The Road to Character

by

David Brooks

The Road to Character: Chapter 2: The Summoned Self Summary & Analysis

Summary
Analysis
Brooks introduces Frances Perkins, who was an advocate for ending child labor in the early 1900s. In 1911, Perkins witnessed the famous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City. She stood in front of the burning building and watched workers crowd around the windows. People trapped in the building, including child laborers, started to jump out the windows. Some helped one another, some shouted last words. The firefighters’ nets were not enough to break their falls, and everyone who jumped died.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was such an appalling thing to witness that it ultimately changed Frances Perkins’s life. It was an event that showed her the extreme ramifications of poor worker’s conditions that she had previously only had an inkling of, as employees were forced to choose how they would die.
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The fire began when cotton scraps caught on fire. The factory manager was so busy trying to put out the fire that he didn’t call for the factory to evacuate immediately. Even when evacuation began, many workers took the time to punch their timecards. Also, many exits had been blocked to prevent workers from leaving easily on normal days, so as to forcibly maximize productivity. People on the top floors began to crowd into the elevators. Everyone had to make frantic decisions, pushing others aside and hurling themselves at any possible exit to safety.
Many of the factory’s conditions contributed to the tragedy of the fire. Extremely flammable scraps of cotton were lying about, and the workers were so intent on punching their timecards (probably because they got paid so little that every penny counted) that they didn’t evacuate in time. Moreover, the workers had essentially been locked inside the factory, so they had trouble evacuating. In this sense, the factory manager’s hyper-focus on Adam I (productivity and external success) doomed his employees.
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The Triangle Shirtwaist fire created an uproar. Even before it happened, workers had organized strikes against the factory’s unsafe conditions. After the fire, people protested the cruel employers and laws that allowed such harsh conditions to exist. While Frances Perkins had already been an advocate against child labor, now her “moral indignation” was at such a level that she forgot about her ego and fully devoted herself to fighting for the broader cause of workers’ rights for the rest of her life. Her career became a vocation.
The Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire exposed the true nature of factory working conditions to the public, and the workers’ rights movement turned into a full-blown cause. Whereas before, Frances Perkins and others had idly fought for workers’ rights because it seemed like a good thing to do, this tragedy created more fervent devotion to this cause.
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Brooks shifts to modern times and comments that, nowadays, our culture almost exclusively encourages people to follow their dreams and trust their feelings. Life is followed like a business plan in which a person defines a purpose and then comes up with a strategy for achieving that purpose. This way of life defines purpose as beginning and ending with the self. 
Frances Perkins and many others followed the cause of workers’ rights and thought about oppressed employees’ feelings to guide their own paths. Today, however, Brooks suggests that people just follow their own dreams and feelings.
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However, Brooks points out that Frances Perkins found purpose in a different way. Instead of asking herself what she wanted, she asked herself what the world wanted of her. By this way of thinking, a person does not create their life; they are “summoned by life,” and their life is formed around circumstances rather than beginning in the self. Every person is brought into a world that has needs for them to respond to.
Frances Perkins had a unique method for finding her purpose in life. Instead of looking inward, she looked outward and asked herself how she could be of use to the world. Since the world is larger than the individual, Brooks suggests that a person should serve the needs of the world they are born into, rather than their own personal needs.
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Brooks further describes this sort of calling by referring to Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl was captured by the Nazis and imprisoned in a concentration camp without family or friends. Although this life was completely opposed to what his dream life would’ve been, he realized that his character would be shaped by how he responded internally to his circumstances. He couldn’t expect anything or control his suffering, but he could control his inner response to suffering.
The way Perkins found her purpose in life was a through a vocation—something that called to her. In extreme circumstances such as Frankl’s, this method for finding a purpose in life can sustain a person’s will to survive. Even when one doesn’t get the life they wanted, they still can give themselves purpose by rising to the challenge of what life is asking them to endure.
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Frankl helped other prisoners endure, urging them to think of something they loved even in the midst of a horrific imprisonment meant to destroy their hope, humanity, and ability to love. He assured suicidal prisoners that life still expected things from them. In adversity, Brooks comments, everyone has the opportunity to justify their inner strength.
Rising to life’s call justifies a person’s inner strength because it shows that even when a person has nothing that they want, they still have an inner meaning and strength for living. This is evidenced by the fact that Frankl used to concept of a vocation to keep prisoners from committing suicide.
