Episode 58 – The Road to Character: David Brooks on Humility and Virtue

This episode, guided by the insightful and deeply thought-provoking wisdom of David Brooks's "The Road to Character," explores a fundamental and often-overlooked, tension in our modern lives: the conflict between our "résumé virtues" and our "eulogy virtues". The résumé virtues, Brooks explains, are those external, often-market-driven, skills and achievements that we list on our CVs, the things that contribute to our worldly success. The eulogy virtues, on the other hand, are the deeper, more internal, qualities of character—our capacity for love, our courage, our honesty, our humility—the things that people will actually talk about at our funerals.

The discussion then delves into the profound and often-uncomfortable, reality that our modern culture, with its relentless focus on self-esteem, personal branding, and the "big me," has created a world that is far more adept at cultivating the résumé virtues than it is at nurturing the eulogy virtues. This has led, Brooks argues, to a kind of moral and spiritual shallowness, a society of people who are often highly accomplished but are also deeply insecure, self-centered, and lacking in the kind of deep, inner character that is the true foundation of a well-lived life. The path to a more meaningful existence, therefore, requires a conscious and often-difficult, shift in focus from the external to the internal.

This journey to a deeper character, the episode explains, is not a simple, linear process of self-improvement; it's a winding, often-paradoxical, "crooked-timber" path that is defined by a profound and ongoing struggle with our own inner weaknesses. It's about a radical and often-painful, confrontation with our own sinfulness, a deep and unwavering commitment to a "moral realism" that acknowledges our inherent flaws and our constant need for grace. It is in this humble, often-agonizing, battle against our own pride and self-centeredness, Brooks concludes, that true character is forged, that eulogy virtues are born, and that a life of genuine and lasting depth is ultimately created.