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The Road to Character
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Nonfiction (2015)#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • David Brooks challenges us to rebalance the scales between the focus on external success—“résumé virtues”—and our core principles.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST
With the wisdom, humor, curiosity, and sharp insights that have brought millions of readers to his New York Times column and his previous bestsellers, David Brooks has consistently illuminated our daily lives in surprising and original ways. In The Social Animal, he explored the neuroscience of human connection and how we can flourish together. Now, in The Road to Character, he focuses on the deeper values that should inform our lives.
Looking to some of the world’s greatest thinkers and inspiring leaders, Brooks explores how, through internal struggle and a sense of their own limitations, they have built a strong inner character. Labor activist Frances Perkins understood the need to suppress parts of herself so that she could be an instrument in a larger cause. Dwight Eisenhower organized his life not around impulsive self-expression but considered self-restraint. Dorothy Day, a devout Catholic convert and champion of the poor, learned as a young woman the vocabulary of simplicity and surrender. Civil rights pioneers A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin learned reticence and the logic of self-discipline, the need to distrust oneself even while waging a noble crusade.
Blending psychology, politics, spirituality, and confessional, The Road to Character provides an opportunity for us to rethink our priorities, and strive to build rich inner lives marked by humility and moral depth.
“Joy,” David Brooks writes, “is a byproduct experienced by people who are aiming for something else. But it comes.”
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST
With the wisdom, humor, curiosity, and sharp insights that have brought millions of readers to his New York Times column and his previous bestsellers, David Brooks has consistently illuminated our daily lives in surprising and original ways. In The Social Animal, he explored the neuroscience of human connection and how we can flourish together. Now, in The Road to Character, he focuses on the deeper values that should inform our lives.
Looking to some of the world’s greatest thinkers and inspiring leaders, Brooks explores how, through internal struggle and a sense of their own limitations, they have built a strong inner character. Labor activist Frances Perkins understood the need to suppress parts of herself so that she could be an instrument in a larger cause. Dwight Eisenhower organized his life not around impulsive self-expression but considered self-restraint. Dorothy Day, a devout Catholic convert and champion of the poor, learned as a young woman the vocabulary of simplicity and surrender. Civil rights pioneers A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin learned reticence and the logic of self-discipline, the need to distrust oneself even while waging a noble crusade.
Blending psychology, politics, spirituality, and confessional, The Road to Character provides an opportunity for us to rethink our priorities, and strive to build rich inner lives marked by humility and moral depth.
“Joy,” David Brooks writes, “is a byproduct experienced by people who are aiming for something else. But it comes.”
320 pages, Hardcover
First published March 10, 2015
About the author
David Brooks
14 books1,796 followersDavid Brooks is a political and cultural commentator. He is currently a columnist for The New York Times and a commentator on PBS NewsHour. He has previously worked for Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, Newsweek, The Atlantic Monthly and National Public Radio.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,392 reviews
April 11, 2015
I'm sure dedicated trend-watchers must view reality TV, political scandals, and the eternal Kim-n-Kanye peep show with unalloyed dismay. Especially for social conservatives, yoked with a sense of moral obligation to the larger society, they must feel an especial impulse to intervene, to stand athwart the downhill slalom they perceive society following, and holler "Stop!" Bill Bennett felt that impulse twenty years ago. The feeling is older than dirt.
David Brooks has represented the voice of moderate Republicans in various mainstream and partisan newspapers since 1983. In various supposed leftist bastions like PBS and the New York Times, he's become famous for upholding common conservative (as opposed to party hard-liner) opinions. It seems he's perhaps grown tired of his own voice, because in his introduction to this book, he laments his own self-seeking, and that of today's generation.
That should've been my first warning. I wanted to like this book. I've been reading, in my off hours, on Stoic philosophy recently, and though Brooks never uses that word, his collection of exemplar biographies on the principles of admirable character replicates the heart of classical Greco-Roman Stoicism. Yippee. Except the longer I read, the more I noticed Brooks evidently occupies a divided world. All virtue lives in the past; all wickedness lives in the present.
In one of the weirder passages I've seen from literary criticism, C.S. Lewis quotes Chretien de Troyes, writing in the 1170s, that "the age of chivalry is dead." Homer believed his was a dying age, inferior to the Argive Greeks who fought at Troy. Men of affairs have always considered their era a ghost of some honored past, a past somehow populated by giants and uncluttered by pedestrian people. Consider these quotes from Brooks:
"Today, when we say that people are repressed, we tend to mean it as a criticism."
"It is important to point out how much the sense of vocation is at odds with the prevailing contemporary logic."
"Today, the word `sin' has lost its power."
Realize, Brooks isn't discussing Lost Atlantis or the virtuous queens of Avalon. He's describing people of the Twentieth Century, public personalities like Dwight Eisenhower and Dorothy Day. Later, Brooks spools backward to George Eliot, Samuel Johnson, and even St. Augustine, but early on, his examples come from living memory. The outer limits of living memory, admittedly (Ike died when Brooks was seven years old), but living memory nonetheless.
Therein lies my problem with this book. Brooks has created a primer on moral rectitude and self-discipline, based on principles I wholly endorse and agree with. But he's created a crystal trap modern readers cannot overlook: that everything in live used to be good, and now it isn't. Virtue dwells uniquely in antiquity, while today's modern age is populated by such complete venality that we're essentially fighting the avalanche.
Then, very late in most chapters, Brooks will suddenly throw in revelations that his subjects actually couldn't sustain the virtues for which he extols them. Labor organizer turned FDR's Labor Secretary Frances Perkins so thoroughly vanished into her work, her daughter could only rebel by profligate living and carousal. Eisenhower was so fixated on his moral core that he slept through major trends of his Presidency, including the dawning civil rights movement.
I stopped taking Brooks seriously when he conceded that Eisenhower, for all his virtues, nevertheless abandoned his wartime mistress, Kay Summersby, with a mere letter. Wait, Ike kept a mistress? During the war?? While married to Mamie??? That somehow never made my official history textbooks. Following all the hero-making about Ike's glamorous "self-conquest," such intemperance in a commanding officer is deeply disturbing. Ask David Petraeus.
My problem, therefore, is with Brooks' presentation. He completely segregates virtue from ordinary life, both in time, and within his subjects. He populates the past with presidents, saints, and superhumans. Then he assumes the worst celebrity excess represents modernity. The well-intentioned product is frankly discouraging.
Again, I don't disagree with Brooks' vision of virtue. Though salted with highly emotive Christian language, Brooks deftly describes classical Stoicism, without using that word that's been cheapened by misuse. But I've said before: Stoicism, as a character-molding force, is a phenomenon whose time has surely come again. Please consider the original source:
Epictetus, "Discourses"
Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
Seneca, "Letters"
PS. Early on, Brooks wishes somebody would write a book about how Americans' changing experience with death reflects Americans' changing public morality. Please consider Drew Gilpin Faust's "This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War." You're welcome.
David Brooks has represented the voice of moderate Republicans in various mainstream and partisan newspapers since 1983. In various supposed leftist bastions like PBS and the New York Times, he's become famous for upholding common conservative (as opposed to party hard-liner) opinions. It seems he's perhaps grown tired of his own voice, because in his introduction to this book, he laments his own self-seeking, and that of today's generation.
That should've been my first warning. I wanted to like this book. I've been reading, in my off hours, on Stoic philosophy recently, and though Brooks never uses that word, his collection of exemplar biographies on the principles of admirable character replicates the heart of classical Greco-Roman Stoicism. Yippee. Except the longer I read, the more I noticed Brooks evidently occupies a divided world. All virtue lives in the past; all wickedness lives in the present.
In one of the weirder passages I've seen from literary criticism, C.S. Lewis quotes Chretien de Troyes, writing in the 1170s, that "the age of chivalry is dead." Homer believed his was a dying age, inferior to the Argive Greeks who fought at Troy. Men of affairs have always considered their era a ghost of some honored past, a past somehow populated by giants and uncluttered by pedestrian people. Consider these quotes from Brooks:
"Today, when we say that people are repressed, we tend to mean it as a criticism."
"It is important to point out how much the sense of vocation is at odds with the prevailing contemporary logic."
"Today, the word `sin' has lost its power."
Realize, Brooks isn't discussing Lost Atlantis or the virtuous queens of Avalon. He's describing people of the Twentieth Century, public personalities like Dwight Eisenhower and Dorothy Day. Later, Brooks spools backward to George Eliot, Samuel Johnson, and even St. Augustine, but early on, his examples come from living memory. The outer limits of living memory, admittedly (Ike died when Brooks was seven years old), but living memory nonetheless.
Therein lies my problem with this book. Brooks has created a primer on moral rectitude and self-discipline, based on principles I wholly endorse and agree with. But he's created a crystal trap modern readers cannot overlook: that everything in live used to be good, and now it isn't. Virtue dwells uniquely in antiquity, while today's modern age is populated by such complete venality that we're essentially fighting the avalanche.
Then, very late in most chapters, Brooks will suddenly throw in revelations that his subjects actually couldn't sustain the virtues for which he extols them. Labor organizer turned FDR's Labor Secretary Frances Perkins so thoroughly vanished into her work, her daughter could only rebel by profligate living and carousal. Eisenhower was so fixated on his moral core that he slept through major trends of his Presidency, including the dawning civil rights movement.
I stopped taking Brooks seriously when he conceded that Eisenhower, for all his virtues, nevertheless abandoned his wartime mistress, Kay Summersby, with a mere letter. Wait, Ike kept a mistress? During the war?? While married to Mamie??? That somehow never made my official history textbooks. Following all the hero-making about Ike's glamorous "self-conquest," such intemperance in a commanding officer is deeply disturbing. Ask David Petraeus.
My problem, therefore, is with Brooks' presentation. He completely segregates virtue from ordinary life, both in time, and within his subjects. He populates the past with presidents, saints, and superhumans. Then he assumes the worst celebrity excess represents modernity. The well-intentioned product is frankly discouraging.
Again, I don't disagree with Brooks' vision of virtue. Though salted with highly emotive Christian language, Brooks deftly describes classical Stoicism, without using that word that's been cheapened by misuse. But I've said before: Stoicism, as a character-molding force, is a phenomenon whose time has surely come again. Please consider the original source:
Epictetus, "Discourses"
Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
Seneca, "Letters"
PS. Early on, Brooks wishes somebody would write a book about how Americans' changing experience with death reflects Americans' changing public morality. Please consider Drew Gilpin Faust's "This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War." You're welcome.
April 22, 2015
I spotted David Brooks' latest non-fiction book, The Road to Character, while I was browsing new books available on NetGalley. It looked like something that I might enjoy and perhaps even find to be inspirational. Thank you to Random House for sending me an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
PLOT - In The Road to Character, New York Times Columnist David Brooks profiles a range of people spanning several eras that he considers to have a strong sense of character. These are mostly very flawed people, who experienced a bumpy road on their way to developing admirable characteristics. Brooks examines how society's definition of morals and strong character has shifted dramatically over generations. He ends his book with a look at our current society and how technology has shaped our idea of self and character.
LIKE- I was most drawn to Brooks observations of current trends, which comprises a small portion of The Road to Character. I found a few of his character profiles to be fascinating, especially Francis Perkins, an middle-class woman who fought for worker's rights. Brooks sprinkles his book with interesting information involving well known historical figures and ordinary citizens, who are made extraordinary through their depth of character. I enjoyed these glimpses and tidbits.
DISLIKE - The Road to Character was a chore to read. I had to bribe myself to finish it... "Ten more pages and you can make a latte or read something else." The pacing was sluggish. Although Brooks picked some great lives to profile, I'm not sure that I always agreed with his idea of "character". There was a "not so subtle" undercurrent of religion and faith as being a huge factor in character, yet he backpedals at the end of the book, with a mention of religion not being a prerequisite for good character. I agree that religion isn't a must, yet his examples pushed the idea of religion.
