This week's article summary is How America Got Mean and it continues the theme of many of my summaries at the beginning of this school year: the importance of character development in schools.
This article from New York Times op-ed writer David Brooks doesn’t focus specifically on schools, although he does reference them a few times. Rather he looks at the bigger trend in America (and throughout the rest of the world) of how and why people have become more selfish, intolerant, polarized, and tribal.
Our current political climate encapsulates the new world order where hate, anger, and zero-sum standoffs proliferate.
Brooks provides a number of reasons why we as a society have become so selfish and devoid of compassion for others, especially those different from us. But his principal reason is the loss of ‘institutional support’ in modeling and guiding citizens to be polite, courteous, respectful, and responsible, i.e., agree and live by a common ethical foundation. Rather, we now live in a relativistic world where all opinions and feelings seem equally valid.
Much like last week’s summary on the importance of interdependence, this summary wants us to be more open to others and to support the common good.
Perhaps because I am an educator of young children, I remain optimistic that the world will extricate itself from the current downward spiral of distrust, polarization, and enmity.
Trinity has always taught its students to be kind, helpful, and caring. Most of your classrooms are now replete with rules and norms about respect, responsibility, and interdependence. A school climate and culture of heightened care, courtesy, and respect for all is apparent.
The way for our country to become less fixated on individualism and selfishness is through education, and schools are perhaps the lone institution that people still trust and value.
Joe
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I am obsessed with two questions:
- Why have Americans become so sad – increasing rates of loneliness, depression, and suicide?
- Why have Americans become so mean – polarization, conspiracy theories, mass shootings?
Several explanations have been offered:
- Technology – social media are driving us crazy
- Sociology – people participate less in community organizations and are isolated
- Demography – white Americans are in a panic about increasing racial diversity
- Economy – high levels of inequality and insecurity make people feel afraid, alienated, and pessimistic
These are all real but they don’t fully explain why Americans have become so sad and so mean.
I think the most important reason is that we now inhabit a society in which people are no longer trained in how to treat others with kindness and consideration. Our society has become one in which people feel licensed to give their selfishness free rein. That’s happened because a web of institutions – families, schools, religious groups, community organizations, and workplaces – are not doing the job they used to do: forming people into kind and responsible citizens who show up for one another.
For a large part of its history, America was awash in morally formative institutions that taught people three things:
- How to restrain their selfishness – keeping their evolutionarily conferred egotism under control
- Basic social and ethical skills – how to welcome neighbor into the community, how to disagree constructively
- Finding a purpose in life – practical pathways toward a meaningful existence
For 150 years after the nation’s founding, leaders focused on perfecting what they acknowledged were flawed human beings. Moral education was a centerpiece in schools and universities; the McGuffey Readers and other textbooks were full of tales of right and wrong. Churches, Sunday schools, the YMCA, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, settlement houses, professional organizations, unions had similar themes. One 19th-century headmaster said the purpose of his school was to turn out young men who were “acceptable at a dance and invaluable in a shipwreck.”
The two premises of this moral drive were (a) training the heart and body is more important than training the reasoning brain (accomplished through the repetition of many small habits and practices, all within a coherent moral culture) and (b) right and wrong are not matters of personal taste; an objective moral order exists.
The old push for morality was egalitarian, at least in theory. If your status in the community was based on character and reputation, then a farmer could earn dignity as readily as a banker. This ethos came down hard on self-centeredness and narcissistic display. It offered practical guidance on how to be a good neighbor, a good friend.
And then, just after World War II, it mostly went away. A series of phenomenally successful books – Peace of Mind, The Power of Positive Thinking, Dr. Spock’s child-rearing manual, and others – preached a new gospel of self-actualization. According to this ethos, morality is not something we develop in communities. It’s nurtured by connecting with our authentic self and finding our true inner voice. If people are naturally good, we don’t need moral formation; we just need to let people get in touch with themselves.
People raised in a culture without ethical structure become internally fragile, without a moral compass and permanent ideals, with no personal why. Expecting people to build a satisfying moral life on their own by looking within themselves is asking too much.
The result is vulnerable narcissists, people who are addicted to thinking about themselves, but who often feel anxious, insecure, avoidant. Intensely sensitive to rejection, they scan for hints of disrespect. Their self-esteem is wildly in flux. Their uncertainty about their inner worth triggers cycles of distrust, shame, and hostility. The pandemic made things worse, but the underlying conditions were there before and remain in full force today.
Over the past several years, people have sought to fill the moral vacuum with politics and tribalism. American society has become hyper-politicized. For people who feel disrespected, unseen, and alone, politics is a seductive form of social therapy. The culture war is a struggle that gives life meaning. One study found that young people who are lonely are seven times more likely to get involved in polarized politics than non-lonely youth. Politics gives them a sense of righteousness, purpose, and identity.
There are some glimmers of hope: people openly weeping in theaters as they watched Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, the film about Mister Rogers in all his simple goodness – his small acts of generosity; his displays of vulnerability; his respect, even reverence, for each child he encountered. And Ted Lasso, the series about an American coach transplanted to U.K. soccer, who said his goal was not the championship but “helping these young fellas be the best versions of themselves on and off the field.”
That is a description of moral formation. Ted Lasso is about an earnest, cheerful, and transparently kind man who entered a world that has grown cynical, amoral, and manipulative, and, episode by episode, even through his own troubles, he offers people around him opportunities to grow more gracious, to confront their vulnerabilities and fears, and to treat one another more gently and wisely.
The question before us is how to build a culture that helps people be better versions of themselves.
Some suggestions:
- A modern version of how to build character –Treating people considerately in the complex situations of daily existence. I become a better person as I become more curious about those around me, as I become more skilled in seeing from their point of view.
- Social-skills courses – Some possible components: how to listen well, be a good conversationalist, disagree with respect, ask for and offer forgiveness, patiently cultivate a friendship, sit with someone who is grieving or depressed. Schools should require students to take courses that teach these specific social skills, and thus prepare them for life with one another.
- Politics as a moral enterprise – “Statecraft is soulcraft. We can either elect people who try to embody the highest standards of honesty, kindness, and integrity, or elect people who shred those standards. Yes, of course people are selfish and life can be harsh. But over the centuries, civilizations have established rules and codes to nurture cooperation, to build trust and sweeten our condition. These include personal moral codes so we know how to treat one another well, ethical codes to help prevent corruption on the job and in public life, and the rules of the liberal world order so that nations can live in peace, secure within their borders.
Healthy moral ecologies don’t just happen. They have to be seeded and tended by people who think and talk in moral terms, who try to model and inculcate moral behavior, who understand that we have to build moral communities because on our own, we are all selfish and flawed. Moral formation is best when it’s humble. It means giving people the skills and habits that will help them be considerate to others in the complex situations of life. It means helping people behave in ways that make other people feel included, seen, and respected.
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