. Character is a set of dispositions, desires, and habits that are slowly engraved during the struggle against your own weakness.”

Writing an adequate review for best-selling author David Brook’s “The Road to Character” has been challenging. I typically work with five pages of detailed notes when reviewing a book but found myself with twenty-one pages for this review.

Brooks has written a gem of a book, one that raises the bar for future discussions of “character”. It takes time to absorb and savor. Brooks says publicly that he wrote this book to save his own soul.

“The Road to Character” is about the cultural shift from the “little me” to the “BIG ME,” from a culture that encourages people to think humbly of themselves to a culture that encourages people to see themselves as the center of the universe. This cultural shift encourages us to think about having a great career but leaves nothing for us to develop an inner life and character. For Brooks, we have lost our way to “being good” and “doing good.”

Brooks frames the discussion by contrasting “resume virtues” - those skills that one brings to the job market that contribute to external success – with “eulogy virtues” – those that are at the core of our being like courage, honesty, loyalty, and the quality of our relationships that contribute to real joy. These are embodied in two competing parts, Adam I and Adam II, of our nature that are a constant source of contradiction and tension.

Adam I is the external Adam. He wants to build, create, produce and discover things. He is characterized by actively seeking recognition, satisfying his desires, being impervious to the moral stakes involved. He has little regard for humility, sympathy, and honest self-confrontation, which are necessary for building character. He wants to have high status, win victories, and conquer the world.

Adam II is the internal Adam. He wants to embody certain moral qualities. He wants to love intimately, to sacrifice self in the service of others, to live in obedience to some transcendent truth, and to have a cohesive inner soul that honors creation in one’s own possibilities. Adam II is charity, love, and redemption.

Adam I is at work in today’s “BIG ME” culture. “Big Me” messages are everywhere; you are special; trust yourself; and be true to yourself. This ‘Gospel of Self’ begins with childhood when awards and rewards are given for just being, not doing. “We are all wonderful, follow your passion, don’t accept limits and chart your own course.”

This has led to an ethos based on a “ravenous hunger in a small space of self-concern, competition, and a hunger for distinction at any cost,” an ethos where envy has replaced admiration. This self-centeredness leads to several unfortunate directions: selfishness, the use of other people as a means to an end, seeing oneself as superior to everyone else, and living with a capacity to ignore and rationalize one’s imperfections and inflate one’s virtues.

The “BIG ME” culture distorts the purpose of our journey and the meaning of life. “Parts of themselves go unexplored and unstructured. They have a vague anxiety that their life has not achieved its ultimate meaning and significance. They live with unconscious boredom, not really loving, and unattached to the moral purpose that gives life it’s worth. They lack the internal criteria to make unshakable commitments. They never develop inner constancy, the integrity that can withstand popular disapproval or a serious blow. They foolishly judge others by their abilities and not by their worth. This external life will eventually fall to pieces.”

In this increasingly “BIG ME” culture, Brooks became haunted by the voices of the past and the quality of humility and character they exhibited. People in the past guarded themselves against some of their least attractive tendencies to be prideful, self-congratulatory, and hubristic. “You would not even notice these people. They were reserved. They did not need to prove anything in the world.” They embodied humility, restraint, reticence, temperance, respect, and soft discipline. “They radiated a sort of moral joy. They answered softly when challenged harshly. They were silent when unfairly abused, dignified when others tried to humiliate them, and restrained when others tried to provoke them…

But they got things done. They were not thinking about what impressive work they were doing. They were not thinking about themselves at all. They just seemed delighted by the flawed people around them. They made you feel funnier and smarter when you spoke with them. They moved through all social classes with ease. They did not boast. They did not lead lives of conflict-free tranquility but struggled towards maturity. These people built a strong inner character, people who achieved a certain depth. They surrendered to the struggle to deepen their soul.”

Brooks highlights the lives of prominent and influential people - Francis Perkins, Dwight Eisenhower, Dorothy Day, George C. Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, George Eliot, St. Augustine, Samuel Johnson, Michel de Montaigne – to articulate the diverse roads taken by a diverse set of people, white and black, male and female, religious and secular, literary and non-literary. Not one of them was even close to perfect. They were acutely aware of their own weaknesses and they waged an internal struggle against their sins to emerge with some measure of self-respect..

“The Road to Character” is a “road less traveled.” It involves moments of moral crisis, confrontation, and recovery. To go up, one first has to go down (The “U Curve”); one must descend into the valley of humility to climb to the heights of character. Only then will one have the ability to see their own nature, their everyday self-deceptions, and shatter all Illusions of self-mastery.

Humility is central to the journey. Humility leads to wisdom, a moral quality of knowing what you don’t know and finding a way to manage ignorance, uncertainty, and limitation. It offers freedom…freedom from the need to prove your superiority. Alice had to be small to enter Wonderland. “Only the one who descends into the underworld rescues the beloved.”

The paradox for Adam I is that he cannot achieve enduring external success unless he builds a solid moral core as sought by Adam II. Without inner integrity, your Watergate, your scandal, your betrayal, will eventually happen. Adam I versus Adam II, Adam I ultimately depends on Adam II.

Brooks wrote this book to learn who has traveled this road to character, and what it looks like. He found you cannot be the good person you want to be unless you wage this campaign against self. I highly recommend this book as one of the most profound books published this year.

End note: Brook’s sections on love and suffering are excellent.

To be brief about this, The Road to Character should be required reading and, perhaps more importantly, discussion throughout the 50 States. He begins by asking the interesting question of whether the individual wants to be remembered as his/her "Resume" or "Eulogy". Do we lead our lives fueled by a desire to establish a resume of success or to be remembered by others in a eulogy. He presents this approach by referring to Adam 1 (Resume of significance) and Adam 2 (Eulogy of a life well spent). Mr. Brooks understands that we human beings are complicated animals and that we are all fallible and subject to the lesser instincts of life. But he also understands that we have the ability to understand ourselves - to look inward and recognize those weaknesses - to become part of a greater good than the self. He chooses as multiple topics of conversation, a number of significant individuals in our history and he analyzes how these very different people dealt with themselves. We all, everyone of us, need to understand that heroism comes in many forms and one need not be - cannot be - without flaw. The trick is to understand oneself and view our roles as parts of the jigsaw of life where we can all play a part. "Character" means knowing ourselves and remaining loyal to our nobler aspirations despite those flaws.