Although interesting, I found a majority of the lives that he profiled to be archaic, with lives and values being so vastly different from modern times, that the comparisons rang hallow. I liked how he showed shifts throughout the eras, but I wish that the primary focus had been modern and thus, have current relevance. I anticipated that this book would leave me with thoughts on how to change my own life and shape my own character in modern times, but it didn't. It was a disappointment.
RECOMMEND - No. The Road to Character was a dull read and not as relevant or thought provoking as it should have been.
Like my review? Check out my blog!
PLOT - In The Road to Character, New York Times Columnist David Brooks profiles a range of people spanning several eras that he considers to have a strong sense of character. These are mostly very flawed people, who experienced a bumpy road on their way to developing admirable characteristics. Brooks examines how society's definition of morals and strong character has shifted dramatically over generations. He ends his book with a look at our current society and how technology has shaped our idea of self and character.
LIKE- I was most drawn to Brooks observations of current trends, which comprises a small portion of The Road to Character. I found a few of his character profiles to be fascinating, especially Francis Perkins, an middle-class woman who fought for worker's rights. Brooks sprinkles his book with interesting information involving well known historical figures and ordinary citizens, who are made extraordinary through their depth of character. I enjoyed these glimpses and tidbits.
DISLIKE - The Road to Character was a chore to read. I had to bribe myself to finish it... "Ten more pages and you can make a latte or read something else." The pacing was sluggish. Although Brooks picked some great lives to profile, I'm not sure that I always agreed with his idea of "character". There was a "not so subtle" undercurrent of religion and faith as being a huge factor in character, yet he backpedals at the end of the book, with a mention of religion not being a prerequisite for good character. I agree that religion isn't a must, yet his examples pushed the idea of religion.
Although interesting, I found a majority of the lives that he profiled to be archaic, with lives and values being so vastly different from modern times, that the comparisons rang hallow. I liked how he showed shifts throughout the eras, but I wish that the primary focus had been modern and thus, have current relevance. I anticipated that this book would leave me with thoughts on how to change my own life and shape my own character in modern times, but it didn't. It was a disappointment.
RECOMMEND - No. The Road to Character was a dull read and not as relevant or thought provoking as it should have been.
Like my review? Check out my blog!
March 16, 2015
I love David Brooks! His book "The Social Animal" was fabulous, and so is this new book, "The Road to Character".
Right from the start--its interesting. He explores the difference between the resume virtues and the eulogy virtues. The eulogy virtues are deeper --exist at the core of our being. (type of character we are) -- yet many of us have thought more about the resume --strategies for how to achieve career success than we do for how we develop a profound character.
Throughout the book he examines our external self vs. our internal self.
"Our external self wants to build, create, produce, and discover things. Wants high status and victories."
Our internal self wants to embody certain moral qualities -"serene inner character, build a solid sense of right and wrong -not only do good -but be good. Wants to love intimately -sacrifice self in the service of others to live in obedience to some transcendent truth, to have a cohesive inner soul that honors creation and one's own possibilities."
This little book is packed filled with value!!!! There is not a person who couldn't benefit.
Years pass us by -- deepest parts of ourselves go unexplored --
This book shows how some people go about cultivating character. He talks about how our culture has made it harder to be 'good'.
He points to the type of people that you don't even notice -- people who seem kind -cheerful -yet also reserved. They possess self-effacing virtues --not needing to prove anything to the world: humanity, restraint, reticence, temperance, respect, and gentle self-discipline. They radiate their own quiet moral joy.
Psychologists actually have a way to test narcissism. In the last two decades -narcissism has risen 30 percent. In one study --most middle school girls wanted to have dinner with Jennifer Lopez and Paris Hilton for their top choice picks.
He talks about the changes through time. In the 1950's --children were expected to be obedient --but today this obedience has has gone underground --with merit-based-love having been on the rise for some time now. Parents may deny it --but 'conditional' love is lurking in the shadows --producing fear. Relationships may still be close --but achievement is what surrounds them. ( generating enormous internal pressure).
Towards the end of the book --Brooks outlines, (re-captures the most important material from pages before), ways to restore balance....and raise children with a practical set of ideas about how to travel along the road to character.
Highly recommend! Especially Parents!
Right from the start--its interesting. He explores the difference between the resume virtues and the eulogy virtues. The eulogy virtues are deeper --exist at the core of our being. (type of character we are) -- yet many of us have thought more about the resume --strategies for how to achieve career success than we do for how we develop a profound character.
Throughout the book he examines our external self vs. our internal self.
"Our external self wants to build, create, produce, and discover things. Wants high status and victories."
Our internal self wants to embody certain moral qualities -"serene inner character, build a solid sense of right and wrong -not only do good -but be good. Wants to love intimately -sacrifice self in the service of others to live in obedience to some transcendent truth, to have a cohesive inner soul that honors creation and one's own possibilities."
This little book is packed filled with value!!!! There is not a person who couldn't benefit.
Years pass us by -- deepest parts of ourselves go unexplored --
This book shows how some people go about cultivating character. He talks about how our culture has made it harder to be 'good'.
He points to the type of people that you don't even notice -- people who seem kind -cheerful -yet also reserved. They possess self-effacing virtues --not needing to prove anything to the world: humanity, restraint, reticence, temperance, respect, and gentle self-discipline. They radiate their own quiet moral joy.
Psychologists actually have a way to test narcissism. In the last two decades -narcissism has risen 30 percent. In one study --most middle school girls wanted to have dinner with Jennifer Lopez and Paris Hilton for their top choice picks.
He talks about the changes through time. In the 1950's --children were expected to be obedient --but today this obedience has has gone underground --with merit-based-love having been on the rise for some time now. Parents may deny it --but 'conditional' love is lurking in the shadows --producing fear. Relationships may still be close --but achievement is what surrounds them. ( generating enormous internal pressure).
Towards the end of the book --Brooks outlines, (re-captures the most important material from pages before), ways to restore balance....and raise children with a practical set of ideas about how to travel along the road to character.
Highly recommend! Especially Parents!
June 1, 2015
In this book David Brooks gives what might be considered the longest, and best, commencement speech ever. He speaks personally, yet universally also. He is not just talking to college-leavers but to any of us ready to embark on a new quest in our lives. He takes the reading, experience, and thought of a lifetime and presents us with what he considers to be more important than the pursuit of happiness: the pursuit of goodness, character, morality. Happiness comes as the byproduct of a moral life, f a life of striving to be good. We don’t have to actually become good, and free from error or ‘sin’. We have to strive to be good. As we strive, so we become. The process is as important as the goal.
It occurs to me that the framers of the U.S. Constitution, most of whom might be supposed to exhibit character, might have known that the Pursuit of Happiness was chimerical. That is, they may have believed that we citizens should be free make mistakes and to fail in our pursuit of happiness until we realized it comes from some inner depths more related to character than to immediate gratification. That, it strikes me, makes the men and our Constitution all the greater, and also makes it a laudable goal for a nation.
Brooks suggests that spending one’s life pursuing the “resume virtues” of wealth and fame may, sooner or later, leave us questioning ourselves and our lives unless we attempt to see and focus on something(s) outside of ourselves that needs doing that we are uniquely equipped to do. He suggests that finding and beginning and pursuing this outside goal may lead to satisfaction and happiness when focus on oneself cannot. Pursuit of this outside goal will lead to “eulogy virtues.”
What struck me about the examples that Brooks provides of people who have exhibited the eulogy virtues is that they were of either sex, and came from every century, every background (wealthy, middle class, or poor), every race, every political stripe. These people achieved eulogy virtues by different methods. The diversity of examples provided by Brooks distracted at times from his central point, but perhaps with more study this richness of exemplars would become reassuring rather than overwhelming.
I am reminded of a book written by a young woman just out of school. Kathryn Schultz’s book called Being Wrong talks also of how embarrassed and agonized we are over errors we commit that come with being human. We can’t avoid errors, but we can improve our error rate by being humble, and by listening more than speaking.
We do not find what we were put here to do by looking within. We do not have the material with which to work at a young age. We find what we were meant to do by looking outside ourselves and using our natural inclinations and talents to pursue a larger goal than that of personal aggrandizement. In this way we can remain pointed in the right direction as the winds of change swirl around us, refashioning popular sentiment. Money, fame, and stature in society are insufficient to achieving lasting happiness and the virtue worth eulogizing, character.
Brooks encourages us to aim higher than self. Best of all, we can begin at any stage in our lives, rich or poor, experienced or not. We do not have to be college graduates or paid employees of a large firm. We can simply begin. It strikes me as the most insightful and useful graduation speech I’ve never heard.
For those of you who prefer to listen to the book read aloud, this nonfiction is very ably read by Arthur Morey with an Introduction by the author. Although what Brooks is saying often requires deeper thought, you can always rewind when one finds one's thoughts shooting off in another direction as a result of what he's written. Better yet, listen again.
It occurs to me that the framers of the U.S. Constitution, most of whom might be supposed to exhibit character, might have known that the Pursuit of Happiness was chimerical. That is, they may have believed that we citizens should be free make mistakes and to fail in our pursuit of happiness until we realized it comes from some inner depths more related to character than to immediate gratification. That, it strikes me, makes the men and our Constitution all the greater, and also makes it a laudable goal for a nation.
Brooks suggests that spending one’s life pursuing the “resume virtues” of wealth and fame may, sooner or later, leave us questioning ourselves and our lives unless we attempt to see and focus on something(s) outside of ourselves that needs doing that we are uniquely equipped to do. He suggests that finding and beginning and pursuing this outside goal may lead to satisfaction and happiness when focus on oneself cannot. Pursuit of this outside goal will lead to “eulogy virtues.”
What struck me about the examples that Brooks provides of people who have exhibited the eulogy virtues is that they were of either sex, and came from every century, every background (wealthy, middle class, or poor), every race, every political stripe. These people achieved eulogy virtues by different methods. The diversity of examples provided by Brooks distracted at times from his central point, but perhaps with more study this richness of exemplars would become reassuring rather than overwhelming.
“What the Victorians were to sex, [our generation] is to morality. Everything is covered in euphemism.”
I am reminded of a book written by a young woman just out of school. Kathryn Schultz’s book called Being Wrong talks also of how embarrassed and agonized we are over errors we commit that come with being human. We can’t avoid errors, but we can improve our error rate by being humble, and by listening more than speaking.
We do not find what we were put here to do by looking within. We do not have the material with which to work at a young age. We find what we were meant to do by looking outside ourselves and using our natural inclinations and talents to pursue a larger goal than that of personal aggrandizement. In this way we can remain pointed in the right direction as the winds of change swirl around us, refashioning popular sentiment. Money, fame, and stature in society are insufficient to achieving lasting happiness and the virtue worth eulogizing, character.
Brooks encourages us to aim higher than self. Best of all, we can begin at any stage in our lives, rich or poor, experienced or not. We do not have to be college graduates or paid employees of a large firm. We can simply begin. It strikes me as the most insightful and useful graduation speech I’ve never heard.
For those of you who prefer to listen to the book read aloud, this nonfiction is very ably read by Arthur Morey with an Introduction by the author. Although what Brooks is saying often requires deeper thought, you can always rewind when one finds one's thoughts shooting off in another direction as a result of what he's written. Better yet, listen again.
