Character

There is no such thing as a Man for All Seasons

A basic tenet of all my thought is that checks & balances are imperative, which means that power must be devolved.

In the final analysis, it is individuals, acting independently, who exercise the checks & balances; it is they who interpret and uphold wise laws & regulations, answering to their conscience and the role assigned them by their disposition and life history. It is this which constitutes good character.

Good people of different character are needed for the various checks & balances. A person can only be a check & balance by defending their corner, leaving others to defend theirs. The outcome must be left to a wider public.

Hence there is no such thing as a Man for All Seasons.

Character emerges only over time, whereas a disposition may be innate. Good character is not merely a matter of morality and discipline, which must be inculcated in childhood, but is nurtured by the later search for a place in society. The motivation is the assertion of an identity, setting one apart from most others. “What sort of person do I wish to be?”

Morality may be compared with playing music from a score, difficult enough, whereas Ethics is like composing new music. It is not a set of rules & regulations waiting to be enacted. On the contrary, it is breaking free of these, retaining only a commitment to Truth and an indefinable Good.

A commitment to Truth by default does not outlaw occasional deception or non-disclosure, where this is a matter of discretion. Claims to truth can be challenged. On the contrary, obvious falsity can often be recognised unequivocally.

Similarly, the Good defies definition, but some Evil can be seen without room for doubt. All avoidance or repression of evil is movement towards the Good.

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If the West should ever exit the undercover civil war, a war that has become much less secret since 2020, there will be a need to upgrade our checks & balances. With collusion rife between judiciary, executive, media, technology, schooling, finance and the military, these safeguards have ceased to work and lost all credibility. Without robust checks & balances the West is nothing, having vacated the high moral ground.

My proposal is that the checks & balances have to be lived in terms of character and must not exist only in theory. This principle is an extension of the commonplace knowledge that all prosperity — and indeed human life — depends on a high (but not infinite) degree of specialisation, with different areas of competence according to choice and talent.

The seven or so “estates” listed above must be constituted by people who protect the independence of their appointed domains jealously and compromise only reluctantly — i.e. men of character.

It is with this in mind that I advocate the creation of a new class-based society. But not, I hasten to say, classes defined along family lines, i.e. by descendence.

The idea is that, for a professional career, a person must choose before the age of, say, thirty which avenue they wish to pursue. They might choose a career in the law, or in business, or in science, or journalism. But they should not be able to swap arbitrarily or quickly between these. A professional career stands in contrast to one in a trade, defined as being dependent on manual skills.

Each of these professional avenues involves a different set of commitments and principles. In the case of law this will involve, among other things, due process. In the case of science, recognition of the criterion of falsifiability in the search for truth. In finance, not the maximization of cash flow, but selection of what best to fund for long-term prosperity. In investigative journalism a willingness to deceive combined with truthfulness in reporting. Schooling must enable pupils to discover and think for themselves, the opinions of the teacher taking a back seat.. The businessman will reap profits by providing affordable goods or services that improve consumer lives. And so on.

Each will have different rewards and therefore may, by custom or statute, exclude certain of the rewards available to other avenues.

For example, the successful businessman may accumulate many personal possessions (cars, villas, boats, prestigious art) and enjoy an extravagant lifestyle with travel and gourmet food. These prerogatives will be fulfilling enough for some characters, but not for all. The downside would be a prohibition of his financing journalism, pressure groups, politicians, or engaging in lawfare (i.e. the use of dubious or arbitrary legal complaints to harass enemies).

Those whose character has been formed by work in the judiciary, whether as attorneys or judges, will seek different rewards, such as the knowledge that they have repaired lives by promoting justice and enabling it to be seen that justice has been done.

The investigative journalist will, similar to a good actor, have to be a skilled liar, even relish the pretense. This is not a character trait suitable to some other lines of professional work.

A certain doggedness is required everywhere but is manifested in different ways. It needs to take root in a personality over time such as can best be done by the discipline of regular practice and the example set by mentors. These qualities (“virtues”) cannot be replaced overnight by others.

The doggedness involves upholding independence and the freedom it implies. Note that freedom is not opposed to discipline: freedom means being able to choose which discipline, i.e. unity of action, to adopt. Without some such focus (or rather, set of focusses) everything becomes arbitrary and eventually meaningless.

