What does American retail and business strategy have to offer the declining Mainline religions? First, an undifferentiated strategy of serving “everyone” is doomed to failure. Kmart, Sears and JC Penney could not create a differentiated strategy. They died.
Marshall Field had a better approach.
Second, the mavens of corporate strategy offer a simple framework for addressing the “needs” today. Michael Porter is the king of corporate strategy.
Kaplan and Norton delivered insights on how to link strategy to operations.
Treacy and Wiersema consolidated this into just 3 dimensions.
A successful, disciplined organization must choose. It cannot be “all things to all people”. It must choose one of 3 general strategies. It must choose a subset of customers, not everyone.
Businesses are very highly motivated to find the most effective strategies and tactics.
One effective strategy is “operational excellence”. Be so cost effective at delivering your goods and services that you can charge the lowest price and still make a great profit. For a church, this would mean:
Low contributions, donations, tithing and specific opportunity funding.
Low price of entry. No creed. No adult baptism.
Low ongoing commitments. Low church attendance. Low volunteering. Low service. Low small group engagement. Limited liability.
Low constraints. No confession. No evaluation. Low prayer.
This is a critical dimension. Do you want to retain nominal members? There is a possibility that they will become engaged.
Do you wish to offer “cheap grace”? Lower the bar to entry, but higher the bar to membership?
Product innovation is a second winning strategy. Define a religious perspective that is different from those of others.
More liberal versus conservative.
Emphasize thinking, feeling or doing.
Emphasize modern prophets and interpreters or older ones.
Internal belief versus social response and participation.
Earthly life or eternal salvation.
Mysticism.
Community.
Love.
Deliver specific services: children, adults, poor, immigrant, counseling, small groups. adult education.
Full service.
Large or small. Known or invisible.
Third, an organization can emphasize “customer intimacy”. We know what you want and will deliver it in personalized portions.
For a church, this can mean:
Smaller congregations.
More “congregational care” staffing and volunteers.
Greater emphasis on small groups and frequent volunteer participation.
More “intrusive” style of reaching out.
Different services for different life cycle ages.
Treacy and Wiersema really emphasized the second and third strategic dimension. They argued that you should “choose” your primary customer base. Like the failed retailers, a central, “all of the above” strategy is doomed to failure. Choose a customer group and organize your products and services to exactly, precisely meet their needs. Customer groups could be defined and served:
by age, life cycle.
geography.
class, income, profession.
active or passive religious participants.
historical religious background or skeptics, secularists.
long-timers or newcomers.
religious views. close fit or searching. liberal or conservative.
activity or engagement level.
Is this segment growing or shrinking?
Does it greatly need church services or is it apparently self-sufficient?
Do the existing assets and programs of the church meet the group’s needs?
In the corporate world, the trick was to identify and serve the groups that could buy the most and deliver the greatest profit for existing and adjacent products and services. In the religious world, the key is to realistically determine what an existing congregation and denomination can offer to a world that expects its needs to be met.
It’s 1991, heavyweight Oxford philosopher Charles Taylor is gaining popular recognition for his pathbreaking 1989 work “Sources of the Self”, a bold attempt to describe the current “self” and where it came from. He was invited to deliver the Massey Lecture in his home nation Canada, which he titled “The Malaise of Modernity”. The Berlin Wall fell at the end of 1989, ending the cold war. Ronald Reagan (1981-89) and Margaret Thatcher had abruptly ended the expansion of the state and the possibility of a counterculture; or had they?
Taylor argues that the “logic” of technology, science, economics and bureaucracy, which he terms “instrumental reason”, continues to grow in influence; larger national state or not. He argues that a historically radical “individualism” has grown throughout the post-war years, generally unexamined. Finally, he notes that these two trends combine to threaten Western representative democracy.
At the time, popular culture, reflected in TV shows like Dallas and “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”, celebrated the victory of the “neo-liberal” center-right and looked forward to a glorious future. In 1992, Francis Fukuyama proclaimed “the end of history”, with Western style liberal democracy and mixed market capitalism extinguishing the threats from fascism and communism. Taylor was quite pessimistic about the cultural challenges of the present, but optimistic about the long-term possibilities.
Taylor is often grouped within the diverse “communitarian” collection of philosophers and social scientists who argue that “classical liberalism” is inherently too oriented towards the individual and neglects the community dimension of life and philosophy.
Life is good, but social critics still complain. What ails the public? What “losses” or threats are being felt by the sensitive? First, the counterculture may have been buried in 1969 or 1972 but one dimension continued to revolutionize the Western world. Individuals were not giving up on “free choice” in any dimension. Speech, career, lifestyle, college, city, religion, politics, media, language, dress, etiquette, travel, leisure, gender, marriage, and child rearing choices. Twenty years of freedom had resulted in a new cultural norm of tolerance for individual choices. Nietzsche may have declared that “God is dead” in 1882, but it took a century to percolate through to large numbers of Western citizens. The post-war period witnessed a conservative cultural and religious rebound, but it was not sustained.
Taylor contrasts this radically new moral freedom with the prior 20 centuries. There are certainly advantages to freedom, especially removing the restraints of political, religious, social and economic institutions from individuals. Few people want to turn back the clock and re-install the static, hierarchical, controlling, prejudiced society. Yet, the individualistic transformation through the Renaissance, Enlightenment, Protestant Revolution, Scientific Revolution, American Revolution, French Revolution, and Russian Revolution had not been a uniform march of progress. Individuals had lost their well-defined place in an orderly, meaningful universe.
The new individualism, deeply rooted in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, attempted to rebuild this secure place by returning to the allegedly positive state of man before society had corrupted the individual. The individual was invited to look within to discover their innate goodness and role in society. By 1991 the post-war “therapeutic culture” was very well advanced. Individuals had “discovered themselves” and they liked this new freedom. They looked to counselors and educators to help with their personal growth. Many critics responded to this new approach quite negatively, calling it mere self-centeredness.
The growth of size, scale, trade, complexity, science, process, dynamics, technology, computers, finance, capitalism, business, machinery, industrialization, urbanization, law, and transportation in the 20th century greatly elevated the role of “instrumental reason”. The technical control of nature. New production methods. Cost/benefit ratios. Scientific finance. Optimization. Operations research. New technologies. Processes. Systems. Re-engineering. Social sciences. Experimental psychology. Communications. Every dimension of life can be rationalized and improved.
The scientific, urban and industrial revolutions were met by the Romantic reaction in the 19th century. Nationalism, art, music, nature, anthropology, modern poetry and literature, history, culture, language, and customs. Hegel, Marx, Freud and Jung. Methodist, Baptist and Pentecostal religious options. In the 18th century Kant asserted that man must be an end, not merely a means to an end. Humanity reacted strongly against the threats to its inherent human dignity.
Like many philosophers and social critics since 1850, Taylor worries that the market, bureaucracy and technology will become dominant over human and moral dimensions. The methodologies are highly effective and widely applied. They are continually improved. The market and bureaucracy have direct political power and influence. Mostly, Taylor worries that the ubiquitous use of these tools elevates them to become the ENDs of society. Cost/benefit. Optimized processes. GDP. GDP growth. Scientific progress. New patents. Life expectancies. Controlled risks. Optimum portfolios. He also worries that only quantitative factors that fit into the formulas will matter. Morality has to work very hard to even be considered in this world.
The widespread use of instrumental reason in markets and bureaucracies leads to a limited range of choices for individuals, employees, bureaucrats, politicians and voters. Most people can only think in terms of rational control of inputs to produce outputs. The consideration of the most valuable outputs is undermined. The scale of the political process undermines the incentives for participation. The “individualist” mindset removes citizens from political participation. Instrumental reason demonstrates effective “cause and effect”, but political participation does not produce such direct returns. Individuals lose faith in the political process.
II. The Inarticulate Debate
In 1991, without any public debate, we now live in a world that prioritizes each individual’s search for his own unique inner purpose, meaning, ends, talents, insights, creativity, feelings, intuition, identity, possibilities, strengths, and opportunities.
Each person should be true to themselves. Per Maslow they should aim for self-actualization. This is a subjective world. Each person is empowered to pursue their own goals. Others must not interfere with this choice. Tolerance is elevated to a very important social value.
Social scientists explain the increased individualism as part of economic, scientific, urban and industrial changes. They avoid moral discussions.
Taylor wants to elevate moral considerations. What does a radical individualism mean for morality? Is moral subjectivism valid, in any way? Can the individual be moral apart from his relations with individuals? Can the individual be moral apart from his relations with society? Truly radical individualism cannot be moral in Taylor’s view. The individual cannot make significant others merely tools, nor can he ignore the moral preferences of others.
Is moral relativism consistent with other values? Taylor says “no”. Choose any basis for a moral world view. Relativism cannot be supported.
III. Sources of Authenticity
Rousseau is most important. The individual is inherently good. He is altered by society. He has an opportunity to become aware of the influences of society and overcome them. This is the extreme, utopian, positive individualistic view. The individual makes choices without regard to any external influence. The individual guards against the influence of external factors.
Descartes assumed away everything except disengaged reason. No body. No society. No feelings. No actions. No relationships. No history. No art. No future. Hobbes and Locke created a world in which the individual rationally participates in the political.
Taylor notes that the “inward turn” is not inherently solipsistic. St. Augustine described his internal turn which resulted in a connection with God and the eternal.
Herder emphasized the original or unique dimension of each individual.
IV. Inescapable Horizons
Taylor applies the usual logic against pure subjectivity, relativism and tolerance. You can have no true moral view unless you prioritize one view versus another or one set of values versus another. The pursuit of individual meaning and authenticity does not require that all final, considered moral views are equal. The individual’s moral views are inescapably influenced or determined by the views of others. We cannot develop moral views in isolation, we must have dialogues with others.
There is a logical fallacy widely used. Choice is good. Diversity is good. Difference is good. Each option is good. These are merely assertions. They do not follow from any logical or values-based structure.
The individual’s process of discovery, creation and choosing is raised up to become a self-evident axiom of highest value. Taylor argues it is not self-evident and is not clearly supported by some other set of values. He says that it “could be” a highly valued part of life, but that position must be supported by some values that are defined outside the self, by the community or significant others or religion or philosophy, all outside of the narrow self.
V. The Need for Recognition
In this world of “finding yourself”, the individual also looks to others for validation and confirmation that their discovery, results, values, roles and identity are “good”. The individual cannot confirm his own journey or results but must turn to others. Self-discovery may be a highly valued good in our society, but it must be based upon something other than the self alone. The individual claims that universal human dignity supports his call for respect and affirmation. The postmodernists apply this logic to oppressed minority groups as well, claiming that they must be recognized.
Taylor dismisses the completely self-centered approach to self-discovery that rejects any need for external links to others, community, nature or God as logically incoherent. Just as Kant said that humans must be ends and not merely means, Taylor argues that external entities must also be ends and not merely instrumental means for the self.
Taylor identifies two ethical standards that are often asserted by promoters of personal growth. Each person has a right to pursue their own journey, so there is a need to limit that journey so as to not infringe upon the journeys of others. Intimate relationships are required to pursue an in-depth exploration of an individual’s inner self, capacity, resources, feelings and potential. Hence, respect for significant others is required.
Taylor returns to the “choice creates value” and “difference creates value” assertions. Some proponents of individualism argue that the fact that different people choose different “ways of being” directly makes them valuable and worthy of respect, reinforcing a universal tolerance. Taylor reminds the reader that there is no logical support for this view. Similar, some argue that men and women are equal or sexual orientations are equal because they are freely chosen. Taylor rejects this and requires that the argument return to a logical or moral basis for support.
He extensively quotes Gail Sheehy’s “Passages” to illustrate the extreme individualistic view, “You can’t take everything with you when you leave on the midlife journey. You are moving away. Away from institutional claims and other people’s agenda. Away from external valuations and accreditations. You are moving out of the roles and into the self … For each of us there is the opportunity to emerge reborn, authentically unique, with an enlarged capacity to love ourselves and embrace others … The delights of self-discovery are always available.”
VI. The Slide to Subjectivism
Taylor admits that many pursue the narcissistic version of extreme individualism directly. They don’t need to rationalize or justify it. Self-fulfilment is a self-evident moral and ethical ideal for them. Once this version of “the good life” is seen, some will adopt it as is. This worldview makes life straightforward, no need to balance the self and others or the self and community or the self and pesky demands of external moral standards.
The more extreme versions are also promoted by social situations. The individualistic culture has many threads. The market and consumerism are individual oriented. Large organizations prioritize instrumental reasoning to reach individual goals. A market economy emphasizes transactions and contracts between individuals. Many religions have individualistic perspectives today. Science, technology and instrumental reasoning focus on spare logic and atomistic views rather than organic, natural, process, dynamic and artistic ones. Individualists treat community, friendship and religious connections as instruments of their world rather than more complex, transforming, multiway relationships. Mobility undercuts personal ties. Urban living promotes impersonal interactions. One can live a very individualistic life today.
Postmodernism, the descendant of Nietzsche, seeks to undermine or deconstruct all objective values or categories as mere tools of entrenched power groups. All values are merely created as tools. Why not create “freedom” as the main value and enjoy your role as the superman; creator of values, language and life?
Taylor emphasizes the mixture of the Romantics and Nietzsche in the emergence of the self-creating artist as hero in the last century. This runs in parallel with the authenticity of personal self-discovery. Each person is unique. They pursue their special gifts through creativity and artistic production, experimentation, action and discovery. They do not imitate nature or copy existing models but create new languages, viewpoints, art, relationships, pottery, feelings, experiences, music, drama, travel, sport, etc. Expressive individualism is well described. Taylor supports this creative process, its outputs and the expansion of human capabilities.
He doesn’t support postmodernism when it only emphasizes the creative process but ignores any ties to moral values or philosophy based outside of the self alone. He disputes the need for the creative individual to automatically reject and fight against all existing forms of morality held by others or communities. He insists that the creative individual must be in dialogue with significant others and society in order to provide meaning and goals for the journey and to validate the journey. Taylor rejects the totally isolated individual model.
Taylor recognizes that the aesthetic perspective offers its own truth, beauty and satisfaction separate from the moral perspective. He sees this too as another opportunity for modern man to live an enriched life. He accepts that some individuals may prioritize the aesthetic perspective above the moral perspective but does not recommend it. He notes that authenticity is often proclaimed as its own goal by fiat or assumption. It is alleged to be a self-evident truth, goal and value not requiring a moral foundation, just like beauty. Authenticity and art become intertwined as forms of self-expression.
Taylor ends this chapter noting that an individual who truly buys into self-expression and self-creation can find a form of meaning and satisfaction in the journey and the sense of freedom and power which it provides. His complaint is that it logically cannot be isolated from other people and morality. When this is done there is no meaning remaining. There is only the self, an atom among an infinite and cold universe. The individual makes choice after choice after choice, but the choices have no meaning. The world becomes flat.
VII. The Struggle Continues
Taylor notes that critics such as Bloom, Bell and Lasch are correct to attack the extreme forms of egotistical self-fulfillment. He argues that attacking the overall expansion of individual self-exploration and growth is counterproductive. There can be no logically coherent merely individualistic philosophy. It must link to other individuals and some moral principles. The individualist genie cannot be put back in the bottle. Society as a whole, especially its thought leaders, must find a way to ensure that this connection of the individual to the community and logic occurs.
Taylor asserts that everyone, even the critics, must acknowledge that we live in a world where self-development, human potential and fulfilment are accepted goals and practices with value to individuals and society. The exact forms are not perfectly developed, but very few people are going to reject this approach to life.
He more positively notes that this path of development does provide opportunities for self-development and for social contributions. Individuals are encouraged to explore, create and live a fuller life. In an ironic way, the truly authentic journey requires greatly increased self-responsibility and self-control. The opportunities are so great. The responsibility to make wise choices, to interact with others, to consider moral frameworks, to link the individual and community, to combine freedom with commitment, to balance the claims on life is higher in a self-aware modern life.
The upside potential is great. The downside risk of a simple egoism is great. The tension between the higher and lower versions of this new path of life is great. Taylor argues that we are stuck with this situation, should not by gloomy, but should work to define the tensions, guide and encourage individuals on the high road.
VIII. Subtler Languages
Taylor returns to the journey of personal self-discovery and creation in parallel with the journey of the modern artist. The modern artist by 1800 had lost the common background of known and assumed literature, religion, culture and society. The artist was tasked with developing their own language, background, symbols, characters, plots and conclusions. The artist could not rely upon the reader, listener or observer to share a common understanding of the artistic background. The artist was forced to rely upon his own vision and experience, and then communicate that in precise ways so that the content and feeling would resonate with the consumer. This changed art into a very individual to individual format. The subject matter also often focused on the individual, BUT not necessarily so. Much great art continues to be about nature, the universe, community, the relation of the individual to others or the community.
The same contrast applies to the authentic journey of self-discovery. The manner of the journey is clearly subjective revolving around the individual. BUT the individual can find his relation to the community, nature, eternity, God, a larger order, neighbors, science, history, family, etc. The individual can find that the most important lessons are only secondarily about the self.
IX. An Iron Cage?
Taylor argues that instrumental reason/technology can be viewed as above. There is a long history of technology, science, economics and bureaucratic forms growing more complex, effective and controlling. They are supported because they work. The risk is that they replace the end goals of individuals, firms and society. Application of the decision-making forms becomes the end goal because they are, well, so efficient and effective. What other goal could there be?
Economic rationality, markets and bureaucracies, science and technology have become second nature, a background assumption in modern society. Individuals use their methods each day. This familiarity shapes our thinking in all realms. Yet, there has been a gut-level suspicion and opposition throughout the last 500 years. Analog, superstitious, grounded, habitual, traditional, organized, historical, religious creatures have resisted the creation of abstract forces that replace their familiar ways. The Luddites, Marxists, Utopian Socialists, Farmer-Labor party, romantics, science fiction writers and greens have all opposed the unchecked advance of technology.
Taylor outlines the extensive influence of instrumental reasoning as a background assumption in our society. He encourages us to look at the underlying moral frameworks that have supported technological progress and to consider this reasoning as merely a tool. He notes that disembodied reasoning in mathematics and computers is given a privileged place in our thinking but there is no good case for this view which was really just assumed one day by Rene Descartes.
“This is grounded in a moral ideal, that of a self-responsible, self-controlling reasoning. There is an idea of rationality here, which is at the same time an idea of freedom, of autonomous, self-generating thought”. Technology can be placed within the context of other moral principles such as benevolence and caring. The application of instrumental reasoning impacts real flesh and blood people, so this moral context matters.
X. Against Fragmentation
Radical individualism and dominating technology both threaten well-functioning democracies. The first simply ignores the need for community and political participation. The second makes impersonal forces appear so strong as to make political participation irrational. There is a vicious/virtuous cycle dimension. Lower participation results in worse results … More effective participation results in better results …
Finding a more effective middle ground of improved self-responsibility can help the individual, the community and politics. Finding a more effective middle ground regarding the unwarranted expansion of technology can help to re-establish moral and political principles as drivers of political debate and results. Taylor calls for a balance among the 5 competing areas of markets, government, social welfare, individual rights and democratic effectiveness. He argues that this is more effectively done at smaller scales, so decentralization is a key tool. He notes that success at any level can help to improve politics at other levels. Taylor is concerned that social trends can overwhelm institutions. Yet, he believes that intellectuals can help to clarify the role of ideas in shaping politics and culture. Better ideas can compete against simplistic models and slogans that don’t work for society. There is an unavoidable tension, a give and take, in society and politics. We have the ability to shape these debates for the common good.
This is a valuable book for assessing the current state of the American and Western European communities. Rabbi Sacks provides historical context of the ideas that have led to an “I” focused culture, outlines the symptoms of a weakened “We” culture, and provides some insights as to what can be done. He combines a politically and economically moderate view with a conservative social perspective. I’ve rearranged the chapters to make the summary flow better.
Introduction
The 1990 “end of history” celebrating the victory of mixed economy capitalism and liberal democracy was an illusion. Societies are based on a 3-legged stool of economic, political, and moral systems. The West’s moral system has been threatened by individualism since the Reformation and Enlightenment, but the threats accelerated and started to really bite with changes in the 1960’s. Political systems, social results, income inequality and fundamental rights of free speech, liberty and freedom are threatened today by this deterioration.
Morality: “concern for the welfare of others, an active commitment to justice and compassion, a willingness to ask not just what is good for me but what is good for ‘all of us together’.” Inner voice, conscience, superego, custom and tradition, natural law, religion. “To be a member of a society was to be socialized, to internalize the norms of those around you, to act for the good of others, not just yourself.” Morality makes politics, economics and communities work by emphasizing trust and persuasion instead of transactions and political power. As social norms are internalized, transaction costs are minimized.
“A FREE SOCIETY is a moral achievement.” Liberal democratic systems depend upon moral citizens. “If we care for the future of democracy, we must recover that sense of shared morality that binds us to one another in a bond of mutual compassion and care. There is no liberty without morality, no freedom without responsibility, no viable “I” without the sustaining ‘We’.”
Sacks argues that the movement from “We” to “I” was driven by five factors. The intellectual appeal of existentialism and emotivism that reject an objective moral order and rely instead upon subjective individual choices. Social exhaustion after the Great Depression and 2 world wars leading to the postwar counterculture, sexual revolution and therapeutic society focused on self-actualizing individuals alone. The “liberal” political decision to exclude morality, religion and social norms from legitimate political debate and laws, emphasizing only rights. The Reagan/Thatcher political/economic victory which limits state influence on the economy. Technological changes which undercut “face to face” interactions.
The social results reflect Durkheim’s concept of “anomie”: rootlessness, anxiety, uncertainty, and fear. Loss of social capital, breakdown of family and marriage, loss of trust in institutions, increased crime and drug usage and lower trust and civility. In a Western world with much higher real economic standards, individual happiness and confidence have not grown.
The loss of morality and trust has undercut political processes and people. Inequality, conflicting values, privileged elites, and poor government results have led to populist demands from left and right for strong leaders to “solve the problem”. The weakening of society level groups and growth of minority groups (and reactive native majority groups) and immigration have increased the focus on identity politics, polarizing and coarsening political debates. The loss of objective moral, scientific and communications standards has encouraged a post-truth political environment.
Income and wealth inequality continue to increase in a global economic system. With the loss of moral pressures and Milton Friedman’s view that business should only optimize profits, not address social, environmental, and other stakeholder goals, many firms have truly pursued maximum wealth without considering any other factors, relying on the government and society to underwrite their inevitable losses.
Many universities and other leading institutions have embraced postmodernism’s assertions that everything is about power and that the only moral choice is to support the exploited minority groups and oppose the powerful elites. Freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and press are merely tools of the powerful and can/should be overthrown in this view. Individuals fear expressing themselves in this intolerant atmosphere.
Sacks emphasizes the intellectual confusion of “outsourcing” which can deliver benefits for the economy and perhaps the political sector, but which does not apply to the moral, community, society dimension. The market economy offers many choices and implicitly encourages individuals to believe that they “ought” to be able to choose whatever they wish, while moral choices involve trade-offs and sometimes absolute goods and bads. The political sector is tasked with the “outsourced” consequences of bad individual, economic and political choices. It must regulate, insure, and provide services. Morality cannot be outsourced to the state, elites, religious leaders, social media influencers or other groups of “pet sitters”, “athletic trainers” or “management coaches”. It requires the “hands-on” involvement of all citizens.
He argues that these moral issues, risks, costs, and opportunities are becoming clearer to leaders and citizens. Younger citizens and language usage show an increased interest in morality. Human and natural systems can repair and improve themselves.
‘5. From “We” to “I”
Sacks outlines the “intellectual” history that has led to an overemphasis on “I” and the loss of “We”. Early steps in Greek philosophy and the Bible included increased roles for individuals. The Italian Renaissance saw greater personal self-awareness. Luther focused on the individual’s direct encounter with God, unmediated by the Church. The “absolute individual” was now considered completely outside of his social roles. The radical skeptic Rene Descartes re-established independent philosophy based on the individual and his doubts alone. “I think; therefore, I am” contrasted with God’s answer to Moses that “I am that I am”. Hobbes and other social contract theorists based a legitimate government on freely choosing citizens. Kant elevated individual reason as the basis for philosophy and serves as a transitional figure. He focused on universality, humans as ends, the golden rule, intentions, and the mind/soul but he too began with the individual and his choices rather than society, God, community, revelation, or history.
Unlike many modern commentators, Sacks skips over Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his “natural man is good” approach to government, education, and morality. He next highlights Kierkegaard’s contrast between the “aesthetic” life of the senses and the ethical life of righteousness and duty. There is no obvious basis for choosing either option, so the individual must make a “leap of faith” to embrace one or the other. Nietzsche continues the existentialist investigation of options and proclaims that “God is Dead”, biblical religion is “slave morality”, the best men need to recover their superpowers and choose their own morality, decisions, and actions, irrespective of the consequences for society. Then and now, very few really embrace Nietzsche’s extreme position, but it opened the door to considering a life based on individual choice, a romantic/nationalist perspective and a fully subjective morality, language, and power as described by some existentialists and many postmodernists. The self-aware person knows that his existence and experience are more real than any socially imposed rules or universal, ideal concepts and can either accept the external constraints in “bad faith” or face the challenges of “existence” bravely. Not a superman but a vaguely heroic honest man. The American option termed “emotivism” shares the subjective, feelings-based nature of individual choices. Authenticity or expressive individualism become the supreme virtues. The self-aware individual is everything.
