The book is about what Brooks coins “eulogy virtues, “ as opposed
to “résumé virtues.” Résumé virtues are those
qualities that we list on our résumés: skills that we bring to the job market that
contribute to our external success. Eulogy virtues, on the other hand, are
deeper. They’re the virtues that get talked about at a person’s funeral, those
qualities that exist at the core of our being—whether we are kind, brave,
honest or faithful; what kind of relationships we formed, and so forth. Brooks
continues, saying that “most of us would say that the eulogy virtues are more
important than the résumé virtues,” then suggests that our education system focuses
more on cultivating résumé virtues than
the eulogy virtues.
According to Brooks, we live in a society that encourages us to think about how to have
a great career but leaves many of us inarticulate about how to cultivate the
inner life. The competition to succeed and win admiration is so fierce that it
becomes all-consuming. The consumer
marketplace encourages us to live by a utilitarian calculus, to satisfy our
desires and lose sight of the moral stakes involved in everyday decisions. The
noise of fast and shallow communications makes it harder to hear the quieter
sounds that emanate from the depths.
We live in a culture that teaches us to
promote and advertise ourselves and to master the skills required for success,
but that gives little encouragement to humility, sympathy, and honest
self-confrontation, which are necessary for building character.
To give you a flavor of Brooks own writing, l close with a longer quote from the introduction to the book in which
the author eloquently describes the kind of person he has in mind when he
speaks of “character.”
“Occasionally, even today,
you come across certain people who seem
to possess an impressive inner cohesion. They are not leading fragmented,
scattershot lives. They have achieved inner integration. They are calm, settled,
and rooted. They are not blown off course by storms. They don’t crumble in
adversity. Their minds are consistent and their hearts are dependable. Their
virtues are not the blooming virtues you see in smart college students; they
are the ripening virtues you see in people who have lived a little and have
learned from joy and pain.
Sometimes you don’t even
notice these people, because while they seem kind and cheerful, they are also
reserved. They possess the self-effacing virtues of people who are inclined to
be useful but don’t need to prove anything to the world: humility, restraint,
reticence, temperance, respect, and soft self-discipline.
They radiate a sort of moral
joy. They answer softly when challenged harshly. They are silent when unfairly
abused. They are dignified when others try to humiliate them, restrained when
others try to provoke them. But they get things done. They perform acts of
sacrificial service with the same modest
everyday spirit they would display if they were just getting the
groceries. They are not thinking about what impressive work they are doing.
They are not thinking about themselves at all. They just seem delighted by the
flawed people around them. They just recognize what needs doing and they do it.
They make you feel funnier
and smarter when you speak with them. They move through different social
classes not even aware, it seems, that they are doing so. After you’ve known
them for a while it occurs to you that you’ve never heard them boast, you’ve
never seen them self-righteous or doggedly certain. They aren’t dropping little
hints of their own distinctiveness and accomplishments.
They have not led lives of
conflict-free tranquility, but have struggled toward maturity. They have gone
some way toward solving life’s essential problem, which is that, as Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn put it, ‘the line separating good and evil passes not through
states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either— but right
through every human heart.’
These are the people who have
built a strong inner character, who have
achieved a certain depth. In these people, at the end of this struggle, the
climb to success has surrendered to the struggle to deepen the soul. […] These
are the people we are looking for. “