September 3, 2019
رزومه یا شخصیت کدامیک تعیین کننده هست؟
خلاصه این کتاب را در پادکست "بی پلاس" گوش دادم
دیوید بروکس در کتاب جادۀ شخصیت با مقایسه قرن پیش و قرن حاضر می خواهد بگوید هر ��نسانی یک سری ارزشها دارد که میروند توی رزومه کاری و یک سری ارزشها دارد که وقتی مرد، در مجلس ختمش ذکر میکنند. بعد میگوید که در جهان مدرن ما، این دو چندان همخوانی ندارند. دنیا ما را هل میدهد به سمت ارزشهایی که به درد رزومه کاری بخورند و ما هم آن روزهای جوانی با دنیا همراهیم. بالاخره آدم میخواهد کار خوبی داشته باشد و مهارت کسب کند و در رشته خودش اسمی در کند. بعد که این جاده کمی هموارتر شد، صدای درون آدمیزاد در میآید که پس ارزشهای دیگر چی؟ آنها که شخصیت آدم را میسازند چه میشوند؟ و انسان راه میافتد به دنبال آن ارزشها. آقای بروکس اسم این دو را میگذارد آدم یک و آدم دو. آدم یک، از تواناییهایش استفاده میکند تا هر روز در کار و درآمد و امور مادی بهتر شود و آدم دو، به ضعفهایش فکر میکند و بهتر کردن آنها و توی این فکر کردن به ضعفها و ریشههایشان، شخصیت معنویش را میسازد.
از جمله آثار مشهور و موفق بروکس، "حیوان اجتماعی" است که در آن با محوریت بخشیدن به «تنهایی انسان و میل او به تعلق داشتن» به کاوش در سرچشمههای عشق، احساس و شخصیتی قدرتمند در زندگی انسان معاصر میپردازد.
جوهره و فلسفهٔ بنیادین «جادهٔ شخصیت»، دعوت خواننده، به عنوان عضوی از جامعه بشری، به تجدید نظر در نگاهی است که به خویشتن دارد. بروکس ما را به نگاهی دوباره به سویهٔ فراموششدهمان فرا میخواند. او در این راه، «فروتنی» را صفتی کلیدی میداند و این نه صرفاً به معنی فروتنی پیشهکردن در برابر دیگر مردمان، که به معنی پذیرش درونی ضعفها، کاستیها و نقصانهایی است که بخشی ناگزیر از ذات آدمی محسوب میشوند. هر انسانی برای رسیدن به شخصیتی قدرتمند و تزلزلناپذیر نیاز دارد که این ضعفها را به رسمیت بشناسد و سپس به مواجهه با آنها برخیزد.
پ.ن.
تن آدمی شریف است به جان آدمیت / نه همین لباس زیباست نشان آدمیت
سعدی
حرف چه بود تا تو اندیشی از آن/ حرف چه بود خار دیوار رزان
حرف و صوت و گفت را بر هم زنم/ تا که بی این هر سه با تو دم زنم
مولوی
https://bpluspodcast.com/archives/the...
خلاصه این کتاب را در پادکست "بی پلاس" گوش دادم
دیوید بروکس در کتاب جادۀ شخصیت با مقایسه قرن پیش و قرن حاضر می خواهد بگوید هر ��نسانی یک سری ارزشها دارد که میروند توی رزومه کاری و یک سری ارزشها دارد که وقتی مرد، در مجلس ختمش ذکر میکنند. بعد میگوید که در جهان مدرن ما، این دو چندان همخوانی ندارند. دنیا ما را هل میدهد به سمت ارزشهایی که به درد رزومه کاری بخورند و ما هم آن روزهای جوانی با دنیا همراهیم. بالاخره آدم میخواهد کار خوبی داشته باشد و مهارت کسب کند و در رشته خودش اسمی در کند. بعد که این جاده کمی هموارتر شد، صدای درون آدمیزاد در میآید که پس ارزشهای دیگر چی؟ آنها که شخصیت آدم را میسازند چه میشوند؟ و انسان راه میافتد به دنبال آن ارزشها. آقای بروکس اسم این دو را میگذارد آدم یک و آدم دو. آدم یک، از تواناییهایش استفاده میکند تا هر روز در کار و درآمد و امور مادی بهتر شود و آدم دو، به ضعفهایش فکر میکند و بهتر کردن آنها و توی این فکر کردن به ضعفها و ریشههایشان، شخصیت معنویش را میسازد.
از جمله آثار مشهور و موفق بروکس، "حیوان اجتماعی" است که در آن با محوریت بخشیدن به «تنهایی انسان و میل او به تعلق داشتن» به کاوش در سرچشمههای عشق، احساس و شخصیتی قدرتمند در زندگی انسان معاصر میپردازد.
جوهره و فلسفهٔ بنیادین «جادهٔ شخصیت»، دعوت خواننده، به عنوان عضوی از جامعه بشری، به تجدید نظر در نگاهی است که به خویشتن دارد. بروکس ما را به نگاهی دوباره به سویهٔ فراموششدهمان فرا میخواند. او در این راه، «فروتنی» را صفتی کلیدی میداند و این نه صرفاً به معنی فروتنی پیشهکردن در برابر دیگر مردمان، که به معنی پذیرش درونی ضعفها، کاستیها و نقصانهایی است که بخشی ناگزیر از ذات آدمی محسوب میشوند. هر انسانی برای رسیدن به شخصیتی قدرتمند و تزلزلناپذیر نیاز دارد که این ضعفها را به رسمیت بشناسد و سپس به مواجهه با آنها برخیزد.
پ.ن.
تن آدمی شریف است به جان آدمیت / نه همین لباس زیباست نشان آدمیت
سعدی
حرف چه بود تا تو اندیشی از آن/ حرف چه بود خار دیوار رزان
حرف و صوت و گفت را بر هم زنم/ تا که بی این هر سه با تو دم زنم
مولوی
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July 18, 2018
As a big fan of Ryan Holiday, I jumped into the book a little prematurely after seeing it on this list: If You Only Read A Few Books In 2018, Read These. Even if I had read more reviews before starting, I'm not sure I would have been prepared for the drudgery and sermonizing that awaited.
One might say reading this book is a "character building experience"—as it is long, dry, and painful. In all fairness, the opening and closing of the book were not bad. It's the middle of the book, made up of eight chapters of exhaustive and rambling biographies that was most difficult to get through.
Although the Dwight D. Eisenhower, George Eliot, Augustine, and Michel de Montaigne portions were fairly interesting, they still tended to involve rather inane elements that seemed unnecessary. Many of the "brief" biographical sketches were so long winded, they simply felt like they were taking up space. Brooks discusses the personal weaknesses of 14 individuals from history, how they dealt with moral issues, and the guidelines they strove (or failed) to live by.
Attempting to illustrate his points through the lens of past lives seems like a cop out to me. At least half as many people could have been scrutinized. Why not just state your points, Brooks? Why beat these personal narratives to death and muddle the message?
Speaking of beatings, reading this book felt akin to some form of self-flagellation. Each mini biography, 100 lashes with a barbed morality meter. Save yourself misery and read the intro and the conclusion, which wraps things up with 15 numbered points for a condensed summary.
The Guardian called this book "a smug search for the roots of good nature" that gets hopelessly lost along the way and I have to agree. It meanders around and through religious elements, questions of character, and morality in a way that can feel preachy and judgmental.
Suffering is much discussed, but for me, it was my own that inspired the 2 star rating.
Here's a taste of Dorothy Day's section:
"Day was unusual, maybe even perverse, in that she sometimes seemed to seek out suffering as a road to depth. She probably observed, as we all do, that people we call deep have almost always endured a season of suffering, or several such seasons. But she seemed to seek out those seasons, and to avoid some of the normal pleasures of life that would have brought simple earthly happiness. She often sought out occasions for moral heroism, occasions to serve others in acts of enduring hardship.
For most of us, there is nothing intrinsically noble about suffering. Just as failure is sometimes just failure (and not your path to becoming the next Steve Jobs), suffering is sometimes just destructive, to be exited or medicated as quickly as possible. When it is not connected to some larger purpose beyond itself, suffering strings or annihilates people. When it is not understood as a piece of a larger process, it leads to doubt, nihilism, and despair.
But some people can connect their suffering to some greater design. They place their suffering in solidarity with all the others who have suffered. These people are clearly ennobled by it. It is not the suffering itself that makes all the difference, but the way it is experienced ...
The first big thing suffering does is it drags you deeper into yourself. The theologian Paul Tillich wrote that people who endure suffering are taken beneath the routine busyness of life and find they are not who they believed themselves to be. The pain involved in, say, composing a great piece of music of the grief of having lost a loved one smashes through a floor they thought was the bottom floor of their soul, revealing a cavity below, and then it smashes through that floor, revealing another cavity, and so on and so on. The person in pain descends to unknown ground.
Suffering opens up ancient places of pain that had been hidden. It exposes frightening experiences that had been repressed, shameful wrongs that had been committed. It spurs some people to painfully and carefully examine the basement of their own soul. But it also presents the pleasurable sensation that one is getting closer to the truth. The pleasure in suffering is that you feel you are getting beneath the superficial and approaching the fundamental. It creates what modern psychologists call "depressive realism," and ability to see things exactly the way they are. It shatters the comforting rationalizations and pat narratives we tell ourselves as part of our way of simplifying ourselves for the world."
And so on and so on.
You get the drift. Honestly, this book was mostly about suffering and it did make me consider and question the depths of my own suffering in a new, and esoteric way.
_____
Quotes like this one:
"In the process of subordinating ourselves to the institutions we inhabit, we become who we are. The customs of the institution structure the soul, making it easier to be good. They guide behavior gently along certain time-tested lines. By practicing the customs of an institution, we are not alone; we are admitted into a community that transcends time."
... stoke my inner rebel and strike me as conservative non-progressive dogma.
Interested in hearing other's take on this book.
One might say reading this book is a "character building experience"—as it is long, dry, and painful. In all fairness, the opening and closing of the book were not bad. It's the middle of the book, made up of eight chapters of exhaustive and rambling biographies that was most difficult to get through.
Although the Dwight D. Eisenhower, George Eliot, Augustine, and Michel de Montaigne portions were fairly interesting, they still tended to involve rather inane elements that seemed unnecessary. Many of the "brief" biographical sketches were so long winded, they simply felt like they were taking up space. Brooks discusses the personal weaknesses of 14 individuals from history, how they dealt with moral issues, and the guidelines they strove (or failed) to live by.
Attempting to illustrate his points through the lens of past lives seems like a cop out to me. At least half as many people could have been scrutinized. Why not just state your points, Brooks? Why beat these personal narratives to death and muddle the message?
Speaking of beatings, reading this book felt akin to some form of self-flagellation. Each mini biography, 100 lashes with a barbed morality meter. Save yourself misery and read the intro and the conclusion, which wraps things up with 15 numbered points for a condensed summary.
The Guardian called this book "a smug search for the roots of good nature" that gets hopelessly lost along the way and I have to agree. It meanders around and through religious elements, questions of character, and morality in a way that can feel preachy and judgmental.
Suffering is much discussed, but for me, it was my own that inspired the 2 star rating.
Here's a taste of Dorothy Day's section:
"Day was unusual, maybe even perverse, in that she sometimes seemed to seek out suffering as a road to depth. She probably observed, as we all do, that people we call deep have almost always endured a season of suffering, or several such seasons. But she seemed to seek out those seasons, and to avoid some of the normal pleasures of life that would have brought simple earthly happiness. She often sought out occasions for moral heroism, occasions to serve others in acts of enduring hardship.
For most of us, there is nothing intrinsically noble about suffering. Just as failure is sometimes just failure (and not your path to becoming the next Steve Jobs), suffering is sometimes just destructive, to be exited or medicated as quickly as possible. When it is not connected to some larger purpose beyond itself, suffering strings or annihilates people. When it is not understood as a piece of a larger process, it leads to doubt, nihilism, and despair.
But some people can connect their suffering to some greater design. They place their suffering in solidarity with all the others who have suffered. These people are clearly ennobled by it. It is not the suffering itself that makes all the difference, but the way it is experienced ...