Sacks shares that everyone’s favorite observer of early America, Alexis de Tocqueville, worried in 1830 that the fledgling country could be harmed by “individualism”, “a feeling which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows so that, having created a small company for its use, he willingly leaves society at large to itself”. He ends with sociologist Emile Durkheim’s 1890 emphasis on anomie, where a loss of a shared code can destroy society through suicide, deviancy, crime, and disengagement. “Anomie, it seems to me, aptly describes the state we inhabit today: a world of relativism, nonjudgmentalism, subjectivity, autonomy, individual rights and self-esteem … An individualistic universe may be free, but it is fraught with loneliness, isolation, vulnerability, and nihilism, a prevailing sense of the ultimate meaninglessness of life … Human society has evolved to a stage where the rights of the individual, particularly those with wealth, power, and status, supersede all other rights and responsibilities.”
‘9. Identity Politics
The author outlines a history of swings between individualism and “groupishness” as context for explaining and rejecting modern identity politics. We are social animals, emotionally invested in our individual and group identities, illustrated by our passion for sports teams. The individual chooses which group identities to wear or is given them in the postmodernist view. This attachment can form the basis for a moral community. Group loyalty is a powerful force, binding individuals to the group and committing them against conflicting “others”. Historically, religion, ethnicity, nation, class, income, and education/trade have all competed for group attention.
Although they were named only in the second half of the 20th century, identity and identity politics have long histories. “I am a Greek”, “I am a Roman”, “I am a Christian”, “I am a British citizen” make the point. Religion was the leading identity for most of the last 2,000 years in the West, with social, political, and economic roles bound into a single system. The protracted European religious wars made a simple return to the “ancient regime” impossible. The Enlightenment thinkers elevated rationalism and individualism to create a universalist viewpoint that tried to downplay specific group identities. Newton provided universal science. The social contract theorists offered universal political systems and principles. Descartes, Montaigne, and Kant offered universal philosophies.
These ideas changed the world and then generated a backlash. Too universal, too timeless, too abstract, too mechanical, too technical, too legal, too commercial, too heartless, too static, too disruptive, too progressive, too … Moving from an integrated social, religious, political, and economic system to something altogether different created pushback. Haidt’s WEIRD versus traditional societies is at the heart of these difficulties. Certainty is slowly eroded with more new ideas, religious denominations, political models, industries, trade, professions, science, technology, and transportation. This is discomforting, even for the “winners”. Sacks describes this rational Age as noble, utopian, and unsustainable.
We then get the Counter-Enlightenment, Romanticism, irrational forces, and new shades of religion. Nationalism becomes a newly attractive group identity, combining language, culture, geography, tradition, practically lived experience and history. Race becomes more important due to global experiences, colonialism, the end of slavery, geology, biology, social Darwinism, anthropology, and psychology. The scientific study of man leads to eugenics and Naziism. Economic class is raised up by Marx in his “scientific” and historic studies of man leading to communist regimes. “All three movements offered a strong sense of belonging in place of the abstract, identity-less, human-being-as-such that was the human person as understood by eighteenth-century rationalism … In place of the universal came a new sense of the particular … thinkers started to focus on what makes us different.” This pursuit of group identity had terrible consequences in the 20th century.
In the postwar era, we have swung back towards the individual. As described above, there was a long-term preparation for making the individual the sole focus of life, leaving behind the community, moral and cultural perspective. Science supplanted religion leading to a Secular Age, where the default worldview is mechanical and “this worldly”. The accumulated influence of the existentialist, pragmatist, analytical, skeptical, and postmodern schools of philosophy shaped the intellectual class to neglect religion, morality, and community. The Romantic Age, underpinned by Rousseau’s good person and supporting the creative artist as a model reinforced the individualistic tendencies even as it tried to define an organic alternative. The failures of nation, race and class worked against any “new” community approach. The success of religions, national patriotism, economic development, liberal democracy and professional and not for profit communities did not have a strong “public relations” department compared with the promises of their modern competitors.
Sacks criticizes the re-grounding of “liberal” democracies on the “thin” morality of Locke, “built on the premise of the individual as the bearer of rights, and of autonomy as the supreme value of the social order … key theoreticians were … John Rawls and Robert Nozick … Essentially, you could do anything you liked so long as it was legal, fair, and involved no harm to others.” He notes that communitarians like MacIntyre, Sandel, Walzer, Taylor, and Bellah provided alternatives.
Within this extreme version of “classic liberal democracy”, political groups and society were asked to be “tolerant” and not impose their views. Multiculturalism arose, especially in Europe, emphasizing differences and reducing the commitment to integrate new groups into national and local societies. Together with the “contemporary left” and postmodernism’s emphasis on oppressed minorities, modern identity politics was born. This is a new group identity, oriented towards the group rather than the individual. It encourages very strong group loyalty. Like Marxism, it believes in the eventual victory of the collection of oppressed groups.
Sacks like none of this. “There is a real danger here of the splitting of society into self-segregating, noncommunicating ghettos. One of its axioms is that ‘only a member of my group can understand my pain’ …Over three hundred years the West has, with some success, developed an ethic of tolerance and respect for difference, and in a liberal society the prejudice and discrimination that undoubtedly still exist are to be fought wherever they occur … This reaction … will end in tragedy. It turns difference into exclusion and suspicion. It builds walls, not bridges … It encourages a mindset of victimhood and oppression. It abandons the idea of the common ground and the common good.”
Community leader Sacks shares his experience with ecumenical groups to promote national British community while maintaining their distinctive approaches. He encourages us to be laser focused on the potentially cooperative, win-win society in contrast with the state where competitive power politics is unavoidable. He contrasts (good) patriotism with (bad) nationalism. He quotes Orwell’s definition of patriotism, “devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people.” Without a shared moral community, the political and economic dimensions will fail.
’11. Post-truth
Nietzsche “set the table” back in 1870 on this issue. “When people gave up their faith in religion, it would not be religion alone that they would lose. They would lose morality, and with it a concern for truth, and then even science would lose its authority.” Nietzsche – “Nothing is needed more than truth, and in relation to it, everything else has only second-rate value”. People have always considered truth versus self-interest. If there is no objective truth, religious dogma, or social conventions, why bother with truth?
“The hermeneutics of suspicion” plays a role here. Language is used as a tool by the powerful to deceive. Always look for the real meaning. Applied radical skepticism. Marx blamed the capitalists. Nietzsche saw a conspiracy among the weak. Freud blamed subconscious drives. The postmodernists formalized this to blame the power controlling elites. Political, economic, and social systems conspire through their institutions, structures, language, and norms to preserve the standing of the elites. Objective truth, religion, morality, science, and religion are just clever tools of oppression. Global cultural awareness, a diversity of religions, scientific changes, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of religion, political tolerance, social tolerance, literary and artistic interpretations, revisionist history, geological and biological history and Einstein’s relativity all contribute to the general cultural skepticism about objective truth.
Modern social media and the internet have now provided the facts and interpretations “at a glance” to reinforce this idea of subjective truth. “Without truth, no trust; without trust, no society.”
’17. Human Dignity
The ancient Greeks defined and honored human dignity in various ways: heroes, truth and wisdom loving philosophers or simply as qualitatively superior to the animals. The Hebrew Bible describes a God who creates man in his own image for the purpose of living a moral life. Man is given “free choice” and this freedom defines his life, politics, family, community and theology. “We have dignity because we can choose. Dignity is inseparable from morality and our role as choosing, responsible, moral agents.” Kant agrees that mankind, in as much as it can make moral choices, has earned its dignity. Human dignity played a large role in Western societies for two millenia.
Yet, once again, man’s intellectual progress poses a threat to our moral civilization. This is mainly the story of “science versus religion” in the popular imagination. Copernicus removed man and earth from the center of the universe. Newton’s physical laws removed the “need” for God’s continuous support, even though Newton thought it was still required. Modern geology expanded time to make 2,000 years just a “flash” of time. Spinoza argued that as physical beings we are subject to the laws of the physical world and not free, after all. Marx claimed we are determined by economic laws of production at the Hegelian level of history. Freud claimed we are driven by subconscious drives and without true choice. Darwin made man an animal, like any other and established a mindless, probabilistic motor for history. Neo-Darwinians outlined how altruism too is just part of genetic natural selection. At a popular level, each of the pillars supporting human dignity, man as something special, was undermined. Human dignity is merely an illusion.
The author takes a few shots at the “science alone” worldview. Man in small space and time does not eliminate dignity, free will, choice, freedom, or religion. No evidence or logic forces us to embrace the skeptical worldviews, which are also based upon uncertain foundations. Science is incapable of addressing humanity’s imagination, conceptualization, deep communication, cooperation, feelings, love, awe, appreciation and creation of beauty. Science cannot evaluate the critical role of cultural limits in the form of “thou shalt not”, sacredness, justice, and judges. Science assumes away human freedom with its assumption that causality shapes everything.
In the 500 years since the Italian Renaissance, man has done tremendous things intellectually, scientifically, technically, politically, economically, and socially. Human rights and human dignity are embedded in our modern political constitutions. The “special individual” view of the world has driven a dozen modern philosophical outlooks that shape our world. However, the radical “science only” view of the world has a strong hold on the modern imagination leading to Charles Taylor’s Secular Age where we all naturally start with the assumption or worldview that excludes the transcendent dimension in all of life.
Sacks rejects the modern neuroscientists who claim that “free will” is an illusion and criticizes the “total freedom” view of the expressive individualism crowd. He argues that the “just right” middle view of man as a moral animal best describes our situation. We have self-consciousness. We can see the world as an impartial observer outside of our own personal perspective. We are aware of our own drives and desires but can override them to some extent. We have a sense of responsibility for our thoughts and deeds. We have immortal longings. We reach for the transcendent. We have religious experiences. We are essentially moral agents.
’19. Why Morality?
“A society of individualists is unsustainable. We are built for cooperation, not just competition. In the end, with the market and state but no substantive society to link us to our fellow citizens in the bonds of collective responsibility, trust and truth erode, economics becomes inequitable, and politics becomes unbearable.”
In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville visited America to check on its progress as a democratic society. He learned that the separation of church and state had unexpectedly created robust churches despite its lack of government support and that these churches thrived in their social role of supporting families, local communities, providing education and services. Despite its support by the citizens, the churches and their pastors played minimal roles in politics. He also noted the country’s propensity for creating associations for addressing problems and opportunities aside from the market or government. Hence, the society dimension was very strong alongside the “rugged individualists”. Competition and cooperation both played important roles.
In 1831 Charles Darwin wrestled with one of the inconsistencies in his theory of natural selection. Human societies everywhere exhibited altruism. Altruistic individuals should not exist under a “survival of the fittest” model. Darwin suggested that “group selection” could explain the development and preservation of altruistic behavior. A group of loyal, supportive, cooperative members might outperform one composed of only selfish individuals. Cooperation can play an important role in a competitive process.
Subsequent research indicates that altruism has developed in 3 waves. First, various animal groups exhibit “kin selection” where close relative cooperation delivers more descendants. Group selection in human groups is based on the ability to establish trust. Game theory demonstrates that repeated opportunities to support a teammate can be enforced without a major free rider problem when individuals use the “trust but retaliate” “tit for tat” strategy. Humans had the communications, thinking and memory abilities to be more effective in cooperative small groups as large as 100-150 members.
On a larger scale, the “one on one” cooperation strategy breaks down. The incentive to cheat and free ride without being caught and punished rises. Trust between group members is disrupted. Cultural group level selection employs other tools to enforce group discipline: myths, rituals, sacred times and places, temples, and priests. Early religious communities were able to bind groups together for their common advantage. Monotheistic religions further emphasized the role of the community in preserving order and avoiding chaos or disaster.
Human societies are highly experienced in employing competition and cooperation in their proper roles. Cooperation, trust, loyalty, and morality are mutually reinforcing in civil society. They provide the basis for effective economic and political institutions. Sacks again criticizes the “liberal” shift in the 1960’s to rely solely upon a “thin” morality of a political system based upon safeguarding individual rights and showing tolerance. “Something that had never been managed successfully before: namely, sustaining a society not held together by certain predominant ideas, not bound by a shared moral code, not committed to substantive ethical ideas held in common. How can there be a society in the absence of anything to bind its members in shared moral belief?”
’21. Religion
The author quotes Washington, de Tocqueville, Kennedy, and Durant on the need for morality as the basis of society and its economic and political institutions. Religious belief and participation are falling in the West generation by generation. Community and morality can be supported by kin selection, reciprocal altruism, human empathy, and familiarity with the “Golden Rule”, but this is insufficient on a large scale due to the “free rider” problem. There is an incentive to act out of self-interest and fake participation in society.
Sacks covers again the widespread emergence of formal religious groups in human history using rituals, priests, temples, calendars, and myths to bind individuals to the group. The fear of disorder plays a role. The search for meaning plays a role. The fear of punishment from an all-knowing God plays a role. When “everyone else is doing it”, cultural norms become an unspoken background. The most effective religious societies enjoyed the best results taking advantage of cooperation, reducing inner conflicts, and defending the group against nature and enemies.
Monotheism consecrated the social structure and the individual. In the Abrahamic faiths there is an intimate relationship between God and each individual. Morality includes justice and love. These religions expect more than compliance, they require moral performance. Will and choice are elevated above fixed character and fate. The moral life is more important than the physical life. This vote of confidence in the individual’s nature, freedom and choices allows for some flexibility in social choices like the form of government and earthly political decisions. History allows for progress and regress; it is not determined or inherently cyclical.
This heritage honors history and tradition, but equally honors debate, pesky prophets, and the separation of earthly powers. Combined, many argue that this “paved the way” for our modern individual based liberal democracy and mixed capitalist systems. Religion effectively creates community within the church and by building habits in practicing members, also in adjacent and broader communities. Sacks highlights additional research that focuses on the practical effect that religions or surveillance states have when individuals believe they are being watched and will be punished for bad behavior. Religion provides a longer-term perspective that is required for making some political decisions such as those about climate change.
“Religion … builds communities. It aids law-abidingness. And it helps us to think long term. Most simply, the religious mindset awakens us to transcendence. It redeems our solitude.”
‘1. Loneliness
“Morality, at its core, is about strengthening the bonds between us, helping others, engaging in reciprocal altruism, and understanding the demands of group loyalty, which are the price of group belonging.” “Marriage, parenthood, membership in a community, or citizenship in a nation” all require this moral commitment by the individual to make a binding covenant with the group. There is a strong transactional commitment, but much more. The individual adopts the group perspective, seeks the good of the group and is personally transformed into a new “I” by the experience. The gain in the “I” perspective and the loss of the “We” perspective has had a negative synergy effect. “We” experience makes more “We” interaction easier. Its absence makes any “We” engagement more difficult.
The change in perspective can be measured and its negative impacts clearly seen. Language studies document the shift. Analysts such as Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone document the large reduction in community participation of all kinds, the reduced rate and success of marriages and the loss of shared family life. These changes make organizations and institutions less effective. They reduce trust in institutions and other people. Fewer and less positive group experiences reduce the incentive to invest in other group experiences. Once again, there is a negative “ripple effect”.
“So, individualism comes at a high cost: the breakdown of marriage, the fragility of families, the strength of communities, the sense of the identity that comes with both of these things, and the equally important sense that we are part of something that preceded us and will continue long after we are no longer here.”
Collectively this leads to physical and social isolation, loneliness, and anxiety. Relationships become increasingly transactional, we expect less from others, we give less in return, Martin Buber’s I-Thou framework is lost. The data confirms these results. Individuals feel more alone, have fewer friends, trust less and worry more. This loneliness shows up in measures of suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse and longevity.
Groups were first formed to share food, defend against enemies, and perform as groups. As the moral sense declines and mutual responsibility is experienced less often, groups become less effective. Historically, strong groups have been a mutual insurance policy against the risks of life. In a complex and challenging world, many groups are less effective in this role.
“One significant contribution of religion today is that it preserves what society as a whole has begun to lose: that strong sense of being there for one another, of being ready to exercise mutual aid, to help people in need, to comfort the distressed and bereaved, to welcome the lonely, to share in other people’s sadnesses and celebrations”.
“We can do things that our ancestors could hardly dream, but what they found simple we find extremely hard. Getting married. Staying married. Being part of a community. Having a strong sense of identity. Feeling continuity with the past before we were born and the future after we are no longer here.”
‘2. The Limits of Self-Help
Morality turns us outward. “The pursuit of the right and the good is not about the self but about the process of unselfing, of seeing the world for what it is, not for what we feel or fear it to be and responding to it appropriately. Morality is precisely un-self-help. It is about strengthening our relationships with others, responding to their needs, listening to them, not insisting they listen to us, and about being open to others.” Humans are given the ability to do second-order evaluations, stepping outside and viewing themselves as an object, considering their own thoughts and decisions in a broader framework, choosing which desires to satisfy. Morality begins with but does not end with the individual.
Morality is based on high quality relationships, not self-awareness or self-esteem. Personal growth is mostly stimulated by others who support, uplift, listen, advise, counsel, and challenge us. With high quality relationships we are open to transformation. Sacks cites literature, management guides, Viktor Frankl, Iris Murdoch, Adam Smith, and Plato in support of his view. Transformation and growth come from the outside, not from internal contemplation.
Philip Rieff’s 1966 “The Triumph of the Therapeutic” is referenced as one of the first critics of the self-help movement, observing “individuals” aided by therapists as the replacement for religion and pastors. The individual is capable, almost solely by himself, of managing his life. Rieff notes that the “therapist-patient” relationship replaced the “individual-community” relationship. Sacks notes 2 reviews of the self-help literature that concluded that the field has been a failure, delivering narcissism, self-obsession, aggression, materialism, indifference, shallow values, and anti-social attitudes. He notes that even Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers eventually questioned self-esteem as a worthy goal to pursue.
Sacks argues that morality, purpose, and the good life are derived from relationships and community. The individual cannot reverse the sequence and individually pursue self-esteem, self-actualization, and happiness. They can only be achieved as a byproduct of morally engaging in community and pursuing a calling or vocation. Achievement can drive self-esteem, but not vice versa.
‘4. The Fragile Family
Rabbi Sacks has strong views in this chapter. He notes that civilizations have used various family structures but concludes that “The family – man, woman, and child – is not one lifestyle choice among many”. Humans are one of a few mammal species with children that require years of attention, so “pair bonding” was required for our success. Families are biologically natural. In many early human cultures polygamy developed as powerful alpha males leveraged their dominance. He quotes James Q. Wilson, “in virtually every society into which historians or anthropologists have enquired, one finds people living together on the basis of kinship ties and having responsibility for raising children”. The Hebrew culture promoted monogamy as every person had been created in the image of God and had an equal right to marriage and children.
This religion also stressed the love of God and man, man and neighbor, man and stranger, and man and wife. The relationship was a moral bond, a covenant, something more than reciprocal altruism. It is described as “faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty, steadfastness, not walking away even when the going gets tough, trusting the other, and honoring the other’s trust in us.” Sacks notes that the Jewish people have survived due to their faith, family, and community. Marriage, like faith, is a sacred moral virtue. He notes Martin Buber’s insight that “truth, beauty, goodness, and life itself do not exist in any one person or entity but in the “between”.
Marriage provides an opportunity for two equal individuals to be transformed into one and experience transcendence. This experience helps to further develop moral capabilities. It provides an opportunity for “bride and groom” love equal to “God and man” love. It gives individuals an opportunity to frequently think outside of themselves, to give and receive counsel. It provides an opportunity to manage desire and submit to a higher value. It gives the opportunity to have children, provide for them, educate them, and raise them within the community, offering an identity and transmitting culture through generations. “One of the great achievements of the West … the single most humanizing institution in history.”
Sacks decries the notion of “free love” that began in the 1960’s. It breaks apart the elements that marriage knits together. Sex from love. Love from commitment. Marriage from having children. Having children from being responsible for their care. We see sex without responsibility, fatherhood without commitment, marriage as a mere formality. The breakdown of the traditional family has been quite significant. Fewer and later marriages. More divorces. More births outside of marriage. More children living without one or both parents. The author notes that these trends have stabilized and that research by Robert Putnam in “Our Kids” shows that the top socioeconomic “one-third” of society remains committed to marriage, family, career, religion, and community. However, the bottom “one-third” has very low rates of marriage and two-parent families and most births without the benefit of married parents. This lack of investment in children has very negative consequences: poverty, health, security, safety, education, opportunity, mental health, crime, drugs, alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, etc. Society invests in mitigating these “social ills”, but marriage and a secure family appear to be a critical base for child development that cannot be replaced by programs.
’10. Time and Consequence
The market, state and society all struggle to balance short-term and long-term costs and benefits. Each is guilty of overemphasizing short-term effects and ignoring long-term effects. Investors and financial markets roughly limit time trade-offs through interest rates and security prices even though major mispricing across time is common. Separation of powers, different legislative roles, young voters, and political party self-interest attempt to inject some balance in politics. Morality can play the key role in determining social attitudes, norms, and laws. It is the most critical factor of all.
Morality has historically played a conservative role in slowing social changes. Religions and conservative political parties emphasize relying on what has worked historically versus what might work or might fail due to the “law of unintended consequences”. Sacks points to modern chaos theory as proving that deterministic reasoning is incapable of predicting the effects of changes in complex systems like society, so it is best to be very cautious.
Sacks focuses again on the 1960’s when “classic liberal” political leaders chose to prioritize John Stuart Mill’s view that “the only purpose for which our power can be rightfully exercised over any member of the civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant”. Political and social leaders also tacitly embraced the expanded use of marijuana and drugs as part of “freedom of choice”. Sacks points to the economic, individual, spiritual, and societal costs of drug use today as proof that this was a very bad decision.
Sacks criticizes Utilitarianism, allied with classical liberalism’s optimism about rationality, education, and human progress, as being overly simplistic and inadequate for considering individual or public policy choices. How does utilitarianism manage costs, benefits and consequences that extend through time? For how long? How probable? Intended? Foreseeable? He argues that decision makers must accept that they have a limited ability to see the future and should make changes slowly, incrementally and with a concern for if they can be reversed if needed later.
Sacks is especially critical of modern society’s “rationalistic hubris” and “fatal conceit” when applied to moral norms and institutions. He argues that society has learned through time that it requires a system of deeply embedded “thou shalt not” rules to offset the weaknesses in human character. They may be religious, cultural, or secular norms, but they must be widely held, taught, and reinforced.
‘3. Unsocial Media
The author sees the proliferation of electronic communication and social media as a revolution with as large of an impact as the printing press, some good but much very bad. This seductive technology has captured 7 ½ hours per day of screen time on average. Individuals become addicted, are seldom fully present, struggle to focus, promote themselves, worry about comparisons with others, become short-term and shallow thinkers, lose sleep, become anxious and depressed, lose trust, have more contacts and fewer friends, and fail to build face to face social and moral skills.
Sacks worries most about the loss of time to build social and moral skills. He argues that impersonal electronic communication simply cannot substitute for being in the presence of another person, reading their analog verbal and non-verbal communications, listening, valuing them as people, moving back and forth, empathizing, investigating, managing the tone of a conversation, injecting humor, trying seriousness, changing subjects, summarizing, refocusing, doing the human and communications dance. He references Martin Buber’s “I-thou” relationship and Emmanuel Levinas’ encounter with the face of the other.
“Bonding, friendship, trust, discipleship: these emerge from face-to-face conversation and the subtle clues that accompany it and that shape the contours of human interaction … Morality is born when I focus on you, not me; when I discover that you, too, have emotions, desires, aspirations, and fears. I learn this by being present to you and allowing you to be present to me … [on social media] character is trivialized into personality, ‘likes’ take the place of genuine respect, and the presentation of self takes the place of engagement with others … Most fundamentally it leaves us morally underdeveloped, addicted to a search for popularity that has little to do with character, virtue, or anything else, and that is the worst possible training for resilience or happiness in the real world of real people and real relationships.”
’12. Safe Space
Professor Sacks has a very high view of the role of the university. A moral community of scholars collaborating in the pursuit of truth and managing the intellectual heritage of mankind. Historically this institution has had its own values, norms, objectives, and practices. Truth is the goal. Truth requires a community, free speech, listening, being listened to, considering diverse thoughts, criticism, civility, respect, debate, rational argument, and evidence.
Twentieth century philosophy that denies any type of objective values leads to morality as merely emotional language. Postmodernism agrees that there is no objective truth other than the domination and oppression of minority groups and the obligation to work against the powerful elites. There are only “interpretations” of morality, history, language, and institutions. Universities are not exempt from this analysis and provide an opportunity to actively pursue these ends through political means. Hence, we get the cancellation of free speech, the ambiguous concept of microaggression, safe spaces versus non-safe spaces and no-platforming to ban threatening speech.
The university migrates from being a social institution in pursuit of truth and morality into a merely market-based trainer and a ground for political action. Within this context, political activists can leverage grievances, threats, and intimidation to capture the university. The non-university doesn’t believe in truth, morality, community, or its role as a social institution. It loses free speech, listening, diversity, interaction, civility, and reasoned argument. The faculty and institution cannot advance knowledge outside of technical specialties.
Students are deprived of the active learning community that makes them life-time learners and prepared for life’s mental, social, and moral challenges. Students fail to learn critical thinking and effective psychological skills. The university becomes part of the polarized political system, actively devoted to pursuit of a single political agenda, and strongly opposed to any other. Oppressed minorities are praised, while other supposedly “privileged” groups are criticized, shunned, and attacked. The university becomes an active player in opposing any moral order other than the postmodernist order.
’15. The Return of Public Shaming
Social media has provided an opportunity for individuals who feel that they or their worldview has been wronged to immediately seek redress from perpetrators in the court of public opinion. In some cases, this has led to low power, status or resource individuals gaining support for their legitimate claims in a manner that was not available before social media times.
In other situations, it has led to “public shaming” of individuals perceived to have offended deeply held moral views of some individual or group. “Political correctness” has gained an enforcement mechanism. “The problem with vigilante justice is that it follows no legal norms. There is no due process”. It reinforces polarization. Shaming, like revenge, is a personal response to a perceived threat to the honor of a group.
