Transcripts For CSPAN2 David Brooks On The Road To Character 20240621

And thats a look at some of the current nonfiction bestsellers according to the Chicago Tribune. New york times columnist david brooks is next on on booktv. You look so where are character comes from and how it is shaped. He argues and our modern culture we live either for our resume for our social connections. David needs no introduction he will get one anyway. David serves as an oped columnist for the New York Times which is done for over a dozen years producing two columns every week as well as a commentator on pbs news hour nprs all things considered, and nbcs meet the press. He praises serve as a Police Reporter for the City News Bureau which is a wire service joined only by the Chicago Tribune and suntimes, writer for the Washington Times and a book review editor, reporter and occasional movie critic and later oped editor at the wall street journal. He answered as a Senior Editor of the Weekly Standard as well as contributing editor for the atlantic and newsweek. A best selling author brooks books includes bubbles in paradise, on paradise drive, and his third book the social animal to hidden sources of love character and achievement. Beginning of the times number one. And, of course, the work he is discussing tonight is already number one on the amazon hardcover bestseller. In addition to all of this [applause] david teaches at Yale University and the daemon of the American Academy of arts and sciences. Responding to david tonight is Michael Gerson National Syndicated columnist who appears twice weekly in the Washington Post and author of heroic conservativism as well as coauthor with pete weiner of the city of men, religion and politics in a new era. In addition he serves as a Senior Advisor at one a bipartisan or physician dedicated to the fight against extreme poverty and reasonable diseases as well as a has to develop at the center for economics, government and Public Policy at wheaton. He served as a senior fellow at the council on Foreign Relations and is a Senior Editor at the work report as well as a top aide to president george w. Bush both for policy and strategic planning, and as chief speechwriter. At the conclusion of david remarks mike will raise provide response and then look at the itunes questions. David, welcome. [applause] thank you cherie. About 10 years ago i was driving home from work, newshour and it was a summer afternoon or evening about 7 00. I pulled my house in bethesda and when a driver that went around to the side and i pulled in and i could see the backyard. My kids who within 12, nine and five, had gotten hold of a ball cheap brown balls and theyre taking it up in the air and they were chasing across the yard and they were laughing and giggling. And the ball was worked into the air and the sun was coming down through the trees and the grass that was strangely green for my yard last night so i pulled into the driveway. I saw them rolling on top of each other after a day of work in unexpected or an unexpected beautiful site. I stared at him for a few minutes. It was one of those moments when life and time are suspended and when reality spills outside its bounds and you just get a sense of feeling overwhelmed regret. What did i do to deserve this . And he feels it seemed by a duty you havent earned. And that sense of getting subsumed by beauty you havent earned creates a strange desire, a strange story. It give you a glimpse of a higher choice than you ever get in work and then it exposes something deep inside you and you want to be worthy of what you have been given. And so we all know the word to that undeserved gift. And you can get it around different people. I had at that moment looking at my kids, i remember seeing people that have an inner light. I was at the American Enterprise Institute Last summer and happen to be seated next to the body llama the dalai lama at lunch. He last unusual moments until he just starts laughing and you want to be polite so you laugh back. [laughter] you do the laughing and feel comfortable with the guy, and i asked him i said you have any candy in there . People dont stuff it back and basically everything you get in the first class cabin of an airliner. Little air plugs a blindfold, a little razor and chocolate bar. When you run someone like that with an inner like you want to feel worthy of him because there is joy there. I was in Frederick Maryland with my friend charlesworth about a year ago and iran i ray mabus and women who helped immigrants learn to read. It can take years to do this process. And when i walked into the room about 30 women aged 5080 he felt the weight of goodness coming off the glow of loving care musical voices that make you feel valued and important. And again a sense of just lightness and in her life. You want if you worthy of that. If you have the career success ive had you think i did okay but what do i dont have. I dont have that. You want to be worthy of that. And when they come to the trinity forum, i experience a different sort of undeserved love. You so may friends in this room who have not only exemplified certain ways of being in the world but who have actively come and help me in times of need come in times of vulnerability. Cherie who leads the organization Michael Peter come for the support and counsel, stewart hosted me in their home april and christie younger in years, wiser and age. Jenny, i see barb over there. And soliciting a bit of a coming home but also a bit appealing to these people have helped me more than i deserve. And when youre surrounded by that if you like you want to live up to it. And the book is really a product of five years of the kind of searching. And the book starts with this distinction which cherie mission between the resin and virtues. Whether we are brave, shine, courageous kind of relationship ago, when we were capable of deep love. Well know the eulogy virtues are more important especially in washington come sometimes we place more emphasis on the resin and were clear about how to direct rhythm in our how to deserve a good eulogy. It was certainly true of me. And a book that i think about was a book written in 1965 called the lonely man of faith. You look at genesis and our two accounts at genesis which stand for the two sides of our nature. Which he called adam one and it into. Adamonis basically the resin at them, the outward and wants to go and pretend to think there adam two want to embody certain moral called it strong inner charitable come have a solid sense of right and wrong dont do good by to be good. Adam one wants to conquer the world, adam