Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Road to Character, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Self-Renunciation vs. Self-Love
Inner Life, External Life, and Character
Vice, Virtue, and Self-Confrontation
Vocation and Sacrifice
Love, Transformation, and Service
Happiness vs. Moral Joy
Summary
Analysis
In the 1969 Super Bowl, the quarterbacks Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath faced each other from opposing teams. Both had grown up in Pennsylvania, but they came from different moral cultures. Unitas grew up in the old culture of self-effacement. He went to strict Catholic school that told the students they’d be failures. He dedicated himself to football. He was turned down by several colleges and teams before being called to join the Baltimore Colts.
Brooks uses Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath’s face-off in the Superbowl to illustrate the shift in culture from an attitude of self-renunciation to an attitude of self-love. Johnny Unitas represents moral realism: his upbringing and education taught him to not to think too highly of himself and to devote himself seriously to football as a vocation.
Themes
Unitas slowly but steadily improved as a player and strengthened his teammates. He had a notoriously understated personality and looked like a boring salesman. He was serious about football and approached it like an honest worker doing an honest job. Even though he became well-known, he was unglamorous, never puffing himself up.
Unitas’s attitude and appearance were also a reflection of an old culture. He was humble and reserved and always acted as a team player rather than a standout individual. These things all reflect the self-renunciation of the old moral philosophy.
Themes
Joe Namath, on the other hand, grew up half a generation later in a different moral culture. His personality was confident, extroverted, and entertaining. He was always the center of attention and wore flashy clothes. His life philosophy was to follow his desires. He was self-absorbed and proud of it and didn’t seek commitments to anything. Instead, he embodied an ethos of “The Big Me.”
Joe Namath’s extroversion and flashy personality showed that he considered himself the center of the universe. He embraced the self-celebratory attitude that Brooks noticed in a modern-day quarterback that contrasted so starkly against the humility of the radio hosts during World War II.
Themes
Many people think the cultural shift from Unitas’s humility to “The Big Me” was due to the self-expressiveness of the 1960s hippies. Brooks gives the true story: in biblical times, a tradition of moral realism taught that all humans are flawed. Moses and David, for instance, were biblical heroes with flaws. Augustine developed this by emphasizing the human need for grace. Then writers like Eliot and Montaigne emphasized the limits of human knowledge. Humans are limited in many ways: their reason is too limited to understand themselves, they are drawn perversely to vice, and they can’t complete themselves alone.
The concept of moral realism—the self-renunciation philosophy—came initially from the Bible and was developed through subsequent thinkers and writers. This philosophy emphasized all the ways in which human beings are limited: they are not self-completing, they have a weakness for vice, and they can’t understand themselves.
Themes
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In the 18th century, moral romanticism emerged which emphasized human beings’ inner goodness. While the moral realists distrusted the self and trusted society, the moral romanticists distrusted society and trusted the self. The two traditions lived side-by-side. Each character Brooks describes grew up in the 20th century with the vocabulary of moral realism. Then, in the late 1940s, moral realism collapsed. The hardships of the Great Depression and World War II caused people to look for a more positive philosophy of themselves.
Moral romanticism—the philosophy of self-love—emerged independent of the 1960s peace movement, contrary to what many people think. Moral romanticism did not take full hold until the Great Depression era, when the hardships became so intense that people could no longer bear moral realism’s negative tone. This suggests that moral romanticism, although perhaps less fundamental than moral realism, has some benefits to boosting morale in hard times.
Themes
Books came out with the positive affirmation people wanted. Their philosophies proposed a new morality that involved loving oneself rather than suppressing oneself. The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale suggested that people banish negative thoughts and pep talk themselves to success; psychologists determined that the biggest psychological problem is that people don’t love themselves enough.
Instead of moral realism’s logic of self-renunciation, moral romanticism encouraged self-expression. Because people were thinking more positively about human nature, they started to crave happiness rather than character. This led to a more Adam I way of thinking—maximizing natural talents to gain happiness.