Western culture has mostly adopted impersonal responses to offenses through its justice systems. Religiously, penance and retribution have been used to atone for the offenses. The individual maintains his moral agency, separated from the sin or the action. Public shaming is a non-constructive tool of justice.
’16. The Death of Civility
“Loss of shared moral community means that we find it difficult to reason together. Truth gives way to power … people start defining themselves as victims. Public shaming takes the place of judicial establishment of guilt. Civility – especially respect for people who oppose you – begins to die. The public conversation slowly gives way to a shouting match in which integrity counts for little and noise for much.”
“Civility is more than good manners. It is a recognition that violent speech leads to violent deeds; that listening respectfully to your opponents is a necessary part of politics in a free society; and that liberal democracy, predicated as it is on the dignity of diversity must keep the peace between contending groups by honoring us all equally in both our diversity and our commonalities … it is an affirmation that the problems of some are the problems of all, that a good society presupposes collective responsibility, that there is a moral dimension to being part of this nation, this people, this place.”
The “team of rivals” was “never less than respectful, they spoke about issues not personalities, and what united them was more than good manners. It was a conviction they shared about politics: that it exists to reconcile the conflicting desires and aspirations of people within a polity, and to do so without violence, through reasoned and respectful debate. Listening to, while not agreeing with, opposing views, and trying as far as possible to serve the common good.”
The loss of civility is driven by individualism overshadowing community and morality, the internet providing effective tools for consuming only one’s own viewpoints and anonymously attacking others, and the divide between the “somewhere’s” and the “anywhere’s” in a global, competitive, meritocratic society. There are large differences between the lived experiences, perspectives, and politics of the mostly highly educated, mobile, globally informed professionals and their counterparts who have less education, broad experience, income, opportunities, and options. Modern politics is adjusting to this underlying change in the human landscape. The philosophical loss of broad community, shared values and values combined with technologies that help to divide makes addressing these differences in a civil manner a large challenge.
Sacks provides three insights from the Old Testament. “For there to be justice, all sides must be heard … all truth on earth represents [one of multiple] perspectives … the alternative to argument is violence.”
‘6. Markets Without Morals
Sacks supports capitalism and global trade, noting that they have raised incomes for all, reduced poverty, engaged staff, encouraged innovation, and knit nations together to oppose war. Unfortunately, markets do not inherently deliver a “fair” distribution of wealth and income. They do not self-regulate against “bad actors”. They promote a materialist, consumerist set of values. Public morality is required to work against human greed. He cites the individual corporate failures and fraud at the turn of the century and the broader failure of the banking industry in “outsourcing risk”, ignoring long-term factors, engaging in fraud and self-enrichment leading to the Great Recession.
Adam Smith and other leaders of the Enlightenment assumed a background of shared morality as they developed economic and political institutions to replace those of kings, nobles, and bishops. The decline of that morality and the social pressures to comply, together with libertarian philosophies that justify focusing on the individual/firm alone rather than all stakeholders, has resulted in firms and individuals pursuing their self-interest using all possible means, including ethical gray areas, short-termism, and outsourcing risk to others.
The “greed is good” aura of successful business leaders and mass media coverage encourages others to pursue the paths to riches and evaluate their lives and others based upon wealth alone, discounting things like character, honesty, integrity, and service to others. Once again, the decline in shared morality has negative feedback loops that prioritize the pursuit of wealth and power while undermining morality, character and the common good.
‘7. Consuming Happiness
The Greek and Judeo-Christian traditions ideally emphasized doing good, seeking meaning, and leading the moral life as the route to happiness. Developing virtues such as nobility, courage, temperance, wisdom, justice, righteousness, harmony, balance, and alignment with God/reality would lead to a transcendent, ongoing, resilient satisfaction. Pursuing community-based joy in work (calling), family and simple pleasures was a wise and universally available approach.
During the Enlightenment a more direct route to individual happiness was proposed. The feelings associated with pain and pleasure could be managed to produce happiness in the Utilitarian view. Although some Greeks had adopted the hedonic (pleasure seeking) philosophy, this was uncommon.
In the last 500 years the West has achieved incredible standards of living, with higher wealth, comfort, security, health, choice, communications, knowledge, entertainment, and leisure. Yet, once modest standards of living were achieved, happiness did not continue to grow. Today, it is falling for many teens, and we see “deaths of despair” reducing lifespans. Unconstrained, humans appear to have no limits to the pleasures they seek from consuming goods, services, and experiences. They highly value relative wealth and consumption. Firms use targeted advertising to make sure that consumers are never satisfied. Individuals flaunt their wealth and consumption. Consumption provides fleeting rather than lasting satisfaction, so the cycle continues without producing lasting happiness. An addictive pattern and habits are established. Moral values are “crowded out”.
Sacks points to the effective role that an institution like “the Sabbath” can have in setting aside market, consumer values on a repeated basis to allow individuals to engage with moral values and community activity.
‘8. Democracy in Danger
In the West citizens are increasingly unhappy with their political representatives and systems. Trust, political participation, hope and belief in liberal democracy are down. The center-left and center-right parties face greater competition from populist parties at both ends of the political spectrum. Citizens see their representatives as unresponsive, out of touch and ineffective. Citizens are angry, increasingly willing to give up structural protections to gain results.
Sacks identifies a primary cause for this change as the slow shift from an American-style political system of limited government, individual liberty, inalienable rights, and a strong civil sector of family, community, and associations to a French-style system of centralized government, “the general will”, state provided services and minimal space for civil society to operate. He points to the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights as a transition point where citizens moved from protecting their inalienable rights from government to demanding that government protect their human rights and deliver services. Both systems highlight “rights and liberty”, but the definitions, philosophies, and priorities are distinct. The US style is individualistic at its core to limit the state’s role and preserve civil society, community, and morality. The French style is national/group at its core to guarantee certain individual legal rights and services.
Sacks argues that the American-style system can protect individuals from the state and preserve the community building role of families, churches, and associations at the local level. He argues that the French model overpromises. Formally, it promises to only identify the “general will” and deliver relevant protections and services, without “absolute” protections of individual rights. Individuals have different perceptions of the “general will”, so they are consistently disappointed by the results of politics which invariably do not exactly match their views. Citizens pay taxes and obey the laws. They develop a sense of entitlement to the services, programs, regulations, courts, and other state institutions. The demand for services grows while the willingness to fund programs lags. The state is an inherently impersonal actor and cannot deliver the local experience of working together to serve neighbors. Citizens are especially disappointed by the historically dominant moderate parties and turn to others for new and better solutions.
The author is no fan of populist parties which overpromise even more, sometimes addressing specific issues effectively, but being incapable of solving the inherent tension between unrealistic expectations and limited resources. They tend to become authoritarian, employ communication tricks, remove structural safeguards, buy and sell assets, mortgage the future, start wars, debase the currency, start trade wars, identify and demonize scapegoats, reinvent truth, etc. The specter of a negative feedback loop destroying civil society and the political system looms.
’13. Two Ways of Arguing
Sacks calls for a “pox on both your houses”, criticizing the woke postmodernist new left and the populist extreme right for failing to participate in the “search for truth” or to recognize their shared interests and humanity. This chapter is mostly focused on the caustic, one-sided attacks on social media by younger citizens. He quotes President Obama’s advice to work “hands-on” as an activist to persuade others and notes that successful activists offer the same advice.
Political issues are inherently complex, messy, divisive, principled, and multi-faceted. Most are not primarily matters of “right and wrong”. Practical politics is like making sausage, requiring compromises, and best done only by those with strong stomachs. Demonizing the “other” increases polarization and starts a negative feedback loop. Trade-offs are required in all negotiations and require innovative ways for all parties to believe that they have benefitted regarding their most important goals while giving up just a little. Solutions may leave some issues for the future, ambiguous or delegated to administrators.
The law of contradictions does not always apply to political or religious arguments. Two apparently opposite approaches may BOTH be right, in different times, places or situations. Universal ideals are important but very difficult to implement as laws.
Sacks points to the Old Testament and Jewish experience for advice. Arguments abound. Between scholars, prophets, schools, and sages. Between God and man. Between angels. The process of debate is deemed to be good. Dissent is constructive. Arguing for the sake of heaven, truth and healing is good. One view may be recorded as the enforceable law, but many are deemed valuable. Arguments for the sake of victory and power alone, ignoring the truth, are rejected. While Sacks holds many conservative cultural positions he is consistently in the classic liberal camp in support of the value of reasoned communications, criticism, and debate.
He encourages activists and citizens to recognize their shared situation and common interests as neighbors, coworkers, teachers, coaches, volunteers, taxpayers, consumers, sports supporters, parents, retirees, citizens, travelers, seekers, humans, believers and inheritors of history, morality, and society.
’14. Victimhood
Suffering, betrayal, injustice, oppression, inequality, and exclusion exist in all societies. Individuals who experience unfair treatment have two basic choices. They can choose to look backwards as the objects of mistreatment and embrace a sense of victimhood. Or they can look forward as free choosing moral agents and move on with their lives.
Sacks points to Abraham and holocaust survivors as positive role models who take the latter route. They look forward, take constructive steps to rebuild their lives and use their experience to teach others. They don’t relinquish choice, complain, remain angry and bitter, stew in victimhood, or seek retribution. They focus on the actions which they can control which can deliver future happiness.
The author outlines how a victimhood culture has developed in the post-war West. The “triumph of the therapeutic” described by Rieff explains how a feeling-based individualism pursuing self-esteem and self-actualization set the stage for a departure from historical norms of personal responsibility. The fight for individual rights for racial minorities and women evolved into a demand for group-based recognition, proper regard, and self-esteem. Minimal state protection of individuals became group rights to “equal” status and recognition.
This was driven by the neo-Marxist postmodernist philosophy that sees everything as a matter of power and oppression. All minority groups and intersectionalities are directly and indirectly oppressed by all the tools of the ruling society: language, politics, economics, education, entertainment, religion, and culture. As seen by the existentialists, the individual members of an oppressed group often don’t even know they are living an inauthentic life and must be liberated to see that they are victims of oppression. Conflict between groups is necessary. History must be rewritten from the victim’s correct viewpoint. Overthrowing the oppressors is an ideal, existential goal rather than just negotiable politics. The oppressor group is morally wrong (blamed) and any opposition to victory must be shamed (cancelled).
This requires the state to intervene to protect these essential “rights” of the groups and individuals. These rights become politicized rather than promoted by individuals and civil society. Political conflict is unavoidable when one group blames another group. Sacks notes the progress of Western politics and society in the last century in expanding and protecting individual rights and the ongoing responsibility of individuals and society to address all moral wrongs. He fears that making these issues purely political will not change human nature but will result in group conflict and polarization without an easy exit path.
Sacks once again contrasts Greek and Judeo-Christian cultures. The Greek culture emphasizes fate, the impersonal role of external forces, individual impotence, a tragic view of life and the need for individuals to always consider the community’s views to avoid shame, from which there is no good path of recovery. The biblical culture emphasizes the individual relationship between man and God, free will, responsibility, internal guilt in the face of an all-knowing God, a path of penitence and forgiveness and ultimate hope. He emphasizes that victimhood and shaming belong to a tragic culture, so are inconsistent with modern Western views.
Individuals who choose to adopt the “victim” perspective harm themselves. They cannot change the past, but they can recycle emotional pain and block future opportunities for personal, character, family, social and economic growth.
“Victim” groups have an even larger negative impact on society. They push individuals to assume the “victim persona”. They undercut individual and civil society steps to improve conditions for mistreated individuals and groups. They encourage a revolutionary “us” versus “them” context resulting in continued group conflict and preventing incremental political solutions. They encourage individuals to adopt unrealistically ideal views of themselves (pure) and others (bad), engage in virtue signaling and critic shaming. They fundamentally undercut the individual based rights and responsibility perspective. They replace truth with power and victory as the supreme value.
’18. Meaning
Rabbi Sacks begins with, “Philosophers have traditionally identified the search for a meaningful life with service to a moral cause, a community, a country, or God.” Unfortunately, with the shift from “We” to “I” Western citizens and students prioritize financial well-being over learning, helping, and developing a meaningful philosophy of life. The intellectual/artistic class, in the shadow of postmodernism, is left adrift, with only subjective values, unlimited freedoms, no rudder for guidance, resulting in a bleak nihilism.
Sacks considers the life and critics of David Foster Wallace as representative of the modern intellectual milieu which “favored highly intellectualized, complex and aestheticized principles instead of embracing simplicity.” Wallace suffered from mental illness and committed suicide. He produced acclaimed literary works but saw widespread cultural discontent, lostness and a lack of inherited meaningful moral values amongst his peers. Sacks dismisses easily finding adequate meaning in simplicity or mundane activities but notes that highly experienced mystics have taken this path.
The modern view that privileges the role of isolated, autonomous agents and dismisses God seems just as destined to failure today as it was in the times of radical skeptics Pascal and Nietzsche. Some say that “God is dead” while others say, “we’re not listening”. By assuming away God, objectivity and meaning we remain in a world described by the title of Sarte’s 1944 play “No Exit”. Sacks rejects the option of polytheistic pursuit of peak experiences through the arts and sports as ultimately unfulfilling distractions.
Sacks notes that meaning is defined by fate in pagan worlds, faith in Abrahamic religions and fiction by postmodernism. Moderns argue that fiction may have meaning for a single individual but cannot have ultimate meaning. Sacks contrasts science and religion and their complementary cognitive modes, embracing the integrative forces of narrative as equal to the scientific method in its truth claims. Sacks argues that the “redemption narrative” where an individual faces difficulties, suffers, but still moves forward in hope to finally reach a goal that serves others is a possible source of meaning even in a skeptical context. He does not directly tie this to Christianity, Taylor’s Secular Age, religion, or myths. He emphasizes that humans are “story telling” beings that can gain stability in the present (achieve meaning?) by considering the past and aiming towards the future.
’20. Which Morality?
We have a solid understanding of the various moralities or moral systems practiced today and in the past. Moralities start as “thick” combinations of religion, ethics, customs, rituals, taboos, manners, protocols, and etiquette based on a single time and place. They may evolve into more focused “thin” theological systems with more universal applicability. Haidt identifies avoidance of harm, justice as fairness, loyalty, reverence, and respect as common moral dimensions. Cultures can be organized around the goal of their ethics: civic/service to the local government, duty to a hierarchical system, honor in a military or courtly world, or love-based morality. Different cultures tend to produce different kinds of individuals, oriented towards tradition, inner thoughts, or external influence.
Sacks argues that our awareness, analysis, and appreciation of many cultures does not absolve us of the need to choose a culture, community, ethics, and morality. To pursue a meaningful life, we must choose a moral community and engage our thoughts, feelings, and actions.
“A mature understanding of the many ways there are of organizing a society and a life may make us more tolerant of people unlike us, but it does not preclude the knowledge that, if we are to find meaning, depth, and resonance in life, we must choose a language of deeds as we choose a language of words.”
’22. Morality Matters
Human nature is unchanged, and people wish to be moral. Telecommunications makes us more aware of the needs and sufferings of individuals and the actions that could help. We have more resources to address those needs. The latest generation shows an increased sense of moral responsibility. Since the Reagan/Thatcher period, the state has been a smaller actor in areas where civil society can address social needs. The basic moral rules are very widely held by actual communities (as opposed to philosophers): “help your family, help your group, return favors, be brave, defer to superiors, divide resources fairly, and respect other people’s property.”
The state and market cannot improve our moral situation. Individuals can change their behavior to think, decide and act better and thereby influence others to join them. Improved morality does not require an overarching plan and program. It can be built by one act of kindness at a time.
Our current situation has been driven by lower religious participation, the conflicts of multiple cultures living side by side, and philosophical ideas that prioritize the individual over the community and claim that moral judgments are often simply fronts for political power. Sacks emphasizes that the state has “crowded out” the institutions of civil society, making them less effective, removing individual morality building experiences and responsibility, inserting political considerations, and interrupting the “law of natural consequences” between bad moral decisions and personal responsibility.
“We will have to rebuild families and communities and voluntary organizations. We will come to depend more on networks of kinship and friendship. And we will rapidly discover that their very existence depends on what we give as well as what we take, on our willingness to shoulder duties, responsibilities, and commitments as well as claiming freedoms and rights.”
’23. From “I” to “We”
We have experienced a shift from “I” to “We” in the US in the 1830’s and 1930’s and in the UK in the 1850’s. Cultures can be changed through new ideas, institutions, and leadership. Humans naturally wish to “do good”. These actions provide physical and mental health benefits. In a wealthy society, incremental time and resources invested in service provide a greater return than extra consumption.
“In a covenant, two or more individuals, each respecting the dignity and integrity of the other, come together in a bond of love and trust, to share their interests, sometimes even share their lives, by pledging their faithfulness to one another, to do together what neither can do alone … A covenant is a relationship … about identity … [and transforms] … A covenant creates a moral community. It binds people together in a bond of mutual responsibility and care.”
Business leaders, economists, thought leaders and professional employees are using covenant like thinking to reform corporations to consider the interests of all stakeholders once again, leaving behind Milton Friedman’s advice to maximize profit alone.
The US Declaration of Independence established the country in covenant terms, and these were renewed by President Lincoln during the Civil War. “Covenant politics … is about ‘We, the people’, bound by a sense of shared belonging and collective responsibility, about strong local communities, active citizens, and the devolution of responsibility. It is about reminding those who have more than they need of their responsibilities to those who have less than they need. It is about ensuring that everyone has a fair chance to make the most of their capacities and their lives.”
This 1967 lesson in “The Graduate” remains relevant today. A rising tide lifts all boats.
Live a Great Life
Establish your priorities for life. What is negotiable or non-negotiable? How much is incremental income, wealth and financial security worth to you and your family?
Invest
The opportunity to own your own firm is greater today than ever before. Entrepreneurship is a high risk/high reward option. It requires a financial investment. Internet partners are ready to provide most support services. Licensing and franchising provide other options. Niche products and services have a global market.
Trade-offs
How many hours? Physical risks? Work the firm’s top priority every minute? Firm risks – seasonality, stability, leverage, industry risk, start-up. Serve as a representative for a group? Grey ethics, whatever it takes? Consultant, gig worker, cross-team, project member.
Profession
Degree(s), time, cost, intern, resident, trainee, junior, dues, investment, licensed, certified, valued, next best option for firms, international outsourcing, AI outsourcing.
Talent
The very best of the best. Creative, sports, intellectual, selling, persuading, appearance, arts, counselling, investing. Ability to leverage business wins. Ability to monetize output broadly.
Managing
Managing the conflicts between people and tasks. Great managers are well compensated for buffering between these contrasting forces. Adequate managers “get by” or are demoted in competitive industries.
Analysis
STEM skills applied are highly valued today. Specialized “analyst” skills. Technocracy. Problem-solving in unstructured situations. Choosing the right tool to structure the situation so that a decision is clear. Analysis applied to large value deals, decisions, contracts and acquisitions. Strategic choices, competitive advantage, sustainable moats, value extraction.
Sales
Customers have choices. They value quality, speed, flexibility, features, price, ease of doing business, risk reduction and personal relationships (QSFVIP). Great salespeople are well compensated for connecting a firm’s value proposition to customers in a sticky fashion. They play the game in 3 dimensions: firm, customer and salesperson. Commissioned sales and agent models. New business acquisition.
Influence/Politics
Communications skills. Relationship skills. Influence skills. Negotiating skills. Political relationships applied – internally and externally.
“Rent” from Specific Skills, Knowledge, or Relations
Industry, firm, profession, language, international, expert, technical, customer, regulator, supplier, or consultant knowledge, understanding, influence. A combination of skills required for a role. Holding a position in the firm.
Responsibility
Raise your hand. Manager. Project manager. Project member. Value added leader for new products, customer markets, structures and processes. Line manager in a measurable success role. Resource manager for broadly defined suppliers, customers or staff resources. Second level or higher management role responsible for results largely beyond your control.
Leadership
A mythical beast. Charisma. IQ. Confidence. Elite education and experience. Progressive successful role. General management ability to lead multiple functions, teams, divisions, geographies, product lines without being an expert. Social status and ease.
Summary
We live in a complex world of many firms, products and services competing for the attention of consumers. Firms employ people to make sales and profits. Firms employ people who they believe provide them with the greatest “marginal product of labor”, the greatest value added. Firms pay as little as they can. Their interest is to employ labor for less than their marginal value added and capture the difference. Set your moral limits. Work on your own. Determine the best path to be a value-added resource. Pick an industry. Pick a profession. Exploit your own extreme talents, sales, influence, specific knowledge, analysis, responsibility or general management abilities. No one has ALL of these skills. You have some talents. Leverage your talents.
I started writing this article thinking about the ratio of incomes of large firm CEOs to shop floor/outsourced workers. It has risen from 20X to 300X to 2,000X through time. Beginning with “essential workers” as the baseline, somewhere between the effective $10/hour minimum wage, and the $20/hour median income, others earn incomes in the US many times above the median. What incremental value do they provide to their firms or to society? in “order of magnitude” terms, I think that hours and flexibility are worth 50%. Professional, management, analysis, sales, influence and specific knowledge add 100% each, or 250% in combination. “Higher level” responsibility and leadership skills add another 200-300% of added value, reaching a combined 500-600% premium above median incomes (IMHO).
Historian Will Durant emphasized the need for all civilizations to incentivize their most talented individuals to engage in the work that coheres and advances their lives. First, political unity, commitment and loyalty. Second, material progress. Our society must be attractive and deeply engage the top 20%, 10%, 5%, and 1%. Does this require a 5X income advantage? 20X? 200X? 2,000X?
We currently live in a “winner takes all” society that is comfortable with 1,000X discrepancies between the winners and the workers. Is this required to incentivize the “best and the brightest” to work hard to provide incremental value for society? I think not. This is a political choice we have accepted since Reagan. Our society is incredibly productive because it is comprised of productive and highly educated individuals. The political choice of how much the most successful people retain is a separate issue.
The United States’ political founders understood the nature of man and the risks of direct democracy (rule of the mob). They designed a system of “checks and balances” to ensure that a system of representative government would not aggregate power at the center or allow the whims of the majority or any minority to be served.
Yet today we live in a time where the “cult of individualism” rules. Senators are directly elected, not by state legislatures. National political candidates are chosen by popular vote in primaries, with limited political party filtering or influence. Earmarks are considered “dirty business”, so they cannot be used to influence the votes of individual legislators. Representatives and candidates create individual brands and raise funds independent of political parties. A majority of political districts at the state and national levels are gerrymandered to ensure that incumbents are re-elected without credible opponents in the general election. There are effectively no limits to political fundraising by individual candidates. Only a small share of highly motivated, largely extremist individuals vote in the primaries where most elections are won.
As a result, we have either partisan monopolies or polarized governments. Almost 80% of states endure one party rule.
The Senate Does Not Advocate for the Whole or the Center Today
The US Senate was intended to play the role of offsetting or delaying the demands of popular government in the House of Representatives. The House could propose and the cozy, experienced, independent Senate could “dispose” of legislation. In our current polarized system, with disproportionate representation to rural and Republican leaning states, the Senate is as politicized as the House. Bipartisanship is rare. Seeking the public good is rare. Fighting to win for your party is the only goal.
Any number of reforms could make the Senate more effective in serving its intended function. Campaign financing reform. More senators for very high population states. Increased rules and committee power for the minority party. A 60-vote filibuster rule with time limits.
A Solution: A Council of Advisors
Congress should create a “Council of Advisors” to advocate for the country as a whole, highlighting representatives and legislation that are supported by a significant majority of the country rather than by one political party or the other.
Former governors or US Senators could choose to run in a biannual referendum where they would be required to earn 60% of the popular vote in order to be appointed to a single 10-year term as an advisor, elder or guardian. The body would have a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 30 members. The body would be qualified to offer opinions only when each of the two major parties had at least one-third of the representatives.
The Council of Advisors would have two functions. First, it would consider whether Senators who are seeking re-election have “generally acted on behalf of the American public in a bipartisan fashion during their last term of office”. Senators who earned 60% of the vote of the Council of Advisors who be designated as “approved” by the Council. Others would not have this seal of approval.
Second, the Senate could refer any single bill to this body each month and seek its approval as “generally supported by the American people as a whole” on the basis of a 60% affirmative vote.
The Council would be a solely advisory body. It would be composed of individuals who were approved by the people as representing the country as a whole. It would have moral authority to make judgments about Senators and legislation. This moral authority would help to pressure both parties to produce legislation that serves the majority of the public and that is supported by the majority of the public. In essence, it would be a counterweight to the many pressures for polarization and “winner take all” politics that is practiced today.
I believe that we have unintentionally arrived at the current state of affairs where political pandering to the lowest common denominator drives our political decisions. There ARE important political judgments that cannot be compromised in the long run. But most of our political issues do NOT require a one side wins and the other side loses result. Our elected officials are intended to represent our views and to provide results. Political results that involve creative solutions, imperfect processes and administration (sausage making), negotiations and compromise. Every for profit and not-for-profit organization lives by these same rules. They have owners, customers, employees and stakeholders with competing claims. Yet, the organization’s leaders must produce acceptable results and be held accountable. We need to have these same expectations and processes for elected officials.
Just as a president or CEO is faced with the judgment of a board of directors, our US Senators need to have a Council of Advisors review their performance.
“Americans today have little trust in government; household income lags behind our usual middle-class expectations … the alienated are mobilized afresh by changing demography, by broadening conceptions of identity, and by an economy that prizes Information Age brains over manufacturing brawn.”
