Road to Character

On book, essentially, about humility as a key ingredient of power and mastery, told through stories of several extremely effective people in 19th-20th century Western history - [1]

Notes

• 105 - B The Closing of the American Mind
• 103 - dilemma with a communist agent who Perkin shielded.
• 95 - B The Roosevelt I Knew is most incisive biography on Roosevelt's character [2]
• 83 - genteel progressives would soon lose interest in any cause
• 80 - Hull House was an answer to the idealism-turns-cynycism once you enter the workforce after college. Addams wrote in her autobiography. People graduate college energetic, but by 30 they turn cynical and unambitious as the workforce demands. Wow. Maybe we can implement Hull House dynamics in the form of character building via dedication to homeless housing, veterans, or other that foregoes immediate profit.
• 77 - Hull House - rich women serving the poor. [3]
• 75- was social gospel movement real in america? Appears so, but died after ww1
• 66 - serve the work, not the community
• 64 - vocation - a calling. One does not choose a vocation.
• 63 - it is not your obligation to complete the work - but neither are you free to desist from beginning it.
• 58 - The sucka asks, what do I want from life. The humble person says, what does life want from me. What does circumstance call for me to do? 58-63 - critical content on finding your calling. Listen.

Reviews

• See J. M Alexander review - [4] But how did this change in attitude come about? The author traces it back to philosophical differences in the 18th century, contrasting moral realism with moral romanticism. While moral realists placed emphasis on inner weakness, moral romantics placed emphasis on our inner goodness. The realists believed in cultivation, civilization, and artifice; the romanticists believed in nature, the individual, and sincerity. The author observed that realism reigned supreme in America during the first part of the twentieth century, but then began to wane. One would assume that this cultural change occurred in the 60's and 70's- a time of general dissatisfaction among many of our youth. But Mr. Brooks traces it instead to the prior “Greatest Generation”. These were the people who had endured 16 years of deprivation during the Great Depression and WWII, and were ready to let loose and enjoy life. Consumerism was rampant as people sought to escape the shackles of self-restraint and all those gloomy subjects like sin and depravity. Self help books abounded and it was argued that the primary psychological problem was that people didn’t love themselves enough. The focus shifted from the flawed view of human nature to an emphasis on pride and self esteem. Some philosophers called this “the culture of authenticity,” a mindset based on the romantic idea that each of us has a Golden Figure in the core of our self, an innately good True Self, which can be trusted, consulted, and gotten in touch with. Moral authority is no longer found in some external objective good, but rather in each person’s unique original self. In this ethos, sin is not found in your individual self; it is found in the external structures of society—in racism, inequality, and oppression. To improve yourself, you have to be taught to love yourself, to be true to yourself, not to doubt yourself and struggle against yourself. np Although the author acknowledges that this new sense of self-esteem gave women, and other groups, the language to articulate and cultivate self-assertion, strength and identity; it also began an acceptance of the “Big Me” sense of morality.