Service as Substitute for Morality :: David Brooks (NYT) on the Moral Vocabulary of the Young


David Brooks has written a piece for the New York Times describing the moral vocabulary of the young, noting the role service now plays in determining who is and who is not a good person. Brooks' observations, rising from an examination of an online discussion held by Rob Reich of Stanford University, could easily be applied to other sectors.
Here is the key piece of commentary (my emphasis in bold):
The student discussion was smart, civil and illuminating. But I was struck by the unspoken assumptions. Many of these students seem to have a blinkered view of their options. There’s crass but affluent investment banking. There’s the poor but noble nonprofit world. And then there is the world of high-tech start-ups, which magically provides money and coolness simultaneously. But there was little interest in or awareness of the ministry, the military, the academy, government service or the zillion other sectors.
Furthermore, few students showed any interest in working for a company that actually makes products. It sometimes seems that good students at schools in blue states go into service capitalism (consulting and finance) while good students in red states go into production capitalism (Procter & Gamble, John Deere, AutoZone).
The discussion also reinforced a thought I’ve had in many other contexts: that community service has become a patch for morality. Many people today have not been given vocabularies to talk about what virtue is, what character consists of, and in which way excellence lies, so they just talk about community service, figuring that if you are doing the sort of work that Bono celebrates then you must be a good person.
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People are less good at using the vocabulary of moral evaluation, which is less about what sort of career path you choose than what sort of person you are.
Anecdotally, I could support this description of younger people and their moral grid--there is little deep reflection taking place on what a good person is, and how to become one. There is some reflection, but the driving question is "How do I do good?", not "How do I become good?" As Brooks says, "community service has become a patch for morality." As long as someone is doing good things, one is a good person.
But Brooks' knows, as we all do, that one can spend one's life working in the non-profit sector and end up a rotten person, or at the other extreme, establish a career as a very successful business person and end up a remarkable person. Becoming a rotten or remarkable person requires more than rooting oneself in the right environment where good things are being done. Character requires development and transformation, and a moral framework within which to name vice and virtue, as well as the accompanying practices that can bring about the necessary refinement to live an excellent life.
As Brooks says:
Understanding heroism and schmuckdom requires fewer Excel spreadsheets, more Dostoyevsky and the Book of Job.
Living a morally excellent life is no simple matter. It cannot be boiled down only to what one does. It has always been possible to live an outwardly righteous life, while being utterly corrupt on the inside. And it has always been a tremendous temptation for human beings to hide behind a veil of socially approved good works as a substitute for the inner work required to become a person of exemplary character. It is the heart that is at issue.
Several years ago I heard Dallas Willard remark to a group of pastors and church leaders that the opportunity lay before us to become the true moral guides of our age. Christianity, he contended, provides answers to the questions, "What is the good life?" and "How do I obtain it?" in ways that far surpass any other philosophy on offer. "The service patch" is one such philosophy, which Brooks summarizes as, "if you are doing the sort of work that Bono celebrates then you must be a good person."
For Christian people, it is not only the works that matter, but the inner motivation and condition of the heart, or foundational moral framework that determines whether or not one is pursuing and living the good life. Yes, the doing of good works does itself have a formational aspect, but it is possible to do good works and be like a whitewashed tomb or a cup that is clean on the outside, but inside is riddled with filth.
Among the many intended outcomes of a life lived deeply with God is that of integrity--becoming a type of person who, through and through, has been permeated and transformed by the grace that has been revealed, enacted, and unleashed through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This means not only doing good, but being good--being the person God has intended you to be, and doing the things prepared for you to do, since before the foundation of the world.