Gunnar Myrdal described the American Creed as “devotion to the principles of liberty, of self-government and of equal opportunity”. “The war between the ideal and the real, between what’s right and what’s convenient, between the larger good and personal interest is the contest that unfolds in the soul of every American”. “We cannot guarantee equal outcomes, but we must do all we can to ensure equal opportunity. Hence a love of fair play, of generosity of spirit, of reaping the rewards of hard work and faith in the future”. “The United States has long been shaped by the promise … of forward motion, of rising greatness, and of the expansion of knowledge, of wealth, of happiness”.
“Our greatest leaders have pointed toward the future – not at this group or sect.” “The president of the United States has not only administrative and legal but moral and cultural power”.
Fear: feeds anxiety and produces anger, about limits, points at others, assigning blame, pushes away, divides. Hope: breeds optimism, about growth, points ahead, working for a common good, pulls others closer, unifies.
One: The Confidence of the Whole People
America began with dreams of God and Gold. In 1630, John Winthrop said “For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a hill”. Meachem argues that we must understand the dynamic between the presidency and the people at large, between a powerful chief and a free, disputatious populace. The presidency was defined in the shadow of the ineffective Articles of Confederation and the hatred of monarchy. Walter Bagehot in 1867 contrasted the dignified and the efficient parts of British parliamentary system. We have no king, so the US president must fill the dignified, symbolic, honorary, universal, ideal, inspiring, cohering role. “Our past presidents have unified and inspired with conscious dignity and conscientious efficiency”.
LBJ: “the moral force of the Presidency is often stronger than the political force”. Jefferson sought “to unite himself with the confidence of the whole people”. “Jackson believed in the nation with his whole heart. To him, the nation was a sacred thing”. Jackson: “The president is the direct representative of the American people”. Lincoln moved from a compromising, tentative early tone to exerting moral leadership for the country in the Gettysburg address, defining America ever after in terms of democracy and equality, followed by appeals to the “better angels of our nature” and binding the wounds of war.
Teddy Roosevelt coined the term “bully pulpit” to describe the president’s unique opportunity for moral leadership. Woodrow Wilson wrote of the president: “His position takes the imagination of the country. He is the representative of no constituency, but of the whole people”. Character and temperament clearly matter in such a president. FDR perfected the “fireside chat”. Meacham notes “A leader’s balancing act, then, was the education and shaping of public opinion without becoming overly familiar or exhausting”.
The character of the country is as important as the character of the president. It’s inclinations, aspirations, customs, thought and the balance between the familiar and the new. The Declaration of Independence introduced “the pursuit of happiness” to the world stage, not as individual self-interest but the joint pursuit of private and public good, the good of the whole.
Even by 1750, commentators noted the strong American belief in progress. Reason, religion and capitalism all contributed to forming this hopeful view. Actual progress “does not usually begin at the top and among the few, but from the bottom and among the many”. Referring to civil rights and Womens’ rights, Meacham says, “It took presidential action to make things official … but without the voices from afar, there would have been no chorus of liberty”.
Two: The Long Shadow of Appomattox
Robert E Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S Grant was a solemn, respectful, muted, balanced, even hopeful event, but it did not mark the end of America’s struggle with equality between the races. Grant fought against the Klan, but Andrew Johnson tried to prevent progress and Rutherford B. Hayes ended Reconstruction in 1877, allowing the Confederate States to return to “home rule”.
The decades before the Civil War had been intensely fought off the battlefield. The war killed one-fourth of the Rebel soldiers. The war resolved the question of union (sort of) and emancipation (sort of), but the path forward was uncertain and debated at the national and state levels. Northerners and Southerners debated the cause of the war (states rights or slavery) and the cause of the Union’s military victory (industrial and military capacity, leadership, tactics, bravery or God). Even the great American hero, Abraham Lincoln, held mixed, moderate, evolving, tactical and ideal values and positions about slavery and the equality of the races. He didn’t have a clear plan because he was not sure about actual equality, he recognized that a majority of citizens did not believe in true equality or intermixing, and he understood that social institutions don’t change quickly or easily.
Virginian Edward Pollard published the “Lost Cause” in 1866, outlining a defensive and proud Southern position that did not embrace defeat, but triggered a new war for the preservation of Southern culture. “The war has left the South with its own memories, its own heroes, its own tears, its own dead”. The war “did not decide negro equality; it did not decide negro suffrage; it did not decide states’ rights … the Southern people will still cling to, still claim, and still assert them in their rights and views”. This was couched as a holy war against the oppressors.
The Ku Klux Klan was formed in 1866. It terrorized blacks and “others”. It worked to undermine Reconstruction. It supported the political actions required to completely disenfranchise blacks from voting and to segregate all services and social relations.
The “voice of the people” initially drove the federal government to pass the historic constitutional amendments, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Reconstruction legislation of 1867 despite President Johnson’s opposition. He was impeached but escaped removal by one vote.
President Grant leaned into further steps towards racial equality but found that northern support for significant change was weak and that Southern opposition to any legislation, or compromise discussions, was consistent and universal. He was able to pass the Enforcement Act of 1870 that gave the federal government powers to pursue the Klan. The Klan’s public face disappeared, and its private actions faltered for some time, but violence and the threat of violence were used to complement the Jim Crow laws and establish a one party, dictatorial state throughout the “solid South” for decades into the future.
Three: With Soul of Flame and Temper of Steel
Womens’ suffrage, immigration and labor protections joined civil rights as major issues by the turn of the 19th century, epitomized in modern, progressive, reformist politicians such as Teddy Roosevelt.
Israel Zangwill’s play “The Melting Pot” celebrated the positive interactions of various races, religions and ethnic groups in teeming New York City. Teddy Roosevelt approved of the message as he interpreted it. America welcomes foreign groups if they embrace their Americanness and downplay their roots. Roosevelt employed logic and morality to conclude that it is “a base outrage to oppose a man because of his religion or his birthplace”. On the other hand, Roosevelt held no such accommodating views regarding native Americans. Like his contemporaries, he was influenced by Herbert Spencer’s social Darwinism, scientific eugenics and apologetics for Britain’s imperial rule (White Man’s Burden). He believed that the progress of the Anglo-Saxon nations in the last 100-300 years reflected some form of superior readiness for the modern world.
Teddy Roosevelt was born in New York City in 1858 to a prominent family and benefited from their wealth, perspective and social standing. Teddy decided at an early age to be a “muscular”, driven individual, embracing the outdoors, adventure and change, especially when driven by himself. His “Citizen in a Republic” or “Man in the Arena” speech summarizes his view of a fully engaged life well lived. Roosevelt said, “Like all Americans, I like big things; big prairies, big forests and mountains, big wheat fields, railroads and herds of cattle, too, big factories, steamboats and everything else”.
Roosevelt’s progressive politics were influenced by Jacob Riis’ 1890 illustrated book “How the Other Half Lives”, which showed real urban living and working conditions. They were also influenced by Jane Addams’ Hull House initiatives to support the acclimation of immigrants to the United States.
Roosevelt crusaded against machine politics, monopolies, poor working conditions, and for conservation, railroad regulation, food safety, Womens’ suffrage and political reform.
Roosevelt invited Book T. Washington to dinner at the White House, a small step forward, which was criticized by many and elevated by many Southern journalists and politicians as an unremovable stain.
In each Roosevelt situation, we see a heroic man of privilege making decisions and taking actions to move his country forward. In hindsight, he was shaped by the views of his society, for good and for bad. He believed in progress, rationality, betterment and action. He was a Republican, a representative of the powerful Northeastern region, interests and his social class. He was idealistic, confident in the ability of individuals and governments to make things better. “We have room for but one flag, the American flag, for but one language, the English language, for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people”.
Four: A New and Good Thing in the World
The teens and twenties provided the 19th amendment for Women’s suffrage, but also a rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan opposed to blacks, Catholics, Jews and foreigners. Meachem reviews Wilson, Harding and Coolidge on these issues and finds just lukewarm support for “equal rights” a century ago.
In 1918 Wilson reversed his long-standing opposition to Women’s suffrage as it had become politically more favorable in the 70 years since the movement’s founding in Seneca, New York. The leaders had adopted a strategy of civil disobedience: lectures, protests, marches, lobbying, arrests for trespassing, and starvation pledges.
Wilson maintained his Virginian view of the Civil War, Reconstruction and negro rights. He met with black leaders at the White House but did not listen or engage, emotionally walking them out the door. Wilson denounced lynching and purged two racist senators from the Democratic party in 1918. Seeking support for his progressive economic policies in a 50th anniversary Gettysburg speech, he spoke of “the people themselves, the great and the small, without class or difference of kind or race or origin”, but also indicated that the combatants were morally equal.
A North Carolinian, Thomas Dixon, published a series of three novels between 1902 and 1907 reviving support for the “Lost Cause” version of the Civil War. One of the novels was filmed by D. W. Griffith in 1914 as “The Birth of the Nation”. It celebrated white supremacy and attacked African Americans. Wilson showed the film at the White House but later distanced himself from any formal support. In 1915 the new Klan was re-founded near Atlanta based upon “unease about crime, worry about anarchists, fear of immigrants flooding in from Europe desolated by war, and … anxiety about Communism”. The Klan promised racial solidarity and cultural certitude as the transition from an agricultural to an industrial and urban world accelerated. Klan Imperial wizard Evans claimed, “we demand a return of power into the hands of the everyday, not highly cultured, not overly intellectualized, but entirely unspoiled and not de-Americanized average citizens of the old stock”.
The first world war led to the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, restricting free speech. Dissident groups, including labor unions and socialists, were pursued, charged and imprisoned. Eugene Debs was imprisoned for his opposition to the war. The Postal Service was used to restrict the dissemination of publications. Anarchist bombs exploded in 1919, leading to greater federal investigation of “threatening” sectors. Socially, politically and journalistically Americans were pressured to become more patriotic and completely support American institutions.
The pendulum started to swing back after 1920 when the New York legislature tried to unseat 5 duly elected Socialist party members. Leading voices remembered the core principles of democracy, confident that the system could survive a small amount of dissent.
The Klan reached a peak of influence in 1925, with 2 million members and strong political representation and influence at the state and national levels. A Democratic Party plank criticizing “secret organizations” like the Klan failed to be adopted in 1924. The Klan’s 1925 march on Washington attracted 30,000 participants. The Klan’s extreme positions were later rejected in many states and by national politicians and the Supreme Court and its influence once again faded by the end of the 1920’s. Harding was a leader in opposing the extra-legal actions of the Klan. Coolidge also took steps in the mid-1920’s to oppose the Klan. Yet, the National Origins Act of 1924 greatly restricted immigration.
The teens and twenties witnessed some progress for women, threats to free speech or nonconformity, and an expanded opposition to “others” by race, ethnicity or religion. Economic progress in the twenties softened the edges of opposition to “others”. The US, like most other nations, became more nationalistic or patriotic in the shadow of the Great War. The general positive attitude towards scientific, business and government progress continued, leading most politicians to reject extremist, irrational positions even if they were not quite ready to fully embrace the implications of “equality” expressed by Lincoln 50 years earlier.
Five: The Crisis of the Old Order
The Great Depression threatened the US as it threatened Europe. 20% unemployment. In 1932, FDR saw army chief of staff, Douglas MacArthur as a threat to democracy, leaning towards a military government. Louisiana governor and senator Huey Long posed a leftist populist threat. Father Charles Coughlin’s radio broadcasts stirred populist, nativist and anti-Jewish sentiments. Charles Lindbergh inspired the isolationists who wanted to leave Europe to its intramural squabbles. Novelists such as Nathanael West and Sinclair Lewis highlighted the attractions of fascism and populism to a suffering public. A group of Wall Street investors conspired to overthrow FDR in a military coup in 1933.
Business and political leaders understood the nation’s challenges. They were unsure about FDR’s policies, political judgements, character and ability. Columnist Walter Lippman wrote, “Franklin D. Roosevelt is no crusader. He is no tribune of the people. He is no enemy of entrenched privilege. He is a pleasant man who, without any important qualifications for office, would very much like to be president”.
Roosevelt exceeded expectations. His themes of “the salience of hope, the dangers of fear, and the need for open American hearts” were effective. He prioritized the most important topics and mostly won his battles. He used his communications skills to speak with the nation, each small town, neighborhood and person. He believed in idealism and pragmatism. He promoted plans but adapted and adjusted quickly. He moved quickly but didn’t preach revolution. He overreached and then reset. He courageously faced situations as they were, not how he wished them to be. He delayed decisions when he could. He played off advisors against each other. He used his wife for political advantage. He was self-aware, knowing that he was leading in an extraordinary time, that his decisions effected civilization and that he was surely making some mistakes. Yet, he maintained a sense of hope and a spirit of optimism.
Despite the country’s strong isolationist leanings, FDR prepared the nation for war. He found ways to support the UK, such as the lend-lease program. He fought against the isolationist views of many important political and banking leaders.
FDR took small steps to reduce racial discrimination. With A. Philip Randolph’s Pullman Car Union threatening a march on Washington, he opened up employment in the defense industries to African Americans. Eleanor Roosevelt promoted racial progress, including resigning from the DAR when it prohibited Marian Anderson from performing at their Constitution Hall. Anderson garnered national publicity with her concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. FDR signed the executive order that moved 120,000 Japanese Americans from their West Coast homes to internment camps further inland away from the potential war zone.
FDR took some early steps to promote greater emigration of Jews from Europe to the US and elsewhere. However, by 1940 he had concluded that preparing for war and winning the war was the best way to save the most Jews from Naziism.
As Allied troops were landing in northern France in 1944, FDR was at his idealistic best, praying for the world, “Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. … Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace — a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men”.
Six: Have You No Sense of Decency?
The post-war world in the US offered a contrast between widespread prosperity plus political moderation and the emergence of a new strain of anti-establishment conservatism fueled by the power of the mass news media.
Harry Truman won a surprise presidential victory in 1948 on the coattails of FDR’s New Deal and war victory. Eisenhower cruised to victory in 1952 and 1956, nominally as a Republican, but truly as a moderate centrist eager to preserve the peace and gains of the last decades. The growing prosperity, baby boom and suburbanization prompted recognition of the wonders of a growing middle class.
Economists, journalists and politicians had all worried that the end of the war would lead to a recession or depression due to lack of aggregate demand, hiccups from war production transitions and Europe’s slow recovery. Instead, pent-up demand and increased American production capacity led to a boom period. The business cycle had not been tamed, but it was less threatening. Business and labor fought over contracts but settled their differences as the US increased its production for the world. Per capita income, birth rates, employment rates, college education, home ownership, women’s opportunities, farm incomes and life expectancy all grew rapidly.
Meachem notes that the “middle class” became a more recognized term and a larger group as many earned greater incomes, formed businesses and joined professions. There was a pride in the “bourgeois” class as the US competed with the USSR for world leadership. He also highlights the role that government has played in spurring economic success (despite the popular emphasis on individual effort), noting the earlier railroad, infrastructure, homestead and land-grant college investments; regulatory and labor changes of the progressive era; the various New Deal safety net programs and the continued post-war investments in highways, GI’s, aerospace, R&D, defense, etc.
With the economy humming and fascism defeated, politicians turned to the Cold War, excess government, socialism, welfare and liberty to win attention, votes and power. Eisenhower easily won elections, but his moderate positions did not help the Republican Party to distinguish itself from the Democrats or to greatly increase its state or national powers.
Robert Welch, a Massachusetts business owner, founded the John Birch Society in 1954 focused on a conspiracy among American elites, including Ike, to cooperate with the communists. Welch and his followers saw the world in “black and white” terms, contrasting secular communism with a Christian-style western civilization. The nuclear weapons race and threats of the Cold War provided an existential survival context for this world view. The “loss of China” to communism raised the specter of a global communist state. The US did have several high profile and damaging espionage cases. There were communist “fellow travelers” in the media, entertainment, university and international affairs worlds.
Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy exploited these worries. Beginning in 1950 he promoted this “conflict of civilizations” view, pushed the limits in alleging conspiracies and traitorous acts and managed to attract and keep attention from the growing mass print, radio and TV media. Although the State Department had implemented a loyalty program and cleared out “marginal” staffers, McCarthy was able to use his alleged “list of 205 members of the Communist Party” for several years to build political power.
Most politicians ignored him. Eisenhower chose to not respond to his claims, even though they were addressed at him, George Marshal and John Foster Dulles in his cabinet. Eventually, in Spring, 1954, an Edward Morrow investigative report, Eisenhower speech and US Army counsel Joseph Welch’s congressional committee testimony undercut McCarthy. Morrow: “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty”. Ike: “We are worried about Communist penetration of our country … the need that we look at them clearly, face to face, without fear, like honest, straightforward Americans, so that we do not develop the jitters or any kind of panic, that we do not fall prey to hysterical thinking.” Welch: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your restlessness. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you no sense of decency?”
Meachem contrasts the 1955 conservative revival of William F. Buckley with that of the John Birch Society and Joe McCarthy. He considers Buckley’s philosophy and media-based opposition to be more legitimate. Opposing the flow of power to the state following 20 years of New Deal and liberal orthodoxy is described as a valid perspective. On the other hand, Meachem shares Richard Hofstadter’s description of “pseudo-conservatism” as “incoherent about politics”, “largely appealing to the less educated members of the middle classes”, “feels that his liberties have been arbitrarily and outrageously invaded”, reflecting “status aspirations and frustrations”. Political philosophy and material interests are subordinated to personal views, feelings, loyalties, interests, status and projections in this form of political attraction.
Seven: What the Hell is the Presidency For?
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are widely seen as the most important steps in securing individual rights in the last century. Their passage relied upon prior political steps, Supreme Court decisions, JFK’s legacy, the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King’s actions and ideas, American ideals and the unique qualities of Lyndon Baines Johnson.
In 1948 Hubert Humphrey and other progressives urged Americans to “get out of the shadow of states’ rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.” Strom Thurmond walked out of the Democratic convention to form the Dixiecrat Party, winning 4 states. Truman took steps to integrate the US military in 1948. The Civil Rights Commission and the Civil Rights section of the Department of Justice were created in 1957. The Civil Rights Act of 1960 strengthened the federal government’s ability to enforce voting rights and enforce judicial decisions. The Warren Court’s 1954-55 decisions rejected the “separate but equal” principle for public education.
President John F. Kennedy observed the civil rights movement. He protected the federal government’s rights. He enforced court rulings. He nationalized state troops. His Department of Justice monitored Civil Rights. Kennedy spoke with civil rights leaders. In June 1963 he addressed the nation and introduced legislation that became the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts.
The South fought against desegregation. In 1960, the South was 21% non-white while the rest of the country was 7% non-white. Georgia (29%), Alabama (30%), Louisiana (32%), South Carolina (35%) and Mississippi (42%) had the largest minority populations. Southern congressmen and Senators held the “swing vote” in the Democratic Party and used their seniority to block legislation. A leading public intellectual, Robert Penn Warren, wrote in 1956 about two curses on the nation. Southerners used the “Lost Cause” version of the Civil War as a “Great Alibi” to excuse any behavior. Northerners rejoiced in the “Treasury of Virtue” from their war victory, secure in their moral superiority for all time. Lynching and threats from the Klan were real. Blacks could not register or vote. Violence was a constant presence, especially in response to the civil rights actions.
George Wallace became governor of Alabama in January 1963 declaring “segregation now … segregation tomorrow … segregation forever” from the state capitol steps. Wallace was a gifted politician and populist. He lost the governor’s race in 1958 to a more racist Democratic candidate and vowed “never again”. He said “I’m gonna make race the basis of politics in this state … and I’m gonna make it the basis of politics in this country”. He blocked desegregation of the University of Alabama. Meachem emphasizes his personal style. “A visceral connection to crowds”. “Simply more alive than all the others”. “He made those people feel something real for once in their lives”. “He provoked devotion and rage”. Kennedy was able to desegregate the university. Meachem comments, “He [Wallace] savored the hour, however hopeless it was. The very hopelessness of it all was in fact part of the defiance, for Southerners loved tragic stands against the inevitable”. LBJ was able to pass civil rights legislation over Wallace’s opposition. Wallace won 5 states in the 1968 presidential election, providing Nixon with a victory over Humphrey.
The civil rights movement worked relentlessly from 1955 to 1965 to prepare the American public for this change. Non-violent, civil disobedience. Persistence. Strategic confrontations. Leveraging the media. Visual images. Dignity and discipline. Daily life. Buses, education, church, lunch counters, voting, jobs, soldiers, workers. Integrated partners. Patience. Courage. Numbers. Messaging. Patriotism. Rights. Citizens. Justice. Tired. The Founders. Persistence.
Martin Luther King supercharged this with his rhetoric. “Stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth”. “I have a dream”. “Judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”. “Work and fight until justice runs down like water and righteousness as a mighty stream”. “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and every mountain shall be made low”.
LBJ had a large view of himself, history and the presidency. Note the chapter title. “Now I represent the whole country and I can do what the country thinks is right”. “The president is the cannon”. “I want you guys to get off your asses and do everything possible to get everything passed as soon as possible”. “The job of the President is to set priorities for the nation, and he must set them according to his own judgment and his own conscience”.
Lady Bird Johnson said, “Lyndon acts as if there is never going to be a tomorrow.” “Lyndon is a good man to have in a crisis”. Despite the political risks of moving ahead with Kennedy’s progressive legislation, LBJ courageously decided to proceed quickly, leaving a legacy to the fallen leader. LBJ was a Texan, a southerner, a politician, a Democrat, a New Dealer, a deal maker and a bully. He became the “master of the Senate” by using his talents and being re-elected in a rural, conservative Texas district. He used all of these skills, especially his legislative skills, to buttonhole individual members of Congress and overcome the 33-vote filibuster.
LBJ, like JFK and other civil rights proponents of the last 30 years, mostly used relatively practical messages to appeal to the American public. “I’m going to fix it so everyone can vote, so everyone can get all of the education they can get.” “Who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place?” “Helen Williams, an employee of the vice-president … would squat in the road to pee. That’s just bad. That’s wrong”. “We’re all Americans. We got a Golden Rule”. Meachem wrote, “The key thing, LBJ believed, was to make the moral case for racial justice so self-evident that the country could not help but agree”. Johnson was mainly pragmatic. How to get preachers to help. How to get politicians to see their own interest in equal rights.
His speech in support of the Civil Rights Act was more elevated. “I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy. Our lives have been marked with debate about great issues. Rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself … to the values and purposes and meaning of our beloved Nation. The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue. For with a country as with a person, ‘what has a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’ It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause too”.
LBJ knew that these Acts were historic but still just steps along the way. “It is difficult to fight for freedom. But I also know how difficult it can be to bend long years of habit and custom to grant it. There is no room for injustice anywhere in the American mansion. But there is always room for understanding toward those who see the old ways crumbling”.
Conclusion: The First Duty of an American Citizen
Teddy Roosevelt: “The first duty of an American citizen, then, is that he shall work in politics; his second duty is that he shall do that work in a practical manner; and his third is that it shall be done in accord with the highest principles of honor and justice.” The citizen should be like his “man in the arena”, fully engaged in important matters.
Eleanor Roosevelt: “Great leaders we have had, but we could not have had great leaders unless they had a great people to follow”.
Harry Truman: “I’m everybody’s president. Those – the Bill of Rights – apply to everybody in the country”. American scripture. Equal opportunity.
Meachem: “America of the twenty-first century is, for all its shortcomings, freer and more accepting than it has ever been.” Apply the historical perspective.
“Every advance must contend with the forces of reaction”. An eternal struggle. “The perfect should not be the enemy of the good”.
The better presidents do not cater to the reactionary forces. Reagan recalling the virtues of other presidents and outlining his shining city on the hill, “teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace”. Clinton healing the nation after the Oklahoma City bombings and Bush, Sr resigning from the NRA when they tried to fundraise from the disaster. Bush, Jr clearly distinguishing Muslims and Arabs from terrorists after 9//11. Obama eulogizing the Bible study victims of a white supremacist, invoking God’s freely given grace and its potential to heal individuals and countries.
Some “equal rights” changes happen quickly: LGBTQ.
Resist tribalism.
Respect facts and deploy reason.
Find a critical balance.
Maintain a free press.
Truman’s description of Lincoln: “He was the best kind of ordinary man … he’s one of the people and becomes distinguished in the service that he gives other people. I don’t know of any higher compliment you can pay a man than that.”
By 2004, Haidt saw that his preliminary findings applied to national politics in the US. Democrats relied on just one or two of the moral foundations, or even zero, while Republicans appealed to all five in effective ways. He contrasts Bush, Sr and Bush, Jr, neither a naturally gifted politician, with cool and cerebral Dukakis, Gore and Kerry, who they handily defeated. The Bushes appealed to Republicans, independents and Democrats by using a variety of emotional pitches. Separately, Bill Clinton stands out as a naturally gifted politician and manipulator of emotions.
By 2011, Haidt and his associates had developed and perfected a variety of questionnaires and attracted 100,000 on-line respondents to make their results scientifically sound. Liberals greatly valued the Care and Fairness dimensions and disregarded the Loyalty, Authority and Sanctity dimensions. Moderates were like liberals in terms of their rank orderings but had much closer scores on the 5 attributes. Conservatives valued all 5 equally and Very Conservative individuals valued Authority, Sanctity and Loyalty above Care and Fairness.
Colleagues corroborated the findings based on religious sermon content, dog preferences and brainwaves! The author began to write articles for the general public to share his findings. Many of the responses were predictable. Liberals downplayed or rejected the 3 conservative foundations. Conservatives tentatively complimented an academic who “go it”. But many conservatives were as critical as the unhappy liberals. They questioned Haidt’s morals and lack of understanding of the differences between Democrats and Republicans. They emphasized that Democrats really don’t believe in fairness, just equality and rights. The respondents saw fairness as proportionality and earned rewards.