two wants to of its calling. Adamonis asked how things subsist. Adam two s. Why things exist in with ultimate we are here for than 100 so his point is these sometimes live in confrontation with each other. We do live in a culture that supports adam one and sometimes ignores adam two. I would add in the people condition understand that adam one and adam two operate by different logic. Adam one operated by an economic logic which is straightforward. Leads to reward. Adam two list by inverse logic more logic and not an economic one and it is filled with conversion certificate received, surrender some at such as updating strength within yourself conquer desired success can lead to the greatest failure. That it can lead success which is humility in learning. To fulfill yourself if you forget yourself. In order to find yourself yet to lose yourself. His point is just to balance these two things. We live in a culture where it is so competitive, where the noise of mutation, silence is drowned out, still a silent voice inside. The meritocracy want you to be big budgets off, promote yourself, getting the next opportunity. Social media want you to be broadcasting itself to create a highlight reel i thought. With a philosophy that is prominent today that theres a golden egg inside where we are good and we need to trust that golden figure. So the Commencement Speakers say trust yourself, follow your compassion spirit to separate it all the time. In 1950, the Gallup Organization had a poll question about your students, are you a very important person . 12 said yes, im a very important person. It asked the same question can in 2005 and it wasnt 12 . It was 80 who said that. Everything called narcissus. Thats what ask people to read a bunch of statements, this is a blog you . Statements like id like to be said of attention. I find it easy to make a people because of so extraordinary. [laughter] in a meeting narcissism scores of current 30 in the last 20 years. Along with that has gone up increased desire for fame. High School Students were asked would you rather be or Junior High School sons were asked which of the day celebrities personal assistant, Justin Biebers president and personal assistant or president of harvard. By three to one they would want to be Justin Biebers assistant. To be fair, i would rather be president of harvard and Justin Biebers assistant. [laughter] coalition for as wouldve i believe a life with a lot thing or a lot of sex. By to the one they chose a life of fame. Psycho to College Campus and say im a columnist in your times im kind of famous. Go with the sex, its better. [laughter] [applause] but if you are only adam one, you turn into a shrewd animal. If thats all you have you like the quality of inner depth, you are not able to speak well. Deliver the a border and not attached to things that are most important in life. Thats been true in times of my life that you receive the gift of what life is going to offer but you settle for mediocrity courageous of unforgiving curve for people like me, im not hurting anybody, but a core piece of itself is turning into a less than you originally hoped. A gap opens up between your actual self and your desired self. So i spent four years trying to figure out that in her life, sense of being unworthy of the gift one has received. Howd you get that lex had to become a little more worthy . And itll can only get you so much. Reading and writing a book cant get you there but it can hopefully provide with it. I got an email from a guy who is a veterinarian who reminded me of the fact that it is also much you can teach inward. He wrote what a wise person teaches is the smallest part of what they give. So to those of their life, the way to go about it into smaller details is what is transmitted. Never forget that the message is the person. Perfected over lifetimes of efforts that were set in motion by yet another wise person hidden from the recipient in the dimness of time. Life is much bigger than we we think. Causeandeffect intertwined in a vast moral structure that keeps pushing us to do better, become better, even when we dwell in the most painful and confused darkness. The message that the person was the least of that which he gives. So i was looking for people. I was looking for friends. I was looking for dead friends who have left us a legacy of their lives to serve as examples of how to be better. One of his friends was a woman named Ida Eisenhower pictures born in 1862 in shenandoah virginia. Her mom died when she was five. Her father died when she was 11. She became an indentured servant, and when failure was out one day she just put. She comes up in high school got into a caravan trade to kansas got herself university, married a guy named david eyes out and gave birth to six sons one of whom was named Dwight Eisenhower. When Dwight Eisenhower was nine he wanted to go trickortreating. She said you were too young. Dwight eisenhower had a temper tantrum right there on the front yard and punched the yard and punched the tree and he punched its about he rubbed all the skin off his knuckles. She said into his room, had him inquired for an hour and came up to bind his went every saturday first. Ego congress own cell is greater than he who takes the city. Many decades later i saw said that was the most important conversation of his life because it taught him that he had a weakness to himself that he needed to be. He was a man of anger and test justice, ma he addressed his own sin indicated his own sin over the course of his life. During world war ii he would lie awake but he said i cannot let temper beat me and he developed a whole series of strategies to defeat this sin. Some of them were stupid. He would take people he hated ripening on a piece of paper over and over again rip it up and throw it in a garbage can. Thomas merton wrote that sold like athletes. They need opponents worthy of a method to be tried and extended and pushed to the limits of their power. What ida and white teachers is important for locating your course income identifying the activities to which it leads to things which were ashamed of and defending and beating an understanding first that you do have a course but thats a different i acquired i had longer before samuel johnson, he was will bore in 1709. He was born in england. Barely survived his birth. He was handed over to a wetnurse is no infected him with tuberculosis leaving him blind in one eye and deaf in one day. Develop smallpox. They perform search on his job which left scars on his face. He developed but we think its tourettes syndrome and lcv. He was twisting and what about