Changing Perspectives on How to Live a Moral Life

 

I am 52 years old now, likely at the peak of my career. I work as a teacher, a mentor, an academic. I strive to be a dedicated father, husband, brother, and serve my Fellowship. I have done a decent enough job at these things, yet in some ways, I think I missed the boat or, to use another metaphor, served the wrong master.

Much of my life, I have thought about justice, the public good, and the potential for improvements to public policy. This was something that was encouraged by my birth family, by my own inclination, and by my elite college education. I was taught, perhaps in a style adapted and updated from Aristotle, Plato, Thoreau, and Dr. King, to reason about the good society and act in a way to reform my society. Perhaps it is living in a young country, one that not too long ago had racial discrimination written into its laws, that made this task seem urgent and proximate.

But I have lived and worked long enough, committed myself to justice work long enough, to realize that my effect on society and its direction is negligible. Even as a relatively elite person with some measure of affluence, a high level of literacy, and strong social ties, my personal ability to influence public policy and the discourses around current events is hardly more than that of a nearby Monarch butterfly. She flaps her wings, and perhaps things will go one way. I write an essay, and perhaps things will go another. The level of influence is about the same.

This is not to say that we should not engage in justice work. We very much should. We should vote, use our voice, discuss the issues of the day, work with nonprofits, and give money to good causes. I have done all these things; in particular, I have spent many years working for Citizen Climate Lobby, attending national conferences, and lobbying my elected officials in person and on Zoom, locally and nationally. I am not making the case that justice work is not worthwhile; I am making the case that we can only engage in justice work so much, with uncertain results. For most of us, committing to a single cause over an extended time is the best we can achieve.

But what if the heart of living a moral life lies entirely elsewhere? That is the premise of David Brook’s new book, “How to Know A Person.” He argues, somewhat convincingly, that the most crucial moral task we engage in on a day-in, day-out basis is that of seeing each other; or, to put it another way, how we pay attention to each other is, for most of us, the urgent moral task of our lives.

I will never be king, nor a judge, nor even a Senator. No matter how well-reasoned, sensitive, and compassionate my public policy positions are, they are unlikely to have much influence in this life.

But every day, I interact with several people, coworkers, family members, and students, all crying out for attention in some way. Brooks powerfully makes the case that there is a massive and growing attention deficit in our society and that our ability to attend to each other has diminished due to larger cultural forces that have separated us from one another. He is persuasive that the skills of listening, of illumination or attentive listening, are on the wane.

Brooks terms the masters of attention-giving as “Illuminators” because such Illuminators help people to grapple with their personal struggles and enhance their self-apprehension. In the presence of an Illuminator, a person feels valued and alive, like their story matters. Those attended to evolve and adapt as a result of such illumination.

The book is a series of vignettes on what it takes to be a good Illuminator and how we can grow in the necessary skills for this moral endeavor. But perhaps most critically of all, the book argues that this is the defining moral endeavor for most of us, and relevant for most of our lives. It is the ability to see another with generosity, curiosity, accountability, and affection through which we can effect immediate and profound changes in the world around us.

What does it mean to be a moral person? Is it even that important to be “right” on the issues of the day? All too often, I’ve seen those who are right confound right with righteousness and fall into the pit of idolatry of their rightness. One of the blessings of freedom is that those who think they know better are mercifully constrained from imposing their views on their compatriots.

Looking backward, I feel that I have been given the education of a king or a duke when I might have been better suited with an education as a coach. It is not my task to shape the kingdom of tomorrow. Instead, it is mine to form deep friendships and mentorship relationships with those who cross my path.