Haidt and his team reconsidered the 5 moral foundations and made two changes. First, they redefined “Fairness” to be based on the idea of proportionality of work/contibution and rewards. Haidt found evolutionary psychology support from Christopher Boehm’s research on humans and primates. While the original “reciprocal altruism” foundation basis does have support in human history, the development of larger communities with shared property 500,000 years ago required the development of people and norms with group concepts and different fairness behaviors. With more powerful tools/weapons and communications, groups were able to limit the direct power of alpha males and use gossip and communications to support a moderate hierarchical structure with a leader or leading group that commanded extra resources, power and respect, but not too much. This “goldilocks” scenario is considered by many anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists to be a key turning point in human history. Proportional fairness is more highly valued by conservatives but moderately valued by liberals.
Second, while considering this same turning point in human development, Haidt decided to add a sixth moral foundation: Liberty/oppression. In larger groups with an “authority” moral foundation required to support the leader, there is a need for a complementary value to oppose excessive use of authority. Individuals accept, follow and respect valid, legitimate authority, but they rebel against being abused. They can embrace hierarchy and disproportionate rewards to a point, but they are able to band together and oppose any abuse of power. Haidt shares anthropological details to make this plausible. This moral foundation is supported by both the left and the right. The left emphasizes relative equality of rewards and generic antiauthoritarianism. The right emphasizes the personal liberty side, “give me liberty or give me death”, “don’t tread on me”, don’t regulate me, don’t restrict my choices, guns, family or religion. A powerful moral foundation indeed.
Haidt returns for a third time to share John Stuart Mill’s vision of a just society. It is based on the enlightenment, individuals, rationality, utility and a theoretical contract between individuals and society. “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others”. This modern, progressive, Western view is based upon Care and Fairness alone.
He then shares sociologist Emile Durkheim’s view of how society works. It is organic, based on community, evolving to meet actual needs, incrementally changing, inherently conserving order and tradition, skeptical of change, based upon existing well-functioning institutions like the family and church. Durkheim argues that man needs to belong to a binding moral system comprised of institutions larger than the individual in order to have a sense of place, stability, order, belonging and meaning. Without this grounding, he is rootless, anxious, experiencing anomie, a lack of grounding. This world view prioritizes self-control over self-expression, duty over rights, and loyalty to one’s groups over concern for out-groups. Historically, Durkheimian societies have predominated. WEIRD societies have been the minority. Haidt encourages the reader to consider both conceptions to have legitimacy. He does not dwell on the possibility of a “both/and” blending of these views or ways to accommodate both at the individual, institution and society level, but consider these possibilities. The individual and the group both matter. Different individuals prioritize individual versus group needs differently and the 6 moral foundations. Given our seemingly intractable differences of opinion, how do we make society function?
Haidt shares more details about conservatives, liberals and libertarians, but the main point is most essential. Different people have different moral worldviews. They are not changing. No one worldview is clearly superior by any broadly accepted ethical standard. We are going to have to “agree to disagree” or as Rodney King said, “Can we all get along?” Can each side understand all six foundations and others who value them differently? Can liberals understand and appreciate Durkheim’s view of a group-based society? Can conservatives appreciate the “individual” and abstract principled, universal, secular insights of liberals, aside from liberty?
Nine: Why Are We So Groupish?
Individuals express both selfish and group-oriented thoughts and behaviors. Everyone knows this. We join and support teams and nations. We donate anonymously. We “do the right thing” when no one is looking at least some of the time (ring of Gyges theory be damned). We embrace religions and consider others. We volunteer. We participate in politics. Not always. Not everyone. But enough to say that this is a feature of humanity, not a bug or a flaw or a mistake. Haidt admits that he has pushed hard on the cynical view of humanity to demonstrate what individuals often do or do “on average”. Nonetheless, group thought, and behavior is part of our human make-up.
Haidt addresses this based on evolution. George Williams in 1955 and Richard Dawkins in 1976 made strong arguments against existing theories of “group selection” in nature and for humans. The differential positive survival of groups based upon group cohesion, solidarity and individual sacrifice is possible in evolutionary theory, but depends upon the group being able to control the individual member’s behavior so that he generally does what the group needs and does not “free ride”, avoiding the personal cost of a behavior that helps the group. Williams and Dawkins debunked many “group selection” examples, demonstrating that they were caused by individual selection or near-kin selection.
Haidt shares Darwin’s view which supports group selection in concept, especially with regard to morality! He provides four rather technical scenarios that support the idea that human group level selection has been a major factor in the development of morality.
The history of biology is that of transitions from one level of competition to a higher level of competition. Bacteria to mitochondria to cells to … animals to societies. 8 transitions in all of recorded time. In each case, the next higher level absorbed the prior lower level, making it secure and dependent upon the higher level, disabling the disruptive competition at the prior level. The development of queen bees and workers in a hive is an example. These more recent changes took place when a persistent, defensible resource was involved (nest and food). They also involved a need to feed infants and the need to defend against other groups of the same species. Human societies fit this model: caves, needy children and aggressive neighbors. Fixed location crops and city-states match this pattern. Group level competition by bands of humans makes sense.
Michael Tomasello argues that “it is inconceivable that you would ever see two chimpanzees carrying a log together”. Humans, on the other hand, have what is described as “shared intentionality”. We have some sense of what another person is seeing, feeling, doing and thinking. We have a mirror image capability. This allowed groups of 2-3 to cooperate and communicate effectively. Even before formal language, humans could use signals, expressions and actions to share ideas and confirm mutual understanding. This is a critical underpinning for moral thought and behavior. It allows groups to share expectations and norms, to consistently provide feedback on acceptable and unacceptable behavior.
Once a group has mutual understanding, empathy and communications it can define a culture and sustain that culture though time. The culture can evolve to further and cumulatively improve group level effectiveness. The culture can take advantage of biological evolution, teamwork, communications and innovations. Biological and cultural evolution can interact. Dairy herds, lactose tolerance, more food, more herds, cheese, more people. Abstract symbols and markings and language evolve. The components or vocabulary become richer and support faster and innovative growth. The sense of groupness increases as the communications skills and feedback loops improve. The group level matters even more. Group innovations such as shame and guilt develop. The authority, sanctity/cleanliness, liberty, fairness and loyalty moral foundations become more effective. Effective societies “self-domesticate”, restraining extreme individualism and promoting cooperation and support of the group.
Biologists argue about the speed of evolution. Haidt shares examples of rapid individual and group evolution in 10-30 generations. He argues that the migration of humans around the globe during a period of warming and cooling provided a challenging environment for humans that could have triggered very rapid evolutionary changes at the biological and cultural levels in the last 50,000 years.
Haidt concludes that we are 90% selfish chimp and 10% cooperative bee. Once again, this is assuming that the evolutionary framework is the “alpha and omega”, without any religious, spiritual or sacred dimension working in the universe.
Ten: The Hive Switch
Haidt asserts that humans have evolved to live at both the individual and group levels. In this chapter he describes this potential in more detail, emphasizing his 90/10 theory that we mostly live in the profane, individual, day to day world, but at times we “switch” to the group, sacred, infinite, eternal, religious level.
His favorite sociologist, Emile Durkheim, describes these two levels and emphasizes, in contrast to the individualist views expressed by other scientists, social scientists and philosophers from 1500-1900, that the social, group or religious level is an essential part of man’s nature. No man does or can live without a “thick” attachment to his culture, neighborhood, community and nation. Durkheim describes the lack of connection as the dreaded “anomie” or emptiness experienced by individuals who leave their community and emphasizes the “collective effervescence”, or energy felt by individuals in group settings.
Haidt opens the chapter describing a simple version of an “altered state of consciousness” created by the muscular bonding of military drills. He connects this with the rhythmic dancing to exhaustion reported in many primitive cultures by anthropologists. The individual is moved from being an individual, conscious agent to being a part of the collective, aligned, bonded, trusting, equal, outwardly focused group. He describes another half dozen ways in which individuals shift from a “me” to a “we” world view, in each case experiencing a different consciousness. Awe of nature, drugs, initiation ceremonies, sporting events, political rallies, religious ceremonies and meditation all produce this change in perspective.
Haidt outlines two biological channels that appear to be involved. The hormone oxytocin is associated with bonding, love and attention. Experimental psychology studies show that it improves feelings towards others in a group, not to broader humanity and that it does not create negative feelings for out-group members. The mirror neuron system allows humans to have the emotion of empathy. Seeing others, especially those we view favorably, perform an action triggers the same brain circuits as when the individual does the same action. Haidt describes this as “parochial altruism” or “parochial love”, the exact range of impact consistent with the development of group level bonding in an evolutionary mechanism.
The author reminds us of his earlier amazement at the scale of organization level cooperation seen in the modern world, especially in large corporations. Without inherent group level bonding and interaction capabilities, this would not be possible. He notes that modern organizations try to use “transformational” rather than merely “transactional” leadership styles to shift team members from a purely economic exchange to more of a partnership or group membership.
Haidt takes a quick tour through political groups which appear everywhere in human history. The nation state shows that group feelings can apply at a large scale. Manipulative leaders such as fascists can misuse groupness. He notes Robert Putnam’s research that shows the many ways in which “social capital” can be built and provide benefits in smaller scale political and social organizations.
Finally, the author relates his belief that human “happiness” does not come from the individual, self and soul alone as promoted by some religions and philosophies. Instead, he proposes that it comes primarily from positive relationships between the individual and others, groups and the sacred realm.
Eleven: Religion is a Team Sport
The chapter opens with a description of University of Virginia football traditions. Symbols, chants, songs, dances, traditions, rites, colors, colleagues, fraternities, sororities, ecstasy, collective effervescence, sanctity, sacred objects and locations. Yes, just like a religion, perhaps a Pentecostal religion! Sporting events and religions are “social facts”. They exist in almost all times and places.
After 9/11, many scientists, philosophers and journalists could no longer withhold their contempt for “organized religion”, especially any version of fundamentalist religion. The “New Atheists” documented why religion is almost all “bad” and an evolutionary mistake that could be overcome if everyone would follow their lead in eliminating it. Their model of human behavior is the familiar Platonic one where belief determines behavior. Haidt offered much evidence to question this simple model earlier in the book. He also presents a model of religious psychology where Beliefs, Actions and Belonging interact as equals.
“To an evolutionist, religious behaviors ‘stand out like peacocks in a sunlit glade'” according to D.C. Dennett. Evolution prunes away wasteful behaviors since they require the use of scarce energy. Yet, religion is everywhere. The New Atheists begin with the “hypersensitive agency detective device” that humans possess. We identify patterns. We assume an agent is behind any behavior, activity, shape, result, situation, effect, outcome, sight, sound, taste, image, memory, belief … Although philosophers argue about the existence of “cause and effect”, regular humans simply know that this is true. We assign causal agents in almost any situation as an instantaneous first hypothesis.
Once humans lived together in larger communities and used language, someone described agency in the form of God or spirits for all kinds of events: weather, wind, animal attacks, good harvests, bad fishing, attacking neighbors, etc. Other translations of human capabilities to serve the “God hypothesis” may have helped. Love of man to love of God. The idea that bodies and minds, souls, and God are different. In this analysis, religion was never a valuable tool at the individual or group level, merely a strange accident.
However, religions that did a better job of convincing people that they were correct, for whatever reason, would have continued through time and survived, attracted new groups while other less believable or effective religions would have passed away. This is a fine point, but a critical one. Selection is based on the ability of religious ideas, stories and leaders to survive and reproduce, irrespective of whether they provided any benefits to groups or individuals. In other words, appearances matter most in evaluating supernatural concepts. Religions are described by the “New Atheists” as viruses or parasites that promote themselves, even at high costs to their hosts.
Some anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists propose a similar evolutionary explanation for religion’s pervasive existence and influence. They argue that religions that made groups more cohesive and cooperative DID provide clear benefits at the group level, and possibly personal benefits too. As groups got bigger and adopted agriculture, making assets and a hierarchical structure more important, the need for cohesion increased and the opportunity for “more effective” concepts of God arose. Gods who can see everything. Gods who hate cheaters and oath breakers. Gods who administer collective punishment. Angry gods.
Haidt shares research on the survival of communes to support the idea that religions can greatly improve group solidarity. Religious communes survive 6 times as often as secular communes. Religious communes that required the most personal sacrifices from members did best. Personal sacrifices did not make a difference for secular communes. Haidt and some researchers argue that the “sacredness” of sacrifices, rituals, laws and practices allows them to become invisible, held at God’s level, unchallengeable and more effective.
Biologist David Sloan Wilson’s book “Darwin’s Cathedral” offers a theoretical framework combining Darwin’s idea of group level evolution to create morality and eliminate the “free rider” problem with Durkheim’s definition of religion as a “unified system of beliefs and practices that unites members into one single moral community”. Religion, as a social institution, arises and then evolves by delivering group level cohesion benefits. He refers to John Calvin’s strict Protestantism, medieval Judaism and Balinese rice farmers solving complex water management challenges as evidence for how this works. Haidt likens God to a maypole that serves the function of giving people a central figure to coordinate their lives as a community.
Robert Putnam and David Campbell in “American Grace” relate that individuals who “practice” a religion are significantly more generous than others, first to members of their religion and second to the larger community.
Haidt describes religions as “moral exoskeletons”. “If you live in a religious community, you are enmeshed in a set of norms, relationships and institutions that work primarily on the elephant to influence your behavior”. If you are not shaped by a religious community then you have to rely upon individual, rational decision-making, allowing the rider to try to guide the elephant, who has nonetheless picked up moral beliefs. Haidt is very skeptical that a society can be effective if it is comprised of individuals trying to “reason” their way through life rather than adopting some “religious” perspective that provides an agreed upon moral framework.
“Moral systems are interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, institutions, technologies and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate self-interest and make cooperative societies possible”. This is a functionalist definition describing what morality does, not what it “ought to do”. Haidt suggests that utilitarianism, supplemented by the value of maintaining social order and cohesiveness, is a good philosophy (Ought) for making public policy decisions. Produce the greatest good for the greatest number, subject to the need to preserve the social order.
Twelve: Can’t We All Disagree More Constructively?
American politics has become more polarized in the last 50 years for the familiar reasons: Voting Rights Act of 1964 triggered alignment of conservative = Republican and liberal = Democratic parties. The Reagan Revolution consolidated varied “conservative” groups into one “conservative” umbrella allied in opposition to the “liberals”. The Gingrich Revolution further exaggerated these differences and staked out extreme positions and undercut compromise. These opposing parties have increasingly disregarded formerly shared norms on how “our democracy” works (2011 debt ceiling vote, Supreme Court nominations).
Haidt devoted a whole book to isolating six different dimensions of political, moral and religious beliefs, but returns to the simpler “left versus right” yardstick because it is most researched and provides solid insights. He adds libertarians to liberals and conservatives in some of his analysis. He notes that research shows that individuals pursue their moral/belief/worldview self-interest, not their economic self-interest in politics. Self-interest, but not naked self-interest.
Research documents that there is a genetic basis to political beliefs. Liberals tend to be less reactive to threats and more attracted to change and novelty. Conservatives are more attentive to threats of all kinds and value the familiar. Twins studies show that political views are about one-third predicted by genes, like many other personality traits. As individuals develop into young adults they adapt to their environments, where their initial preferences are reinforced or modified. Eventually they adopt a political/moral matrix world view and buy into a life narrative/story that makes sense for them. These life narratives are filled with moral content.
The grand narrative of liberalism is the heroic liberation narrative. “The arc of justice curves forward”. The world progresses from the darkness of oppression towards increasing fairness and equality. “Modern, liberal, democratic, capitalist (?), welfare societies” prevail. Authority, hierarchy, power and tradition are overcome. The grand narrative of conservatism is the heroic defense of the valued society. Reagan’s speeches illustrate this with a consistent pattern of outlining liberal threats and championing conservative responses to restore the just society. All of the moral foundations are employed. The organic and sacred roles of community, family, neighborhood, church and nation, are highlighted.
Haidt’s research shows that moderates and conservatives can generally imagine and understand, if not “appreciate”, the liberal narrative and priority moral dimensions. However, liberals, especially those who are “very liberal” struggle to even understand how loyalty, authority and sanctity belong in a moral worldview. The extreme rational, individualists struggle to see the community, group or religious dimension of life, morality and politics. “Morality binds and blinds”.
Haidt’s research shows that liberals fail to understand or appreciate the necessary role of “social capital” in building support for society, institutions and politics. He quote’s Putnam’s 1999 “Bowling Alone” which documents the huge decline in social activities in the US since the 1950’s and the impact on trust in others, institutions, politics and society. He does not “blame” liberals directly but points to the individualist bias of the modern world as a driving factor.
Haidt takes yet another pass at making “conservatism” accessible to his liberal colleagues in the academy, noting that much of his research is consistent with modern (1776+) conservative philosophy. Historian Jerry Muller argues that the original modern conservatives, David Hume and Edmund Burke, reason within the Enlightenment framework, attempting to outline political ideas, frameworks, concepts, institutions and structures that improve human happiness. They emphasize history, tradition, caution, moderation, community, institutions, beliefs, real people and skepticism. Muller contrasts this with “orthodoxy” which emphasizes a “transcendent moral order”.
Haidt argues that this worldview supports the value of “social capital” and “moral capital”. As outlined in the last two chapters, humans have the capacity to shift between the profane and sacred dimensions. Religions use this sacred, group, infinite, eternal dimension to bind people together in a solid group. This achievement of a deeply, intuitively shared worldview allows society to function more effectively, reducing the need for external laws and enforcement, building trust which simplifies daily life, reducing transaction costs, and offsetting pure self-interest.
Haidt contrasts the Chinese complementary framework of yin/yang or the pluralist (not relativist) philosophy of Isaiah Berlin with the monist (one) moral frameworks of pure utilitarianism or deontology (pure reason) or the Manichaean religious perspectives (good/evil). He is never so crass as to just say, “both the individual and the group matter”, but I believe that is the essence of his work. The WEIRD, academically liberal descendants of the rational, scientific, individual “enlightenment” believe that some form of fixed, final, perfect, just, fair, ideal philosophy and state is possible and will arrive. Orthodox religious believers and social conservatives idealize the community above the individual and perceive their own version of an ideal, well-run state arriving. The “silent majority” of Americans know that we need both the individual and community perspectives, the profane and the sacred, to have an effective community, nation and world [TK speaking].
Haidt proposes “Durkheimian utilitarianism” as the standard for public policy decisions. Create the most good for all people but preserve the core commitment to our shared community life. Promote the “little platoons” of life. He says that liberals are right to propose government as a necessary regulator and counterweight to the superorganism known as a multinational corporation. He says that libertarians are right to emphasize the benefits of the capitalist market system. He says that conservatives are right to emphasize the importance of preserving social and moral beliefs, laws, policies and institutions. He notes that liberals hate the idea of exclusion, so they prioritize, even sacralize, the defense of individual rights and the importance of shared humanity. This sometimes leads to policies that unintentionally undercut social structures (welfare and out-of-wedlock births).
Haidt does not dwell on solutions. He has a website, http://www.civilpolitics.org, with details. He discounts civility pledges or a miraculous insight that will change minds. He believes we are 90% individualistic chimp and 10% social bee. He believes that we “should” begin with honestly trying to empathize and understand the views of others. From his beliefs, actions, belonging model of religious psychology, he advises taking actions to interact with others.
Conclusion
Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning is second. The elephant leads, the rider acts as a press secretary.
There’s more to morality than harm and fairness. 6 flavors of morality at the cafe.
Morality binds and blinds. We are selfish and we are groupish. 90% chimp and 10% bee.
TK Commentary
We all have political, religious and moral worldviews that seem to be correct and obvious. We struggle to see why others don’t see the world as we do.
Yet, after 50,000 years of progressively more complex societies, politics and economics, we are stuck with each other now more than ever.
I’m not convinced that Haidt has “THE” 6 moral foundations identified and described or “explained” by evolution. But I think that he has clearly outlined our dual individual and group, moral, community, religious, sacred nature. And, it’s a good thing that we are inherently individuals and naturally community members. We live in a world that requires both at every level: family, neighborhood, community, profession, organization, state and world.
The author gently focuses on the excesses of the academic, new, far left without addressing the even more extreme postmodernist flavors common in the academy, media and progressive politics today. This an “orthodoxy” just as close-minded as the fundamentalist religious orthodoxy on the right, IMHO.
I believe that our politics is dominated by the extreme “orthodoxies” of religious fundamentalism, libertarian individualism and grievance/victim populism on the right and postmodernism, secular humanism, and identity grievance/victim populism on the left. Both extremes provide simple solutions to our complex modern challenges while demonizing the opposition to make us feel righteous.
During the challenges of the depression and WWII and in the post-war breather period, Americans largely set aside their political differences to support the nation first in 3 existential struggles (survival, fascism, communism). Racial, cultural and military events in the 1960’s conspired to set the stage for polarization. Some politicians have attempted to appeal to the “better angels of our nature”. Eisenhower and Kennedy, in their own ways. Reagan as an “above politics”, traditional, American, Teflon, city on the hill, idealist and communicator. Carter, Clinton and Obama as centrists. Bush, Sr and Bush, Jr. as less ideological Republicans. The political forces of extremism, simplicity and populism have been winning for 50 years. 😦
I believe that Haidt’s work provides the conceptual basis for some kind of new consensus that accepts that we are “stuck with each other”. The original US constitution took this same negative, but practical, view of reality. The US didn’t experience the religious and political wars as Europe did, so it is not so sensitive to the risk of such wars. We had the “Civil War”, but it has mostly receded from the public imagination as a force for compromise in modern politics. We are seeing the disfunction of solid red states and solid blue states. At some point, I predict that the “elites” in society will reassert control. These divisions are “bad for business”, threatening national security, undermining democracy, risking civil war, dividing neighbors, and damaging children and families.
Evolutionary psychologist Jonathan Haidt wants the general reader to understand how man’s evolution has shaped his psychology, especially as it applies to “politics and religion”. He and his colleagues have considered a wide variety of theories from evolutionary psychology. He has concluded that real world men and women first have intuitive views of politics and use their “rational” skills to justify their views and avoid changing. Second, he identifies a half dozen evolutionary behaviors and thought patterns that underly most political beliefs. Third, he shares research that shows that liberals generally only emphasize 2-3 of these viewpoints while conservatives apply all 6. Fourth, he argues that humans are 90% solitary individuals and 10% collective or community animals who naturally live at both the profane and sacred levels. Fifth, he argues that religious belief has co-evolved in the last 10,000 years with the domestication of animals, increased value of assets and development of larger groups in civilization who threatened each other.
Many religious people struggle to even consider a book that uses “evolution” to outline politics and religion. Haidt does not take a determinist approach, nor does he disregard a sacred basis for religion. Many progressives, especially those who believe that only fairness and equality are proper bases for political views and who discount religion, also struggle with this book which provides a “broader” picture. I encourage readers to set aside their political views, even though Haidt shares many studies that say we are very poor at doing so, because I think that his insights into people using intuition and rationalizing, overall, are objectively true. I also think that understanding the 6 underlying thought patterns supporting our deeply held political beliefs can help to reduce our polarization and make us more accepting of the beliefs of other people [Are those who think differently from me really EVIL?].
Finally, I think that his analysis of the individual and community and the role of religious belief is applicable today as we struggle to accommodate a variety of political and religious views. I think that it is possible that we could get a consensus among 80% of Americans that we “need” some degree of community to balance a purely individualistic perspective and that religious belief is a valid worldview that is not going to disappear in the next century, so we ought to recognize, at a public policy level, that religious belief and organizations have played and can play a very constructive role in American life, with the encouragement from all, even as we preserve the “separation of church and state”, freedom of belief and a commitment to the ideals of America’s founders regarding individual rights and equality. The genius of the American political system, in my view, is that it allows us to define pragmatically effective institutions and norms, while allowing individuals to hold diametrically opposed views about politics, religion and philosophy. We can “agree to disagree” about many things while working together to make a great life for ourselves and our descendants.
Introduction: The Wisdom of Rodney King (1992)
Rodney King was nearly beaten to death by 4 LA police officers. Despite a videotape of the attack, the officers were not convicted of a crime. LA erupted in riots. King then said “please, we can get along here. We can all get along. I mean, we’re all stuck here for a while. Let’s try to work it out.” We all hold “righteous” beliefs about right and wrong, politics and religion. We’re right and the other guy is wrong.
One: Where Does Morality Come From?
Haidt provides the reader with a quick history of how psychology has treated morality as a “special way of thinking”. In the “nature versus nurture” debate, psychologists generally chose nurture. From Rousseau through Piaget, Kohlberg and Turiel, psychologists found that a “stages of growth” model effectively described the progress of moral thinking in children. The detailed research focused on perceptions of harm and fairness. The research confirmed that children universally progressed through stages of understanding leading to an “adult” level view of harm, fairness, justice and moral behavior. As Rousseau described the world in 1750, humans are born with a “blank slate” mind and easily develop language, thought and morality. In this view, society and its institutions, including parents, teachers and religion, mostly interfere with the “natural” development of children. The “conventional wisdom” through 1990 supported this worldview. Haidt deems this a “rationalist” worldview because in it all children can develop moral views rationally, through their basic interactions with the world, without need for cultural education or innate capabilities beyond general reasoning.
Haidt studied philosophy, politics, anthropology and psychology before starting to work on his doctoral thesis. Like many students in the seventies, eighties and nineties, he found the mainly behaviorist psychology of the time to simply be too “neat and tidy”, objective, simplistic, static, deterministic, dry, rational, logical, machine-like, inhuman. Input-processing-output. Homo economicus. Stimulus-response. No gap, no consideration. No social context. No biological or evolutionary basis. Certainly no religion.