any field assisted, felt as a teacher. His life at age 30 is what he said and what he called radically wretched. Suicide attempts. It was a very unsuccessful life. And out of that suffering but he turned that something into something. The first thing something does and should be said theres nothing intrinsically noble about suffering, but as a drag to keep her into yourself commit direction beneath the the daily cares of life and reminds you youre who you thought you were. What something does is i basement of your cell and then carved through the floor we get a cavity below revealing a cavity below. What something greater in johnson was a radical self honesty. And we think of you know the as thinking only of himself but my favorite definition of humility is radical selfawareness from a position of other centeredness. Radical selfawareness. And johnson achieve that. He walked to lunch and he started writing. This is what it does. He wrote his way to goodness. He developed a Firm Understanding of the world just by taking each of these weaknesses and writing about them. He couldnt control his own body but he needed to control his own mind by anchoring it in the reality of the truth. And so he wrote about sloth envy. He had a radical curiosity if someone told him there was a river in october people were to jump right into the river to see what it was like the somebody told him if he stuck to balls and a musket and shoot it will explode, so he stuck seven balls and shove it against the wall. Is the subject of his essays were the things that plague him sloth, envy guilt boredom sorrow, and he grabbed the impeachment hand and over the course of that as one blogger wrote the eye and entered his cell. He created an amazing worth it work ethic. He would write for friends, a friend of his was given a lectureship of oxford. His friend knew no law, so johnson said i would write the lectures for you. He wrote 1600 pages of text for free for his friends. Between 6872 he wrote the lives of the poet duty to blog this containing 370,000 words. This hunger to express. He had a great social club edmund burke come at us that but it also had his home, kept them straight. People that know what else ago former prostitutes slaves a doctor with no money, 13 People Living with him at a time. There was a large in us to him generosity of spirit. When he died one of his colleagues wrote come he has made a chasm which not only nothing can fill up but which nothing has a tendency to fill a. Johnson is dead. Let this go with the next best. There is nobody, no man can be said to be quicker of mind and johnson. So from johnson we learned how to turn suffering into self understanding and the importance of radical curiosity and the intellectual effort and the way of intellectual effort rule 22 moral goodness. The third friend i met with a woman in dorothy day. Dorothy day is admitting it was the sort of person you can just read the novel. She inhabited the novel and became like the characters of the novel. And unfortunate she read a lot of [laughter] and so she took to drinking carousing, live in living in poverty, sleeping around, a couple of of abortions, one that uses itunes, a very disorganized life. She was arrested, wrongfully arrested but she took it as an indictment, as a judgment on her own disorganized life. Amazing capacity for selfcriticism. She couldnt get out of it. She had a child out of wedlock and she decided that all the accounts of childbirth should of read were written by men. So she decided she would write wonder she wrote one, 40 minutes after giving birth and is very dramatic that it climaxes with a beautiful scene. She wrote, if i had written the greatest book composed the greatest symphony, painted the most pitiful painted or carved the most exquisite figure i could not have felt the more exalted greater than when they placed my job and my arms. No creature can contain the best of all as i thought after the birth of my child. And with this came the need to worship and to adore. And again unmerited love. That worship adoration, my friend says when you love, love is always in motion. It went to a job administered upward. She formed a catholic worker. She formed communes homeless shelters not only serving the poor but living with the poor and embracing poverty. It was the love that bled out into the community. Her example teaches us that valley of selfcriticism and also the valley of love and the service of the community. And so these are all some of the friends that you learn from. The fourth one i would think is a great novelist george eliot. Like the others she had a very bad childhood. She was the sort of christian who didnt get much love from her mother and therefore, she was emotionally needy. She fell in love with every guy she encountered, married or not. Available or not. 70 years old 15 years old. She just needed law. She fell in love eventually with a guy named Herbert Spencer with her intellectual equal, and in 19 1852 at age 32 she wrote him a letter which was a bit of a turning point. The letter, the pathetic level she is begging him to greater. Dont worry you wont notice me, i wont be a round. [laughter] but again she finishes with a flourish. She says i suppose no woman ever before wrote such a letter as this. I am not ashamed, for i am conscious in the light of reason and truth i meant that im worthy of your respect and tenderness whatever grossman and vulgar minded women may think of me. Worthy of respect. There comes a certain point in peoples lives where people develop them dont need information from outside or criticism, they develop an internal pointer of right or wrong and she achieved a. What you might call an agency moment. She didnt work out with spencer but she met a guy named george who is also a writer who was legally married to his wife was living with another man having three children with another man. She fell in love, but in the Victorian Era there was no divorce possible. If she had gone within should be labeled an adulterous and should lose all her friends. She decided am i going to face social ostracism or will i go with them . For about a week she wrote i had counted the cost of the step i take it and i prepared to bear without irritation or bitterness, renunciation but all my friends. I am not mistaken and the person doing ive attached myself for worthy of the sacrifice that occurred. My own insight is he should be rightly judged. And so what eliot teaches us is the power of love to improve us morally. First it homeless. It reminds us were not in control of our own mind. Love is an invading army that we want to be conquered by. Second