The Road to Character: Chapter 3: Self-Conquest Summary & Analysis

Brooks introduces Ida Stover Eisenhower—mother of Dwight D. Eisenhower, or “Ike”—born in 1862 in Virginia. Her upbringing was filled with tragedies: Union soldiers invaded her home looking for her brothers, and both her parents died before she was 12. She went to work as a cook for a host family. Ida’s ambition to improve herself caused her to leave her hosts, get a job, and enroll in high school—something girls usually didn’t do in those days. She received an inheritance of $1,000 which she used to buy a piano and enroll in college, where she studied music.

While in college, she met David Eisenhower, whose temperament was the opposite of hers. She was warm and optimistic, but David was stubborn and cold. However, the two married and stayed together for life. After marriage, Ida became strict in her faith but remained fun-loving and kind. Her husband opened a store, which soon failed. They moved to Texas where Dwight was born, but soon they were so poor that David’s family had to come to their rescue. Eventually David was offered a job, and they moved to Abilene, Kansas.

Ida raised five boys, all of whom worshipped her and grew up to be successful. There was little fun or affection in the house growing up. However, the boys were raised with Ida’s commitment to education and her warm personality. Abilene was a part of the “Bible Belt,” where Victorian morality was strictly enforced. The boys grew up in an 833 square foot house and endured many rural hardships, including infection and injury.

When Ida lost a son, she became more personally religious. The harshness of the Eisenhowers’ life made them used to disaster being right around the corner. This instilled a moral discipline them. They despised anything that makes life more dangerous, and so they practiced self-restraint. Growing up in this environment, steady habits and work ethic were more important for Dwight Eisenhower than education.

When Dwight Eisenhower was 10, his parents told him he couldn’t go trick-or-treating with his brothers on Halloween. Dwight flew into a rage, ran into the yard, and beat at an apple tree. His father whipped him and sent him to bed. Later, Ida sat with him and quoted from the Bible: “He that conquereth his own soul is greater than he who taketh a whole city.” This was a defining moment for Eisenhower, teaching him that humans are divided in nature, flawed and gifted, and that the central endeavor in life is to build character.

Brooks claims that the word “sin” has lost its power in today’s society. Society abandoned the concept because it no longer believed human nature was depraved. Also, “sin” was too often used to attack pleasure and enjoyment. Brooks claims that “sin” is an indispensable word—like “vocation”—that needs to be redefined so it can be used again.

Brooks claims that the word “sin” is essential because it reminds people that life is a moral affair involving moral choices. When society replaces “sin” with words like “error,” it becomes more difficult for people to talk about and make moral choices. “Sin” is also important because it is communal, not individual. Everyone is connected through common sins, such as greed or disloyalty. Also, “sin” is a true part of human nature; everyone has flaws and perverse desires.

Brooks asserts that “sin” is not demonic. Rather, it is a perversity in human nature that causes us to favor something of lower value over what is of higher value. Repeated sin turns into “loyalty to a lower love.” Small sins slowly accumulate into larger ones. Without the concept of “sin,” there is no concept of character-building. Sin provides the adversity that the good person fights against to become stronger.

In Abilene, where the Eisenhowers lived, everyone was wary of sin because it could lead to life-threatening disasters. People in places as rugged as Abilene knew about the different kinds of sins, what damage they caused, and what cured them. This vocabulary of sin was a practical tool that helped them lead moral lives.

Ida forbade things that would tempt her children to backslide into sin. She was loving and allowed her kids freedom in many ways, but she demanded small, habitual acts of self-repression. Today, people tend to distrust anything that represses their impulses. Back then, however, people distrusted their impulses. Ida advocated for “steadiness over time,” making a habit out of good actions so that they become natural. She had her children perform small acts of self-control. Manual labor also instilled this in her boys.

David Eisenhower’s discipline was cruel and joyless. He never did anything fun with his boys. In contrast, Ida was good-natured, understanding that it is impossible to be self-controlled all the time. She taught her boys that love builds character. When one focuses their love on something high—such as one’s country, children, or a good cause—they’ll do anything to see that thing thrive. Therefore, through love and self-sacrifice, one can avoid sin and perform good deeds.