Richard Shweder challenged the consensus view of how people conceive of morality in 1987. He started from an anthropological perspective. Successful cultures all find a way to balance the needs of the individual and the community. Most choose to emphasize the needs of the community. Only a few, mainly modern Western ones, strongly prioritize the needs of the individual. The modern West had doubled down on the individualistic view in the 18th and 19th centuries with the growth of Protestant religious sects, science, capitalism and new individual based political systems. In the 20th century, the extreme “social” views of fascism and communism were rejected, reinforcing the individualist perspective. Shweder saw that the progress of modern psychology was based solely on the individualistic perspective. His research showed that moral views differed by culture and that both harm/fairness and social conventions matter.
Haidt’s dissertation research pushed this a little further along. He emphasized moral stories that could trigger reactions of disgust or disrespect. He found that the US and Brazil, urban and rural, upper- and lower-class people had quite different moral views. There was no single moral conclusion.
Haidt also found that individuals were strongly predisposed to justify their moral views, no matter how normal or unusual they appeared to the interviewer. We all need to believe and feel that our moral views are “righteous”, no matter where they came from. He quotes David Hume (Rousseau’s contemporary) that “reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them”.
Morality includes factors from both individual and social community perspectives. Individualistic and abstract fairness, harm and justice are not enough. Social taboos, food prohibitions, sexual taboos, hierarchy, loyalty and family ties also matter.
Moral views in traditional, social based communities are generally quite similar. They are very different from individualistic societies.
Haidt is working hard to be an objective scientist, describing how moral views exist, not how they “ought to be”. Social centered communities have quite different views. These “traditional” views continue to be held by some, even in modern, individualistic societies.
Haidt rejects the psychological mainstream view. Individuals do not simply “figure it out” rationally. They are shaped by logic/reason, social influences and innate thought patterns.
Two: The Intuitive Dog and Its Rational Tail (Tale)
How do people really address moral decisions? Philosophers tend to emphasize individual rationalism, even though Plato’s discussion, Q&A, social model was the beginning of modern philosophy. They emphasize reasoning (the head) and mostly or totally ignore emotion (the heart). While philosophers were aware of Hume’s view of reason as a slave to the passions, they ignored this possibility. As noted in chapter one, psychologists followed the “rationalists” until 1990, when some challenges arose.
Frans de Waal documented that chimpanzees possessed most of the building blocks human use to build communities and moral systems: feelings of sympathy, fear, anger and affection. Feelings might matter more.
Antonio Damasio documented a type of brain damage in humans that reduced their emotional skills to near zero. This caused them to lose their ability to make rational decisions about daily choices. Without a gut level, intuitive sense, they were overwhelmed by the complexity of making common daily rational decisions. Emotions are part of decision making.
Edward O. Wilson proposed in his 1975 book Sociobiology that natural selection influenced human behavior. He argued that there is in some sense a human nature that rationality and social pressures cannot simply ignore. The response from the “rational” psychology community and many others holding Rousseau’s “blank slate” view of the mind as a necessary underpinning for their political views was extremely negative, making the idea “untouchable” for more than a decade. A number of researchers quietly picked up Wilson’s approach and renamed it evolutionary psychology. New research defined hypotheses that could be scientifically tested.
In 1987 Howard Margolis, a public policy professor published Patterns, Thinking and Cognition. He demonstrated that there is a clear difference between the quick, intuitive cognition of pattern matching (seeing-that) and the slower, conscious, more complex and formally rational logic used to reason or justify (reasoning-why). Both are forms of cognition, but they use different parts of the brain.
Haidt developed experiments to help distinguish between the roles of the head and the heart, reason and emotions. He first found that individuals can make moral decisions just as well when being stressed by other demands on their thinking (a heavy load). Moral judgements seemed to match Margolis’ intuitive, pattern matching, quick, subconscious form of cognition. He next found that in a wide variety of cases, initial moral judgments could not be changed even with the strongest forms of logic, evidence and persuasion. Participants stuck with their initial choices. They defended themselves with good and bad reasons. When their bad logic was challenged, they doubled down with new reasons or just claimed that they didn’t need to justify their choices.
In his 2006 book The Happiness Hypothesis, Haidt consolidated this thinking into the analogy of an elephant (automatic processes, including emotion, intuition, and all forms of “seeing-that” and a rider of the elephant (controlled processes, including reasoning-why). In behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman’s 2011 work Thinking, Fast and Slow, he calls them simply system 1 and system 2. The rider can see into the future, learn new skills, master new technologies, consider complex situations and justify or rationalize choices. For most moral decisions, individuals react intuitively and rationalize their gut feelings. Hence, a simple model has the individual interacting with the environment, the elephant/heart/emotions/intuition making moral judgements and the rider justifying the choices.
Haidt argues that few moral decisions involve rational choices, and few decisions are revised by individual reconsideration. On the other hand, he notes that man is a social animal who wants to be held in high esteem by his peers and looks to them for feedback on a variety of topics including moral decisions. Hence, Haidt’s model of moral decision making adds a feedback loop from society to the individual. This is about social pressure that can persuade an individual to reconsider the basis for a moral decision and potentially provide a different intuition that replaces the old one.
On the one hand, individuals make subconscious, intuitive moral decisions rapidly without the benefit of “logical” thought and tend to “stick to their guns”. On the other hand, individuals are capable of logical introspection and they can be influenced by others and they can consider new or competing models, insights, perspectives, paradigms, etc. Individuals tend to have “their minds made up” on moral issues (politics and religion), but there is some ability to consider the views of others and to reconsider moral insights.
Three: Elephants Rule
Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. The social intuitionist model is summarized in just 6 words.
Hypnotized subjects instructed to feel a flash of disgust by a word evaluated stories containing the word more negatively. Even a story with no moral violation triggered such a response in 30% of subjects and they tried to rationalize their initially stated feelings.
Brains evaluate instantly and constantly. The founder of experimental psychology, Wilhelm Wundt, in 1890 described affective primacy. Individuals feel small positive or negative flashes of emotion with most perceptions and impressions. Feelings are associated with perception. Although the feelings may be weak and fleeting, they are triggered hundreds or thousands of times a day. In 1980, Robert Zajonc demonstrated that we attach mini feelings even to neutral objects like made-up words, Japanese characters and shapes. We are built to respond emotionally to the world.
Social and political judgements are particularly intuitive. Research shows that the positive or negative connotations of words effect our ability to interpret the positive or negative nature of a second, following word. The pair “love-cancer” requires extra mental energy and time to evaluate the emotional nature of “cancer”. Negative prejudices have also been shown to impact our reactions to succeeding pictures, stories or events. Liberal and conservative biases have been demonstrated using these techniques. Other research shows that research participants make several intuitive judgements of photos in a very short period of time. Subjects’ evaluations of “competence” allowed them to predict 2/3rds of political elections.
Our bodies guide our judgments. We use “affect as information”. Positive or negative feelings generated by smells or objects change perceptions. Subjects who wash their hands evaluate stories with higher moral intensity. Immorality makes people feel dirty. The link between the body and morality flows in both directions.
Psychopaths reason but don’t feel. Their lack of social feeling leaves them without a moral compass. Their “logical” brain merely pursues self-interest, treating others as objects. Feelings matter for moral judgments.
Babies feel but don’t reason. Six-month-old infants have innate understanding of basic physical movements and will respond to anomalies by staring longer. In a similar fashion, such infants understand “niceness” and respond differently to nice and “not nice” puppets. Even before they have reasoning abilities, babies have some ability to reason morally.
Affective reactions are in the right place at the right time in the brain. Damasio’s studies of brain damaged patients without emotions have been followed by related studies on “normal” individuals. Stories that involved direct personal harm triggered negative reactions, while those with only impersonal conflict situations triggered much less of a response. Other games, experiences and situations have been presented and subjects’ brains measured. Emotional areas are triggered by such personally impactful experiences leading to greater degrees of moral evaluations as predicted.
Elephants are sometimes open to reason. The intuition does not always “win”. The rational mind is always tempted to defend the intuitive response. If given time to consider, it is more likely to look at a variety of factors and may become more independent of the elephant’s initial reaction. The “rider” is also attentive to social pressures, reactions, influences and arguments and will consider the thoughts, stories and reasons of others that it considers socially influential.
Four: Vote for Me (Here’s Why)
Haidt begins the chapter with another trip to philosopher land. He presents Plato’s story about Glaucon who claims that people are virtuous only because they fear the consequences of being caught. The legal/criminal consequences; but especially the social consequences that will interfere with their social standing and ability to work within the community as a trusted member. Glaucon describes the mythical gold ring of Gyges, which allows an individual to be invisible at will. He claims that anyone possessing such a ring would do as he pleases, without regard to any notion of morality. Haidt believes that Glaucon is right, and that Plato and subsequent philosophers have been caught up in a delusion that rational thinking is and can be the basis for outstanding morality.
Haidt says that humans are the world champion of cooperation beyond kinship. We work effectively in formal and informal systems of accountability, defined as the “explicit expectation that one will be called upon to justify one’s beliefs, feelings or actions to others”. In later chapters Haidt digs into the evolutionary basis for this remarkable social ability, supported by natural capabilities. Haidt cites researcher Phil Tetlock who sees the world as Haidt does, describing how we act like intuitive politicians striving to maintain appealing moral identities. In simplest terms, we could not work in large, non-kinship based, organizations without having the common ability to interact on a basis of trust, including feedback loops that build such skills and reinforce the incentive to build trust. Tetlock’s research shows that when experimental subjects know that they will have to explain their decisions, they think more systematically and self-critically, avoiding the many “sloppy thinking” errors typically found in experimental psychology settings. When socially required, humans can focus, self-evaluate and justify adequately their reasoning. He argues that conscious reasoning is carried out largely for the purpose of persuasion, not finding truth.
Researcher Mark Leary developed experiments that demonstrated that all individuals, even those who claim that they ignore the opinions of others, see and respond to negative feedback from others, even anonymous others. Leary says that at a nonconscious and pre-attentive level we continuously scan the social environment for any negative feedback.
Haidt uses the presidential press secretary to illustrate our tendency and ability to justify any previously expressed conclusion. Research in 1960 by Peter Wason defined the idea of “confirmation bias”. When asked to brainstorm or defend a position we can easily generate many new related ideas. We prefer to generate confirming ideas and evidence while neglecting contrary evidence. Researcher David Perkins demonstrated that higher IQ individuals generated more arguments to support their views, but not more contrary hypotheses or evidence.
Haidt summarizes the United Kingdom’s Parliament scandal of 2009, when it was revealed that nearly all members, given an opportunity to be reimbursed for nearly any expense, made claims at this scale for years and were surprised by the public’s very negative response to their egregious behavior. Humans can easily rationalize their opinions and behavior, even convincing themselves of its righteousness. Psychologists have emphasized the role of “plausible deniability” in shaping immoral or borderline immoral decisions and actions. Dan Ariely’s more recent experiments show that nearly all people with secrecy and plausible deniability will cheat, not greatly, but somewhat. Ouch.
Social psychologist Tom Gilovich studies the cognitive mechanisms of “strange beliefs”. He finds that such individuals employ a double standard. When an individual wants to believe something, a small amount of roughly plausible evidence will suffice. When opposing evidence is presented, any possible reason to discount the evidence is considered conclusive. Psychologists have deep evidence of our ability and propensity to pursue “motivate reasoning”. People can see what they want to see, given just a little ambiguity. Hence, they can discount scientific studies and mainstream media and political opponents.
Political scientists, following economists, once believed that people voted, volunteered and donated out of individual self-interest. Most political scientists today would at least say that people are also motivated by their groups’ best interests. People belong to various groups with various degrees of attachment. They participate for both their own self-interest and their groups’ interest. Haidt claims that the group dimension is very dominant.
Haidt directly attacks the “rationalist delusion” that the ability to reason well about ethical issues causes good behavior. No surprise, he has research studies that demonstrate that elite moral philosophers behave no differently from other people. He also cites Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber who summarized the research on motivated reasoning and reasoning biases/errors stating, “skilled arguments … are not after the truth but after arguments supporting their views”. Haidt claims that no teaching method has been developed to overcome the confirmation bias since it is so strong. [TK doubts this based on personal experience]
The author then reclaims his scientific authority and allegiance to reason. “We must be wary of any individual’s ability to reason”. Most individual people, 80%, 90%, 95% or more remain trapped, most of the time, in non-self-aware decision making about moral situations. However, social processes (science, structured decision making, projects, political systems?) can be structured to overcome the individual biases. This requires a structure, individual buy-in, communications, techniques, trust, leadership, participation, etc. Most individuals, even highly educated, intelligent, experienced ones tend to make moral, religious and political decisions without challenging their intuitions. Yet, individuals can be self-reflective and social systems can improve outcomes.
Five: Beyond WEIRD Morality
Most psychology research is based on individuals who are Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD). How could it possibly represent universal, scientific truths?
Worldviews matter. Moral worldviews matter. Richard Shweder’s 1991 publication spanned anthropology and psychology, termed cultural psychology. He and his colleagues said that the two fields are intertwined. You can’t study mind alone, because it is situated within a culture. You can’t study culture alone, because many of its views, myths and beliefs are generated from the common views of minds.
Shweder described 3 different varieties of fully functioning moral worldviews: the ethics of autonomy (individual), community and divinity (infinite, beyond). All of anthropology supports the view that different moral worldviews exist. Haidt asks that we defer discussions of which are “best” or “right” until later after we have learned about them, appreciated them and learned about methods to not simply defend our worldview and criticize all others.
[Yes, Haidt is an unusual academic. He shares his own liberal leaning political views. In the end, he believes that learning and cooperation can help us all to get along. But he relies on scientific evidence from anthropology, biology, psychology, political science, behavioral economics, philosophy, social psychology and sociology, even when it does not support his political leanings or academic theories. Hence, he is criticized both as a “closet conservative” and as a “secular utopian”]
The ethic of autonomy is our world, especially the upper middle class professional world epitomized in Haidt’s U Penn Ivy League students. They strongly believe in the classic liberal worldview expressed by John Stuart Mill in 1859: “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others”. This is the modern mainstream Western, English and American worldview. The world is comprised of individuals first and foremost. Individuals have inalienable rights. Political and moral systems must protect these rights. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. First, do no harm. Contract theory of politics. Individual rights. Human rights. Freedom and liberty. Libertarianism. Utilitarianism focused on the best summarized results treating each individual as equally valuable.
The ethic of community begins with the community, relationships, structures, institutions and roles first. The whole is greater than the sum of the individuals and distinctively different. Haidt points to Asia for examples. He could have pointed to pre-Enlightenment, pre-Reformation, pre-Renaissance Europe. In this world, people are first and foremost members of larger entities such as families, teams, armies, companies, tribes and nations. People have an obligation to the groups. Moral concepts of duty, hierarchy, respect, reputation and patriotism matter greatly.
The ethic of divinity envisions people as temporary, immaterial components of a comprehensive divine whole. The whole world is infused with the divine spirit. Individuals are also divine objects with a divine purpose. There is a hierarchy of most divine and least divine or degraded things. Disgust at despicable, dirty things is natural. The body is a temple when alive and even after death. Moral concepts of sanctity and sin, purity and pollution, elevation and degradation are employed. Again, Europe before 1500 qualifies as following this ethic. See Charles Taylor’s 2018 A Secular Age. My grandmother from rural Hungary, near Ukraine, brought this worldview with her to America in 1903 and still followed it when she died in a small Ohio village in 1966.
Haidt relates his personal story. A New York Jew, descendant of Russian grandparents, garment industry workers, Haidt inhaled the liberal air, FDR’s semi-divine status and the undergraduate Yale University atmosphere. Stops at the Universities of Pennsylvania and Chicago reinforced the “conventional political consensus”. Democrats were right/correct. Republicans were wrong/right/evil/fooled/deluded/impaired. Haidt was attracted to philosophy, psychology, biology, anthropology, etc. He was a free thinker. Good academic, trying to find a multidisciplinary perspective that would provide new, better scientific insights.
Shweder’s work was a breakthrough for Haidt, psychology, cultural psychology and evolutionary psychology. His work provided a paradigm shift, first described by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962. Science moves forward incrementally and smoothly until … it doesn’t. For Haidt, mid-way through writing his dissertation after finishing his field research, it provided a framework for his provocative moral stories that were viewed so differently by different nations, classes and regions. His “best” stories were either those of disrespect that violated the ethics of community or those of disgust or carnality which violated the ethics of divinity.
Even is a modern WEIRD society, some individuals did not conform to the prevailing individualistic/autonomous norms. They were greatly offended by violations of community and divinity-based norms and taboos. Cultures and individuals have multiple moral worldviews innately!!!!
Haidt provides more details about his 1993 research in India, where the ethics of community and divinity prevail. He was able to appreciate how these systems create an internally consistent society that meets most social needs. He sees how these ethics do not mesh well with the ethic of autonomy, but learns to see the value, beauty, worth, history, results, flexibility, hope, ideals and reality of India at that time. He returns to the US and can appreciate the views of social conservatives. He is released from partisan anger.
Six: Taste Buds of the Righteous Mind
Haidt provides an analogy between taste buds for enjoying food and evolutionarily derived “moral modules” that are used to construct real world moral cultures, beliefs, intuitions, responses and language. He returns to the history of philosophy through modern rationalist psychology once again. He notes that rationalist philosophers since the “Englightenment” have sought to derive a moral philosophy that can be reduced to a single principle, model or framework. He notes that Jeremy Bentham and Immanuel Kant were great systematizers and poor empathizers, which allowed them to propose these kinds of systems and attract followers.
He recalled that the Enlightenment has been characterized as a war between Reason and ignorant Religion, with Reason winning. He returned to David Hume’s philosophy which rejected a reductionist approach and embraced a pluralist approach, even quoting the same analogy between taste and moral philosophy. He describes utilitarianism as the “arithmetic” of pain and pleasure and Kant’s version of the Golden Rule as the “logic” of noncontradiction. He rejects both as too simple to scientifically describe how real-world moral thinking takes place.
Haidt seeks to develop a Moral Foundations Theory comprised of “moral modules” that are consistent with the main findings of evolutionary psychology and the variety of moral cultures and thinking described by anthropologists. He warns the reader 3 times that it is very easy to find a plausible evolutionary basis for nearly any observed behavior but believes that he and his partner Craig Joseph were able to identify robust rationales for 5 clusters of morality.
His model starts with the original adaptive challenge and triggers, notes current triggers of intuitive, emotional reactions, notes the primary linked emotion and the relevant virtues for 5 flavors of morality.
The first flavor is care/harm focused on the care and protection of children. A child’s suffering triggers a compassionate response which we call caring or kindness. Today baby seals or cartoon pictures might trigger the same response!
Sensitivity to fairness/cheating derives from the need to develop two person partnerships. (Anger, gratitude, guilt)
Sensitivity to loyalty/betrayal is needed for the formation of larger social groups. (group pride, rage at traitors)
Sensitivity to authority/subversion is needed to manage hierarchical relationships without constant battling. (Respect, fear)
Sensitivity to sanctity/degradation is required to avoid contaminants. (Disgust)
Haidt ends the chapter saying that “theories are cheap”.
Seven: The Moral Foundations of Politics
In this chapter, Haidt digs deeper into the proposed 5 moral foundations of politics. He wants us to agree that these “modules” drive many currently important political/moral beliefs and that they make sense in terms of key evolution developments for humans. He is also working hard to help his tribe, the liberals, truly appreciate that these are ALL legitimate moral principles held by billions around the world and how the mainstream Western liberal emphasis on just the individual and rationality, summarized in John Stuart Mill’s 1859 maxim about very limited rightful political restraints on individuals, is an outlier historically and cross-culturally. [He’s still dodging the question of whether this path of philosophy is in some sense right or better than the others].
He begins with another stab at homo economicus, the utilitarian version of man who simply maximizes personal pleasures versus pains. [We could have long discussions about the details, power and uses of the philosophy at the individual and community levels, but for now his focus is on real moral behavior and his point well taken, IMHO]. Haidt shares five paired research questions that demonstrate our inherent, innate, intuitive, subconscious, primal, unlearned, universal, easily triggered reaction to violations of moral rules or taboos on the 5 posited moral dimensions. Stick a needle into a child’s arm. Receive a stolen TV. Criticize the US on Al-Jazeera. Slap dad in the face. Attend a play of naked, grunting actors. Most of us react negatively to the stories even if intellectually we see “no real harm”.
Haidt circles back to the definition of “innateness”, emphasizing that a pre-1970 strict definition of “exactly so in every culture” is not supported by scientists today. Instead, they describe humans as 50/50 “nature versus nurture”, prewired and flexible versus hardwired, starting with some abilities but adding to them and refining them through experience. For example, we are prewired to quickly react with “fight or flight” when seeing a snake, but some people have much stronger reactions than others and this response can also be triggered by a “squiggly line”. This is critical because he is arguing that the “moral modules” are each innate, ready to be used and fine-tuned by all humans.
Humans give birth to children who require 3-5-7 years of care to be able to survive. Woman and men who innately were predisposed to respond to infant signals of need were best positioned to shepherd these needy animals into early childhood survival. Psychology’s “attachment theory” says that the “serve and return” interaction of moms and children is required for development. Cute kids, dolls, cartoons and stuffed animals all trigger the loving, protective response. Liberals emphasize the “caring” dimension, applying it to disenfranchised groups of all kinds. Conservatives “care” for more closely related sets of kin, neighbors, co-religionists, racial and ethnic allies, fellow patriots, etc.
Humans evolved to function in hunter-gatherer societies and then in fixed agricultural societies. This required an ability to judge the real cooperation of others. Robert Trivers’ 1971 theory of “reciprocal altruism” agrees with much game theory research that shows that a “tit for tat” strategy of interacting with others is optimal. Individuals who took a step away from simple self-interest were able to cooperate effectively without being “suckered” by others. A genetically common group with this insight could radically outperform its strictly individualist peers. They felt “pleasure, liking and friendship when people show signs they can reciprocate … [and] .. anger, contempt and even disgust when people try to cheat us or take advantage of us.” Liberals emphasize ideal, abstract “fairness” while conservatives emphasize proportional “fairness”. Equal results versus equal opportunity and proportionate rewards for performance.
As groups further increased in size, humans required additional signals to evaluate who was “pulling their fair share” versus being a “free rider”. Individuals that actively bought into a group identity and willingly displayed this commitment were able to form larger, more tightly knit communities. On an evolution basis, they would have succeeded far more often than the pure individualists or groups with just better “one on one” bonds. Haidt points to Muzarif Herif’s 1954 research that documented the “tribal” nature of 12-year-old boys, as we still see in scout packs today. Boys want to be part of a team, to be leaders, to compete, to stake out territory, to adopt names, flags, songs and secrets. Just like irrational sports team allegiances. In a world of tribal warfare, groups that bonded together would have survived better. Identifying (loving) teammates and (hating) traitors was essential. Conservatives naturally employ this dimension. Liberals apply it to more universal groups: humanity, union brothers, seekers, the enlightened, academics, the disenfranchised, the working class.
As groups increased in size even further and necessarily became more hierarchical, individuals who could effectively navigate the two-way required dominance/submission relations became more valuable. Respecting “legitimate” authority and willingly delivering signs of respect, dominance and submission became highly valuable at the community level. We’re moving from bands of 10-20-50 to groups of 50-100-150 to communities of 250-1,000-10,000. Adam Smith outlined the advantages of specialization in larger societies in 1776, but they also applied 10-20-50-100,000 years ago. Haidt notes that “pecking order” signs are common in nature. He also emphasizes that agreement on roles reduces constant fighting between individuals and that high-ranking individuals typically take on the role of maintaining order and justice for the community. Haidt notes that this power can be abused, but it is not inherently abusive. Conservatives love this one. “Anything that is construed as an act of obedience, disobedience, respect, disrespect, submission, or rebellion, with regard to authorities perceived to be legitimate” triggers a response. Today, anything that subverts traditions, institutions or values is suspect from the right. Liberals generally struggle with the importance of this dimension.
The fifth proposed basis of morality is more fundamental. Humans are omnivores. We migrate. We eat new foods. We interact with new people. We need to know what is safe or not. The negative reactions to filth, excrement, disease, sores, pus, smells, blood, mixtures, darkness, caves, the unknown, the other, is probably one of the oldest moral foundations. It is found in most cultures and religions. “Cleanliness is next to godliness”. Dietary restrictions. God is high and the devil is low. God’s temple. Human body as a temple. Chastity. Not polluted. Unclean. Sacred and profane. Body and soul. Haidt summarizes this as the sanctity/degradation foundation. The human body/soul is more than a piece of meat. Sexual intercourse is more than animal husbandry. Sex with a relative is repulsive. Some individuals are “untouchable”. Sacred places, objects, saints, symbols, words, books, images, limits, smells, roles, and relics are … sacred. Blasphemy is “beyond the pale”, unimaginable, dead serious, unforgiveable, ruthless, diabolical. This is not just a Manichaean dualist “good versus evil” abstraction. It becomes a definition of the eternal, the infinite, the all-powerful, the best, moral excellence against its evil opposite.
Humans have intuitions about moral issues that were developed to make an increasingly complex society succeed. They are about the individual and the group, the individual and death from disease, and God. These accessible “moral modules” can be applied to current events. Wise politicians understand the strength of these modules and seek to use them to attract political support.
“This was first conceived as a book about cognition and decision making … it became a book about morality and the inner life”.
0. Introduction: Adam II and the “Eulogy Virtues”
Contrast the Adam I “resume virtues”: job market, external success, career, ambition, building, creating, producing, discovering, status, victory, how things work, venture forth, utilitarian logic and success with the Adam II “eulogy virtues”: kind, brave, honest, faithful, relationships, moral, serene, right and wrong, love, sacrifice, truth, soul, why things exist, return to roots, charity and redemption.