The first big thing suffering does is it drags you deeper into yourself. The theologian Paul Tillich wrote that people who endure suffering are taken beneath the routine busyness of life and find they are not who they believed themselves to be. The pain involved in, say, composing a great piece of music of the grief of having lost a loved one smashes through a floor they thought was the bottom floor of their soul, revealing a cavity below, and then it smashes through that floor, revealing another cavity, and so on and so on. The person in pain descends to unknown ground.
Suffering opens up ancient places of pain that had been hidden. It exposes frightening experiences that had been repressed, shameful wrongs that had been committed. It spurs some people to painfully and carefully examine the basement of their own soul. But it also presents the pleasurable sensation that one is getting closer to the truth. The pleasure in suffering is that you feel you are getting beneath the superficial and approaching the fundamental. It creates what modern psychologists call "depressive realism," and ability to see things exactly the way they are. It shatters the comforting rationalizations and pat narratives we tell ourselves as part of our way of simplifying ourselves for the world."
And so on and so on.
You get the drift. Honestly, this book was mostly about suffering and it did make me consider and question the depths of my own suffering in a new, and esoteric way.
_____
Quotes like this one:
"In the process of subordinating ourselves to the institutions we inhabit, we become who we are. The customs of the institution structure the soul, making it easier to be good. They guide behavior gently along certain time-tested lines. By practicing the customs of an institution, we are not alone; we are admitted into a community that transcends time."
... stoke my inner rebel and strike me as conservative non-progressive dogma.
Interested in hearing other's take on this book.
July 11, 2016
David Brooks, columnist for The New York Times and author of this and several other books, has become a baal teshuva (Orthodox Jew). I knew that going into the book, but because it draws from such varied sources, I’m not sure I would have figured it out on my own, but the values here are definitely Jewish. The bulk of the book is made of short biographies of exemplary people, but before I go into those, I must explain the viewpoint of the book overall.
The very first chapter draws from The Lonely Man of Faith by Joseph B. Soloveitchik. That book contrasts the two Biblical accounts of the creation of Adam. Brooks calls them Adam I and Adam II, but an even better phrasing of his overall theme is “resume values” versus “eulogy values.” Since World War II, our society has been placing increasing emphasis on success and the development of career skills over the development of moral character. Brooks then launches into the biographies of the people he admires and points out the values each of their lives demonstrates. But these are not hagiographic accounts; he also includes the mistakes and character flaws each one struggled with. Altogether, it really is an inspiring book.
What made this book a “must read” for me was finding out that George Eliot has her own chapter. Secondarily, I was interested in Frances Perkins. These two are some of the great philo-Semites of history, so it’s not surprising a new baal teshuva would include them, although the George Eliot chapter disappointed me with not even a mention of Daniel Deronda. The biggest surprise was that the chapter I ended up liking best was about Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker. She was a contemporary of Frances Perkins, but while Perkins chose to advocate for the poor by entering government, Dorothy Day immersed her life in full-time charity. Perkins spent part of her early training in Jane Addams’ Hull House, a place where poor women and the social workers serving them, lived together to eliminate class barriers. Dorothy Day built communal farms and soup kitchens that were similar, a sort of melding of socialist economics and Catholic religion. In a later chapter, Brooks describes civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph as having “combined political radicalism with personal traditionalism.” The description fits Dorothy Day, too. This kind of melding of left and right hits me exactly where I live. My personal political philosophy is “live a conservative life personally; have a liberal attitude toward others.” It’s not surprising it comes from David Brooks, who is considered the conservative that the liberal media likes, or, in his own words, a conservative in the tradition of Edmund Burke and not the Tea Party.
I imagine that this is one of those books that people will either love or hate. As you see, I’m in the love camp. I’d be very interested in the opinions of those of my Goodreads friends whose politics are more right wing than mine. One thing is for certain: even if you don’t agree with David Brooks’ interpretation on the state of our moral culture, you’re bound to learn plenty from this book.
The very first chapter draws from The Lonely Man of Faith by Joseph B. Soloveitchik. That book contrasts the two Biblical accounts of the creation of Adam. Brooks calls them Adam I and Adam II, but an even better phrasing of his overall theme is “resume values” versus “eulogy values.” Since World War II, our society has been placing increasing emphasis on success and the development of career skills over the development of moral character. Brooks then launches into the biographies of the people he admires and points out the values each of their lives demonstrates. But these are not hagiographic accounts; he also includes the mistakes and character flaws each one struggled with. Altogether, it really is an inspiring book.
What made this book a “must read” for me was finding out that George Eliot has her own chapter. Secondarily, I was interested in Frances Perkins. These two are some of the great philo-Semites of history, so it’s not surprising a new baal teshuva would include them, although the George Eliot chapter disappointed me with not even a mention of Daniel Deronda. The biggest surprise was that the chapter I ended up liking best was about Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker. She was a contemporary of Frances Perkins, but while Perkins chose to advocate for the poor by entering government, Dorothy Day immersed her life in full-time charity. Perkins spent part of her early training in Jane Addams’ Hull House, a place where poor women and the social workers serving them, lived together to eliminate class barriers. Dorothy Day built communal farms and soup kitchens that were similar, a sort of melding of socialist economics and Catholic religion. In a later chapter, Brooks describes civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph as having “combined political radicalism with personal traditionalism.” The description fits Dorothy Day, too. This kind of melding of left and right hits me exactly where I live. My personal political philosophy is “live a conservative life personally; have a liberal attitude toward others.” It’s not surprising it comes from David Brooks, who is considered the conservative that the liberal media likes, or, in his own words, a conservative in the tradition of Edmund Burke and not the Tea Party.
I imagine that this is one of those books that people will either love or hate. As you see, I’m in the love camp. I’d be very interested in the opinions of those of my Goodreads friends whose politics are more right wing than mine. One thing is for certain: even if you don’t agree with David Brooks’ interpretation on the state of our moral culture, you’re bound to learn plenty from this book.
June 16, 2015
David Brooks calls for a cultural shift away from the "Big Me" meritocracy of seeking status and climbing the social ladder, and back in the direction of modesty, self-effacement, and public virtue. Less Kardashians and more regular old good people who lead lives of quiet self-respect, who are secure in their own inner character, and who don't have to broadcast their good deeds to feel important or to get ahead. It's good cultural criticism from one of our finest public intellectuals.
January 20, 2016
I like David Brooks. I watch him every week on PBS Newshour, and he always seems like such a pleasant man. He wears the most tastefully expensive suits, his cultivated voice is always low and soothing, and his discreetly coiffed silver hair is always perfect.
When I opened this book, I was charmed by the depth of his learning and his admiration for so many amazing men and women of past eras. How can you not love an author who pays tribute to football great Johnny Unitas and Victorian novelist George Eliot with equal warmth and enthusiasm?
Still, as I leafed through these charming pages, I began to feel faintly uneasy. There seemed to be something sticky and oily clinging to my fingers. After a while I began to realize that it was blood. Human blood. I did some checking on the internet, and I discovered that smiling, serene David Brooks was a big booster of George W. Bush's war in Iraq. When things got bad, Brooks wrote many calm, soothing columns about how we just had to stick to it no matter how bad things got . . . just like the settlers in Jamestown! So if you're a crippled vet trying to put your life back together, don't worry. John Smith and Pocohontas are on your side. And they went through much worse!
David Brooks is the kind of moral thinker who values the appearance of moral virtue much more than actual virtue. The phrase he uses, (and I'm not making this up) is "noble hypocrisy." It's sort of like peaceful aggression. Or non-violent rape. He supports his viewpoint with classic literature by George Eliot, the wisdom of St. Augustine, and the old-fashioned blue collar guts of Johnny Unitas. But I just don't see David Brooks as the Johnny Unitas type. If there's one literary figure I think Brooks genuinely resembles in his enlightened regard for expedience and hypocrisy, it's Hamlet's uncle, King Claudius, in Shakespeare's HAMLET.
To give you an idea of what I mean, here's my impression of how David Brooks would evaluate Hamlet and his Uncle Claudius in The Road To Character:
****
"There was a time when leaders understood that the public good outweighed their personal issues. Consider Claudius, the wise, just king in Shakespeare's Hamlet. When circumstances force him to depose his brother, he doesn't drag the kingdom through a bloody, violent revolution, nor does he create a scandal that would erode public confidence in the Danish royal family. Instead he eliminates his brother with poison, a quick, quiet, and merciful death which allows power to be transferred smoothly and efficiently. Claudius is no modern terrorist who insists on media attention. He kills and keeps it to himself, making sure to burden no one else with his sins. Moreover, when he feels shame and guilt he is able to pray in private, without losing his grip on power. Claudius knows that "words without thoughts to heaven never go" yet he's mature enough to realize that publicly confessing and stepping down from the throne would only make a tragic situation worse. Claudius has character, old fashioned character. The kind we need today!
Young Prince Hamlet is an idealist, but his idealism is selfish, adolescent and destructive, like that of anti-war activists and extreme revolutionaries throughout history. He insists on mocking his uncle's noble hypocrisy, undermining his authority, all for the sake of his private emotions. He doesn't really want to rule Denmark sensibly and efficiently. He just wants to "punish" the "guilt" of the "older generation." His quest for justice is not only self-destructive, it results in the death of his mother, his girlfriend, his girlfriend's father and her brother, and several other innocent bystanders. Hamlet's lack of sophisticated virtue and realistic moral character destroys his uncle's reign and gives Denmark over to the rule of the terrorist Fortinbras and his horde of undocumented illegal aliens. Claudius is a moral man who does what he as to do in a dirty world. He's Johnny Unitas. Hamlet is a show off who lacks the character of his uncle, just like Joe Namath!"
****
That David Brooks, I tell you. He can smile and smile, but he's still a villain.
When I opened this book, I was charmed by the depth of his learning and his admiration for so many amazing men and women of past eras. How can you not love an author who pays tribute to football great Johnny Unitas and Victorian novelist George Eliot with equal warmth and enthusiasm?
Still, as I leafed through these charming pages, I began to feel faintly uneasy. There seemed to be something sticky and oily clinging to my fingers. After a while I began to realize that it was blood. Human blood. I did some checking on the internet, and I discovered that smiling, serene David Brooks was a big booster of George W. Bush's war in Iraq. When things got bad, Brooks wrote many calm, soothing columns about how we just had to stick to it no matter how bad things got . . . just like the settlers in Jamestown! So if you're a crippled vet trying to put your life back together, don't worry. John Smith and Pocohontas are on your side. And they went through much worse!
David Brooks is the kind of moral thinker who values the appearance of moral virtue much more than actual virtue. The phrase he uses, (and I'm not making this up) is "noble hypocrisy." It's sort of like peaceful aggression. Or non-violent rape. He supports his viewpoint with classic literature by George Eliot, the wisdom of St. Augustine, and the old-fashioned blue collar guts of Johnny Unitas. But I just don't see David Brooks as the Johnny Unitas type. If there's one literary figure I think Brooks genuinely resembles in his enlightened regard for expedience and hypocrisy, it's Hamlet's uncle, King Claudius, in Shakespeare's HAMLET.
To give you an idea of what I mean, here's my impression of how David Brooks would evaluate Hamlet and his Uncle Claudius in The Road To Character:
****
"There was a time when leaders understood that the public good outweighed their personal issues. Consider Claudius, the wise, just king in Shakespeare's Hamlet. When circumstances force him to depose his brother, he doesn't drag the kingdom through a bloody, violent revolution, nor does he create a scandal that would erode public confidence in the Danish royal family. Instead he eliminates his brother with poison, a quick, quiet, and merciful death which allows power to be transferred smoothly and efficiently. Claudius is no modern terrorist who insists on media attention. He kills and keeps it to himself, making sure to burden no one else with his sins. Moreover, when he feels shame and guilt he is able to pray in private, without losing his grip on power. Claudius knows that "words without thoughts to heaven never go" yet he's mature enough to realize that publicly confessing and stepping down from the throne would only make a tragic situation worse. Claudius has character, old fashioned character. The kind we need today!
