Some of the biographies in David Brooks’s The Road to Character end on surprisingly sad notes. Frances Perkins’s restraint and righteousness made her effective in her political vocation but cold in her relationships with her husband and daughter. Ultimately, “her public vocation never completely compensated for her private solitude,” suggesting that the calling that gave her so much character was insufficient to fully sustain her well-being. In another example, George Marshall surrendered his vulnerability so as to be a figure worthy of his lofty aims. This left him with few true friends, implying that in order to be great, one must sacrifice some of their happiness. Taking this to an extreme, Dorothy Day shaped her life’s purpose around suffering. Up until the end of her life, she worked tirelessly to serve the poor in her charity houses and distanced herself from her loved ones in her intense pursuit of faith. These examples support Brooks’s point that human beings should seek lives “not of pleasure, but of purpose.” That being said, Brooks also states in the first chapter that “the ultimate joys are moral joys.” Through stories of suffering, Brooks redefines the true meaning of happiness by contrasting the pleasure of having everything one wants with the moral joy of making sacrifices for a higher purpose.
Although Frances Perkins devotedly served a great cause, her personal life was incomplete. Fighting for workers’ rights was such a strong calling for Perkins that it transcended her own life. It involved “throwing [herself] into a historical process,” suggesting that she had to completely disregard her personal life for the sake of a much greater cause. Moreover, Perkins was best suited for public campaign, not for private life, and therefore she did not “receive love well, or give it, or display vulnerability.” This distanced her from her husband and daughter. She believed so strongly that the government should serve the poor rather than interfere in matters of privacy that she herself became incapable of intimacy in her private life. However, for Perkins, there was no other option. Ever since she’d found her calling, she ceased to perform actions in life because they produced good for herself. Instead, she performed deeds because they were “intrinsically good.” Therefore, personal happiness was not the central goal of her life.
Similarly, George Marshall’s great leadership depended on the sacrifice of happiness. Marshall had an institutional mindset which caused him to “submerge his ego” in something greater than himself. Since being part of the army—an institution that transcended time—defined who he was, Marshall could not define his own life. Rather, he approached his life like it was “a debt to be repaid.” Moreover, Marshall sacrificed vulnerability and intimacy in order to be a good leader. Because he had to sacrifice companionship to be a great leader, there was “a residual sadness in him,” suggesting that being a great person is an inherently unhappy position. However, it was only through these sacrifices that Marshall rose to the level of a hero. According to Brooks, the person who fortifies their personal happiness is “less consequential than one who enters the public arena.” Therefore, Marshall believed that greatness was more desirable than a satisfactory personal life.
In the story of Dorothy Day, Brooks asserts that a person’s purpose in life is formed through suffering rather than through happiness. Dorothy Day always desired to be near people who were suffering and to suffer along with them. She spent her life working in charity houses serving the poor and sick even though the work was relentless, tiring, and profane. She sought out “suffering as a road to depth,” suggesting that it is not happiness that fulfills a person but struggle. To support Day’s view, Brooks points out that although most people desire happiness, they are formed through suffering. For instance, when parents have lost a child, they come out of their suffering with the desire to support other suffering parents who’ve lost children. In this way, suffering does not lead to happiness but rather to the development of strong character and the desire to be of use to the world. Furthermore, while happiness often teaches a person to believe they deserve what they have, suffering causes a person to feel gratitude for all they receive that they don’t deserve. Therefore, suffering uniquely causes a person to value their life more than happiness does.
Although it seems that Perkins, Marshall, and Day all experienced suffering, Brooks shows that they each had something more valuable than happiness. Instead of having everything they wanted, they had lives in which they served others, changed the world, and alleviated others’ suffering. Moreover, they each achieved great moral character. Their stories show that the “moral joy” that Brooks claims accompanies great character has nothing to do with self-satisfaction and everything to do with being part of something greater than the self.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Happiness vs. Moral Joy ThemeTracker
Happiness vs. Moral Joy Quotes in The Road to Character
Only Adam II can experience deep satisfaction. Adam I aims for happiness, but Adam II knows that happiness is insufficient. The ultimate joys are moral joys.
In [Frances Perkins’s] method, you don’t ask, What do I want from life? You ask a different set of questions: What does life want from me? What are my circumstances calling me to do? In this scheme of things we don’t create our lives; we are summoned by life.
One sees this in people with a vocation—a certain rapt expression, a hungry desire to perform a dance or run an organization to its utmost perfection. They feel the joy of having their values in deep harmony with their behavior.
Perkins didn’t so much choose her life. She responded to the call of a felt necessity. A person who embraces a calling doesn’t take a direct route to self-fulfillment. She is willing to surrender the things that are most dear, and by seeking to forget herself and submerge herself she finds a purpose that defines and fulfills herself. Such vocations almost always involve tasks that transcend a lifetime.
[Dorothy Day] was incapable of living life on the surface only—for pleasures, success, even for service—but needed a deep and total commitment to something holy.
Suffering becomes a fearful gift, very different from that other gift, happiness, conventionally defined. The latter brings pleasure, but the former cultivates character.
The magnanimous leader does not have a normal set of social relations. There is a residual sadness to him, as there is in many grandly ambitious people who surrender companionship for the sake of their lofty goals. He can never allow himself to be silly or simply happy and free. He is like marble.
Johnson stands now as an example of human wisdom. From his scattered youth, his diverse faculties cohered into a single faculty—a mode of seeing and judging the world that was as much emotional as intellectual.
Eventually [humble people] achieve moments of catharsis when outer ambition comes into balance with inner aspiration, when there is a unity of effort between Adam I and Adam II, when there is that ultimate tranquility and that feeling of flow—when moral nature and external skills are united in one defining effort.
