Good @NoahCRothman on “ghosting”—the ever-more acceptable habit of disappearing rather than facing an uncomfortable social situation. commentarymagazine.com/author/noah-ro…
@NoahCRothman This piece rightly blames a culture that teaches people to want to be “comfortable” above all else. But it doesn’t discuss the opposite of this condition, which is having character.
Having character is being able to face a painful situation, taking the hit but maintaining self-possessed and appropriate behavior throughout (aka, “not getting bent out of shape).
The problem is that in order to develop character you need two things: (1) a lot of practice at handling being in pain; and (2) role models that can demonstrate what self-possessed and appropriate behavior looks like so you know what you’re striving for while you’re hurting.
This is what basic training is largely about (to pick one example). You go into a situation where you’re under a degree of pain and stress that you’ve probably never experienced before. But you learn how to take it while maintaining form just like experienced soldiers can.
But notice that military basic training can only build up a recruit’s character if there’s a tradition of wanting to learn to take the hits and take them well. An army can’t do much with a recruit who would rather be in jail than doing the hard work the training demands.
A parallel example is staying married: It’s all about learning to keep from getting bent out of shape when something frustrating or painful is happening—which is actually a lot of the time. Again, you can’t do much with a spouse who’d rather get divorced than do the hard work.
Here, too, this isn’t going to happen where there’s a strong tradition of wanting to learn how to do this, and examples of older people you can look to in order to see what self-possession and appropriate behavior in the face of pain are like.
You can’t have a durable combat platoon or a durable marriage without a powerful tradition of *wanting* to have strong character after you’ve *seen* what it’s like when other people have it.
The rising culture in all liberal societies is one in which it is becoming impossible to have a strong character because the tradition has been lost: Many young people don’t even want to have a strong character. They don’t know many others who do and couldn’t say what it’s for.
If you really want to understand the zoo that our public arena has become, look no further than this: Accepting the results of a democratic election and working with the winner even though you find it painful—that takes character. Democracy takes character.
Just like staying a marriage take character. Just like obeying orders under fire takes character. And character is something the societies we live in are ceasing to care for. The tradition has been lost.