Young Prince Hamlet is an idealist, but his idealism is selfish, adolescent and destructive, like that of anti-war activists and extreme revolutionaries throughout history. He insists on mocking his uncle's noble hypocrisy, undermining his authority, all for the sake of his private emotions. He doesn't really want to rule Denmark sensibly and efficiently. He just wants to "punish" the "guilt" of the "older generation." His quest for justice is not only self-destructive, it results in the death of his mother, his girlfriend, his girlfriend's father and her brother, and several other innocent bystanders. Hamlet's lack of sophisticated virtue and realistic moral character destroys his uncle's reign and gives Denmark over to the rule of the terrorist Fortinbras and his horde of undocumented illegal aliens. Claudius is a moral man who does what he as to do in a dirty world. He's Johnny Unitas. Hamlet is a show off who lacks the character of his uncle, just like Joe Namath!"
****
That David Brooks, I tell you. He can smile and smile, but he's still a villain.
June 19, 2019
پراکنده خوندمش
متاسفانه بخشهای بیوگرافی خیلی خسته کننده بود،در کل این سبک کتابها که با قاطعیت بهترین راه سعادت رو نوشن میدن دوست ندارم
متاسفانه بخشهای بیوگرافی خیلی خسته کننده بود،در کل این سبک کتابها که با قاطعیت بهترین راه سعادت رو نوشن میدن دوست ندارم
September 24, 2015
While I do not share David Brooks' political views, I do like this book. He is cogent on the lack of deep attention to moral development in our current culture. He is on to something. His approach draws from the lives of a cross section of thinkers, leaders, and parents weaving a tapestry of a moral and a meaningful life.
His style could be better and at times it appears to be a sermon but that does not detract from his argument. Brooks writes that the narcissism -the me generation- is the new norm and drives the resume culture. It would be interesting to consider the impact of the market culture as opposed to a market economy on the decline of moral development. When one views oneself principally as a 'brand' rather than principally a citizen or person embedded in relations, we lose our moral bearing. I hope the book inspires more conversation.
His style could be better and at times it appears to be a sermon but that does not detract from his argument. Brooks writes that the narcissism -the me generation- is the new norm and drives the resume culture. It would be interesting to consider the impact of the market culture as opposed to a market economy on the decline of moral development. When one views oneself principally as a 'brand' rather than principally a citizen or person embedded in relations, we lose our moral bearing. I hope the book inspires more conversation.
February 1, 2020
حس میکنم در ستایش برخی از کتاب ها، بیشترین و پخته ترین کاری که میتونم انجام بدم، سکوت و فروتنی و تواضع ه. نه چیزی بیشتر.
June 12, 2015
Disappointing and poorly set up
I think people's reaction to this book will depend on what they buy it for and hope to get out of it before they even open page one.
We read this for my book club, and it was hard to slog through for me. The premise of Brooks' philosophy has its genesis in earlier work by Joseph Soloveitchik, who believed that there are two creation stories in Genesis because there are two sides to man, an external achievement-focused one and an internal one, which Brooks calls the eulogy-focused Adam.
Brook's book seeks to explore how Adam 2, eulogy-focused qualities are developed by telling stories of individuals through history and how they got certain qualities of character (for example, restraint, or dignity).
But Brooks is a painfully poor philosopher, and I just could not get past it. One of the repeated failings is how he confuses cause and effect. Take for example, this in a story of Ida Eisenhower, mother of Dwight: "In the culture of that time, people also believed that manual labor was a school for character."
Maybe, but isn't it more fair to say there wasn't a lot of automation in Abilene Kansas in the early 1900s?
Similarly, later in the book he references how people used to be more private and wouldn't have posted all of the details of their lives on Twitter or Facebook. His constant premise of "back in the day, things were better" just got very old very quickly.
Also, there were multiple instances of him being selective with facts or leaving out big picture truths to force a character story to fit. For example, in this passage about civil rights leader A. Phillip Randolph he says this about Moses: "They [the Israelites] were led by a man, Moses, who was meek, passive, and intemperate and who felt himself inadequate to the task."
Clearly, he must know the story of Moses. Before Moses led the Israelites, he killed an Egyptian for smiting a Hebrew.
If you are looking to this book to reassure yourself of what you already believe, you'll probably like it. If you're reading it hoping for solid writing and good argument, you too may be disappointed, as I was.
I think people's reaction to this book will depend on what they buy it for and hope to get out of it before they even open page one.
We read this for my book club, and it was hard to slog through for me. The premise of Brooks' philosophy has its genesis in earlier work by Joseph Soloveitchik, who believed that there are two creation stories in Genesis because there are two sides to man, an external achievement-focused one and an internal one, which Brooks calls the eulogy-focused Adam.
Brook's book seeks to explore how Adam 2, eulogy-focused qualities are developed by telling stories of individuals through history and how they got certain qualities of character (for example, restraint, or dignity).
But Brooks is a painfully poor philosopher, and I just could not get past it. One of the repeated failings is how he confuses cause and effect. Take for example, this in a story of Ida Eisenhower, mother of Dwight: "In the culture of that time, people also believed that manual labor was a school for character."
Maybe, but isn't it more fair to say there wasn't a lot of automation in Abilene Kansas in the early 1900s?
Similarly, later in the book he references how people used to be more private and wouldn't have posted all of the details of their lives on Twitter or Facebook. His constant premise of "back in the day, things were better" just got very old very quickly.
Also, there were multiple instances of him being selective with facts or leaving out big picture truths to force a character story to fit. For example, in this passage about civil rights leader A. Phillip Randolph he says this about Moses: "They [the Israelites] were led by a man, Moses, who was meek, passive, and intemperate and who felt himself inadequate to the task."
Clearly, he must know the story of Moses. Before Moses led the Israelites, he killed an Egyptian for smiting a Hebrew.
If you are looking to this book to reassure yourself of what you already believe, you'll probably like it. If you're reading it hoping for solid writing and good argument, you too may be disappointed, as I was.
May 15, 2015
David Brooks doesn't profess to always follow the road to character, but he wanted to know what it looked like. Thus, his motivation for studying people throughout history who made an effort to build their character and follow a moral code of conduct that wouldn't change based on circumstance, their desires, or the fashion of the day.
The book starts with an eloquent introduction. Brooks outlines his thesis that humans have an internal struggle between "Adam 1" (the purest, moral self) and "Adam 2"(a more hedonistic, selfish self/ as long as you're not doing anything obviously bad, you're doing just fine). He also describes a current culture that has made it harder to be "good". Listening to the audio version of this book I found myself furiously scribbling notes, wanting to capture everything in the introduction as it seemed so relevant.
Each of the people Brooks highlights in his book as examples of taking the road to character are flawed, as we all are (at one point while listening my husband turned to me and said "Is this a book about people with good character or bad character?!") This is where the book really loses momentum. Instead of being inspired by their stories, I really found the book to just drag through most of these profiles. They really could have benefited from some significant editing.
The final chapter of the book provides a nice closing, weaving together the themes from the profiles. Along with the introduction, this is where Brooks shines.
The book starts with an eloquent introduction. Brooks outlines his thesis that humans have an internal struggle between "Adam 1" (the purest, moral self) and "Adam 2"(a more hedonistic, selfish self/ as long as you're not doing anything obviously bad, you're doing just fine). He also describes a current culture that has made it harder to be "good". Listening to the audio version of this book I found myself furiously scribbling notes, wanting to capture everything in the introduction as it seemed so relevant.
Each of the people Brooks highlights in his book as examples of taking the road to character are flawed, as we all are (at one point while listening my husband turned to me and said "Is this a book about people with good character or bad character?!") This is where the book really loses momentum. Instead of being inspired by their stories, I really found the book to just drag through most of these profiles. They really could have benefited from some significant editing.
The final chapter of the book provides a nice closing, weaving together the themes from the profiles. Along with the introduction, this is where Brooks shines.
May 25, 2017
This book describes the journey toward character from several different historical characters. Each chapter David Brooks shares a different person's story. His desire is to point out the different thought processes about character from other time periods... specifically moral realism versus moral romanticism. He develops an argument toward the imbalance within our own time period. Definitely worth a read... even if just for the great stories.
July 21, 2015
This book is basically a collection of essays about people from the past whom he admires. It's basically how the 'virtuous' lived in The Good Ole Days™. He extols "eulogy traits" over "resume traits" but each of these people has quite the resume. If the presidency is on your resume, you don't even need a resume anymore.
He writes about various people and their lives in a more-or-less biographical fashion from birth to death, which is quite repetitive. He also bends over backwards to make their lives fit his thesis. They all have interesting lives and much to learn from, but there's no need for Brooks to dumb it down, or simplify it, or view their different lives in the view of a single theme.
Here are some of his main ideas (some of which are more inspiring than others)
- Everybody is naturally bad and needs to undergo hard work in order to become virtuous.
- Repress yourself in order to be good.
- You are part of society. Don't deviate too much from that or assert your individuality too much. That's hubris.
As a student of Chinese, I find Brooks very Confucian, but this is just a collection of Western writers and ideas. It would be forgivable if this was meant to be a collection of True American Heroes, but these books always end up being very Eurocentric. (To be fair, China is mentioned in one paragraph of the book as Gen Marshall had a brief but failed stint in 1940s China.) Confucius was a traditionalist who thought the ancient sages carried the truth of society and humanity. The individual was flawed and needed extensive education and training to become more like the sages. Follow the 'uprightness' of the former times instead of the Daoist idea of embracing your nature. He woulda loved Confucius, but the East is too different from his idealized Western paradise.
There is abundant wealth in the great stories of history, but the past does not have a monopoly on wisdom or virtue. History has a tendency to remember the best actors while we exaggerate the influence of mediocrity in our era. When you compare the Kardashians to St Augustine, Augustine is going to win.
He writes about various people and their lives in a more-or-less biographical fashion from birth to death, which is quite repetitive. He also bends over backwards to make their lives fit his thesis. They all have interesting lives and much to learn from, but there's no need for Brooks to dumb it down, or simplify it, or view their different lives in the view of a single theme.
Here are some of his main ideas (some of which are more inspiring than others)
- Everybody is naturally bad and needs to undergo hard work in order to become virtuous.
- Repress yourself in order to be good.
- You are part of society. Don't deviate too much from that or assert your individuality too much. That's hubris.
As a student of Chinese, I find Brooks very Confucian, but this is just a collection of Western writers and ideas. It would be forgivable if this was meant to be a collection of True American Heroes, but these books always end up being very Eurocentric. (To be fair, China is mentioned in one paragraph of the book as Gen Marshall had a brief but failed stint in 1940s China.) Confucius was a traditionalist who thought the ancient sages carried the truth of society and humanity. The individual was flawed and needed extensive education and training to become more like the sages. Follow the 'uprightness' of the former times instead of the Daoist idea of embracing your nature. He woulda loved Confucius, but the East is too different from his idealized Western paradise.
There is abundant wealth in the great stories of history, but the past does not have a monopoly on wisdom or virtue. History has a tendency to remember the best actors while we exaggerate the influence of mediocrity in our era. When you compare the Kardashians to St Augustine, Augustine is going to win.
May 13, 2015
The introduction and first chapter of this book are both amazing. I mean, I was underlining passages left and right. Brooks is a wonderful writer and very insightful. I thought his summary of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchick's Adam I and Adam II argument (from Soloveitchick's book, Lonely Man of Faith) was thoughtful and easily accessible. There is no doubt that Brooks is most successful when he takes what he knows and what he has read and draws general conclusions and insights about life. I actually liked this book best when Brooks was teaching me a lesson.
