NPR Interviews David Brooks on his new Book "The Road to Character"

On bringing back certain moral vocabulary

There are certain words that have been passed down through the generations that we’ve sort of left behind. And some of them have quasi-religious connotations, but I don’t think they need to. Those are words like grace ”” the idea that we’re loved more than we deserve ”” redemption and sin. We now use the word sin in the context of fattening desserts, but it used to be central in the vocabulary, whether you’re religious or not; an awareness that we all sin and we all have the same sins ”” selfishness, self-centeredness. And I think rediscovering that word is an important task because without that you’re just too egotistical. You don’t realize how broken we all are at some level.

On how writing and researching the book changed his religious life

I’m a believer. I don’t talk about my religious life in public in part because it’s so shifting and green and vulnerable. And so I’ve spent a lot of time in this book ”” and if you care about morality and inner life and character, you spend your time reading a lot of theology because over the last hundreds of years it was theologians who were writing about this. Whether you’re a believer or not, I think these books are very helpful. It’s amazing to read [The Confessions of St. Augustine, about] a guy who got successful as a rhetorician but felt hollow inside; a guy who had a mom, Monica, who was the helicopter mom to beat all helicopter moms, and how he dealt with the conflict with such a demanding mother. And so I read a lot of theology ”” whether it’s C.S. Lewis or Joseph Soloveitchik, a rabbi ”” and it’s produced a lot of religious upsurge in my heart. But it’s also fragile and green [and] I don’t really talk about it because I don’t want to trample the fresh grass.

Read it all (or better) listen to it all (Hat tip: CM).
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