thing, opens those soft parts of our character. Third, it the centers itself, reminds us of riches are not in itself but in others. Forth, it eliminates the decision in giving and receiving. Fifth, it makes us poetic and as the idealistic early romanticized love, the kind that taylor swift sings about. [laughter] elliott advantage of which michael a second law. The second of is the kind of older people whove been scarred by life enmeshed in responsibility and his love is not as poetic, its more realistic and more local. Its about knowing your own weaknesses and knowing your partners weaknesses. My friend describe this kind of love and awaiting those. The second love he wrote is private and it is particular its objective the specificity of this man and a woman. The distinctiveness of this spirit and flesh. This love prefers deep to wide from here today. The grasp to the reach. When the day is done the lights are out, theres only this other hard, this undermined this other face to assist in repelling or greeting once angels but it doesnt matter who the president is. When one can sense to marry one can sense to be truly known which is an ominous prospect. And so the ordinariness of depression and to call forth the forgiveness that will be required. Marriages our exposures we may be euros to our spouses but we may not be idols. A very beautiful passage. They Stay Together for years. He suggested to eliot that she write fiction, maybe she would be good at it. She comes back weeks later with a short, short and he starts crying. He realizes her talent. In some way his love is secure. He subsumes his life to her security. He becomes are aging, her publicist, editor, or counselor. She is sensitive to criticism like all of us so he puts out a newspaper article that mentioned her. And so in that when the becomes immoral location. So these are some of the things that lead to depth of character some activities that lead to depth of character. And to get them you to step outside the culture that says the culture of the big me that celebrates itself to you to in a brace and alternative culture, culture that many of us are familiar with. That says one Company Deliver happiness, we are endowed with moral imagination to we live for for holiness and goodness. We are willing to struggle it would do. We are divided creatures equally broken and splendidly endowed. The struggle against our own weakness of sin is the central drama of life, not the external struggle for success. In this struggle humility is the greatest virtue. In this struggle pride is a device. It blind you to your own weakness. Character is built over confrontation with her so. No person can achieve selfmastery on their own. Would all require assistance from outside from friends, family institutions sent from god in the in the course of his book iq and thinking they care to was this fine figure of selfdiscipline like the victorian view, but then i realized nobody can do it outside they character should the strength of your commitment to things outside. A person of character has a set of glossy a fundamental things is enmeshed in unconditional love and is committed to task that can be completed in a lifetime. And so these friends are good friends, any kind of like the people on the wall a company or standards or inspiration, and does i say writing the book doesnt make it better, but the du a model. The reward is what i saw in those ladies in frederick moment of tranquility and joy. Adam one is never tired. He never stops. Theres always another ambition. But adam two does expect moments of tranquility and joy. I mentioned dorothy day. One of my favorite examples, she was one who struggle and so forth suffer a lot maybe too much. At the end of her lectures asked by a harvard sociologist it should ever thought about writing a memoir. And she said i sat down one day new the end of my lifetime to wrote on a piece of paper a life remembered. And i thought of how to describe a life and i thought back over the key moments of my life. And then she said and i thought my wife, my moments, and i thought of the lord and his visits to us those many centuries ago, and i was just grateful to have had him on my mind all that time. And that feeling of gratitude in peace when adam one lays down before adam two. To find a friend of the mentioned come the greatest of them which is augustine, born in nigeria in 354. He had a mom most of you know named monica who was the helicopter mom to be all helicopter moms. [laughter] she had a devouring love for her son. She wanted to control whom he married in what kind of christian he was, where he lived, when he left to go to italy she screamed at the boat as it was sending away. She snuck back, found him how can. She excommunicated him rocking back. She was all over him. At this point he became the kind of christian he won and the kind of man she wanted. They were heading back to africa and she said to him, in all my life, she was at 56 i want you to be a certain sort of an sort of christian come and you are there. She eventually said my life is more or less done. I thought i wanted to do in africa. And so they had a conversation with augustine described in the garden. He writes that after all the conflict, all those years he writes that they experienced quote that there is highest delight of the earthly senses and pictures mature of life with respect to the sweetness of that life. They did by degrees pass to all things bottled even the very happen when sun and moon shone upon the earth. He has a long since thats hard to parse. Ive read many times and cant understand what it is. He has that were replicated citizens. And that word is hushed. He said the sounds of the birds were hushed the sounds of the trees was hushed. The sound of her voice was hushed. The sound of a hearts was hushed, and you get the sense of silence. In peace and tranquility. That is something we are all looking for and thats the reward at the end of the road to death. And so i introduce you to these friends, and i guarantee you just doing the book isnt enough. Just writing it, just reading it doesnt make you better. But it does point it out and it points to adapt to each other by way of summary together forward together, going home at night what am i cheap sense, how do they do today who cannot rely on, who can i trust . Ultimately the guys around myself with who loves me more than i deserve . So thanks very much. [applause] in the road to character, david brooks wonders if the life of achievement has resulted in human excellence worries about turning into something less impressive than he hoped, muses on the eulogy