Unfortunately, though, most of this book is made up of overly-exhaustive and somewhat boring biographies of well-known historical figures. Sure, Brooks throws tidbits of insightful commentary throughout, but I wish he had relied less on biographical recountings and more on his own ideas. Instead of structuring each chapter around one or two famous lives, why not use a briefer description of their lives to support his own criteria for a life well-lived? I think that would have made a more interesting book.
My only other complaint, though it is minor, is that there is a lot of religious language in here. It became distracting after a while. Pride, virtue, grace, struggle against sin, defeating weakness--these are all emotionally charged words to me. And I tend to think that using this language can be a cop out. It's a bit lazy, easy. I wish Brooks had dropped those familiar words and come up with a more novel and descriptive way to illustrate these concepts.
Still, The Road to Character was an interesting read. It could be boring at parts, but because those first two sections were so good, I'm still going to give this book four stars. It was worth the effort.
Unfortunately, though, most of this book is made up of overly-exhaustive and somewhat boring biographies of well-known historical figures. Sure, Brooks throws tidbits of insightful commentary throughout, but I wish he had relied less on biographical recountings and more on his own ideas. Instead of structuring each chapter around one or two famous lives, why not use a briefer description of their lives to support his own criteria for a life well-lived? I think that would have made a more interesting book.
My only other complaint, though it is minor, is that there is a lot of religious language in here. It became distracting after a while. Pride, virtue, grace, struggle against sin, defeating weakness--these are all emotionally charged words to me. And I tend to think that using this language can be a cop out. It's a bit lazy, easy. I wish Brooks had dropped those familiar words and come up with a more novel and descriptive way to illustrate these concepts.
Still, The Road to Character was an interesting read. It could be boring at parts, but because those first two sections were so good, I'm still going to give this book four stars. It was worth the effort.
July 10, 2015
Quick take on David Brooks' *Road to Character*: sort of sad we live in a society that needs this book. But we need this book. The real trick? Getting those who *need* to read it to *want* to read it.
Watch for my review in The Hedgehog Review.
Watch for my review in The Hedgehog Review.
October 17, 2015
While I do admire the amount of research David Brooks must have put into writing this book, I simply do not agree with his conclusion. And I rather disliked the condescending tone of the book. Thanks for the advice Dave, but no thanks. I've found my own road to character and it suits me just fine.
April 26, 2021
The Road to Character by David Brooks is a book that deals with what might be termed behavior modification but which is better-phrased as character enhancement, examining what a collage of rather famous individuals did to overcome their own personal inadequacies. In so-doing, the book examines the difference between what the author lists as resume virtues and eulogy virtues.
Within the framework of resume vs. eulogy virtues, David Brooks counsels the reader that the former is embodied by Adam I, career-oriented & ambitious, achieving success by gaining victories over others, while the latter, personified by Adam II, builds character by winning victories over his/her own weakness, aiming for a "more cohesive soul". Yes, Mr. Brooks does use words like soul, sin, grace & even "divine absence", not presently phrasings that are much in vogue.
The road to Character is not a self-help manual but rather a series of linked profiles of individuals who viewed themselves as imperfect or flawed but who persevered with an eye toward personal improvement. Brooks suggests that we live in the age of the "selfie", a time marked by a decline in empathy, with some even seeing empathy/compassion as a sign of personal or national weakness. Rather than a concentration on "self-branding", the author advocates an individual & a country both need to develop a moral ecology.
One of those examined is Dorothy Day, a young radical & bohemian living in Manhattan, whose life was filled with drinking & disorder but who became "God-haunted" with the birth of a child...
Another model profiled in the book is Mary Anne Evans, better known to most readers as George Eliot, someone whose life was a shambles until she met another George, one with the surname of Lewes, kindling a love based more on ideas rather than physical intensity. Brooks terms their love for each other as "gift-love", or "reciprocity-love", indicating that with 1,000 letters & gestures, Lewes "put himself 2nd & her uppermost in his mind", with both being transformed by their love for each other. It is commented that Mary Anne Evans took a long road to become George Eliot, like "a large angel taking a long time to unfold its wings but then soaring out of sight", having to grow from self-centeredness into generous sympathy, overcoming depression & anxieties, eventually learning "the responsibility of tolerance."
I also found very interesting the commentary on Samuel Johnson, who James Boswell suggested "fought impulses within himself like a Roman gladiator in the Colosseum, each time driving wild beasts back into their dens as they were assailing him but not killing them, all his life combining the intellectual toughness of Achilles with the compassionate faith of a rabbi, priest, or mullah". It is mentioned that "Johnson conceived of writing much like a Christian sacrament, an outward & visible sign of an inward & spiritual grace given to us and in spite of our deficiencies, the hero becomes strongest at his weakest point."
Lastly, David Brooks indicates that each society creates its own moral ecology, a set of norms, assumptions, beliefs & habits of behavior + an institutionalized set of moral demands that emerge organically. He then formulates 15 general propositions that form a "Humility Code", a framework for moving from resume building to eulogy building, from Adam I to Adam II.
As an aside, in addition to other books & his New York Times columns, David Brooks held court with Mark Shields on NPR's "Week in Review" program every Friday evening for 19 years, with each man presenting his views on the week that had just ended. It is immediately clear that the two retained utmost respect for each other in spite of differing political perspectives.
When I went to hear Mr. Brooks speak at the Union League Club of Chicago in promotion of The Road to Character I was able to ask him a question after the lunch portion of the event, wondering how in an age of almost tribal animosity between the political right & left, he & Mark Shields seem so endearingly cordial to each other? He responded by saying that in order to improve the climate, the country needs more people like Mark Shields. It seemed clear to me that Shields was more like a father figure & mentor to Brooks than just a fellow television commentator.
One last comment is that David Brooks graduated from the University of Chicago, participating in the college's Great Books format of undergraduate education. Oddly enough, so did Bernie Sanders, with both of them declaring that the school & the Great Books approach to learning changed their lives.
*The photo images within my review are of the author David Brooks; Mr. Brooks with Oprah Winfrey; and lastly, Mark Shields with David Brooks.
Within the framework of resume vs. eulogy virtues, David Brooks counsels the reader that the former is embodied by Adam I, career-oriented & ambitious, achieving success by gaining victories over others, while the latter, personified by Adam II, builds character by winning victories over his/her own weakness, aiming for a "more cohesive soul". Yes, Mr. Brooks does use words like soul, sin, grace & even "divine absence", not presently phrasings that are much in vogue.
The road to Character is not a self-help manual but rather a series of linked profiles of individuals who viewed themselves as imperfect or flawed but who persevered with an eye toward personal improvement. Brooks suggests that we live in the age of the "selfie", a time marked by a decline in empathy, with some even seeing empathy/compassion as a sign of personal or national weakness. Rather than a concentration on "self-branding", the author advocates an individual & a country both need to develop a moral ecology.
One of those examined is Dorothy Day, a young radical & bohemian living in Manhattan, whose life was filled with drinking & disorder but who became "God-haunted" with the birth of a child...
As a young woman, Day followed the mode of a character from Dostoyevsky but internally she was a Tolstoyan. She was not a trapped animal compelled to suffer by circumstance; rather, she ardently chose suffering, seeking discomfort & difficulty in order to satisfy her need for holiness. She wasn't just choosing to work for a non-profit institution in order to have a big impact; she was seeking to live in accordance with the Gospels, even if it meant sacrifice & suffering.Under a heading titled Dignity, Brooks considers Civil Rights figure A Philip Randolph who met with FDR in 1941 in search of jobs for African-Americans, dedicating himself to the proposition that you can take imperfect people & organize them into a force for change. A 2nd Civil Rights advocate is considered, Bayard Rustin, who in spite of his leadership stature was gay at a time when this was socially unacceptable, causing him to be imprisoned. While in prison, Rustin came to terms with his frailties, accusing himself of being promiscuous as well as arrogant & angry, eventually recommitting himself to the civil rights struggle by following the non-violent austerity of Gandhi, as did Martin Luther King.
Another model profiled in the book is Mary Anne Evans, better known to most readers as George Eliot, someone whose life was a shambles until she met another George, one with the surname of Lewes, kindling a love based more on ideas rather than physical intensity. Brooks terms their love for each other as "gift-love", or "reciprocity-love", indicating that with 1,000 letters & gestures, Lewes "put himself 2nd & her uppermost in his mind", with both being transformed by their love for each other. It is commented that Mary Anne Evans took a long road to become George Eliot, like "a large angel taking a long time to unfold its wings but then soaring out of sight", having to grow from self-centeredness into generous sympathy, overcoming depression & anxieties, eventually learning "the responsibility of tolerance."
I also found very interesting the commentary on Samuel Johnson, who James Boswell suggested "fought impulses within himself like a Roman gladiator in the Colosseum, each time driving wild beasts back into their dens as they were assailing him but not killing them, all his life combining the intellectual toughness of Achilles with the compassionate faith of a rabbi, priest, or mullah". It is mentioned that "Johnson conceived of writing much like a Christian sacrament, an outward & visible sign of an inward & spiritual grace given to us and in spite of our deficiencies, the hero becomes strongest at his weakest point."
Lastly, David Brooks indicates that each society creates its own moral ecology, a set of norms, assumptions, beliefs & habits of behavior + an institutionalized set of moral demands that emerge organically. He then formulates 15 general propositions that form a "Humility Code", a framework for moving from resume building to eulogy building, from Adam I to Adam II.
Our moral ecology encourages us to be a certain sort of person. The moral ecology of a given moment is never unanimous; there are always rebels, critics & outsiders. But each moral climate is a collective response to the problems of the moment & shapes the people who live within it. Each struggle leaves a residue.In spite of some rather critical G/R appraisals that The Road to Character is too prescriptive or alternately too vague and that David Brooks is a "phony moralist" because he is divorced, just another "self-absorbed talking head", not sufficiently Jewish in his worldview, not sufficiently conservative in his columns + a wealth of negative comments about those he chose to profile, I liked the book very much. My sense is that Brooks has aimed to examine his own character by identifying & profiling others who have endeavored to modify or enhance their own characters. And, he has done this in a way that may seem formulaic to some but which I found both interesting & uplifting.
As an aside, in addition to other books & his New York Times columns, David Brooks held court with Mark Shields on NPR's "Week in Review" program every Friday evening for 19 years, with each man presenting his views on the week that had just ended. It is immediately clear that the two retained utmost respect for each other in spite of differing political perspectives.
When I went to hear Mr. Brooks speak at the Union League Club of Chicago in promotion of The Road to Character I was able to ask him a question after the lunch portion of the event, wondering how in an age of almost tribal animosity between the political right & left, he & Mark Shields seem so endearingly cordial to each other? He responded by saying that in order to improve the climate, the country needs more people like Mark Shields. It seemed clear to me that Shields was more like a father figure & mentor to Brooks than just a fellow television commentator.
One last comment is that David Brooks graduated from the University of Chicago, participating in the college's Great Books format of undergraduate education. Oddly enough, so did Bernie Sanders, with both of them declaring that the school & the Great Books approach to learning changed their lives.
*The photo images within my review are of the author David Brooks; Mr. Brooks with Oprah Winfrey; and lastly, Mark Shields with David Brooks.
May 9, 2015
I very much like and respect David Brooks; however, this book is not one of his shining accomplishments. I question why he felt a need to write this book. I saw his book review interview on Charlie Rose and I think Brooks is personally struggling with his character after a career as a conservative political pundit and his recent divorce. His universe may be off kilter in his life and being.