Themes
This cultural shift is a response to circumstances. The moral shift to self-love helped improve many social injustices such as the oppression of women. Katherine Meyer Graham was able to free herself from a life of subservience during this time. She was raised to be a perfect housewife and married a man who subtly demeaned her. After her husband committed suicide, she was elected president of the Washington Post. The new wave of self-love emboldened her to break from her oppressed role and become a powerful figure.
Brook’s acknowledges that moral romanticism had its benefits, as it was instrumental in many civil rights movements. In the feminist movement, for example, the positive thinking of moral romanticism provided the necessary spark for freeing long oppressed people. In this way, Brook’s suggests that moral romanticism is useful for jolting society into better behavior, but not for a long-term philosophy of morality.
Themes
The understanding of human nature was changed by the shift to the “Big Me.” The shift led people to believe that everyone is perfect within and that one’s desires are oracles for what is right and true. This means that morality is no longer found in external, objective goods. Rather, morality is determined by each unique individual. Therefore, sin is believed to exist outside the self, in society.
Moral romanticism changed society’s conception of morality. Previously, moral realists’ distrust of themselves meant that they put their trust in an external moral order. This made morality objective. With the arrival of moral romanticism, society started to distrust the external morality and trust internal, individual feelings. This destroyed morality’s objectivity.
Themes
Advancements in technology alter moral culture in three ways: first, communication is so fast that it’s harder to hear the quieter voices that come from a person’s inner self, where their moral desires lie. Also, with technology, people construct environments that suit themselves, thereby putting themselves at the center of their universe. Lastly, technology divides a person, because they can present an external self that is different from their internal one.
Brook’s claims that moral romanticism was exacerbated by technology. This is mostly because technology makes communications fast and vibrant, which isn’t the language that a person’s inner self speaks in. In this way, technology separated people from their internal selves and drew them into the loud, fast-paced external world.
Themes
The meritocracy, or the “Big Me” culture, supports self-aggrandizing behavior. It encourages individuals to make an impact, which leads to a competitive environment. This high-pressure meritocracy views the self as a resource to be cultivated. The sensational book by Dr. Seuss Oh the Places You’ll Go! perfectly sums up this meritocracy. The main character is told he has amazing talents and is given total freedom to fulfill his desires. Also, the goals the boy pursues are external: fame and success.
The extreme of a culture of moral romanticism is a meritocracy. Brook’s criticizes Dr. Seuss’s Oh the Places You’ll Go!, a popular graduation gift, in order to show just how much moral romanticism is baked into modern society’s mindset. The main character of this book longs for is external success that isn’t related to inner character.
Themes
This culture causes people to think a lot of themselves and their talents, which leads to a society that over-emphasizes work. This in its turn causes people to develop a utilitarian logic, viewing everything as an opportunity to advance their status. “Character” changes to mean resilience, confidence, tenacity—anything that makes them stand out. In order to achieve as much as possible, they will avoid any commitment that limits their time.
Brooks suggests that moral romanticism leads to a society that over-values career. Early on, he made a clear distinction between a vocation and a career: a vocation is work that essentially becomes a person’s core self, in that they devote themselves to a cause that transcends themselves. A career, however, is the external success through which a person tries to gain self-worth.
Themes
Brooks believes that the shift to the “Big Me” culture went too far. It went from positivity to self-branding and finally overboard to a competitive meritocracy. The meritocracy focuses on Adam I but neglects Adam II, which leaves people imbalanced, without fulfillment of the soul. The meritocracy tells a person how to get to the top, using status to tell them they are doing right. But it doesn’t teach them to ask why, and so they never learn to point their lives in a meaningful direction.
Although moral romanticism’s initial positivity was beneficial, it ultimately damaged society by turning it into a meritocracy. Brooks claims that a meritocracy widens the gap between the Adam I and Adam II sides of human nature, cutting off people’s desired selves from their actual selves. Although people know better how to get success now, they have no idea why they are living.
Themes
In one example, the meritocracy has corrupted the bond of parenthood in two ways: firstly, children now receive such excessive praise that they develop lofty aspirations. Secondly, children’s talents are groomed and honed. Although children these days are showered in love, it is conditional love that steers them toward worldly success.