virtues and right he says to save us all. A technical literary term for this is a midlife crisis. [laughter] most of us just bought a convertible. David davis produced a book that could be an important cultural turning point, a book that seems not just the composition but a culmination, something important. A work of this ridge defies easy summary. Part of the book is an exercise in cultural criticism expressed for the greater choice of biographical examples. David prefers what he calls heroes of renunciation, a Diverse Group consisting of men and women minorities and whites, gave people and straight, aristocratic and bluecollar, generally shaped by tragedy and driven to make unsparing demands on themselves. They stand in contrast to ascend in forms of self trust selflove, selfexpression selfesteem and self actualization. The choice is clear. I have said before you tonight is a name is. Therefore, choose united that you and your descendents may live. Or maybe its not quite so clear. As david recognizes american character is a composite and alloy of moral realism and moral romanticism. Eisenhower is a National Type but solar dynamic are there. Even jodie mudd jail after all married Marilyn Monroe joe dimaggio. The fans of careerism consumerism and woodstock expressiveness at the expense of the inner struggle and the inner life. For literary achievement of the road to character is inseparable from the virtues of its author. As the reader do not only want to know about Frances Perkins or st. Augustine. You want to know what david makes a Frances Perkins or st. Augustine. The voice of the book is so calm and fair and humane. The highlights of material is the quality of the authors more and spiritual judgment. Across the pages david is such a reliable guide, such a pleasant companion. And the book is rich in memorable epigram. Egotism is the ravenous hunger in a small space. Humility is the awareness that you are the underdog in the struggle against your own weakness to send augustine it turns out was historys most High Maintenance boyfriend. My copy of the book is maniacally underlined, starred and dogeared out of admiration and envy. While containing cultural criticism the road to character cant be reduced to a precisely as david doesnt take our communal struggles into private. Like frederick dignity finds the greatest drama in her sacred journeys, thus aiding and losing of souls, including our own. This demands the return to the moral vocabulary of the previous era, still have remembered and powerful, a consciousness of sin, a real determination to reach holiness, a recognition that we are most spiritually free when we are bound any calling. Its amazing how dangerous and countercultural it is to say these words aloud. David this is the perfect modern translator of these ideas because he is constitutionally incapable of finger wagging. Is this a call to a cheerful tolerant, shared struggle with sin. Thomas the campus said be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be said you cannot make yourself as you wish to be. Humility is the beginning of holiness and the destination as well. David describes a type of spiritual maturity that ive occasionally glimpsed sometimes in an african village sometimes in an urban ministry, sometimes in a classroom or apu. These examples though very different have a similar feel a graciousness, a steadiness, gentleness, a concentrated sense of purpose, the stillness otherwise trust. To be honest these portions of davids book were not pleasant for me to read. His description of maturity, at the Center Ground in life sometimes make the book feel hot in my hand. It was difficult to fairly review something so convicting. There is a very real of this that lives in middle age. When your alarm clock sounds more like a crowing three times come when you look in the mirror and prufrock stares back. There can be so much anxiety and dryness crazy and clutching pessimism and pride combat thats just and finally buying a gym membership. [laughter] put another way, if the davids 15 points you know decode for a bus the quiz i wouldve abandoned it before completion fearing that my score, fearing what my score would be the aspect that many of us would. If the book had stopped there i would have secretly hated it. Like a cancer patient hates a cat scan, too much accuracy too much resolution. But im grateful that the book did not stop there. We are ultimately saved by grace, it may come in the form of love from friends and family and the assistance of an unexpected stranger, or from god, but the message is the same. You are excepted. You dont flail about in desperation because hands are holding you up. You dont have to struggle for a place because you are embraced and accepted. David makes this point in a nonstick carrying, even nonreligious manner to keep is always careful always courteous to these people the space to find their own way. This is not a viewpoint that comes out of the Classical Tradition or out of the touring around the. It is an inherently theological contention, a rescue that originates from the outside. The scales of the universe in the end come down decisively on the side of love. We experience it, not like the argument in the book but like a smile on a beloved face. Instead of finding, we are found. Perhaps the most amazing thing about grace is that all our sins and our failures, our losses and our mediocrity corner of the preface to a story that can begin even in middle age even at any age. Grace, according to simon doug well, means that whatever we have got to, what have we done that is precisely what the road to heaven begins. However, many wrong turns we taken, however unnecessary we may have complicated our journey, the road still beckons and the lord still waits to be gracious to us. By carrying a part of this hope, david spoke is a means of grief. Let me close with one observation. David is a vulnerable presence in the book which allows us to the vulnerable readers. He would never in a million years elevate himself as one of the models of humility and inner struggle. He praises but he is to me. Ive gotten to know david over the years first as an admirer and as an occasional dinner companion. He is an example of humane wisdom. He wears great learning lightly. He is an extraordinary talent for friendship. And one reason this book will be so influential it because he is so admirable. It is always the writers duty to make the world a better. David would achieve that goal without writing a word. But im grateful that he is produced the road to character. Thank you. [applause] weve come to the conversation part of