Hence this book attempts to define the two characteristics of what makes a person: Adam I being your resume, professional, skill building personality, verbose, narcissistic self and Adam II being your spiritual, humble, self-satisfied being (a.k.a. What do you want spoken at your eulogy). Brooks poses that our culture is too focused on Adam I behaviors. He explores the development of inner character and a true calling in life to Adam II behaviors by examining the lives and character development of Frances Perkins and her stance for workers rights after the Triangle Shirt Factory fire, Ida Stover Eisenhower who sought an education and her son Dwight and what led to Ike's fortitude and ultimate success, Dorothy Day and her work with the suffering and poor through Catholic Worker, George Catlett Marshall and his logistical planning during WWII, A. Philip Randolph an organizer for African Americans in the '40's, Bayard Rustin active in the Civil Rights Movement, Mary Anne Evans (George Eliot) and her committed love for George Lewes when their open love was frowned upon by societal norms.
Unfortunately the individuals Brooks selected, the timeperiods in which they lived and the heavy overtones of religion did not make the connections for me. The book was slow, often dull and laden with detail, and very preachy. The final chapter "Big Me" was just too much - like "okay, you made your point (sort of) but now you are beating a dead horse."
I would not recommend this book.
Hence this book attempts to define the two characteristics of what makes a person: Adam I being your resume, professional, skill building personality, verbose, narcissistic self and Adam II being your spiritual, humble, self-satisfied being (a.k.a. What do you want spoken at your eulogy). Brooks poses that our culture is too focused on Adam I behaviors. He explores the development of inner character and a true calling in life to Adam II behaviors by examining the lives and character development of Frances Perkins and her stance for workers rights after the Triangle Shirt Factory fire, Ida Stover Eisenhower who sought an education and her son Dwight and what led to Ike's fortitude and ultimate success, Dorothy Day and her work with the suffering and poor through Catholic Worker, George Catlett Marshall and his logistical planning during WWII, A. Philip Randolph an organizer for African Americans in the '40's, Bayard Rustin active in the Civil Rights Movement, Mary Anne Evans (George Eliot) and her committed love for George Lewes when their open love was frowned upon by societal norms.
Unfortunately the individuals Brooks selected, the timeperiods in which they lived and the heavy overtones of religion did not make the connections for me. The book was slow, often dull and laden with detail, and very preachy. The final chapter "Big Me" was just too much - like "okay, you made your point (sort of) but now you are beating a dead horse."
I would not recommend this book.
May 25, 2015
Near the beginning of the book, Brooks declares: “I was born with a natural disposition toward shallowness…. I’m paid to be a narcissistic blowhard, to volley my opinions, to … appear smarter than I really am, to appear better and more authoritative than I really am. I have to work harder than most people to avoid a life of smug superficiality. I’ve also become more aware that, like many people these days, I have lived a life of vague moral aspiration— vaguely wanting to be good, vaguely wanting to serve some larger purpose, while lacking a concrete moral vocabulary, a clear understanding of how to live a rich inner life, or even a clear knowledge of how character is developed …” An interesting opening gambit. Before he begins his biographical sketches, Brooks notes: “But we are morally inarticulate. We’re not more selfish or venal than people in other times, but we’ve lost the understanding of how character is built. The “crooked timber” moral tradition— based on the awareness of sin and the confrontation with sin— was an inheritance passed down from generation to generation.” Okay, this, then is a book set in the Western Judeo-Christian worldview and that is Brooks’ lens.
There are parts of this book that I really enjoyed. The biographical sketches are superb. He begins with Frances Perkins and the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and the impact that had on Perkins. He then skillfully weaves in the values with which Perkins was raised. The section on Dorothy Day, who was a promiscuous drunk when she was younger, is utterly fascinating. Brooks extrapolates from Day’s life to declare that “In the first place, they (people like Day) just show up. They provide a ministry of presence. Next, they don’t compare. The sensitive person understands that each person’s ordeal is unique and should not be compared to anyone else’s. Next, they do the practical things— making lunch, dusting the room, washing the towels. Finally, they don’t try to minimize what is going on. They don’t attempt to reassure with false, saccharine sentiments. They don’t say that the pain is all for the best. They don’t search for silver linings. They do what wise souls do in the presence of tragedy and trauma. They practice a passive activism. They don’t bustle about trying to solve something that cannot be solved. The sensitive person grants the sufferer the dignity of her own process. She lets the sufferer define the meaning of what is going on. She just sits simply through the nights of pain and darkness, being practical, human, simple, and direct." This was, for me, the high point of the book. The sections on Marshall and Ike are also good, but lack the depth and power of the section on Day.
The book starts to go downhill and probably reaches its low point in the section on Samuel Johnson. He brings in Montaigne for purposes of comparison of a rough contemporary to Johnson. I almost quit reading when Brooks found it necessary to include Montaigne’s reflections on his own ah, genitalia, “Which intrudes so tiresomely when we do not require it and fails us so annoyingly when we need it most.” Quite frankly after briefly wondering if Brooks wasn’t a bit of a ____, well you can fill in the blank, I thought, this writer desperately needs an editor.
The conclusion of the book, where you might expect Brooks to pull it all together was for me disappointing. Brooks notes that if you “have lived through the last sixty or seventy years, you are the product of a more competitive meritocracy” ah, I have and I do not feel meritocratic because I have not lived my life “trying to make something of” myself nor have I ever been overly motivated by ‘success.’ I have not seen myself as a ‘vessel of human capital” (‘talent to be cultivated efficiently and prudently’). Brooks goes on to talk about children being “praised to an unprecedented degree” and “honed to an unprecedented degree.” He writes as if this is a universal condition. It is not. It may be somewhat true among the wealthier, but it is not a universal phenomenon.
In sum, Brooks is at his best as a biographer. He is at his weakest as a social commentator. He is limited by his lens which is that of a Judeo Christian background and a relatively comfortable and what appears to be a somewhat insulated life.
There are parts of this book that I really enjoyed. The biographical sketches are superb. He begins with Frances Perkins and the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and the impact that had on Perkins. He then skillfully weaves in the values with which Perkins was raised. The section on Dorothy Day, who was a promiscuous drunk when she was younger, is utterly fascinating. Brooks extrapolates from Day’s life to declare that “In the first place, they (people like Day) just show up. They provide a ministry of presence. Next, they don’t compare. The sensitive person understands that each person’s ordeal is unique and should not be compared to anyone else’s. Next, they do the practical things— making lunch, dusting the room, washing the towels. Finally, they don’t try to minimize what is going on. They don’t attempt to reassure with false, saccharine sentiments. They don’t say that the pain is all for the best. They don’t search for silver linings. They do what wise souls do in the presence of tragedy and trauma. They practice a passive activism. They don’t bustle about trying to solve something that cannot be solved. The sensitive person grants the sufferer the dignity of her own process. She lets the sufferer define the meaning of what is going on. She just sits simply through the nights of pain and darkness, being practical, human, simple, and direct." This was, for me, the high point of the book. The sections on Marshall and Ike are also good, but lack the depth and power of the section on Day.
The book starts to go downhill and probably reaches its low point in the section on Samuel Johnson. He brings in Montaigne for purposes of comparison of a rough contemporary to Johnson. I almost quit reading when Brooks found it necessary to include Montaigne’s reflections on his own ah, genitalia, “Which intrudes so tiresomely when we do not require it and fails us so annoyingly when we need it most.” Quite frankly after briefly wondering if Brooks wasn’t a bit of a ____, well you can fill in the blank, I thought, this writer desperately needs an editor.
The conclusion of the book, where you might expect Brooks to pull it all together was for me disappointing. Brooks notes that if you “have lived through the last sixty or seventy years, you are the product of a more competitive meritocracy” ah, I have and I do not feel meritocratic because I have not lived my life “trying to make something of” myself nor have I ever been overly motivated by ‘success.’ I have not seen myself as a ‘vessel of human capital” (‘talent to be cultivated efficiently and prudently’). Brooks goes on to talk about children being “praised to an unprecedented degree” and “honed to an unprecedented degree.” He writes as if this is a universal condition. It is not. It may be somewhat true among the wealthier, but it is not a universal phenomenon.
In sum, Brooks is at his best as a biographer. He is at his weakest as a social commentator. He is limited by his lens which is that of a Judeo Christian background and a relatively comfortable and what appears to be a somewhat insulated life.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 5, 2017
A painfully preachy and disappointing book, particularly from an author who was in the process of leaving his wife of 28 years and beginning a relationship with his research assistant, who is 22 years younger than he is. That could be overlooked if the book weren't extremely rambling and filled with examples of horribly flawed people whose flaws Brooks seems to entirely overlook when it's convenient for his point (whatever that might have been), or concentrate on when he thinks it makes his point.
In my small book club, none of us actually finished the book in time for the discussion, as we all found it quite unpleasant to read. I decided I'd eventually finish it since I was already around 90% done, but it took more than a month and a half to get back to it because I just plain did not want to read it.
I almost gave it two stars, as a few of the people he discussed were interesting and I'd like to learn more about them, but decided against it, as that's not actually about this book, and I'm not even confident that I have a good understanding of what the people were really like since Brooks seems to only cover aspects of their lives he thinks support his story.
In my small book club, none of us actually finished the book in time for the discussion, as we all found it quite unpleasant to read. I decided I'd eventually finish it since I was already around 90% done, but it took more than a month and a half to get back to it because I just plain did not want to read it.
I almost gave it two stars, as a few of the people he discussed were interesting and I'd like to learn more about them, but decided against it, as that's not actually about this book, and I'm not even confident that I have a good understanding of what the people were really like since Brooks seems to only cover aspects of their lives he thinks support his story.
May 3, 2015
I think I read this book at just the right time of my life. I heard David Brooks speak at the Sixth & I Synagogue last week and have been entirely inspired by his approach to the question of character. I have been taking a break from my career and reflecting on what my life is all about. He nails it. It is the journey we take to be better human beings - what he calls "eulogy virtues" instead of public successes - the "resume virtues". I think the philosophy he puts forward and the examples of people he cites will not all be for everyone (they didn't all hit the mark for me). But there were enough people I admired - George Eliot, Frances Perkins, George C Marshall (now, there was a surprise!) and of course Katharine Graham - and enough insights in the book for it to really speak to me and for me to take meaning from it. Loved it.
June 6, 2015
I like David Brooks, one of the few conservative pundits writing for the “New York Times.” Similar to Thomas Friedman – they both tend to go off on god-awful tangents – Brooks is an excellent writer, and his newest book, “The Road to Character,” is a gem. His premises: we need to rebalance the scales between our “resume virtues” – achieving wealth, fame, and status – and our “eulogy virtues,” those that exist at the core of our being, such as kindness, bravery, and honesty. Analyzing the personalities of historic figures – ironically, Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath being perfect examples, this thought-provoking book should give you pause.
September 3, 2016
A very morally biased and distorted approach to character... The examples found in the book as mostly about glorifying self-deceptive traditional ideas about morality and character with no logical basis for them.
If you have a bit of skepticism in you, stay away from this book....
*gave it a chance of 213 pages yet, it didn't make any sense...
If you have a bit of skepticism in you, stay away from this book....
*gave it a chance of 213 pages yet, it didn't make any sense...
September 12, 2020
Focus on the deeper values that should govern our lives
In today’s world, it seems that every day someone a new self-help book is published, that will guarantee you to improve your life. The secret of … or the six steps to … it will probably be called, and the author is usually someone who was very succesful and now, finally, is ready to teach you his secret.
Well, the Road to character is not such a book. It is actually quite unpretentious and elegantly simple. Looking at the world’s greatest thinkers and inspiring leaders, Brooks explores how, through internal struggle and a sense of their own limitations, they have built a strong inner character. However, Brooks does not offer this as a recommendation on how to learn from these people, but rather as guidance to perfect your own path.
The central question of this book is how to not only do good but be good. It did remind me of The Second Mountain which I also highly liked, and in that regard it really stands out from all the other quick fix promising self-help crap (excuse my French) which is spewed out nowadays.
I am in my 40’s now. I have accepted my weaknesses, forgiven my failures and have reached inner peace with myself and the world around me. Now it is time to start giving back.