We all live these two selves, but there is an inherent tension between their competing claims.
Adam II logic is inverted: give to receive, surrender to gain, conquer desire to get what you crave, failure leads to the success of humility and learning, forget to fulfill yourself, confront your weaknesses, not just leverage your strengths. [Nietzsche’s “weak religion” claims echo here]
American culture today prioritizes the “resume virtues”. School and career competition. Product marketing. Fast and shallow communications. Self-promotion, elevator speech, LinkedIn. [These are not new criticisms. See Daniel Bell’s 1976 “The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism”.] The emphasis and power of the “transactional” virtues have grown since 1945 or 1976 to make the modern world almost unrecognizable from earlier times.
Brooks describes this imbalance producing merely a “shrewd animal”, capable of playing one game, with a vague anxiety about lack of meaning, boredom, missing love and unattached to any moral purpose making life worthwhile. Inner consistency, confidence and integrity are missing. Without developed morals, the achievements of Adam I are undercut.
Brooks promises to deliver an “older moral ecology” for modern times by sharing biographical essays. This is the “broken timber” tradition, emphasizing human weakness, brokenness, sin, moral drama and development. He admits that no simple outline or list of principles is adequate. Moral development requires an individual journey, experiences, feelings, intuitions, awareness, a community, principles, choices, feedback, small steps and habits. Each person’s journey is different.
Those who are further along on the moral journey have certain characteristics: inner cohesion, calmness, ability to face adversity, persistency, consistency, dependability, reservedness, reticence, humility, kindness, cheerfulness, restraint, respect, temperance, balance, dignity, centeredness, service, comfort, quiet action, receptivity, reflection, support and depth. These are the classical moral virtues. They are less common, but no less important today.
1. The Shift
The central fallacy of Adam I life is that accomplishments and the pursuit of happiness will produce deep satisfaction. The Adam II view is that desires are infinite, fleeting and an inadequate basis for a meaningful life. The ultimate joys are moral joys pursued by living a moral life, in spite of our flawed nature. Brooks argues that our culture since WW II has lost the experience, language, norms and habits to encourage most people to pursue the moral life rather than just the surface-level materialistic life.
V-J Day celebrated the end of the war, the second “war to end all wars”. News coverage highlighted the views of politicians, celebrities and regular people. The tone was one of self-effacement and humility. This is it. What can you say? Thank God it’s over. We won because our men are brave and many other things. I hope we are more grateful than proud. Joy, yes. But solemnity and self-doubt too.
Brooks inserts the disclaimer “in so many ways, life is better now than it was then”. Racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, conformity, limited cultural options, cold culture, hierarchy, rigid parental roles, etc. His vignettes and text highlight the benefits of “the moral journey” without claiming that any formula, church, culture or person were perfect. His deepest point is that humans are flawed (sinful), but in spite of that nature, they can lead a morally worthy journey. He is concerned that today we don’t emphasize this dimension of life, reducing opportunities for individuals and society as a whole.
The “greatest generation” displayed humility. Even most of the celebrities shared these characteristics. Bragging was considered gauche or “out of place” by every class. People were more grounded, skeptical, balanced and aware that everyone has challenges and demons to face. The “hardness” of life in the generation after the “roaring twenties” had impacted habits and culture. Cabinet members served; they didn’t write memoirs.
The “Big Me” view of life, focused on child development started immediately after the war with self-help, get ahead and parenting books all aiming to apply the “humanistic” psychology that contrasted with Freud’s much darker view of humans and humanity. Rock and roll and the “swinging sixties” receive more press, but they were part of an overall change in popular culture rooted in an individual oriented psychology that gave less emphasis to the non-individual dimensions. Human nature did not change. People did not become more evil. But their focus started with the individual and often simply stayed there.
Brooks cites data showing that individuals today consider themselves more important, display more narcissistic traits and pursue fame more often. Popular culture reinforces the parenting and schooling changes. “You are special. Trust yourself. Follow your passion. Don’t accept limits. Chart your own course. You are so great”. Part of this was a reaction to the “conformity” of “mass society” in the 1950’s. But the reaction swung to an extreme rather than finding a new and better balance.
Brooks outlines why the Adam II, eulogy virtues path of a moral journey is “better”. Self-effacing people are aesthetically pleasing. That is, Brooks simply likes this style. Self-promoters are fragile and jarring. Humility is intellectually impressive. It takes great effort, insight and discipline to offset our natural tendency to embrace ignorance. Humility leads to wisdom, not merely knowledge. The path of wide-awake “trial and error” supported by a community develops insights and confidence. Wise people have learned to see things from multiple perspectives and broader perspectives, to know their own limits, to integrate pieces, to reach tentative conclusions, to deal with issues, accepting that others may make better choices in the future. Humility has a direct moral value, avoiding pride and hubris.
Wise, humble, moral individuals approach life as a journey. They start with the same broken human nature and grab-bag of talents and weaknesses. They experience highs and lows. But they learn from the lows as they are open to learning, feedback, looking inside, restarting and taking small steps forward in hope of improving. This self-awareness allows them to not become distraught by their repeated brokenness, but to embrace the human condition, the opportunity for grace, help from others and always another opportunity. This apparently “negative” or “pessimistic” view of life leads to a tempered optimism, a confidence that these small steps are the essence of a good human life and that despite the backsliding, the journey is good. They also accept that the demand for moral perfection remains but cannot be fulfilled. In spite of this, they move ahead graciously and positively.
Brooks emphasizes the complementary side of the semi-sweet, bittersweet, self-disciplined path he has outlined. Austerity and hardship play a role, but love and pleasure are required too. The experience of nature, people, love and art are required to be humble, wise and human. There is a balance again. Devotion to a cause, service and mystical wonder are essential ingredients of the journey. This journey has an “everyman” quality, encouraging individuals of all classes, professions and backgrounds to join in and support each other.
The author reiterates that “human nature” has not changed in the last 3 generations, but our culture has moved to an “individualistic” extreme that encourages parents, children and adults to focus on the “success” dimension of life above the “moral” dimension. We are losing the habits, language, examples, understanding and beliefs needed to maintain the “moral” dimension as an important part of our civilization.
2. The Summoned Self: Frances Perkins
Brooks uses the life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s multiple-term Secretary of Labor, to develop the ideas of a moral journey, a calling or vocation and the tension between different aspects of a person’s self and their environment. In thumbnail terms, Perkins was one of the first liberal, feminist pioneers, advocating for women’s, children’s and worker’s rights. She reflected her stern and religious New England upbringing and the special guidance of Mount Holyoke at the turn of the nineteenth century.
Perkins’ “calling” arrived when she experienced the horrific Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, when she was 31. Dozens of eighth through tenth floor workers died from a fire where the exits had been blocked. New York City reacted with mourning, outrage and shame. Working conditions had been highlighted by a strike two years earlier, but management had prevailed, and society had ignored the ladies’ plight. Prior to this time Perkins had worked in her field of social service in a conventional manner, but now knew that she would truly have to devote her life to improving working conditions, even at personal cost to herself in terms of time, methods, dress and relations.
Brooks describes today’s commencement calls to individuals to “follow their passion, to trust their feelings, to reflect and find their purpose in life”. Their best role is to be found by looking inward. It is to be shaped in Adam I terms: what is my purpose? what do I want? What do I value? Inventory my talents. Set some goals and metrics of progress. Map a strategy and go. Apply your self-determination achieve self-fulfillment.
In prior times, highly talented, driven and aware individuals like Perkins approached these questions from the opposite side: what does life want from me? Servants don’t create their lives; they are summoned by life to meet the needs of their time and place.
Brooks highlights Victor Frankl’s 1942 experience in Nazi concentration camps where he was positioned with “no choice”, but was able to identify his one remaining choice, to focus on the gap between stimulus and response, to decide what response could be made in the worst environment. Frankl could choose to not surrender, to focus on the wishes of others, to serve, to educate, to preach, to work out a means of survival. Most people try to avoid suffering. Frankl embraced it and survived. Lived experience and the condition of society can (and should) play a role in determining one’s vocation, not just personal reflections.
The author describes a vocation as a “calling” versus a job or a career. Some are called by God, indignation, nature, literature, or a personal experience. The vocation chooses the individual. A vocation is not chosen on a utilitarian basis to maximize happiness. The person becomes an instrument of the cause, religion, movement, industry, tradition or profession. They are part of something larger than themselves that applies across time. Such a vocation is serious, but not burdensome. The rewards of professionalism, craftsmanship and service are fulfilling even if conventional success is not assured or achieved.
Perkins’ background was nineteenth century New England Yankee. Dead serious, parsimonious, earnest, brutally honest, focused, reticent, self-reliant, egalitarian, and emotionally tough. Yet the social conservatism was combined with communal compassion, local government action and a faith in education. There was a balance, or sorts. Mount Holyoke existed to help teenagers become adults by shaping their moral character, identifying weaknesses, building discipline skills, wrestling with religious obligations, connecting themselves with life, identifying opportunities to serve, tempering idealism, pursuing heroic causes with humble steps. Perkins selected a I Corinthians verse for her class motto: “Therefore my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord”.
Perkins “career” included roles as a teacher, social worker, manager, lobbyist, leader and public policy analyst and influencer. She served in New York State commission roles before becoming Secretary of Labor. Her views were shaped at Hull House in Chicago which directly involved women with the local poor and immigrants, offering a wide variety of services in a cooperative environment. Staff were taught to serve God and the cause rather than individuals, so that they would retain their motivation.
Perkins was effective in promoting her causes, using her knowledge and passion to sway legislators, owners and journalists. She embedded herself into every needed political environment to become influential, going where ladies had not gone before, playing real politics, compromising as required, even dressing to look older and appeal to the “maternal instincts” of her audience. While Perkins’ career looks like a linear success, her personal life was difficult and cold, at best. Her husband and daughter suffered from mental illness. She managed them and kept this separate from her public life. She retired to live in a dorm and teach at Cornell.
Perkins believed in reticence. She kept her private life private. She did not feel a need to use her inner feelings, passions and desires as tools for public policy. They belonged in private. Brooks notes that Perkins had her weaknesses. She was not best at emotions, intimacy, public relations, introspection or softness. As a woman in a man’s world, especially the epitome of labor relations, she was “all business”. On the other hand, Perkins’ “all business” approach was successful and she was humble about her style, pioneering status and results. Anyone else with the same opportunities would have done the same things, she said.
Perkins was an astute observer of people, managing FDR and writing a biography about him. She appreciated FDR’s adopted style of humility and interactions with people. She saw that his incremental, probing, seeking, improvising, balancing decision-making style was successful, even if it was difficult for his colleagues, opponents and the world. She noted that he crafted policy as an instrument of the process, not as an engineer himself.
Brooks summarizes her great political results in defining, supporting and delivering the New Deal. He contrasts her insignificance as a Mount Holyoke student, shaped by a system that chipped away at her weaknesses of laziness and glibness to then pursue idealistic goals as a servant of mankind. She set aside her own image and family to pursue this calling. She met each new challenge and steadfastly pursued objectives. She combined activism with reticent traditionalism, hesitancy and puritanical sensibility. How unlikely a career path. But, not so unlikely as a calling for a young lady enrolled at Mount Holyoke in 1900.
3. Self-Conquest: Dwight Eisenhower
Dwight Eisenhower is another leader of the FDR era, born in 1890 and raised on the frontier prairie around Abilene, KS. Brooks uses Eisenhower’s life to illustrate self-conquest and moderation.
Ike’s father David had limited career success, was quiet, somber, solitary and difficult. He married Ida Stover and raised 5 boys, each remarkably successful. Ida was born in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in 1862, lost both parents of her large family by age 11, and worked as a cook for a family as a teen. She moved away, finished high school, joined a westbound caravan and settled in Kansas. She studied music in college, married David Eisenhower and joined the River Brethren church, which believed in plain dress, temperance and pacifism (!). While Ida adopted the strict faith of her church, she maintained her warm, joyful, optimistic, vibrant, gregarious personality and belief that each person must make their own faith choices.
The boys were raised in this economically marginal, but psychologically mixed home. No drinking, card playing or dancing. Plenty of Bible study and verses. A focus on thrift, self-discipline, chores, manual labor, temperance, self-restraint, self-wariness and natural risks. The prairie was an unforgiving atmosphere that emphasized prudence, hard work and endurance.
“Sin” remained an important enemy in the Eisenhower home. Ida and Dwight were both schooled in Bible verses and skilled at applying them to real world situations. The need to “conquer sin and your soul” was obvious. Developing character was a central part of life. Brooks shares that we don’t speak of “sin” today, even though human nature has not changed, and we still experience a dual nature of being selfish, deceiving and self-deceived while also showing God’s image and seeking transcendence and virtue. The darkest Puritanical obsession with sin lies in our historical past. The Victorian commingling of “sin” and pleasure is mostly gone. The use of “sin” as a catch-all term to ensure that no one has fun is less common. The use of “sin” as a tool for strict parenting, irrespective of moral development, is also fading away. So, we are left with the downside of human nature, but no vocabulary to describe it.
Brooks argues that the moral concept of sin cannot be ignored because it is so central. Despite the materialistic scribblings of some scientists and philosophers, life cannot be reduced to atoms and forces. People make moral decisions. Bad choices are not simply errors or mistakes. They are choices made within competing moral forces and shortcomings. Sin is a social term. Our decisions impact others. Their expectations impact us. We recognize the universality of sin in our neighbors and seek help and forgiveness. Sin is real. Individuals “know” right from wrong. We still do the wrong thing. We don’t want to be hard-hearted, cruel or ignore situations, but we do. Our talents drive complementary shortcomings from exaggeration or pride. Sin is large and small, mostly small. The habit of avoiding small sins helps to avoid large sins. Small sins lead to large sins. We face moral choices every day. Moral character is built upon the control of our partially sinful nature.
Ida Eisenhower lived a “both/and” life. She was funny and warm-hearted but demanded compliance with her rules. She required work and offered freedom. She demanded that her family cultivate the habit of small, constant self-repression. Etiquette, attending church, deference, respect, plain food, avoiding luxury, keeping the Sabbath. Practice the small outward disciplines to build character. Work hard. She also used love as a character-building tool. Love of children, country, the poor, giving and neighbors. Strict and kind. Disciplined and loving. Sin and forgiveness.
Dwight always had a temper. Ida helped him learn to control it. At West Point he excelled at demerits. Although he mostly controlled his temper, Ike’s colleagues and subordinates learned to read his face, watch his neck arteries bulge, observe his moods, and avoid him on brown suit days. Ike was aware of his challenges. As a staff officer, he adapted to his superior. He focused on the details and processes to produce results. He identified and studied the habits of his most effective colleagues. He guided disagreements and complaints into the trash or his diary. He bought into the military’s hierarchical culture and accepted that his best place was where the military assigned him. Ike was happy to assume a persona as a staff leader, general or president. He used the persona to his advantage.
Ike was slow to fully blossom. He entered full service after WW I, behind thousands with higher ranks and experience. He remained a lieutenant colonel for two decades. His brothers gained early career success. Yet, Eisenhower continued to serve his country and develop his craft, earning honors and attention for the performance of his duties and his school record. He was attached to Generals Connor and MacArthur for a decade, mastering politics, management and leadership. When his time arrived, he delivered. He was able to bridge between competing factions and earn the respect required to make critical decisions and win support. Ike kept the focus on the team, praising victories and embracing defeats closely.
Ike was not a saint, a visionary, a creative thinker, a brilliant strategist, a leader of human rights or a warm human being. He was comfortable with himself. He was comfortable with his second self, the persona required to achieve his objectives. Brooks notes that this inauthenticity is often criticized today. Being true to oneself is seen as a supreme value. Ike put this in perspective.
Brooks praises Ike’s moderation. Once again, we have a flavor of both/and rather than either/or. Moderation is not compromise, average or equanimity. It is the ability to identify conflicting perspectives or dimensions and use the best of them to make practical decisions. Conflict is inevitable. A fully harmonious person does not exist. A single coherent philosophy cannot guide all choices. Various political goals are incompatible. In politics, philosophy and personality things don’t fit together neatly. Passion and self-control. Faith and doubt. Security and risk. License and liberty. Equality and achievement. Order and liberty. Individual and community. The key is to recognize that clean solutions do not always exist. Good solutions require balance, long-term and short-term, practical and ideal considerations, action and calm. Like FDR, Ike saw that incremental decisions may be the best choice.
The “moderate” instinctively considers options, accepts compromises, considers goals and values, incorporates multiple perspectives, separates means from ends. He or she is wary of simple solutions, single truths, zealotry, and unbridled passion.
Brooks does not say this, but this is the historical basis for “conservatism” from Edmund Burke forward. The accumulated wisdom of history, tradition and society is a valuable counterweight to the latest progressive insight, breakthrough or revolution. The conservative is wary of risk, especially the biggest risks. This approach reduces those risks.
Dorothy Day is less well known than the others featured in this book and perhaps the most difficult to summarize, categorize, explain or relate to. Born in 1897, she was a radical Catholic social worker. Her life was shaped by a seeker’s need to know, to connect, to understand, to matter. She delivered results for millions of people and inspired millions more. She challenged orthodoxy and promoted versions of the Catholic faith and social practices. She is a feminist hero. She is recognized as a “servant of God” by the Catholic Church and may become a saint someday. I’m guessing that Brooks included her to provide a left leaning example in his pantheon of heroes, to explore conversion and suffering as virtues.
After a challenging first 30 years of life, Day joined the Catholic Church because she saw the practical and ideal effects it had on poor immigrant workers in the city. She was rebounding from a series of disappointments but had discovered romantic love and experienced childbirth and motherhood. She needed a new and better answer to her striving for truth, beauty, justice and meaning. Initially, she was drawn mostly to the orderliness of the religion, but she saw that its doctrine of radically true equality of individuals could be the basis for real, transformational service.
She built upon her previous radical politics and journalistic experience to found a newspaper advocating for workers. This evolved into a newspaper that served the working people, soup kitchens, food pantries, group housing and political activism. Brooks notes that she wanted to demonstrate the ideal of true human service to others, partly to address human needs, but also to set a radical example to challenge individuals to read and reflect upon the church’s teachings.
Throughout her life, Dorothy Day was a seeker, a feeler, a maximizer, a searcher, a dramatist, unbounded, fearless, driven, experimental, focused and testing. She wanted to know truth, beauty and justice. She burned with a passion for this wisdom. She deeply felt the virtue of unity and the pain of separation. She looked for new perspectives and understood that there are many layers of depth in our journey. She lived day to day, but honored history and eternity. In the end, she knew that she could not fully achieve this kind of mastery or certainty as a human but was grateful for her life and her religious experience.
In her youth and young adulthood, she actively sought but did not find. She began writing at a young age. She was a voracious reader from a young age of philosophers and “deep” novelists. She learned about the conflicts between the spirit and the flesh at a young age and explored this tension into her thirties. She explored alternative lifestyles, living arrangements, work, drinking, drugs and sex. She was attracted to radical politics, especially addressing injustice. Brooks interprets this as her heart was in the right place, but without a proper structure there was no ability to connect with the infinite, the eternal, the transformational until she was a practicing member of the Catholic Church.
Day was “wound so tight” that she never experienced the deep serenity which many other saints have been claimed to find. She pursued service and community and practice, but retained a doubt if she was “good enough”. Was her action pure or prideful? How could one know? She served the community, but did she do enough for her family? She chose to remain celibate after losing her partner and father of her daughter due to irreconcilable religious and political differences. This human longing was never refilled. She innovated, served, lectured, lead others, wrote, lobbied and impacted millions, but was this enough? Was it the best course? She lived in community with the poor and colleagues but still felt alone.
Day embraced suffering. She was hard on herself. She accepted small windows of relief. But she was relentless. What else can I do? Brooks outlines the potential good of this kind of radical suffering. Suffering can help the seeker to find a new dimension, a deeper reality that leads to a better world. Suffering is a natural byproduct of an honest complete search for holiness, divinity and the perfect life. Suffering connects us with others who need help and who share our universal experience. Suffering allows an individual to “hit bottom” as in a “12 step program” and surrender to a higher power. Suffering can help us to empathize with others as they actually live their lives, different from our experience. Suffering jolts us away from our everyday, surface, bourgeoise, Adam I life. Suffering ensures that we understand that we are not in control, we are not self-sufficient. Suffering exposes layers and dimensions that we had tried to hide. Suffering teaches gratitude. We gain perspective on the “highs and lows” of life. Suffering can connect us to history, providence and God. Suffering can lead individuals to their vocation or calling, or at least scare them away from false gods. Individuals can respond to deep suffering with magnanimous responses of community service.
In the end, Day found enough to satisfy her longings. Her experience was “good enough”, adequate, but still not perfect. She continued on her journey, adapting, improving, adjusting and praying. She embraced order, routine, service, communion, motherhood, community, prayer, writing, reading, discipline, practices, and much progress that was made for the poor, the community and the world. She was gracious and thankful for her life’s experiences. That was enough.
5. Self-Mastery: George Marshall
The memory of General George Marshall is fading from public consciousness with time. As an Army general, he led the overhaul of training and prioritization of senior officers to prepare the US military for WW II. He served as Army deputy and chief of staff for FDR, advising the president, managing relations with Congress and the press and preparing for the D-Day invasion. After the war he served as ambassador to China, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and leader of the “Marshall Plan” to rebuild Europe.
Other American leaders considered him the very best in a time filled with heroes. Towering intellect, unnatural genius, integrity, selfless devotion to duty, beyond all influences, telling the truth, immensity of integrity, terrific influence and power, no politics involved, trying to win the war the best way.
Marshall was born in 1890 and raised in a small Pennsylvania coal town. His father was a successful small businessman who risked everything on a real estate venture and lost. Marshall experienced childhood poverty in a proud family distantly related to Supreme Court Justice John Marshall. George was an unengaged elementary school student but “buckled down” in high school when he heard his brother say he did not want George to follow him to the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) and embarrass the family.
Marshall enrolled at VMI and found the school’s history, tradition and military culture to be a good fit. VMI had produced many Civil War generals and considered itself like West Point despite the Confederacy’s unfortunate outcome. VMI was part of an older military tradition that intended to shape the character of young men bound for future public leadership. It combined ” a chivalric devotion to service and courtesy, a stoic commitment to emotional self-control, and a classic devotion to honor”. It believed that leaders were made, not born. VMI taught reverence for the heroes of the past as a way to define, form and motivate self-discipline and build character. Marshall blossomed at VMI where he “excelled at drilling, neatness, organization, precision, self-control and leadership”. He graduated without a single demerit and was the unquestioned leader of his class.
Brooks emphasizes that this training to be a “great leader” does not fit with today’s “find yourself” and “express yourself” model of personal development. Leaders are public servants. They should strive to be magnanimous, to rise above the passions of mere mortals. Holding power, they will be subject to the risks of abusing that power, exaggerating their own weaknesses and strengths. They will need to rely upon their own good judgment as they are subject to the pressures of politics. Hence, they must develop a core sense of “right and wrong” and habits that allow them to work alone as necessary, seeking advice but not relying upon coalitions. They must develop complete self-control to attract and wield power and influence, for others and upon themselves.
This style highlights the role of institutions, society and traditions versus the individual self. The self is weak and subject to influence and emotions. A stoic self-reliance is needed. This is built from the outside in by practicing self-control in the small things of life; drill, decorum, etiquette, language, erect posture, shiny shoes. By building and applying the habit of self-control to daily routine, the leader is able to apply it in the great decisions, where it really matters.
Like Eisenhower, Marshall was caught in the after WW I period with more experienced officers holding the higher-ranking positions, preventing his promotion for two decades. Marshall did serve in WW I as a logistics officer and caught the attention of General Pershing who moved him to his general staff office. Marshall served mainly as a staff officer, managing things like ordnance, logistics and training. He excelled in these roles but only won his promotion to general at age 58.
Marshall applied and exemplified the military virtues. As an aide to others, he subordinated his views to theirs, applying extra energy to ensure that their wills and orders were delivered. He was loyal to the military as an institution. It came before him and would follow him. He was honored to participate in the institution, gaining from it and contributing a bit. Brooks highlights the role that professions and institutions can have in counterbalancing self-centered individualism. Through participation an individual is shaped and molded to think like the group, to serve, to mirror the culture and ethics of the group. The connection between an individual and the group is more than transactional. It is more like a solemn commitment to support, learn, serve and honor the wisdom of the collective whole and those who had served before. In return, the group connects the individual to a meaningful something that is larger, and which lives on. Some might call this a conservative viewpoint while others would describe it as a balancing force.
Marshall’s picture could appear in the encyclopedia under the entry for soldier or general. He looked and acted the part. Stoic, reliable, dead serious, private, attentive to details, focused on victory, impatient with politics or frivolity. He was a reserved person with few close friends. Personable but not garrulous. Devoted to duty and his two wives, but not interested in “club life”, he filled key roles because of his talents, trustworthiness and history of delivering results. He was a natural leader, a revered leader, but not an inspirational leader in today’s terms of public speaking, charisma and emotional impact.
Despite his slow academic start, Marshall learned to apply himself academically. He developed an outstanding memory for details. He learned to connect mission, vision and values with strategy, tactics and logistical details in the most complex situations. He was an innovator, willing to overhaul procedures to make them more effective. He was willing to set aside emotions and potential consequences and “speak truth to power” as required. He refused to ask FDR for the D-Day leadership role because he honored the president’s role in making such a decision based upon all factors, including personal and political ones.
