David Brooks on Moral Education 2.0

from MM 1000

 David Brooks on Moral Education 2.0

In this article in The Atlantic, David Brooks says he’s obsessed with two questions:

Why have Americans become so sad – increasing rates of loneliness, depression, and suicide?

And 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, says Brooks, but they don’t fully explain why Americans have become so

sad and so mean.

The most important reason “is also the simplest,” he believes: “We 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,” says Brooks, “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 a 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, says Brooks, 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.”

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The two premises of this moral drive, says Brooks, were (a) “training the heart and

body is more important than training the reasoning brain,” and it is 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.” Underlying

both was a belief in human fallibility. “The force of sinfulness is so stubborn a characteristic of

human nature,” said Martin Luther King Jr. a century later, “that it can only be restrained when

the social unit is armed with both moral and physical might.”

Coexisting with this crusade, says Brooks, were “all sorts of hierarchies that we now

rightly find abhorrent:” beliefs about racial superiority, men dominant over women,

antisemitism, homophobia, and more. “Furthermore,” he continues, “we would never want to

go back to the training methods that prevailed for so long, rooted in so many thou shall nots

and so much shaming, and riddled with so much racism and sexism.”

Yet the old push for morality was egalitarian, says Brooks, 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,” says Brooks. 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,” Brooks writes, “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.” A mid-1970s Girl Scout handbook asked, “How can you get more in touch with

you? What are you thinking? What are you feeling?”

By the 1960s, says Brooks, K-12 moral education was in full-scale retreat, with an

increasing focus on SAT scores and getting into elite colleges and universities. In higher

education, the “research ideal” replaced an earlier humanistic ideal of cultivating the whole

student and thinking about how to live a good life, which now seemed hopelessly antique.

An analysis of words used in the nation’s books in the post-war era showed bravery

dropping 65 percent, gratitude down 58 percent, and humbleness 55 percent lower. Incoming

college students increasingly said that being financially well off was their leading goal in life.

Asked by researchers about their moral lives, young people said they hadn’t given it much

thought. “I’ve never had to make a decision about what’s right and what’s wrong,” said one. A

common refrain among students was that their teachers steered clear of controversies.

“Moral communities are fragile things, hard to build and easy to destroy,” wrote

psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Brooks believes that 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 and spiritual life on their own by

looking within themselves is asking too much,” he says. “A culture that leaves people morally

naked and alone leaves them without the skills to be decent to one another. Social trust falls

partly because more people are untrustworthy.”

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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.” Not surprisingly, suicide

rates have risen more than 30 percent since 2000. The pandemic made things worse, but the

underlying conditions were there before and remain in full force today.

“Over the past several years,” says Brooks, “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.

It offers them a comprehensible moral landscape: the line between good and evil runs not down

the middle of every human heart, but between groups… 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.

Brooks points to a couple of 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,” says Brooks. “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, says Brooks, is how to “build a culture that helps people be

better versions of themselves.” His suggestions:

• A modern version of how to build character – What we used to do was gendered and

old-fashioned, he says, and points to Iris Murdoch for a better idea: a moral life as something

that goes on continually, “treating people considerately in the complex situations of daily

existence.” Channeling Murdoch, Brooks says, “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.”

• Mandatory 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. “If we’re going to build a decent

society,” says Brooks, “elementary and high schools should require students to take courses

that teach these specific social skills, and thus prepare them for life with one another.”

• A new core element in the college curriculum – Brooks points to several college

courses, including “Life Worth Living” at Yale and “God and the Good Life” at Notre Dame,

that have students read classic literature and grapple with questions like: What is the ruling

passion of your soul? Whom are you responsible to? What are my moral obligations? What

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will it take for my life to be meaningful? What does it mean to be a good human in today’s

world? What are the central issues we need to engage with concerning new technology and

human life?

• Intergenerational service – Brooks suggests “at least two periods of life when people

have a chance to take a sabbatical from the meritocracy and live by an alternative logic – the

logic of service.” These might be right after school and at the end of one’s working years,

when young people and seniors come together to serve their communities in meaningful ways

– and cooperate with people unlike themselves.

• Moral organizations – Most institutions serve both instrumental and moral goals, says

Brooks: hospitals heal the sick and make money; newspapers and magazines inform the public

and try to generate clicks; law firms defend clients and maximize billable hours; nonprofits

serve the public good and fundraise. But too often the instrumental eclipses the ethical, he says.

“Moral renewal won’t come until we have leaders who are explicit, loud, and credible about

both sets of goals.” Here’s how we’re going to forgo some financial returns in order to better

serve our higher mission.

• Politics as a moral enterprise – “Statecraft is soulcraft,” says Brooks. “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.”

“Look, I understand why people don’t want to get all moralistic in public,” Brooks

concludes. “Many of those who do are self-righteous prigs, or rank hypocrites. And all of this

is only a start. But 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.”

“How America Got Mean” by David Brooks in The Atlantic, September 2023 (Vol. 332, #2,

pp. 68-76)