In today’s world, it seems that every day someone a new self-help book is published, that will guarantee you to improve your life. The secret of … or the six steps to … it will probably be called, and the author is usually someone who was very succesful and now, finally, is ready to teach you his secret.
Well, the Road to character is not such a book. It is actually quite unpretentious and elegantly simple. Looking at the world’s greatest thinkers and inspiring leaders, Brooks explores how, through internal struggle and a sense of their own limitations, they have built a strong inner character. However, Brooks does not offer this as a recommendation on how to learn from these people, but rather as guidance to perfect your own path.
The central question of this book is how to not only do good but be good. It did remind me of The Second Mountain which I also highly liked, and in that regard it really stands out from all the other quick fix promising self-help crap (excuse my French) which is spewed out nowadays.
I am in my 40’s now. I have accepted my weaknesses, forgiven my failures and have reached inner peace with myself and the world around me. Now it is time to start giving back.
July 31, 2015
Summary: David Brooks explores the issue of character development through the hard-won pursuit of moral virtue, exemplified in the moral quests of people as diverse as Augustine and Bayard Rustin, Frances Perkins and Dorothy Day.
I’ve long followed The New York Times op-ed pieces of David Brooks. Brooks often has seemed to me to be a quiet, reasoned voice speaking against the prevailing cultural winds. I wrote recently about the qualities of charity and cogency in public conversation and have long considered Brooks an exemplar of such qualities.
In The Road to Character, David Brooks seeks to initiate a conversation about moral ecology, particularly that of the United States. Brooks contends that there are two moral ecologies, one that emphasizes “resume” virtues, the other that emphasizes “eulogy” virtues, and that the resume virtue (or Adam I) moral ecology is prevalent in our moral landscape. It is a moral ecology that emphasizes “the Big Me” and focuses on skill and human potential. The other ecology (Adam II) understands human beings as “crooked timber” (a phrase drawn from Kant), and recognizes that we often fail to live up to our own ideals, and are not always fully aware of the drives and impulses that shape our moral actions, for good and for harm. This tradition emphasizes a moral awareness that results in humility, a striving toward moral excellence while acknowledge the reality that we fall short of the mark.
Brooks explores the “road to character” through brief sketches of a variety of individuals who he believe exemplify this “Adam II” quest. He explores the lives of a diverse cast of people from Frances Perkins, Roosevelt’s Labor Secretary, to the contrasting figures of A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin (the former one of iron moral discipline, the latter who struggled toward a moral life and commitment for much of his life). There are both the religious, such as Augustine, who recognized that our incorrigible fallenness could only be overcome by grace, and those who turned from religion, like George Eliot, and who strove in their own character for moral coherence. We have the outwardly sunny Dwight Eisenhower, who struggled with a volcanic temper, and the self-controlled George Marshall, whose sense of calling and greatness of vision meant often working in supporting roles and yet gave Europe the Marshall Plan, which he always spoke of as the European Recovery Plan.
The concluding chapter is a kind of summing up, contrasting the “Big Me” of our current moral ecology, with the “code of humility” of the crooked timber tradition. His statements in this section were for me worth the price of admission. One example:
“We are all ultimately saved by grace. The struggle against weakness often has a U shape. You are living your life and then you get knocked off course–either by an overwhelming love, or by failure, illness, loss of employment, or twist of fate. The shape is advance-retreat-advance. In retreat, you admit your need and surrender your crown. You open up space that others might fill. And grace floods in. It may come in the form of love from friends and family, in the assistance of an unexpected stranger, or from God. But the message is the same. You are accepted….” (p. 265).
It seems this is an especially important conversation in this age of “Trumpery” where glitz and appearance seem to count for more than character. What I appreciate in what Brooks does is he engages us in a public conversation that includes both people of faith and those who would not identify with any faith but care about the moral character of our lives and public life. His exemplars are drawn from all of these backgrounds, and all are those who have had moral struggles and some reached moral conclusions that not all would embrace (for example George Eliot, who co-habited in a relationship with a married man).
It seems to me that Brooks is serious about this conversation. Not only has he appeared in various public and online media as well as his regular op-eds, but also he has created a companion website (The Road to Character) to the book. For my readerly friends, it includes a library of resources. He speaks in his book, borrowing a phrase from Eugene Peterson, of “the long obedience in the same direction.” It is my hope that Brooks will persist in this work, and find many companions on the journey.
I’ve long followed The New York Times op-ed pieces of David Brooks. Brooks often has seemed to me to be a quiet, reasoned voice speaking against the prevailing cultural winds. I wrote recently about the qualities of charity and cogency in public conversation and have long considered Brooks an exemplar of such qualities.
In The Road to Character, David Brooks seeks to initiate a conversation about moral ecology, particularly that of the United States. Brooks contends that there are two moral ecologies, one that emphasizes “resume” virtues, the other that emphasizes “eulogy” virtues, and that the resume virtue (or Adam I) moral ecology is prevalent in our moral landscape. It is a moral ecology that emphasizes “the Big Me” and focuses on skill and human potential. The other ecology (Adam II) understands human beings as “crooked timber” (a phrase drawn from Kant), and recognizes that we often fail to live up to our own ideals, and are not always fully aware of the drives and impulses that shape our moral actions, for good and for harm. This tradition emphasizes a moral awareness that results in humility, a striving toward moral excellence while acknowledge the reality that we fall short of the mark.
Brooks explores the “road to character” through brief sketches of a variety of individuals who he believe exemplify this “Adam II” quest. He explores the lives of a diverse cast of people from Frances Perkins, Roosevelt’s Labor Secretary, to the contrasting figures of A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin (the former one of iron moral discipline, the latter who struggled toward a moral life and commitment for much of his life). There are both the religious, such as Augustine, who recognized that our incorrigible fallenness could only be overcome by grace, and those who turned from religion, like George Eliot, and who strove in their own character for moral coherence. We have the outwardly sunny Dwight Eisenhower, who struggled with a volcanic temper, and the self-controlled George Marshall, whose sense of calling and greatness of vision meant often working in supporting roles and yet gave Europe the Marshall Plan, which he always spoke of as the European Recovery Plan.
The concluding chapter is a kind of summing up, contrasting the “Big Me” of our current moral ecology, with the “code of humility” of the crooked timber tradition. His statements in this section were for me worth the price of admission. One example:
“We are all ultimately saved by grace. The struggle against weakness often has a U shape. You are living your life and then you get knocked off course–either by an overwhelming love, or by failure, illness, loss of employment, or twist of fate. The shape is advance-retreat-advance. In retreat, you admit your need and surrender your crown. You open up space that others might fill. And grace floods in. It may come in the form of love from friends and family, in the assistance of an unexpected stranger, or from God. But the message is the same. You are accepted….” (p. 265).
It seems this is an especially important conversation in this age of “Trumpery” where glitz and appearance seem to count for more than character. What I appreciate in what Brooks does is he engages us in a public conversation that includes both people of faith and those who would not identify with any faith but care about the moral character of our lives and public life. His exemplars are drawn from all of these backgrounds, and all are those who have had moral struggles and some reached moral conclusions that not all would embrace (for example George Eliot, who co-habited in a relationship with a married man).
It seems to me that Brooks is serious about this conversation. Not only has he appeared in various public and online media as well as his regular op-eds, but also he has created a companion website (The Road to Character) to the book. For my readerly friends, it includes a library of resources. He speaks in his book, borrowing a phrase from Eugene Peterson, of “the long obedience in the same direction.” It is my hope that Brooks will persist in this work, and find many companions on the journey.
October 20, 2015
Excellent book, borderline 5-stars. This is not a "self-help" book. It starts from the premise that our moral ecology has shifted since the end of the Second Wold War from the "little me" to the "Big Me," from self-sacrificing and self-disciplined to self-centered. It is a serious attempt to look at what traits and virtues comprise "character", and what instills those characteristics. These are the virtues and characteristics that I saw more of when I was growing up, and that I have long felt have been slipping away from us. I am extremely glad and feel somewhat validated that someone has finally taken on the subject in a book like this.
Brooks examines these characteristics by looking in depth at about nine people in history who have exemplified 'character' - Frances Perkins (social reformer and Sec. of Labor for Franklin Roosevelt); Dorothy Day (of Catholic Worker fame); Dwight Eisenhower (commander of Allied Forces in Europe, and former US President); Gen. George Marshall (Commander of US Forces in WWII and Sec. of State for the "Marshall Plan"); St. Augustine; civil rights leaders A. Phillip Randolph and Bayard Rustin; authors George Eliot and Samuel Johnson; and French essayist Montaigne. Brooks distills particular lessons from each of these people. And the brief descriptions/biographies of these exemplars made for delicious reading - more story-based narrative than logical analysis.
For those who may be skeptical about picking up a book by David Brooks because of his conservative politics, please don't let that stop you. I consider myself quite progressive. But I find Brooks a thoughtful, reasonable person, even if I don't agree with him on many (esp. economic) issues. (He remains a "moderate" conservative who hasn't gone over the cliff like the rest of the Republican Party.) Brooks doesn't bring politics into this book, and he looks at people across the political and religious spectrum. In fact, Brooks has taken an interest in more self-reflective, philosophical topics in recent years, as exhibited in The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement as well as this book.
Brooks examines these characteristics by looking in depth at about nine people in history who have exemplified 'character' - Frances Perkins (social reformer and Sec. of Labor for Franklin Roosevelt); Dorothy Day (of Catholic Worker fame); Dwight Eisenhower (commander of Allied Forces in Europe, and former US President); Gen. George Marshall (Commander of US Forces in WWII and Sec. of State for the "Marshall Plan"); St. Augustine; civil rights leaders A. Phillip Randolph and Bayard Rustin; authors George Eliot and Samuel Johnson; and French essayist Montaigne. Brooks distills particular lessons from each of these people. And the brief descriptions/biographies of these exemplars made for delicious reading - more story-based narrative than logical analysis.
For those who may be skeptical about picking up a book by David Brooks because of his conservative politics, please don't let that stop you. I consider myself quite progressive. But I find Brooks a thoughtful, reasonable person, even if I don't agree with him on many (esp. economic) issues. (He remains a "moderate" conservative who hasn't gone over the cliff like the rest of the Republican Party.) Brooks doesn't bring politics into this book, and he looks at people across the political and religious spectrum. In fact, Brooks has taken an interest in more self-reflective, philosophical topics in recent years, as exhibited in The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement as well as this book.
April 24, 2022
David Brooks is my favorite journalist of all time, coming out just ahead of Roger Ebert and Dave Barry. So it's difficult to do a critical reading of his books. As one of the token conservative columnists at the New York Times, Mr. Brooks has the unique challenge of writing to an audience that is largely dismissive of him. I admire the man's intellectual honesty but more importantly his attitude of epistemological modesty (the idea that we can't really know much). Too many people are just too sure that they're right and anyone in disagreement with them is not only wrong but fatally deficient in reasoning. Mr. Brooks is not so impressed with those who have replaced the morality/theology/philosophy of old times with their self-contradicting law of subsidized individualism. I'm of the belief that there are laws that are external and independent to man that, while not necessarily enforceable, are disobeyed at our peril. They are the unchanging morals and laws that shape us into characters capable of having a meaningful life. It's not a perfect book, but it's one of the best I have read in a long time. It joins the elite class of books that I want to order a case of so that I may send a copy to all my friends and family.
Those who do not share his political views or who do not agree with his overarching premise will likely find the entire book maddening. The book is unlikely to persuade anyone to change their minds on moral relativism versus absolutism, but those who do fall in his camp will find their understanding enriched.
Those who do not share his political views or who do not agree with his overarching premise will likely find the entire book maddening. The book is unlikely to persuade anyone to change their minds on moral relativism versus absolutism, but those who do fall in his camp will find their understanding enriched.
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