her evening conversation where david and mike will take questions from the audience. That are just three roles to question then. Brief, the civil and of course, ask a question in the form of a question last night on [laughter] on both sides of the other would be people with mics. Questions from the audience . David, the christian apologist cs lewis is quoted in a book said that those who seriously and consciously seek joy whenever failed to miss it. Would you does if it resonates with you in relation to the journey youre on . I guess the distinction to be made is between happiness and joy. So we have a culture organized around happiness more or less and it is usually defined in the social Science Literature by how youre feeling right now. If you call the are you happy are you in a good mood . It has produced valuable teachings, that literature. The first is that money doesnt correlate with helping us. It levels off the second is age correlates of a tapestry people are pretty happy in their 20s and then happiness begins to drift down and it bottoms out at age 47. [laughter] which is called having teenage children. [laughter] and then it rises up in the 60s. Peoples at these years are the 10 years after retirement. And so i think thats useful to know, but ive never actually anybody who live for happiness are almost never. I shouldnt say that. I was in vegas over the weekend so i have met a lot of people. [laughter] but most people want struggle and they want used in a religious term for they want to cover life is significant and are is significant and it went to a lot of struggle for that. Now, lewis definition of joy is a very paradoxical one and constructive. Its not always the crimson and the trumpets. His definition of joy is about i dont know micah was a better, people in this room know better but its not since the searching, what dorothy day used bonus for her was not only solitude. It was searching, spiritual ambition. Most of us are happiest i think when we send we are in the trenches and went to struggle, willing to endure unhappiness to feel that sense of fulfilled, feeling a surrounded. Ideal michael ive done him justice. Lewis also talk to being surprised by joy. His autobiography. Maybe not something you can seek but it comes in other pursuits. One thing about the Spiritual Life that has always impressed me with people i respect in this way is the singlemindedness of it. We talked about the pursuit of joy, the pursuit of god the pursuit of holiness. The courage to will one thing, the perseverance to will one thing. That i think is another characteristic, you know just to focus. Other questions . In the back. So this is a political down and you were both political thinkers, and i want to explore how the book and or philosophy of the book can make up address what a lot of us in this town, probably in addition, think is a pretty broken political system, a divided society, wealth rested redistribution for the last 30 years red blue all this stuff, poverty rates. All the things that we hear about in the Public Discourse and maybe thats not what your book is about at all but you think about politics all the time to tuck into thinking youve espoused in your book help us recentered refrain come get us back to politics and governance that will allow the country to move forward more purposefully and so forth . I keep a list of five numbers, five people in washington who i think example by the highest of virtues and to renew faith in washington. People like Anthony Weiner [laughter] i guess a couple of things leap to mind. First is i would defend the space thats nonpolitical. Johnson, im going to mangle this but he had a couple of all the things in our center, how true are the those the kings can sure put a lot of our lives friendship and community, its more foundational than politics. Nonetheless i do think the shift in culture is effective politics in two ways. First as would be i think a more proud culture hud hud said we shouldnt is hud said we should have decent nostalgic it did not want to go back to the 40s and 50s. We were a more racist culture, sex is culture. Fathers were mostly cold to their children if they did know how to express emotion. The food was awful. [laughter] but in this one way i do think the coach was healthier in a smaller sense of self. People were not bragging about their colleges on their window stickers in the back of the car what vacation destination they were too. That wouldve been considered getting too big for your britches. I do think a couple things benefit from that. If you have a large sense of self that you can control the truth and that they would disagree or just in the way. If you think most politics of the competition, you a more humble about disagreement. Because you realized your opponent as a piece of the truth yourself anything the rise of egotism continues to polarization the it does contribute to an inarticulateness about moral thing to do these things called google in grams or you can track what words are in usage across magazines, newspapers and books. The number of economic words have gone. The use of moral words has gone down. The last 30 years words like kindness humbleness honor, bravery are down 55 . We are just less articulate. I think its had an effect on the Public Square. The final thing to be said is character of the politicians. We all are in this is that have care for challenges the we are pundits. We broadcast ourselves all the time. Its hard to get out of it unscathed, but politicians are the own profit. We have a couple into. Jim cooper is your summer. I dont seem but some i really admire and has great intellectual honesty. Every meeting is about themselves. Everything is about themselves the i needed somebody in the obama administration, and and he was going on the president of the felt logical on helicopter, whatever law that is, and the guy interrupted the if you just extent of the window and see the president s back as he went into the helicopter. He was so much in love he just wanted to see his back. Can you imagine being surrounded by that ill take what what i find this most challenging is the lack of, what gets quoted is an internal voice which says the truth, he of extra voice which has yet to see for the party but then you have an internal honesty. Abraham lincoln had an aide named john hay who wrote director and war and his writing press releases about the war it said were going great. General meese is a hero, a genius. In his diary, we are losing. General made this such an idiot. [laughter] but you have an internal voice that gets swept away these are all extra and i think thats a