Needed: Dignity and duty

David Brooks:

The old dignity code has not survived modern life. The costs of its demise are there for all to see. Every week there are new scandals featuring people who simply do not know how to act. For example, during the first few weeks of summer, three stories have dominated public conversation, and each one exemplifies another branch of indignity.

First, there was Mark Sanford's press conference. Here was a guy utterly lacking in any sense of reticence, who was given to rambling self-exposure even in his moment of disgrace. Then there was the death of Michael Jackson and the discussion of his life. Here was a guy who was apparently untouched by any pressure to live according to the rules and restraints of adulthood. Then there was Sarah Palin's press conference. Here was a woman who aspires to a high public role but is unfamiliar with the traits of equipoise and constancy, which are the sources of authority and trust.

In each of these events, one sees people who simply have no social norms to guide them as they try to navigate the currents of their own passions.

Americans still admire dignity. But the word has become unmoored from any larger set of rules or ethical system.

But it's not right to end on a note of cultural pessimism because there is the fact of President Obama. Whatever policy differences people may have with him, we can all agree that he exemplifies reticence, dispassion and the other traits associated with dignity.

Charles Murray:

Thinking about the behavior of the investment bankers last fall and of Republican governors more recently, I am struck by the way that public discourse on public miscreants has been stripped of the vocabulary of virtue. Consider two of the four cardinal virtues, temperance and prudence. The want of temperance and prudence explains a lot about the financial meltdown last summer, but they are words without even positive connotations any more, let alone words that denote virtues. What parent among you has used "temperance" or "prudence" in advising your children how to live their lives? You rightly suspect that they'd break into giggles as soon as you left the room. Or before.

The disappearance of the word "duty" is weighing on us most heavily. The phrase "dereliction of duty" is still around, and I saw it used a few times about Governor Sanford, but it's a cliché, like "let bygones be bygones." Nobody thinks about what a "bygone" is. Nobody thinks about what "duty" means. In place of "duty," we use the word "responsibility." But they aren't the same. "England expects that every man will do his duty" asked something far sterner of Nelson's men than "England expects that every man will fulfill his responsibilities."

We need to bring back the concept of duty ...

[snip]

Bringing back the concept of duty would also encourage appropriate behavior among people who betray their duty. I am not quite asking for ritual suicide among those who fall short (though I can think of a few people for whom it doesn't seem like such a bad idea). But great failures should have great prices. Governor Sanford should have resigned immediately, without trying to wait out the furor. The investment bankers who could see in retrospect that they had been negligent should be devoting their private fortunes to recompensing as many people as they can. (Yes, my disbelieving readers: People actually used to think they had a moral obligation to pay their debts even if they were not legally obligated to do so. See Mark Twain.) The reaction of the fallen ones' colleagues, the press, and the public should not be that "mistakes were made," but that people failed in their duty. Oprah and Barbara shouldn't be jockeying for exclusive interviews. The fallen ones should go into seclusion, and be expected to go into seclusion.

Amen, and amen.