Dwight Eisenhower believed religion is good for society but wasn’t religious himself. He was rebellious, wild, and known to have a bad temper. His conduct was divided. He experienced painful throat infections from excessive drinking and smoking, as well as insomnia and anxiety, but put on a front of confident ease. He determined to always have an attitude of cheerful certainty. He strategically dismissed his emotions so as to maintain his confident front. He was not an “authentic man” but lived under “artificial restraints.”

Dwight went to West Point Military Academy in 1911. He graduated in 1915 and, in 1918, was given orders to enter combat just as World War I ended. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel, and then his career slowed as the army’s role in the U.S. diminished following the war. At 40, he was the least accomplished of his brothers. Nevertheless, he devoted himself to his position as staff officer, learning to submit to a team. He carried around a humbling poem in his pocket that said, “There is no Indispensable Man!”

In 1922, Dwight was ordered to Panama where he met General Fox Connor in the 20th Infantry Brigade. Connor was a serious, soft-spoken man whom Dwight deeply admired. He renewed Dwight’s studious nature and love of the classics. While in the brigade, Dwight witnessed the training of a horse named Blackie, which inspires him to believe that every flawed person can transform into something great. As if seeing this in Dwight, Connor arranged for him to go to Command and General Staff School in Kansas.

After graduating, Dwight was appointed as General Douglas MacArthur’s personal assistant. MacArthur, unlike Connor, was theatrical and pompous. Dwight tried to leave MacArthur’s service, but MacArthur insisted that Dwight’s work with him was important. Although Dwight hated MacArthur, he was always respectful to him. Dwight was loyal and humble, submitting himself and his perspectives to those of MacArthur. This taught Dwight to look at war as a matter of heroic duty, not as a glorious exploit.

Dwight became a masterful wartime commander. He put aside his own irritations to maintain alliances and always gave credit for victories to his subordinates rather than to himself. In the event of failing the invasion on D-Day, Dwight planned to send the message that the blame lay entirely on his shoulders.

However, Dwight’s self-restraint had its drawbacks. According to Brooks, he was not creative or visionary. He was oblivious to civil rights movements and abstract ideas. He repressed his emotions to the point of being cold to people he should have been compassionate to.

The grown-up Dwight Eisenhower had two excellent traits: first, he could masterfully create a second self. Today, society believes that the true self is whatever is most natural and unhindered. Dwight, however, believed that “artifice is man’s nature.” He believed his true self was what he’d built, not what he’d started with. He was always willing to be someone he wasn’t in his career, often making himself simple in order to conceal his true designs. This simplicity was insincere, but it was strategic and a work of art.

Dwight Eisenhower’s second remarkable quality was his moderation. Brooks asserts that moderation does not mean levelheadedness. Rather, moderation comes from a person being aware of conflict and aware that things don’t always fit neatly together. Politics, philosophy, and personality are fraught with tension and paradoxes. A person who experiences two intense and opposing drives employs moderation to make use of both. The moderate person finds balance between opposing things and can be strong in opposing ways. To demonstrate this, Brooks gives the image of a person shifting their weight to steady a rocking boat.

The moderate person knows they can’t lead entirely pure lives, devoted to one value. They can, however, regulate their character and recognize the merits in opposing perspectives in themselves and things around them. In a world that is always pitting one thing against another, the moderate person only hopes to be balanced in the moment. They are passionate but realistic, approaching problems with caution.

On January 20, 1961, Dwight Eisenhower was succeeded by President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy’s inaugural speech confidently described a cultural shift in which a “new endeavor” and a “new world of law” would begin. Days before, however, Dwight gave a speech that upheld the state of things that was fading away. Kennedy talked of new possibilities, but Dwight had cautioned against excessive confidence.

Throughout Dwight’s speech, he talked of moderation. He urged the nation to strike balances—between private economy and public economy, for instance—and to guard against quick fixes. Particularly, he warned against the ruin that comes from unchecked power. He distrusted unchecked power, believing that it is better to uphold what one has inherited than to destroy the old and create something new. Dwight was a man who led a life of self-restraint because he believed man was “a problem to himself.”