We have witnessed judges, journalists and other “professionals” asserting blatant lies and absurdities, suppressing truth, and otherwise making a mockery of the checks & balances needed for civilization. These people have clearly never internalized the hierarchy of values implicit in their functions. How to deal with them now is a separate chapter. Here the — radical — proposal is for the long-term. The idea is to use social classes to instill a limited but adequate sense of responsibility. It is part of reflections on how elites might be fostered to contain the morally best rather than, as now, these being sidelined in favor of the criminally-minded.

The proposal to prevent people in the professions from changing track easily does not apply to skilled people in the so-called trades. A plumber may tire of plumbing and become a mechanic or electrician. Similarly, a professional who has tired of what they chose before age thirty may turn to, say, carpentry without restriction. It is just that they should not switch instantaneously between professions with clashing priorities. This can be governed by mandatory membership of a professional body, which would also be tasked with monitoring conduct (and allowing exceptions in well-grounded cases). In the event of the character or judgement of a professional being called into question, it is important that proceedings be co-determined by members of outside professionals. No profession must be a law entirely unto itself.

I originally proposed these ideas in a book which I wrote in German and published in 2015: “Klasse Verantwortung — Weichenstellungen für eine starke Mittelschicht,” ISBN 978-3-00-049448-2 English: “Responsibility with Class — Direction of Travel.” The companion website is https://klasseverantwortung.com/ Select there EN for English.

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In order to be effectively good, you must become a specific good and not a general one. You might content yourself with being conventionally good, which is keeping the common law and observing the customs current in your community, and otherwise enjoying life as you can. This will not be enough in times of turmoil, when you will need to be woken from your slumber.

Leaving the middling good aside, society (civilisation) needs a few people who take on themselves something more. It is these who are the counterweight to the minority who are wicked. Those pulling their weight may be fired by outrage at injustice or blatant lies, thereby turning a hurtful emotion into a force for good. Exactly what good is is undefinable, but can be recognised by the flourishing of a great (tho not unlimited) variety. It may otherwise be described as the absence of evil, but caution is advised in attributing evil since often it is confused with extreme weakness whether of reflection, resolve or knowledge.

Note the contrary, selfish, principle, often advocated, that one should indulge the wrongdoing of others in order not to poison one’s soul with unclean thoughts.

Society needs some people who commit themselves by character to serving a particular good, which may clash with other goods. Once first youth past, they commit themselves by identifying with whatever they are drawn to. It might be justice, which involves above-average observance of procedures as well as combatting bias. It might be the production of wealth, using inventiveness & initiative not only for oneself but for others, as with an entrepreneur. It might be the maintenance & restoration of health. Other proper focusses are truth in different manifestations. A novelist might seek to be true to life and humankind by inventing phantastical stories. A historian must endeavour to uncover what transpired in the past and not be led astray by the temptation to tell a good story. A journalist must inform with balance on all aspects of a matter, and not just those which their readership favors. You can reflect and find countless other avenues of character incarnate. Characters cannot be all the same. Heightened sensibility in one respect comes at the cost of diminished sensitivity in others. The most common differentiation is found between male & female perspectives and strengths.

Hence: There is no such thing as a Man for All Seasons.

There are however wimps for all seasons. These are people, sometimes in high office, who swap overnight one set of allegiances for another, as the lucrative door revolves.

Footnote: Common law is not the contrived law of politicians & lawyers. There is, for example, no moral injunction to declare taxable income tho there will usually be a prudential one. I’d go further and say that the common law as a moral injunction only applies where there are independent juries free of the direction of judges and where judges can be deselected by popular vote.

Financial Times, Issue Number 39435, published on Friday March 31st 2017. From Paul Gregory, Beaumont, France

Sir,

In reply to Roger Steare (Letters, March 29) commenting on Lucy Kellaway’s remarks (March 27) on corporate codes of conduct: the purpose of such codes is, surely, to provide guidance for those whose character and maturity fall short of what is required in their role; it is not to provide a moral manual or tick-box exercise for those whose task it is to pass judgment. Nor do grand words such as integrity (“authenticity” is another) take us far.

More helpful, I suggest, is the principle of “comply or explain”. One rule may override another, but that is a matter of judgment, and we are judged morally on our judgment as much as on our character, although our character may bias our judgment. In law we are judged on our actions, in ethics we are judged on our judgment and even on our failure to seize or use discretion wisely. In practice, different people and people in different roles need personalised sets of reminders, depending on what they individually are prone to forget.

Hence the codes may be useful, but only as a first step. Ask people to draw up their own codes of conduct and hold them to account by their own standards. That would be a step towards substantive integrity.