Character Is Destiny (Heraclitus)

People have often wondered how the British established and ruled the largest empire in the history of the world. At one time, 30,000 Englishmen ruled 400,000,000 Hindus, many of whom were intellectually superior to them. A popular saying has been advanced to offer an explanation, The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton

Napoleon in fact was defeated by rain, which delayed the start of the battle until noon, giving Blücher time to come up and catch Napoleon in a pincers movement. Another important factor was that d′Erlon′s corps of 20,000 men, receiving contradictory orders from Ney and Napoleon, marched back and forth and didn′t take part in the battle

Yet the saying contains a grain of truth. What distinguished the English colonizers from Latin ones such as Spanish and French was – character.

The English educational system molded boys’ in so-called public (actually private) schools like Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Westminster, Wellington, and others that emphasized the training of character over book learning.

English character won out over Prussian efficiency once again in the Battle of Britain in 1940.

In 1941 Churchill paid a visit to his alma mater Harrow to address pupils, in which he said, Never give in Never, never, never.

Churchill embodies the English educational ethos. He was a notoriously poor student but became a great leader and won a Nobel Prize in literature.’

Besides Churchill, Harrow has educated seven prime ministers and two kings.

In the 18th century, the American colonies did not have an English caste system or public schools with centuries’ of tradition.

That does not mean that they neglected the development of character.

The example of Benjamin Franklin shows that character was forged in the school of hard knocks. One of a dozen children, Benjamin’s formal education ended at the age of twelve, when he became an apprentice to ins brother James in the printing trade.

In his Autobiography, Franklin tells how he trained himself in the pursuit of virtue.

In 1725, at the age oaf 20, he distinguished thirteen virtues, with temperance at the top of the list. .The others were silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility. Franklin explained:

I proposed to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names with fewer ideas annexed to each, than a few names with more ideas, and I included under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurred to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which foully expressed the extent I gave to its meaning.

At the end of each day, he kept score, putting one or more x’s in the box of a virtue to indicate that he had missed the mark there.

Franklin was self-educated and a successful businessman in the printing trade. At the age of forty-two he sold his business to devote his life to science and public service and became one of the founders of the American Republic.

The American colonists had to show character (grit, backbone) to conquer an untamed continent. They did not expect a handout from the government, or whine that they were being discriminated against.

John Locke advanced the theory of the mind as a blank tablet (tabula rasa) that contains no innate ideas or deeper substance but is shaped mostly or solely by external sense impressions. This theory is a denial of human nature. It is overly optimistic because it believes that human institutions such as schools can change people and lead mankind to the promised land.

The concept of character gainsays this facile theory-

While character is crucial for the fate of the individual, it is just as vital for the destiny of nations.

National character is something very hard to pin down. That doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Who can deny that there are fundamental differences between Englishmen, Germans, Frenchmen, and Italians as well as other nations?

The importance of character education was recognized in American education and was part of civics classes. Since World War II it has fallen into neglect.

Numerous authors and writers over the ages have recognized the importance of character.

The Stoics beloved that character was the determining factor in life.

Epictetus said, The essence of good and evil consists in the condition of our character.

And how is character formed?

It’s a long process. When we learn how to distinguish between those things that are within our power and things that are not within our power, we have embarked on the right path. We are like a prizefighter in the ring, who has to weave and bob to escape the blows of his opponent. In our case, the philosopher, we constantly have to train how to make the right use of external things (appearances) so that they don’t knock us out.

Epictetus gives more guidance in his Discourses.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said,

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think In 1940, while he was struggling as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Walker Percy (author of The Moviegoer) wrote to his uncle and adopted father, William Alexander Percy, to give him the bad news about his grades.

William Alexander, who introduced his young ward to the writings of Marcus Aurelius and himself had gone through Harvard, did not care for one second about the grades.

As he wrote back to Walker, My whole theory about life is that glory and accomplishment are of far less importance than the creation of character and the individual good life.

How lucky we might have been to get such a lesson from our own parents at that impressionable age! To hear, emphatically, that marks on a report card are not a reflection of who we are and that their recognition is such a hollow thing. Because it’s clear that most of us have internalized the exact opposite: We think that fame and fortune are the marks of a good person. We connect them, like cause and effect. If/then statements in the logic of human existence. We chase these things, because like grades, they are quantifiable and easy to game.

But character? The trait the Stoics believed was like fate, the determining factor in life? Well, that we mostly ignore. We assume it will take care of itself.

It won’t. If we directed half the time we spend trying to advance our careers or ace a test, towards our individual moral improvement (as Franklin did), our individual lives would be transformed.. And so would the world.

We can start at any time, at any age. We can devise an original method like Ben Franklin or, like Marcus Aurelius, we can keep a journal, a subject that I’ll address in a future blog. The important thing is to get started – right now!

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