Marshall was not perfect. He could be cold, rigid and aloof. His distaste for the frivolous part of politics and journalists sometimes leaked through. He didn’t have a large group of friends or allies. In the end, he was a “magnanimous” leader as VMI sought to create. He pursued a leadership role in a public institution where it was best for him to be “above the fray”. Society needed someone to lead, advise and deliver reliably, without second guessing their motives. Society needed some individuals to look and act like “heroes”, hiding the doubts and shortcomings of the leader and society. This leader was made of marble, qualitatively different from others but committed to his nation. This leader earned great honors because he was worthy of them based on achievement and character. In the post-sixties, post-Watergate, post-Clinton era we struggle to truly “look up” to any leaders. We prefer irreverence.
Marshall died just shy of his 80th birthday. He ensured that there was no big ceremony, no grand eulogies, just a soldier’s honorable burial.
Brooks next chooses two civil rights leaders who are not as well-known as Martin Luther King, Jr., but who had the same level of impact on the African American community and the US between 1940 and 1970. “Dignity” is an ironic title for this chapter. There is clearly great dignity in the cause of civil rights, the dignity displayed by these two leaders and the dignity mastered by civil rights action participants. I am a man. We are men. We belong. We are morally strong. We have God and history supporting us. However, Brooks’ main message, in my reading, is not about simple human dignity. Rather, it is that the greatest achievement of the post-war, modern “liberal”, secular, individual rights world view, real civil rights, was achieved by self-doubting radical conservatives.
Randolph was born in 1899 in Jacksonville and moved to New York City in 1912 after completing high school. Rustin was born in 1912, raised and educated in Ohio and Pennsylvania before moving to New York City in 1937. Both were deeply influenced by the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church and the norms of the emerging Black middle class. Both were good students with strong interests in the humanities. Both mastered the precise speaking skills and manners required for Blacks to hope to advance in a still racist world.
Randolph pursued “dignity” as a goal. He was taught that he could and should “transcend” his social environment. Son of a minister, he was a student of the Bible and familiar with the roles of ancient and modern heroes. He adopted a formal, polite, dignified approach to life, emphasizing self-control, self-mastery, renunciation and self-discipline. He accepted being poor and considered luxury as a temptation or even a moral failing. He understood that he would need to be a moral leader in all of his work, eliminating any signs of corruption or self-dealing in order to attract followers and participants in his political, union and civil rights efforts.
Like Marshall, he looked at the big picture and saw a need for public leaders who would be “different” from regular people, held to a higher standard, relied upon as solid and ethical, aware of their own potential faults but self-aware and self-correcting. He would need to be “public-spirited”, working to identify a common core of beliefs, policies and actions that met the public’s needs and were effective, even if they weren’t his own exact beliefs.
Randolph started as a radical leftist, promoting Marx and the Russian Revolution. He became more pragmatic in his work and as a married man and Harlem socialite. He worked as a union organizer, earning some victories. He worked with the Pullman Car porters for a dozen years, attracting union members and union recognition, followed by a breakthrough contract in 1935, giving him a high national profile.
With the build-up to WW II, the country needed more war production but failed to employ the Black workforce in large numbers. Randolph was able to persuade FDR to issue an executive order prohibiting discrimination in war factory production. Randolph used the threat of a “march on Washington” to achieve this goal. FDR blinked, perhaps reconsidering his statement that “You can’t bring a hundred thousand negroes to Washington, somebody might get killed”. Other civil rights leaders urged Randolph to use the threat of a march to push for greater victories, but he chose to not push any harder at that time. Randolph used his public standing, charisma and moral integrity to promote civil rights in the 1940’s.
Randolph adopted Gandhi’s nonviolent resistance model in the late 1940’s, opposed by many other civil rights leaders who subscribed to the “arc of justice” view that education, prosperity, communication and modernity would slowly persuade Americans to drop their prejudices and advantages and offer equal opportunities and equal rights to all. Brooks emphasizes the “ironic” nature of nonviolent resistance. It is designed to use weakness to build leverage against the powerful oppressor by forcing him to act and expose his worst side and thin excuses. It requires extreme self-discipline to embrace the suffering required for effectiveness. It is rooted in the biblical prophecy tradition, calling upon higher principles, demanding justice, forcing confrontation rather than simply hoping for good-will and time to prevail. It embraces a religious view of broken man, requiring strong forces to move him out of his sinful thoughts and habits.
Rustin was shaped by the AME church and the Quakers. A scholar, poet, speaker and athlete, Rustin had many talents and many interests. He began as an organizer in a Christian pacifist organization. Linking religion and politics, Rustin tried to combine a path to inner virtue with a strategy for social change. Rustin became a speaker and organizer for the civil rights movement, risking his life in various civil disobedience acts. He chose to go to jail for his pacifist beliefs rather than do service as a conscientious objector during the war. Even within prison he promoted desegregation. Following his 3-year prison term, Rustin resumed his civil rights activism.
Rustin accepted his gay self during college and found some support from his tolerant family and a Harlem subculture, but America at that time did not tolerate this personal option. Despite Rustin’s attempt to fill the role of a morally solid, dignified, respected leader, he was tempted by promiscuity. This caused him and his organizations problems leading him to back out of any public leadership role in 1953. He remained engaged as a civil rights leader, training, organizing and promoting activities, events and other leaders.
In 1962 Randolph and Rustin revived the idea of a massive “march on Washington” as a way to pressure president Kennedy to act rather than just study or discuss civil rights legislation. The more progressive and traditional civil rights leaders initially opposed this escalation, concerned about the risks and the potential reduction of their political influence. The Birmingham marches and police responses raised the temperature and convinced most to support the “march on Washington”. Randolph and Rustin organized and led the march. King served as the headliner. It attracted attention and served as a “tipping point” for civil rights.
Brooks emphasizes the active nature of the civil rights movement based upon a “crooked timber” view of man. This was not a more radical “Black Panthers” approach, but it was radical nonetheless. The participants were willing to invest their lives into a cause, an institution, greater than themselves, on behalf of their ancestors and descendants. The leaders understood that extreme action was required. They understood that their own actions were subject to the same human weaknesses. Action required leadership. Leaders quarreled and indulged their own weaknesses. Yet, these leaders prevailed.
Mary Anne Evans was born in a small central England community in 1819, as the Victorian age was digesting “cracks in the faith”. Her father was a carpenter and middle-class land agent/manager. Her mother struggled with severe medical challenges and died when Mary Anne was 16. Mary Anne and her siblings attended boarding schools. She received a superior education for a young woman of her time but was required to return home and become the female head of household when her mother died. Biographers contrast this extremely intelligent and well-educated young woman with an emotionally deprived young woman.
Evans began her fiction writing career at age 37 and was soon world famous. She adopted the pen name George Eliot to shield her personal life from public attention and to ensure that she would not be pigeonholed as merely a woman writer. Silas Marner, Adam Bede, Middlemarch and her other works are considered classics of Victorian, British, Western and World literature.
She is considered one of the first to truly describe the inner self. (Freud’s influential writing began a quarter century later in 1890). D. H. Lawrence wrote “It was really George Eliot who started it all. It was she who started putting the real action inside”. She is considered a master of “realism”, describing local worlds, characters and times as they fully exist. Her work is prior to “depth psychology” or purposely making characters represent or illustrate abstract philosophical, psychological, scientific, artistic or political viewpoints. She introduces women as deeply real characters, on par with men, emphasizing their real-world interactions, not just romantic fantasies. Her novels are written bottom-up, inside-out, organically or holistically, connecting the pieces as in real life, allowing readers to see multiple levels and perspectives. She is considered a perceptive and empathetic author, highlighting the real character development of ordinary people. Her work is noted for its excellent plots, descriptions, dialogue and character development, especially moral development.
In 1840, when Evans came of age, the Enlightenment, Protestant Reformation, Counterreformation, Scientific Revolution, Colonialism and Deism were old news. The Industrial Revolution and rapid urbanization were causing problems in Europe and the United States. The philosophy of Locke, Hobbes, Voltaire, Hume, Diderot and Kant was widely understood by intellectuals. Hegel was seen as a leading new voice. John Stuart Mill was consolidating the Utilitarian perspective. Fichte, Schiller, Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, Emerson, James and Spencer were attracting attention. While the Victorian Age was socially conservative, this was a pivotal period in intellectual history with increasing challenges to the “received Christian tradition”.
As an intellectually precocious youth and young adult, Mary Anne digested the newer views in the context of her “lived experience”. At 21, she encountered Charles Hennell’s early “historical Jesus” work and agreed that there was little evidence to support the claimed miracles. She befriended Charles Bray who proposed a combination of a watchmaker God/Deism and Social Gospel activism based on deeply understanding the rules God provided. She translated Feuerbach’s “The Essence of Christianity” from German. Feuerbach proposed that the essence of Christian morality could be preserved through love. Love was the highest power and truth, capable of triggering transcendence. Her husband, George Lewes, was freethinking and romantic. He was knowledgeable about French and German life and writers. He was witty and effervescent in a British society that valued dour self-importance.
Brooks outlines Eliot’s journey of character development. She began as a very needy individual, intellectually advanced but emotionally handicapped. She sought love, acceptance and affirmation, but did not find them. She smothered her brother, father and a series of men, but failed to win their affection. Biographers say that her neediness and plain appearance were equally damaging in not reaching her goals. At age 23, she informed her father that she could no longer practice a religion which she did not believe in. This led to a dramatic separation and reconciliation. Evans began to learn that intellectual principles must be applied, weighed, compared and balanced with other human, familial and social considerations. Brooks notes that her intellectually driven need to pursue “the truth” helped her to apply the same principles to herself, seeing that she was selfish and narcissistic.
Mary Anne applied her intellectual talents as a writer and editor with some success. She pursued men and failed to win them. She developed intellectually and emotionally through her twenties. She was romantically attracted to the young philosopher Herbert Spencer, but this did not work out. Evans was disappointed at age 32, but was incrementally developing her worldview, self-confidence, dignity and agency.
Mary Anne met George Lewes in 1851 at age 32, and they agreed to “marry” in 1854. Lewes brought much baggage. He had been married to a woman for 11 years who had a long running affair with another man and children. Lewes adopted the children and never divorced his wife. Mary Anne and Lewes moved to the Netherlands, Germany and other continental countries to escape the inevitable rejection from British Victorian society.
Brooks describes Evans’ relationship with Lewes as based upon “intellectual love”. Evans continued to seek someone who would affirm, support, accept, embrace, value, engage, understand, and love her. Brooks asserts that she found this. They shared a world of ideas, the pursuit of moral and intellectual truth, common acquaintances, intellectual experiences and a vocation.
Brooks views “love”, however derived, as an even larger force than mere agency and sees it applied in Evans’ life with Lewes and her remarkable literary career. Love is described as reorienting the soul, losing control, falling, irrational, surrendering, vulnerable, naked, weak, broken, fused, affirmed, growing, giving, receiving, poetic, losing mind, magical, submissive, embracing, local, specific, narrowing, transcendent, awakening, enlarging, energetic, softening, serving, amazing and caring. Whew! He claims that Evans and Lewes were transformed and ennobled by their mutual claims and commitments to each other. Evans viewed marriage as a spiritual rather than a legal connection and observed the conventional dimensions of married life with her new husband.
Evans and Lewes continued to learn on their European journeys. She started writing fiction at age 37. Her works were quickly well received. She had leveraged her inherent talents of observation and empathy with her position as a “marginal” person in society, carefully watching her interactions with others skeptical of her status as a member of society. Eliot never achieved a self-confident state. She wrestled with anxiety and depression. Writing was a struggle. She had to feel the experience of her characters in order to translate them into words.
In the end, Eliot was a radical, innovative, breakthrough author much at home with the intellectual developments of her time. Yet she was a traditionalist honoring the ways and values of her time and her father. She was a realist about life, most famous for describing the reasons for unsuccessful marriages. In her writing and her philosophy, she adopted no grand schemes. Her successful characters worked within their own limits, trades and neighborhoods. They lived incremental, practical, cautious lives, reflecting who they were. They were humble, tolerant, sympathetic and decent. They grew practically and morally by making small decisions. They were honest men and women pursuing their lives within a social fabric.
Like many coming 19th century philosophers and novelists, Eliot points to day-to-day life as the answer or meaning of life in a disenchanted world. Local experience. Practical institutions like marriage. Small decisions of self-control, duty, sacrifice and service. Daily work in a vocation. Tolerance and acceptance of neighbors. Embracing the ugly, stupid and inconsistent people in life as they are. Cherishing all possible hopes.
Brooks summarizes Eliot as a “both/and” inspiration. “Tolerant and accepting, but also rigorous, earnest, and demanding. She loved but she also judged”. I think Brooks chose to highlight Evans/Eliot because she considered the intellectual forces rejecting Christianity, agreed with the detailed criticisms, but remained focused on the need for a society based upon broken human nature and practical possibilities within a set of familiar local experiences and institutions.
8. Ordered Love: St. Augustine of Hippo
Brooks attempts to condense Augustine’s life, journey, conversion, theology and impact into 16 short pages! He focuses on the contrast between an upwardly mobile rationalist and skilled rhetorician and the passionate tugs of his own heart and his mother.
Brooks highlights irony, contrast, tensions, complements, duality, evolution and journeys throughout this book as he seeks to illustrate, teach, inculcate and build character. Augustine’s conversion story is familiar to many who have read it in church, Western Civilization, political theory, theology or psychology classes. He was one of the first authors in the western tradition to look deeply inward. He was already knowledgeable about several religions and highly skilled as a teacher of rhetoric before his conversion to Christianity. He was a seeker, a searcher, ambitious, advancing, proving, learning, and enjoying. He was successful, but he felt a void, a gap, something missing.
Looking inward, he found brokenness, crooked timber, original sin, a self which was unmanageable and inconsistent. He knew what was right, but he did otherwise. Repeatedly, passionately, with self-awareness. His self-awareness and emotional depth made this contradiction a big problem. He tried to ignore it, but once he was aware of this gap it continued to grow. He tried to delay confronting it, but as a “seeker of truth”, he had to consider its meaning.
He also found that the void in his core pointed towards the infinite, the eternal, to God. He was unable to find the “answers” in himself, in his daily activities and success, even in his seeking. The base of life had to be in God, not in his self.
Augustine contrasted the shortcomings of the dualistic, good and evil, Manicheans with the Christians who also had idealistic principles, but who focused more on the individual person or soul, who worshipped this “son of man” and “son of God”. The Christian faith both pointed towards the awesome God and to the individual man, made in the image of God. As part of the Judeo-Christian tradition, this religion emphasized personal responsibility and wrestled with man on earth and man in spirit. It provided a richer tapestry for faith.
Augustine focused on the concept of Grace, the forgiveness of sins and embrace of man by God solely due to God’s choice, not earned by man. This would later play a key role in Luther’s thinking. For Augustine it provided a way to undercut the deeply felt desire of a seeker of wisdom, truth, control and pleasure to manage his own life. The individual by himself was unable to make true progress in life. Without a framework, order, principle, crutch, lever or basis, he was condemned to flail, to dig his hole deeper with every action. With this intuitively felt God, expressed in the historical story of Jesus on earth, an individual could start with a reliable context of meaning and spirit. Most importantly, it meant giving up control of the journey, method, way or approach.
The individual needed to surrender to the graciously given Love of God, the embrace of God, the acceptance from God in order to turn away from selfishness. The goals, passions, methods, and failures of the self could be replaced by a simpler way. The failures of achievement could be replaced with responsive service. The individual was not then made perfect, but the gnawing disappointment and anxiety of striving could be calmed. The balance between the ineffective self and the most effective God could slowly but consistently improve.
Some of this path is closely tied to Augustinian Christianity. Brooks argues that the broader journey and components are more universally applicable. Connecting with a philosophy or community that is broader than yourself. Managing selfishness. Wrestling with pride. Honestly observing human behavior. Honestly looking at your own psychology, habits, tensions, motivations and shortcomings. Considering the full effects of your behavior, habits, goals, passions, and priorities. There are no “easy” solutions. The journey remains a journey with suffering, hope, happiness and thanksgiving.
Brooks emphasizes the paradoxical nature of Augustine’s journey. Seeking builds skills, talents, knowledge, experience and desires. Roadblocks inevitably fill the path. Progress is made in some places but not in others. The pain of unfulfilled progress drives courageous self-assessment. Augustine uses his best skills to find a “compromise” solution. “Make me chaste, but not yet”. Like Rene Descartes, Augustine searches for what he “cannot doubt”. He identifies his own imperfection and the mysterious call of God. He wrestles with these maxims and everything else he “knows”. He seeks help. His friend, God or the spirit point him to a Bible passage. This verse helps Augustine to more clearly see the human predicament. His personal striving is inadequate, no matter how hard he tries to find an answer. The solution is to “let go and let God”, to accept grace, to listen, and to hush. This diminishing of the human mind allows the self to be connected with God and then confidently embrace a path chosen by God. This path does not lead to earthly achievement but does provide a way for life today and for eternity.
The meek shall inherit the earth. Paradox is an appropriate response to man’s condition.
9. Self-Examination: Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson was born in 1709 in a small England town to undistinguished parents. At age 37 he contracted to write an English dictionary, which he completed in 8 years, defining 42,000 words and documenting 116,000 appropriate quotations. He wrote scientific and legal texts for others. He wrote a book of 52 biographies. He created the purported words of speakers in parliament for two years based upon an informer’s summary. He wrote thousands of essays on diverse subjects. He was a leading figure in British letters, a noted conversationalist and friend to dozens in all classes.
Johnson suffered from early medical issues that made him partially blind, deaf and lame. From an early age he recognized that his handicaps constrained him and made others interact with him in various ways. He chose to actively engage in the battle to live his life. Johnson had diverse interests and a short attention span. He learned from his solid primary and secondary classical educations. He took advantage of his father’s books and read widely. He was basically self-taught. He attended Oxford for one year without learning much due to his attitude and the more conventional approach to learning which it required. He did show glimpses of outstanding work and learned that he could function at the highest level.
Johnson left the university after one year. He tried teaching but failed. He continued to learn on his own. He married a woman 20 years his senior. He started a school which failed. His health deteriorated further, developing behavioral tics and fighting depression. He continued to engage with life and people and devour his food and live “hand to mouth”. At 28 he departed for London and supported himself as a freelance writer on the edge of poverty.
His career and life began to blossom when he started crafting his imagined versions of parliamentary speeches at age 29. Johnson built upon his talents. He leaned into his problems and “managed” his suffering. He interacted and engaged broadly even though others mostly rejected him. He developed his craft of reading, discussing, observing and writing. He remained a generalist at a time when specialists were starting to prevail. He was pragmatic, skeptical and determined. He was a social person despite his rejection by most. He decided to be proud and to leverage his pride as a way to combat his feelings of envy. He had an outstanding memory for details and an ability to link memories to context. He was comfortable with details and particulars, aware of general theories but more comfortable drawing smaller lessons. He chose to see the world as a moral place and was motivated to engage and make the world better. He saw the world as it was and was intellectually honest about himself, his acquaintances and men in general.
Johnson had great gifts and major handicaps. He was motivated to engage and improve despite the many headwinds he faced in his first 30 years of life. He was temperamentally a fighter. He was persistent and displayed grit or what the Finns call sisu. He had the ability to digest mountains of material, observe people and synthesize any situation into a summary that included the essence of the situation and some broader implications, including moral implications. He could clearly express his thoughts, integrating his broad learning into his expression. He benefitted from his interactions with people of all walks of life and some of the greatest thinkers of his time.
In addition to suffering, pride and envy, he emphasized charity and mercy in his writings. He disdained pity for handicapped individuals and sufferers, but he empathized with the human condition and believed that individuals were worthy of care and support. As an essayist, he addressed “despair, pride, hunger for novelty, boredom, gluttony, guilt and vanity”. In his breadth of important topics addressed, he compares with Shakespeare.
Brooks argues that Johnson was able to assemble a consistent view of man and morality even though he naturally remained interested in so many different topics and was skeptical of general theories and philosophies. He was a keen observer of himself and others. He was self-critical. He created and tested his ideas about life and morality. He became fearless in addressing difficult situations. He knew his own experience interacting with a difficult world and many different people. He was able to combine this breadth and depth into a practical set of mini generalizations. He was noted for his many insightful maxims about human behavior. Based on his struggles he gradually grew more confident in his ability to manage any situation.
Once again, Brooks encourages the reader to walk away impressed by the subject’s conflicting (dual) attributes. Johnson’s insights were driven by his suffering and his capacity for sympathy. He could see deeply, and he could express what he saw. He combined thinking and feeling. He moved between details and generalizations. He quotes a biographer saying that Johnson was “a mass of contradictions: lazy and energetic, aggressive and tender, melancholic and humorous, commonsensical and irrational, comforted yet tormented by religion”.
10. The Big Me
Brooks contrasts quarterbacks Johnny Unitas and Broadway Joe Namath in 1969 to illustrate the commonly held view that “the revolution” in American culture took place after the “swinging sixties” replaced the self-effacing Greatest Generation with the narcissistic Baby Boomers. Brooks argues that the loss of “moral realism” as the predominant worldview began after WW II when society simply couldn’t handle a future of “dead serious” compliance with strict rules of behavior after 16 years of economic and existential challenges.
Brooks defines “moral realism” as emphasizing “how little we can know, how hard it is to know ourselves, and how hard we have to work on the long road to virtue” … “limited view of our individual powers of reason … suspicious of abstract thinking and pride … limitations in our individual natures”.
He considers romanticism to be the main alternative. Romantics trust the self and distrust the conventions of the world rather than vice versa. Man is inherently good, distorted by social pressures. The individual needs to find himself and develop that self. Nature, the individual, sincerity and identity matter most.
A flurry of positive thinking, self-help, parenting and positive psychology works were embraced after WW II. Be positive, nice, kind, especially to yourself. Break free from the constraints. Carl Rogers urged people to be “positive, forward moving, constructive, realistic and trustworthy”. Pursue self-actualization. “Self-love, self-praise, and self-acceptance are the paths to happiness”. This singularly positive, idealistic and individualistic perspective has shaped schools, curriculums and human resources training. Brooks accepts that this countercultural movement helped to unlock large groups of constrained people (women, minorities, the poor) from socially imposed limitations on life, morality, career and vocation..
Brooks argues that these changes have gone too far. A simplistic romanticism has been turbocharged by faster and more frequent communications, options to personalize each individual’s media consumption and a social media environment that promotes “brand me”. An increasingly meritocratic work world has also pushed individuals to devote more time, talent and effort into competition for apparently limited rewards of money, power, goods and status. Work success has replaced vocation, profession or craft. Work has pushed aside the competing eulogy virtues of Adam II. A tendency to frame all decisions in utilitarian, cost-benefit frameworks has devalued the whole idea of character, sin, ethics, virtues, vices, love, poetry, God, idealism, grace, wisdom and a moral journey. Busyness, status based social invitations and social media status fill the remaining time as a pseudo road to character.
As in his earlier “Bobos in Paradise”, Brooks levies his sharpest criticism upon the upper middle class professional parents who “ought to know better”. Their children are more materialistic. They have unreasonable expectations. Their time is carefully organized by helicopter parents to deliver additional success status to the parents, undercutting the true unconditional love of good parents. Surveys show that we have fewer friends and less intimacy, that we show less empathy. The frequency of use of character terms has declined drastically. Individuals rarely frame decisions in moral terms. Since they rely upon their inner feelings rather than some received or constructed moral framework, they are moral relativists and choose to not judge the character or character journeys of others. A downward spiral continues.
Brooks asks those who believe in moral realism and the overreach of simplistic romanticism to push back. He is not perfectly clear in this final chapter, but the rest of the book emphasizes the notion of pairs of values held in tension. A moral world view is not just positive and idealistic or negative and skeptical. It is a method to consider these conflicting perspectives. We have lost the skills, experience, language and frameworks to consider moral choices and to purposely develop character as a meaningful way of life.
Brooks offers 15 solutions. Live for holiness. Fight selfishness. Use your heroic capacity to struggle against external and internal challenges. Humility is the first virtue. Pride is the central vice. Struggle against sin and for virtue. Purposely build character skills, habits, experiences and preferences. Focus on the long-term, permanent attributes of life. Seek help in building character. Recognize the U-shaped pattern of falling, evaluating, feeling and accepting grace and recovering. Quiet the self enough to listen and defeat weaknesses and temptations. Aim for a practical wisdom built upon experience and history rather than a perfect ideology, theology or philosophy. Organize work around a “vocation” and do your best. Define leadership as finding “a just balance between competing values and competing goals”. Embrace the path of becoming better in your vocation and better as a person. That is the opportunity we are given.
45 presidents. 36 great biographies. Just 20 presidents qualify. 9 presidents hog 24 of the 36 places with multiple entries. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, FDR, LBJ, Nixon, Reagan and Clinton won multiple spots in my ranking. Grant, Adams, JQA, Jackson, Wilson, Hoover, Kennedy, Ike, Truman, Bush, Bush and Carter claimed a single entry each.
As Americans, we demand and deserve the very best. We must demand this level of greatness now and in the future. We have 330 million fellow citizens. The “1%” is 3.3 million residents! So may qualified and experienced people. The Fortune 500 has 500 CEOs, 500 presidents, 500 CFO’s, 500 CIO’s, 500 CMO’s. 50 governors. 3,000 university presidents. 500 hospital system presidents. 100 national law firm managing partners. 50 national CPA managing partners. 100 large national NFP presidents. 1,000 large privately held firms. 100 big city mayors. 500 medium sized city mayors. 50 religious organization leaders. 100 media firm leaders. 100 generals. 1,000 college and pro head coaches. 100 major think tank leaders. 100 investment bankers. 100 venture capitalists. 100 community organizers. 100 ambassadors. 500 Nobel prize winners. 100 senators and 365 congress persons. 500 large school superintendents. 1,000 award winning performing artists. 500 elite athletes.
We live in a meritocratic society. There are 10 to 100,000 people clearly qualified to be the American president. We should never, ever settle for anything less.
Good News 