Children in meritocracies are loved conditionally, so that they feel they need to earn their parents’ love. Although it looks as though children are loved more than ever, it is only because parents are showering them with gifts and praise because they want to prepare them for success.
Themes
Like parents in the 1950s, parents today still want their children to be obedient, but they have hidden this motive in the disguise of merit-based approval. When a parent praises their child for certain talents, the possibility of their disapproval lurks just out of sight. This puts enormous pressure on children, causing them to believe they are loved only if they earn it. Parents unconsciously view their children as projects they can engineer to produce desired results. Rather, parenthood should exist outside the meritocracy and be founded on unconditional love.
When children are loved conditionally, they always fear that love will be withdrawn if they aren’t successful. In the story of Augustine, it was essential for him to understand that God’s love was unconditional—that Augustine didn’t have to do anything particular in life to earn it. This unmerited love gave Augustine the energy and courage to transcend the material world and develop a steady character outside of his societal role.
Themes
These shifts in culture have made people morally inarticulate. They have made society materialistic; statistics show that teenagers rank fame and wealth much higher than they used to in their goals. Also, they have made society individualistic. People believe the true answers are found in their perfect selves, leading them not to engage with others or seek their counsel. People are less empathetic and trusting. Statistics show a general increase in words such as “self” and a decrease in words such as “community.”
Brooks suggests that in general, moral romanticism causes community to disintegrate. Since people trust themselves rather than the society around them, the basis for connecting with others disappears. Each individual becomes a unique bundle of feelings leading their own moral paths based on these unique feelings. Because people are encouraged to trust themselves, no one looks to others for moral guidance.
Themes
Adam II’s moral dictionary has shrunk, leaving people at a loss for how to articulate moral problems. For instance, when asked in an interview to share a moral quandary he’d faced recently, a teenager shared a time when he didn’t have enough money to pay the parking meter. When a person believes they create their own worldview, they become emotivist—making moral judgements based on feelings. They also become relativist, having no basis on which to judge morality with another individual. Lastly, they become individualist, believing they are moral arbiters.
Since people no longer rely on community as heavily, morality ceases to have a communal or objective meaning. Morality has become subjective—moral problems are synonymous with individual emotions. Therefore, morality as a word starts to lose meaning. For the moral realists, morality was a standard they held themselves to. Now that no one tries to be better than their natural self, the standard starts to disappear altogether.
Themes
Leo Tolstoy’s novel The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a successful man who one day takes a fall and ends up on his deathbed. Although he has led a seemingly happy life with a good job and reputation, he suddenly doubts that his life has been satisfactory at all. His marriage was rushed and ended up cold, and he’d been too focused on money. He’d had impulses to act against convention but ignored them.
Ivan Ilyich is in the state of dissatisfaction that happens when there’s a gap between one’s desired self and their actual self. This happened because to Ivan because he spent his life focusing on his external success—the Adam I side of his nature. Therefore, his inner core—his Adam II—remained out of reach his whole life.
Themes
Tolstoy paints the dramatically unhappy picture of a man without an inner life. Many people are like the character Ivan, living along with social conventions that insufficiently fulfill them. Therefore, part of the answer is to stand against the society that promotes only the Adam I side of human nature.
Brook’s encourages people to rebel against the status quo that emphasizes the external life. Although in many cases conformity can define a person’s character, in a meritocracy, conformity shrivels the inner life.
Themes
Each society creates its own “moral ecology”—a set of norms, habits, and moral demands—in response to the problems of the moment. In the last several decades, the moral ecology has been built around Adam I only, leading to a narcissistic society. To restore balance between our Adam I and Adam II natures, we must go back to what we’ve left behind and ask the important questions, such as: How should I orient my life? How do I mold my nature so as to be better?
Brook’s is not trying to turn back time—he recognizes that a “moral ecology” is always an appropriate response to certain societal problems. However, he believes that the current moral ecology of excessive moral romanticism is creating its own set of problems which demand a new moral ecology along the lines of moral realism.
