"Roxburgh's goal was to develop students with good character and moral courage, young men that would be 'acceptable at a dance and invaluable in a shipwreck'." Said of headmaster, John Fergusson Roxburgh, of Stowe's school
A few nights ago John and I had dinner out alone. We wanted to catch up, debrief the Christmas holiday, and ready ourselves for the new year of 2025. It devolved and evolved into reminiscing and thinking about the future of the future. How to make the world and America “good” again might be the subtitle of that last part.
When I say “good”, yes, I am thinking of healthy and happy as well as strong and wise and and kind. “Good” in a moral and ethical sense.
One of the things that attracted me to John, and I’ve seen it grow as we have lived these 51 years together, is his moral fiber, his grit – his character. John's decrease in self-centeredness and his increase in concern for others – all others, including Wesley, our drug addicted, mentally ill, homeless friend who died a few days ago, is what I have witnessed.
At our dinner, after a glass of wine, we started talking about his climb up Mount Rainier some years back. He trained for it; I knew he would make it…and I knew he would be the guy to help others up that summit. As it turned out, on the last leg, he did help a man. John never knew the man's name, but he basically pulled him up the summit at some peril to himself. And it was worth the effort to observe the man’s moment of bliss.
When I asked John why he helped the guy get up the summit perhaps putting his own ability to summit at risk, he simply said, “I knew he really wanted to get to the top.”
That’s not only physical and mental strength, but also strength of character. Concern for others over self. And I think character can ripen as we age if we choose to accept the challenge and are intentional.
Now according to people like columnist for the Atlantic, David Brooks, whom I like very much, America has gotten sadder and meaner over the last few years. We are moving to a culture devoid of moral education, he claims.
The rising rates of depression, deaths of despair, and loneliness reveal, according to Brooks, an emotional and spiritual crisis underpinning political dysfunction. Brooks doesn't say this, but it sounds like a country, like a people, headed toward a life of decay and rot. (Warning, I am going to be mixing a bunch of metaphors.)
Brooks shares his stats. Since 1990, the percentage of people without close friends has quadrupled. The share of 40-year-olds who have never married is at a record high. High schoolers report persistent sadness at rates rising from 26% in 2009 to 44% in 2021. Social trust is plummeting. Fewer than half of American households gave to charity in 2018 compared to two-thirds in 2000.
Brooks recounts stories of restaurant owners ejecting rude customers weekly, nurses quitting due to abusive patients, and a society laced with words like “polarization,” “trauma,” and “hate crimes.” “We’re enmeshed in some sort of emotional, relational, and spiritual crisis,” Brooks writes.
Then Brooks asks, “Where did we go wrong?”
He agrees with some observers who claim that technology, social isolation, economic inequality, and demographic shifts are partly the culprits. Yet Brooks believes the core issue is simpler: America lacks moral formation. Institutions that once shaped kind and responsible citizens – families, schools, churches, and community organizations – have withered. We have stopped teaching how to restrain selfishness, cultivate social skills, and find purpose.
And the reason for this, I think, is we simply don’t see "goodness" as of much importance these days.
Historically, American society prioritized character development as Brooks mentions. I was reading one of our old books printed in the early 1800s about people in John's family on his mother's side, the Kirtlands, who, the books points out, were people of character, integrity, and good repute. It was a prized virtue.
In 1788, Noah Webster emphasized, “The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities.” John Dewey wrote in 1909 that schools taught morality “every moment of the day.” A 1951 teachers' union report called moral and spiritual values a “top priority for education.”
By the 1960s, however, Brooks points out, moral education had largely retreated from schools. Universities turned from cultivating the whole person to fostering specialization and professional skills.
Absent a shared moral vocabulary, generations began to lack tools for ethical living. In 2008, sociologist Christian Smith found young adults had not thought much about morality. One said, “I’ve never had to make a decision about what’s right and wrong.” (I don't think this is just an American thing. I asked a Chinese college-aged young man who visited us how he made decisions about what's right and wrong. He simply couldn't answer. His father looked embarrassed and tried to help him out. There was still a long silence. Eventually the young man said that he looked around and saw what others were doing.)
Brooks believes that in the moral vacuum, politics has filled the void. Lonely people, he notes, are seven times more likely to be politically active. “Politics is a seductive form of social therapy,” he observes. Instead of moral introspection, identity now revolves around partisanship. Politics, Brooks argues, “has become the place where people seek meaning and belonging.”
Yet Brooks sees sparks of renewal. Documentaries like Won’t You Be My Neighbor? about Mister Rogers stirred audiences with simple goodness. Ted Lasso, a TV series about kindness and personal growth, became a cultural touchstone during the pandemic.
Brooks makes some proposals for re-building our moral fiber and goodness and character should we accept the mission. Here are a few:
A New Vision of Character Building – Inspired by Iris Murdoch, Brooks argues that moral life emerges from how we treat others daily.
Mandatory Social-Skills Education – Brooks calls for teaching empathy, listening, and conflict resolution in schools. “If we’re going to build a decent society, we must teach how to be good neighbors and friends.”
A Moral Core Curriculum – Universities should expand courses like Yale’s “Life Worth Living,” which explore diverse moral traditions and existential questions.
