How Important is Character?

Hi. My name is Bill Brown. I am author of the recently released  book called Virtue Lost.  It is a book about the decline in character of the American people over particularly the past 65 years. Once admired by other nations for our honesty, courtesy, generosity and concern for others, we have digressed to the point the only thing we are admired for is our wealth (and that’s not going to continue if humanists have their way). We are certainly no longer the envy of nations the world over.  We are just another country struggling to find a satisfactory way of governing ourselves.

I  administered polygraph examinations—'lie detector tests’—for almost thirty-five years. Tests of every kind of miscreant you can imagine, who were accused of committing crimes from child molestation to kidnapping and murder. In addition, as an FBI Agent, I have conducted investigations of those same kinds of crime; approaching it from an altogether different angle. I have seen a great deal of what might be called the underbelly of civilization; people you would not want to meet in a dark alley. Some of them would scare you to death if you met them on a well-lighted street.

My job as a polygraph examiner was to try to figure out whether the person I was to test had committed the crime of which he was accused.

I learned that one of the most important things I wanted to determine early--to the extent I could—was what is the character of this examinee?

Almost nobody approaches life determined to become the worst slug, the meanest person, the most unambiguous crook the world had yet to see. Some turn out close to that description, but events, dispositions, experiences and exposure have a great deal to do with that outcome. I hope I remember later to tell you about an inmate in a federal prison that I came to know very well. We shall call him ‘Bud’.

Character.

 A couple of Australian psychiatrists posited years ago that character in a child begins formation before he or she reaches the age of two years. They are already beginning to learn how to assess the responses their actions (crying, smiling, etc.) influence their parents and others. These beginnings of discernment lead to later determinations to emulate the actions that have appeared pleasing to them. So among the people who have the most influence upon a growing child are first, its parents, grandparents, siblings, extended family. That circle grows to include teachers, pastors or priests, coaches, ones who later employ them, etc.

I should remind you that influence works both ways. Some actions or ways of treating themselves and others the child sees as worthy of imitation. Do not think, though, that the child does not see other behaviors as something to avoid like the plague.

A number of people, experiences and exposures have influence—or have had influence—upon your life. Who has influenced you more than anyone else?

If we were having this conversation in person, I would hastily try to head you off before you replied, “That would be my mother (father, coach, etc.)”

No. The person who has had the most influence on your character is . . . You.

You are the one who chose the kind of character that is going to guide you for the rest of your life. You picked up a little bit here, a little bit there, rejected a little bit here and there, but the finished product (actually, this process has no end—you’ll be working on becoming the person you want to be at least until age 87, from personal experience) is determined by you. You are the one who selected the characteristics you wanted to assume and those you wished to reject. You will be polishing, developing and sanding the rough spots off those attributes you have adopted until you die.

Character.

I heard a well-known motivational speaker years ago at a sports banquet honoring high school football players. His topic was character, which he described this way:

“Character is  what you do when you are two thousand miles from home, nobody knows you, and you could do anything you wanted without folks at home ever hearing about it. What you do in that situation shows your true character.”

I often wondered, when I was a young soldier in Germany a hundred years or so ago, why a country would send immature, testosterone-driven young men abroad as representatives of our country and society. Maybe it was because older and more mature men weren’t drafted into the army, and few joined of their own accord. At any rate, I saw—even participated a little bit—young men ‘sowing their wild oats’. Isn’t that what they once called that illogical, daring and yes, dumb behavior?

In spite of the freedom that being separated by thousands of miles from those who knew us offered, most soldiers were still operating within the framework of the character that had been pretty well formed in each of them by the time they reached their 15th or 16th birthday. That’s why the army trusted them (what did President Reagan call it . . . ‘Trust but verify’?) to behave as they had been reared by their parents.

If you have read this far, be assured there is much more to be said on this topic. We will continue in a later communication—if you are interested. I’d invite you to keep up with this blog on my domain, billbrownbooks.com.