Themes
Brooks sums up his themes in 15 points. 1. Human beings seek lives of purpose, not lives of pleasure. 2. The road to character starts with the understanding that human beings are flawed creatures. 3. Human beings are divided, both flawed and “splendidly endowed.” 4. Humility is human nature’s greatest virtue. 5. Pride is human nature’s biggest vice.
Each one of Brooks’s points is illustrated by at least one of his exemplars. Each biography was a tale of sacrifice and formative suffering, proving that humans prefer purpose to happiness. Samuel Johnson’s nature—tormented with bad feelings yet intelligent—proved that human nature is flawed and endowed. Moreover, several of the examples support Brooks’s belief that humility is the greatest human virtue—humility caused each character to devote their lives to something larger than themselves and thereby find themselves. Augustine, meanwhile, shows that pride is the central human vice: it was at the root of his obsession with external success as a delusional path to self-worth and at the root of his illusion that he could master himself.
Themes
6. The struggle against vice and toward virtue is the central “drama” of human life. 7. Character is not natural but is built through the process of self-confrontation. 8. The things that lead us off course are short-term, such as lust and vanity, while the things that constitute character are long-term, such as courage and humility.
Dorothy Day proved that the purpose of life is to struggle toward virtue at the expense of simple pleasure. Eisenhower and Marshall were prime examples of people who built artificial second selves that were better than their natural selves. In this way, they built character.
Themes
9. No person achieves self-mastery without help from outside, such as from community, God, or tradition. 10. People are saved by grace—an unconditional love that gives a person gratitude and the desire to serve back. 11. To defeat weakness, one must quiet the self. 12. Wisdom is not knowledge but rather knowing how to behave when one knows nothing.
Augustine and George Eliot showed that love and community help a person forget their own desires, master themselves, and serve others. Unconditional love saved and steadied both of them. Montaigne and Samuel Johnson were able to honestly and objectively examine themselves by accepting the fact that their own minds were vast and incomprehensible.
Themes
13. Every good life is organized around a vocation, a calling. 14. The best leaders work gradually and incrementally to effect change. 15. The person who struggles against their weaknesses becomes mature and centered.
Frances Perkins shaped her entire life and character around her vocation—the cause of workers’ rights. Randolph, Rustin, and Eisenhower knew that in order to effect societal change, they had to restrain their own potential for vice and act moderately.
Themes
The people in The Road to Character followed different roads to character. Even though they subscribed to moral realism, they approached it in different ways. They all had one similarity, however: they all started out with a vulnerability that took them a lifetime to transcend. Ultimately, they were each redeemed by that weakness. From their struggle, each built a great strength.
Brooks made his collection of biographies as varied as possible to show that there are many roads to character. In general, Brooks wanted to show that character is something that people build, not something they’re born with. A common thread is that each character had a vice or weakness that they repressed and a strength they built in its place.
Themes
Brooks leaves the reader with the good news that it is okay to be flawed, since everyone is. Everyone sins and stumbles through life. However, one attains self-understanding through humility, and one attains wholeness through struggle. Everyone is unified by their common sin, and everyone must rely on their community to help them confront their weaknesses.
The Road to Character is also meant to make people feel less alone. It comforts the reader with the knowledge that even great people struggled with vice. In putting together a collection of life stories, Brooks provides a community to assist readers who want to build character.
Themes
The flawed person reaches toward goals that are beyond the individual scope. They fail, find dignity in failing, and rise to the challenge again with new strength. Over a lifetime of building character, outer ambition comes into balance with inner aspiration, and a person achieves a “flow,” their moral nature and external skills uniting toward the same end. With this feeling comes joy, a hushed, peaceful feeling of knowing why they are here in this life.
Brooks concludes The Road to Character with a description of the “flow” or “hush” that a person feels when their inner values are at last in line with their outer behavior. This “hush” or sense of peace is present at the end of each biography, even if it is accompanied by sacrifice and pain. For instance, Dorothy Day experienced immense gratitude, while Augustine experienced peace. Ultimately, then, Brooks suggests that building inner character, rather than chasing external success, is what will fulfill people and give them purpose.
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