jihad after challenge that our politicians face. The are two forms of commitment that you should look for in the book. Theres cumulative, if im describing a correctly, that is based on soon. The democratic nature of sin. We struggle with the together. We struggle within community. It makes it impossible to have a sense of superiority but you also talking about about humility based on limitations, on epistemological humility. Based on what we can know. And a predisposition to i think you say make mistakes slowly. So i think that humility does have social and political consequences the these things are not contained in the private realm, and they remain i think any kind of conservative direction, a burkean the direction, towards the politics of repair rather than the politics of dysfunction and recreation. Anyway, those i think are some interesting things in the book when it comes to the public implications. In the back. I would be interested in both theirof your perspectives on what i suspect you believe is the unwarranted rise of narcissism. What do you think has really triggered this . Newspaper columnists. [laughter] we are a humble breed. You know in my view, the are some things that triggered some of the more legitimate by the way. In the 19, up until the 1950s and 60s and 70s large members of the population have been taught to think too little of themselves. The minorities of women to try to be derisive selfesteem. In the book i summarize a beautiful book by Katherine Graham and shes a person early in life have been taught to think nothing of itself and only during the course of hardship to chill or her. But to me the big thing i thought of all the 60s and american conservatism were told to blame everything on the 60s but to me the shift happened in the 1940s. Basically, the country has been through depression, the war, 16 years of repression, restraint. And they just said the heck with it. Were going to let loose. So consumers chaddock of advertising shut up a madman era. But the big ship was they had seen world war ii and the horse and they said were going to turn the page on human nature. And they want to do away with sin. So there was a book by rabbi Joshua Liebman dykema said im going to write a new 10 commandments. Thou shalt love thy self doused shalt honor the suffering of the number one bestseller list this 56 weeks. Another book came out called the mature mind, same thing. On the best sellers list for 28 weeks. After sparking a debate in an acidic a child steal something, give him what he stole and tell them they can get what he wants he can trust his desires but it just has to ask for it. Thats an upbeat view of human nature. And then the power of positive thinking comes out a guy named karl rogers comes out with humanistic psychology. You a really good insight everything that is outside. There was a philosophical shift that happened and it wasnt the boomers and it wasnt woodstock. It was the greatest generation. [laughter] spent anything to add . No. Right back here. Why dont you go ahead and stand up . David, so so much of what you write about is steeped in the judeochristian tradition. Were there times in this journey where you dont actually like the judeochristian tradition didnt have the framework that you needed to articulate what you were seeing, feeling thinking . You have to understand, i was raised in a certain sort of household, my parents were academics. I knew i want to be a writer at age seven. Some the jokes i tell in high school, i wanted to take this girl named bernice. She didnt want to date me. And i was thinking what is she thinking . I write way better than that guy. [laughter] so i missed the end that comment in the admissions director at brown and columbia and wesley decided i should go to the university of chicago. [laughter] i was mentioning to somebody the crudest thing about chicago its more fun than to die. So when i got there, so the old refugees of world war ii were still there. German professors and the first two years were great books. And windows professors saw us and encroached us with those books, they said these books have a key to the truth. Aristotle, hobbes, the bible shakespeare. This is the magic key. I do know if anybody communicates that the students but it was communicated to me in the first two years, were so powerful. So there ideas and for that is the biblical metaphysical. With religion Abraham Lincoln had come he grew up with the King James Bible and had the vocabulary of it. So thats what i know and thats what i believe and. And so everything i know its within a tradition to i just dont know asian traditions. I dont know buddhism. If there are limits to that tradition, questions that cant be answered within it, im not aware of them. Its interesting that the sources of the tradition of countercultural now. Interesting to see whether to merge, whether its Christian Education has an Important Role in this. How parents inculcate this, what sources of input they have to engage in a countercultural message. I had a different Academic Experience going from Wheaton College. The joke there was the administration having premarital sex because it might lead to dancing. [laughter] i found it to be, i said theology at Wheaton College and it was a decision my parents didnt really understand as far as the economics of studying theology in college but it was a place to get some things settled. The Children School in chicago christian is a celibate school, no but voluntarily you are depending on the conviction. I am going off the rail. But there was an ernest about the place and not all schools celebrate that. And having those two years, especially the first two you can always tell a wheaten or chicago grad. There are a lot of schools that leave a mark and i can pick the people out. Right here. Why dont you stand up. Wait for the mike. Your message is a little driven by the age. It would be receptive to the crowd i see around here. 50yearold, 40yearold people. Okay. 70yearold people. Whatever. How would you see that reflected in young people . Do you get a receptive message . If they did receive it and all of the young congressmen received it how do you think that would change . When mike was talking about the things that happen in mid life i was thinking i am young and i am reaching backwards here. I dont particularly think this book was a middle age. Maybe it was unconsciously. I teach at yale and schools like clinton got into and my students are hungry for it. I have detected no variation up and down the age range. You know my students have been raised in a certain way to strive to get into yale is a hor