Camouflaged characters...

The quotes and content in this article has been taken from the first section of the book “When None Sees” Copyright © 1992, 2000 by The Trinity Forum

 

Recently, in a meeting of friends (baby boomers, to be precise), an ongoing discussion revolved around the loss of character in political circles. As a generation raised during an era of character-driven political discourses, we feel a responsibility to act. I don't hear the younger generation discussing these matters much. Yet, I recall when I was young, looking down on my parents' generation, hearing them lament about how good things were in their time. And now, it seems, it's our turn to do the same.

 

However, reading the book mentioned above reminded me that such discussions have persisted throughout history. If a Roman emperor from the AD 160s could write, "Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one," perhaps baby boomers or elders would have been discussing the same matters back then. A sobering thought indeed (Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor from A.D. 161–180). At another time, Marcus wrote, “To change your mind and to follow him who sets you right is to be nonetheless the free agent that you were before,” communicating that to be truly free, one must follow the right path.

So, is this an age-old issue that every generation, especially the aging, will bemoan and eventually move on from? Or is it worth our concern? Concerned enough to stop arguing and embody a person of character, or should we be worried about setting ourselves and others, right? Is it even possible to set others, right?

 

President Eisenhower once said, leadership involves “Vision, integrity, courage, understanding, the power of articulation, and profundity of character.” Yet today, profundity of character and integrity are seemingly no longer prerequisites for leadership. All one needs is the power of articulation and the courage to communicate well what they want. Vision now revolves around what can be extracted from people for short-term goals — the next election!

 

Politics has become a new form of packaging. It's about packaging individuals so effectively that people believe they've found a saviour in the product being presented. The book mentioned above states, “Style, style, style—if money is the mother’s milk of modern politics, style is its lifeblood. Whereas style and substance were once linked, today style has become an end in itself. Perception is now reality. Identity is about presentation. Style is the art of skillfully packaging illusions and projecting them with confidence as we walk down the corridor of images that make up modern societies.” As the author reminds us, Vogue editor Diana Vreeland’s motto, “fake it, fake it,” is now the First Commandment of the spin-doctor and the commercial-maker. As Vreeland advises, “Never worry about facts. Project an image to the public.” Once again, the casualty is character.

However, Friedrich Nietzsche said almost 175 years ago, “Mankind would rather see gestures than listen to reasons,” and Søren Kierkegaard, in 1840, wrote, “A revolutionary age is an age of action; ours is an age of advertisement and publicity. Nothing ever happens, but there is immediate publicity everywhere.” Once again, there seems to be nothing new under the sun, as the writer of Ecclesiastes says, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”

 

But then, we get what we deserve. When we discard adoration and worship of the creator, replacing it with self-promoting goals, we search for man-made saviors who can give us something more or greater. Because self-promotion is never enough to satisfy us. Hence, the media gives us God-men or Men-gods who are packaged well. 

 

Benjamin Disraeli said, “Man is made to adore and obey; but if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities and find a chieftain in his own passions.” Historian Jacob Burckhardt wrote, “People no longer believe in principles but will, periodically, probably believe in saviors... For this reason, authority will raise its head again in the pleasant twentieth century.”

 

Yet, this issue isn't confined to politics alone. When self-promotion and self-worship become gods, “It is forbidden to forbid” others. Each person has the freedom to be what they want and live for whatever they desire. Yet, character is once again sacrificed. W. H. Auden wrote, “One of the troubles of our time is that we are all, I think, precocious as personalities and backward as characters.”

 

The media and AI tools play into this game, feeding us packaged information and camouflaged individuals who can strike when the enemy is unsuspecting and alter their course with the context and season. Our 21st-century animal instincts to camouflage character in colors that blind us!

And we play along, engaging in a game of Calvinball. Following Calvin and Hobbs who invented a new ball game, based on rules that are ever changing. We hold onto short-term gains, but at what cost?  Forgetting that the camouflaged animals will be revealed one day, flexible rules will lead to consequences, even in this post-truth culture. A loss of the long-term benefits of a life lived well. 

However, a life that is lived well emerges from four aspects: core, consistency, cost, and community. Character stems from the “inner form” or core of a person. A core that is constant, revealing a person’s character best through consistent actions rather than a single statement or random act. As Nietzsche said, “a long obedience in the same direction.” The core can only come from a transformed heart. Consistent core-character is usually formed and best revealed in the crucible of testing, and thus, it comes at a cost.

 

But then we need communities that discuss this, communities that keep us on track! Not just boomers, but cross-generational communities that inspire one another to believe that character counts!

 

When No One Sees, THE IMPORTANCE OF CHARACTER IN AN AGE OF IMAGE, Copyright © 1992, 2000 by The Trinity Forum.