Character and the Abyss

There is a scene in the American film, “Wall Street” in which Hal Holbrook’s character says to Charlie Sheen’s “Buddy Fox,” “A man looks into the abyss. There’s nothing looking back. At that moment he discovers his character. And that’s what keeps him from jumping into the abyss.” This is pronounced just before Fox is publicly arrested and taken to jail for insider trading. It is a katabasis worthy of Greek or Shakespearian tragedy. It is a fitting form of education for our time.

Martin Luther King, Jr noted, “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.” For the ancient Greeks character was embodied in arete – to be a speaker of words and a doer of deeds. To be good, beautiful and effective. And to be so in the right ways. Dennis Prager observed, “Goodness is about character - integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, moral courage, and the like. More than anything else, it is about how we treat other people.”

This is especially so if we are in a leadership position be it in front of an elementary school classroom, graduate seminar, family, faith tradition, corporation or nation. Character is about how your means and methods impact people who support you or who interact with you or who are impacted by you. Character constructs methodology which frames results and reputation. Your character is your destiny as John McCain and Mark Salter point out. Character, more specifically, lack of it, rendered its judgement on Buddy Fox, numerous Shakespearean characters, Richard Nixon and other political leaders.

 This leads me to wonder how the bar of history will judge some of the leaders of our time. What judgement will be laid upon Maduro, Kim, Duarte, Putin, or Trump? And what about their followers and nations? American greatness will not be adjudicated by the Dow-Jones or might of its military. These measure only power – the ability to exert your will. Greatness comes from how you treat others. Especially those with whom you disagree or are less powerful and live under the axis of oppression. 

The greatness of China, or Russia, or America, or other nations rests in their people and the culture they create and maintain. It in is how people are treated even when there are enormous gaps in social and economic justice. Greatness is also measured in how we manage civil discourse. The desire for egalitarian greatness keeps us from jumping into the abyss as we have so often done in the hyper partisan politics of our time. I do not know about you, but I wasted a lot of valuable life jumping into the abyss of being angry and bitter over what was essentially petty, non-value added nonsense. It was not fun or rewarding in any sense other than self-righteousness indignation. A was a heavy, heavy price to pay.

Values and character are framed by consistency. How can advocates of any faith tradition extolling the virtues of welcoming the stranger and valuing human life and yet tolerate concentration camps for migrant families? How do we justify the cavalier offering of “come here legally” or “don’t come?” Why aren’t those upright followers of their faith tradition taking food and blankets to the poor and terrified?

Why is the absolute, unmerciful destruction of any perceived “Other” a good thing? Why has our rhetoric become so divisive? So, annihilating? Oh, I remember now, it’s the other side’s (read that “tribe’s”) fault. Really? Totally? I recently ended a near thirty-year friendship when a prolife advocate publicly called me a murderer for personally being prolife but supporting a woman’s right to choose. This same defender of human life and dignity supports what is going on at the southern border of America.

When we as a people forget our roots and our right to dissent in respectful ways we teeter on the brink of the abyss as leaders beckon us to chase the white whale of their grandeur. This is happening now. We have divided ourselves into ever warring tribes and we must find a way through this labyrinth of chaos and despair. As Lee Iacocca lamented, “Where have all the leaders gone?”

A goodly number of leaders now seem to be arrogant and autocratic. People whose pronouncements are to be taken as God’s ordained truth and not questioned. They are frequently irritable, spoiled indulged children who are maladjusted and profoundly insecure. Symbols of personal privilege and power abound. If this has a familiar feel it is because they are the attributes of a toxic leader.

Many nations today are led by leaders who are clinically toxic. Leaders who call from the abyss of chaos where hate and tribalism rule. Time and circumstance give birth to toxic leaders but people who fall under their spell nurture and support them because of their promises to restore what is believed to have been wrongfully taken. Our present danger is the result of changing demographics and too much wealth concentrated in too few. Everything is changing and cannot be undone through hate and fear and division. Hate and fear are not our true character as Americans – at least the America I thought I knew. Yes, we have had very dark times in our history. We have had gargantuan screw ups. But we believed in the ideals upon which this nation was founded. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness hard work, tolerance and cooperation.

Without these ideals and behaviors we do not just fall into the abyss, we suicidally jump into it. Beware the leader who sows hate and division and by doing so beckons us into the abyss. There is such a leader loose in America and he be so compelling that we can hear his siren call. Our choice is clear. Turn him back or freefalling in the abyss. Forbid it Almighty God! Grant us the courage to stand as one people and do what is right and just. Let us remove this leader in the next election.