Brooks acknowledges the dangers of public moralism, but insists renewal begins by tending to moral communities. “Healthy moral ecologies don’t just happen. They must be seeded and tended.” Ultimately, Brooks believes America must rediscover the art of seeing one another deeply and treating each other well—a quiet but powerful antidote to meanness.
I read Brooks’ proposals and his article in The Atlantic several times (thank you Dr. Gene Sharratt for bringing it to my attention). It made me think about what I have learned about moral and human development through studying the significant work of the great Lawrence Kohlberg, Erik Erikson, and Abraham Maslow.
They saw people, we humans, as progressing through stages (if they, if we, are open to development).
We typically exhibit increasing levels of self-awareness, empathy, responsibility, and wisdom. For example, in general, we start out life egocentric and self-focused and move to more socio-centric, then eventually more world-centric. And ultimately we can head toward…in my words, ripening.
Egocentric (Self-Focused):
In early stages, individuals are primarily concerned with their own needs and desires. They may act based on fear of punishment or personal gain (Kohlberg’s pre-conventional level).
Moral decisions are often black and white, shaped by authority figures or rules.
Socio-Centric (Group-Focused):
Development expands to include care for others, loyalty to a group, and adherence to societal norms (Kohlberg’s conventional level).
Individuals strive to maintain relationships, uphold laws, and seek approval.
World-Centric (Universal Ethics and Principles):
A more advanced stage involves concern for justice, equality, and universal human rights.
The individual makes decisions based on internal principles, even if they conflict with societal norms.
Integrative (Spiritual and Existential):
In the highest stages, development transcends the personal and societal, focusing on existential questions, compassion for all living beings, and a sense of interconnectedness.
This aligns with Maslow’s concept of self-actualization and self-transcendence, where the individual’s sense of identity merges with a larger sense of purpose.
The theorists describe the ultimate stage as a point where personal growth leads to wisdom, compassion, and a commitment to the greater good. This might be described
in spiritual or existential terms as enlightenment where the individual experiences profound connection to others and the universe. I'm calling it ripening because I live in fruit country. Ripening is what it is all about. All the hard work, all the trees' tending, is toward that last stage...manifesting beautiful, ripened fruit.
Here’s how I would describe that final stage of Ripening:
This stage involves the penultimate growth of wisdom, resilience, compassion, and spiritual attunement—a stage where the individual not only comprehends life’s complexities but engages with the world through a lens of grace and humility.
As George Vaillant, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, once said: "Maturity is the ability to find joy in both giving and receiving love."
This reflects that the ultimate stage is not just intellectual, but deeply heart warming and relational.
And here I’ll mention the best, most ripened, contemporary exemplar I know who isn’t hanging out in a monastery or living on a desert island. He is working life out, continuing to ripen beautifully personally and communally, in the thick of messiness. (By the way, I think if we want to speed up our ripening process, it’s helpful to hang out with ripened folks just as much as it is to have a circle of support and encouragement.)
Father Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest, is the person I am talking about - he's an embodiment of love, compassion, and ultimate moral development. As the founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world, his life's work involves radical kinship, empathy, and unconditional love for those society often casts aside.
His key philosophy as best I can tell is, “No daylight to separate us... Kinship – not serving the other, but being one with the other." And: “There is no us and them, only us."
The way I hang out with Boyle is by reading his books:
Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion – Chronicles stories of transformation and emphasizes the power of love over judgment.
Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship – Explores kinship as the deepest expression of community.
The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness – Highlights tenderness as the foundation for healing and belonging.
Cherished Belonging: The Healing Power of Love in Divide Times - Invites us to nurture the connections that are all around us and live with radical kindness. Boyle believes that “the answer to every question is, indeed, compassion.”
All of his books have powerful stories like the one about Luis who grew up in a chaotic violent gang environment in Los Angeles. In and out of prison. Fully tattooed. When Luis came to Homeboy he just needed some money...he thought. Years of betrayal and abandonment hardened him. Eventually Luis broke down and confessed, "I just want someone to believe in me." Boyle answered very simply, "I do." That was the beginning of Luis's transformation. (I've talked to some of the "homies" on the phone when I order Christmas gifts from Homeboy Industries. They are so very real. I find that I can't talk to them even on the phone without tearing up...just thinking about their courage.)
Boyle’s life and work helps us get a glimpse of the highest stage of moral development as described by theorists – moving beyond law and order to universal ethical principles driven by love, compassion, and solidarity. His focus on accompaniment rather than correction echoes the ethics of care and emphasizes empathy as a transformative tool.
We always have a choice about how we live our lives. We can rot in despair and negativity and isolation and self-centeredness or we can set our sights and our intentions on ripening into the best versions of ourselves - aspire to make ourselves into people who are "invaluable in a shipwreck" (And why not have a little fun on the dance floor too?).
Make me into the best version of myself... aspire to do my part to make my community and America good again...that's what I am visualizing and what I’m thinking about these bleak, January days. It gives me hope and energy for the year's journey. I hope you’ll join me.
How might we use January, a time of setting goals and visions and making plans for living the good life, to consider the value of developing character, moral fiber, compassion, solidarity, wisdom, and…open ourselves personally and collectively to the challenging and beautiful process of ripening?
(Do you have a favorite book or author or exemplar who is helping you on the journey toward ripening into the best version of yourself?)
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