True happiness is built on a life of commitment, meaning and purpose, the writer David Brooks told an assembly at Manhattanville College on Feb. 16, and liberal arts colleges play a vital role in teaching young people how to cultivate these higher virtues.
Brooks, an op-ed columnist for The New York Times, discussed “The Road to Character,” his most recent book that explains how selflessness leads to a greater success.
He recounted a joyous moment on a perfect summer day when he watched his three children playing in their backyard. He felt overwhelmed with gratitude. He reflected on people he has met who radiate an inner light and seem deeply good. But he wondered, despite his career successes, whether he had achieved a worthy spirit.
“I wrote this book to save my own soul,” he has written. “I wrote it because I want to have moral adventures that will end up making me deeper and better” and to “help people better understand their own inner lives, their own moral adventures and their own roads to character.”
He described two sets of values that motivate people. The “résumé virtues” comprise the skills that lead to successful careers. They are built on external achievements. The “eulogy virtues” are those marks of character that are talked about at funerals ”“ courage, honesty, faithfulness and deep love.
People instinctively understand that eulogy virtues are more important than résumé virtues. But the world rewards career achievements more than deep character.
Brooks discovered that people with great inner character have identified their greatest sins and then struggled for their entire lives to overcome their sins. They make “amazing commitments,” built on strong relationships and unconditional love.
He cited the life of Dorothy Day, the 20th Century social activist. Day lived a dissolute life as a young woman: drinking, carousing and following her desires. But the birth of her daughter recentered her life on others. She made great commitments. She became a Catholic, started a radical newspaper, opened settlement houses for the poor and built strong communities.
The worst advice that students get, he said, is to follow their passions. They don”™t know what to be passionate about. Instead, he urged students to look outside of themselves to problems that need to be solved.
Liberal arts colleges like Manhattanville can guide them to that life by training their minds, bodies, souls and hearts.
“The job of colleges, especially the liberal arts, is to teach them how to love better.”
He described six great tasks.
- One, students should study great literature and art, to educate their emotions.
- Two, they should be exposed to the beauty of great people and ideas.
- Three, they should study “exemplars of excellence,” the heroic people who have lived lives of purpose and who hold themselves to higher standards.
- Four, they should learn how to see the world clearly, especially the moral truths that are lost in the messiness of the world.
- Five, they should learn the discipline of a craft.
- Six, they should participate in a community they care about.
By educating their hearts, he said, students can develop deep commitments and achieve the highest form of happiness.
As a New York Times columnist who writes about politics and culture, and as a commentator on “PBS NewsHour,” NPR”™s “All Things Considered,” and NBC”™s “Meet the Press,” it was inevitable that he would be asked to comment on politics and the 2016 primary season during the question and answer period.
Brooks describes himself as a former liberal who came to his senses and became a conservative. But his is a conservatism that does not automatically support Republican candidates or dogma. He sees himself as part of the longstanding conservative tradition of 18th century Irish political theorist Edmund Burke and Alexander Hamilton.
Thus, his columns sometimes delight liberals, as in a recent piece in which he said he misses Barack Obama in the 2016 primary season. Though he disagrees with a lot of the president”™s policy decisions, he admires Obama”™s integrity, humanity, sound decision-making, grace under pressure and resilient optimism.
Donald Trump, he said, is an amazing performer who has brought the ethics of professional wrestling to politics. He”™s all about “macho aggression.”
He said members of Congress are much better people in private than in public, but they are unable to compromise because the political system won”™t let them keep their positions if they do so. Yet, a commitment to public life is still the surest way to get big things done.
Brook”™s talk was the first in this season”™s Castle Conversations at Manhattanville. The program features top journalists, scientists, historians, artists and business entrepreneurs.
Also scheduled to speak this year are Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, April 5; Twyla Tharp, winner of a Tony and two Emmy awards for her choreography with her dance company, Sept. 20; and Danny Meyer, head of Union Square Hospitality Group, which has won 25 James Beard Awards for its restaurants and chefs, Nov. 29.
Individual talks cost $75, and more information about tickets can be found at CastleConversations.org.