hor horribly difficult thing. I ask them what they are doing for spring break and they are racing around thailand. But they are not been given a moral vocabulary and they aware of that. One of my students said we are so hungry. So i dont think there is any age or education difference. I just spoke to 16,000 people who sell cosmetics and i dont know their education levels but probably different than this room. I dont think there is an income difference. Sometimes i get you know this is a first world problem. The churches and synagogues and mosques are filled with people as serious as the rest of us. I dont think it aligns by demographics. I agree. My main concern is there is a huge amount of idealism and a deep distrust in institutions, deep distrust in politics and it is interesting many of the people you profile in the book are institutionalist. They are not traditionalist. They are oriented toward radical change. For the sake of looking at institutions that i think is a generational disconnect. The people that want to do teach for america peace core and other things that if you ask them their view of social justice it is much lower. And it really is a shame. I made the point before. But it is important to make the point. You dont have need for justice but other people do. We will take two more questions. Far right over there. Question primarily for david. You mention Charles Murray at the outset of the talk and talked about leaps. In a city like this with people prioritizing prioritizing atom one what the best piece of advice would be for people by being taken over by atom two. And i wonder if you might talk about moving beyond mere association and bubbles with that journey. I think it is important to move outside of bubbles. She is fine by the way. A couple things came to mind. The first thing is obviously getting outside of the bubble is valuable and having close calls experiences is valuable. I had a quiz in one of my books which charles borrowed if you look at military uniform can you name the names on the sleeve or nascar drivers. There are certain test washington should have to pass. That is one thing. I think a good life can be led here. My College Students have two career paths. One path is the noble teach for america path and the other is the gold man sacks rich sell out affluent path. I try to tell them there are many more paths and second there are a lot of horrible people in the ntogs world and a lot of good people in the finance world. It doesnt matter what world you are in. It matters how you live your life. I have a friend who hires a lot of people. I asked them the question they ask job interviewers and he said i have one question i think it is crucial. I say name a time you told the truth and it hurt you. So i tell my students if you fake that one you will be okay. It is rather you are spending your life reading books or surrounding yourself with the friends, keeping a journal i am a fan of journaling and doing self awareness and self criticism and whether you are having a discussion group. What is suffering good for . What is love good for . What the are challenges you are facing . All of the daily activities you can do just as well if you are living in georgetown or on the other side with chevy chase. We will do two more. Right in the back there. Growing up in baltimore, and attend attending jewish school, i departed from judiaism and didnt come to christ until later. I came to expect if god wants me to do good deeds how can that make up for my sins . I wasnt familiar that god says our good deeds are proving that. But it seems along the journey you picked up many of the pieces needed for finding true truth. Gods favors are earned by good works. How about this thought fit or not fit into your journey to finding answers to life . It should be pointed out i grew up in new york in tinsel town and went to a School Called Grace Church School and i was part of the old jewish choir. We would sing and square with our religion we would not sing the world jesus. How much requires an act of surrender and that is the question unsettled. I was raised in a culture with the belief you can earn your way. At some point it occurs to you you have the raise the white flag of surrender and surrender your way and i am unclear. I dont have an answer to that. Okay. Last question. Mary if you could stand so the mike guy can see you. A term you both used tonight, david mostly you, is the term holyness and i want to know what you determine that to be and how you live it out. The definition of a brain surgery is someone that studies brain chemistry for 20 minutes and goes to a conference telling someone show to do their job. I feel a little like that. I know a lot of people have been reading the works for centuries well not centuries you are not that old. But for a lot longer and a lot better than i. And it is a challenge to me when i am speaking about such topics when i go to a secular audience and quote something from agustine or something and people treat it like that is so cool. I go to a Christian School and they are like so what . I read that 15 years ago. I feel a little overmatched by the audience in this regard. I guess my book is not a religious book. It uses religious categories. But it is meant to address all audiences. Those who have faith and those who dont. I do that because i can the Public Square needs to have those words reintroduces and in a nonsecular manner. There was a name we had public theologins in the square talking about the things and we were getting a wide readership. We have very little of that today. Jonathan sacks, oz is here, but very little. And i think the Public Square is diluted. I wonder and try to be in the Public Square. I write for the New York Times. I am a secular writer and a conservative at new york city times and that is like being a chief rabbi at mecca. I use the word holiness in two ways. The first is to suggest a moral joy. I would say what i opened with about seeing by kids there was something holy about that moment. The luminescence. But there is a holiness when you go through jerusalem, for example, christians dont do enough of visiting jerusalem. I am amazed by how many have not been there. And you walk the station of the cross someone. It is the face of quiteness. There is something holy about that that. It is an intimidating term for me. It is possible in the Spiritual Life to show courage when you do Something Like a pointed decision. But holy people have a long obedience in the same direction. It is a set of habits that result again and again. It is like the rewiring of your own mind in some way. It cant