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Brooks distinguishes a vocation from a career. A vocation is not chosen, and it doesn’t necessarily advance you in the career world. Rather, a vocation is “a calling.” People are devoted to their vocations for higher reasons than utility and benefit. Furthermore, a vocation is not about achieving happiness or satisfying one’s desires. Instead, a vocation is about molding oneself to the job put before them.
A career is a means through which one advances themselves to higher rungs of success. A vocation also involves a process, but it is an internal one: a person transforms themselves to meet the needs of the vocation that is calling to them. This may or may not involve external advancement.
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However, Brooks maintains that people with vocations are usually happy. He makes a distinction between serving one’s community and serving one’s work. If one wholly serves the work at hand, they will benefit the community more richly as a result. These people will have the joy of their values being deeply aligned with their actions.
Although a person with a vocation might not attain the external objects of happiness that a person with a career does, they will receive the joy of feeling an inner balance. This begins with not caring about external success: a person with a vocation ignores how the community perceives them and instead focuses entirely on their work. And, as a result, the person will be more satisfied than if they had simply chased success, because they’ll find that their actions align with their moral blueprint.
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Brooks now tells Frances Perkins’s life story, beginning with her traditional Yankee upbringing in Maine. She was raised to be frugal, earnest, and honest. This attitude reflected the old culture of New England: New Englanders were unsentimental and aware of their sinfulness. They believed that God showed love through correcting their flaws, encouraging them to become strong where they had been weak. They combined social conservatism with political liberalism, being traditional in their private lives and compassionate and active in their communities.
Frances Perkins’s upbringing reflects the values of the old culture of humility that Brooks defined through the radio episode following World War II. Perkins’s family was humble, self-renouncing, and hard on themselves. This attitude reflected their belief that human nature is flawed. Therefore, Perkins was raised in a tradition of humility that practiced character-building and focused on the Adam II side of human nature.
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Perkins never got great grades. However, she went to Mt. Holyoke College, which was different then than most colleges are today. Today, teachers cultivate talents, but back then, education was rigorous and uncompromising. For instance, Perkins was urged to major in her weakest subject in order to test her fortitude. Old Mt. Holyoke taught students that those who pursue struggle are happier than those who don’t.
Perkins was not perfect from the beginning of her life, but rather had distinct flaws. She had to be molded into a good, hard-working student because she did not have a natural aptitude to be this way. This shows that she built her character through discipline rather than through maximizing her talents, again aligning Perkins more with Adam II than Adam I.
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Mt. Holyoke cautioned against mere acts of compassion and insisted instead that acts of service are duties. It employed women in service jobs and taught them courage, character, and heroism. This was during a time when the Christian Church was responding to industrialization by asserting that sin is not just individual, but that there are sinful social structures and institutions. Therefore, a Christian life should be one of sacrificial service.
Mt. Holyoke’s philosophy of community service is based on the understanding that even charitable work can be done selfishly. The college did not want their students to do community service so as to absolve themselves and make themselves feel good. Instead, it wanted the students to do community service because it improves the world.
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Mt. Holyoke pushed Perkins down so she could “push herself upward.” This taught her to be heroic. After graduating, she worked at the Hull House, a community founded by Jane Addams that brought the rich and poor together in a community that performed acts of service to improve life generally.
Mt. Holyoke’s technique of pushing Perkins down so she could push herself up ensured that she didn’t coast by on her natural talents. Instead, she had to develop inner strength to endure a rigorous and unforgiving education.
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Today, one performs community service to satisfy their inner moral questions. Instead of teaching students how to build character, institutions these days simply assign community service. Consequently, moral questions are turned into questions of external resources. Jane Addams knew, however, that mere compassion accomplishes nothing and leads to self-satisfaction. At the Hull House, the social workers were practical and humble, letting the poor determine their own lives and become self-reliant.
Community service is often used as an easy way to feel like one is doing good. However, if people just participate in community service on the surface, going through the motions and donating to causes, they are not really changed. Only when a person sacrifices their own desire for glory can they really serve the someone else’s needs.
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Jane Addams observed that many people graduated college and fell into dull, cynical lives. In college, students think of society and how they can serve it, but when they graduate, they resort to marriage and individual aims. Therefore, she made the Hull House a place where the rich and poor alike could commit to noble aims. From the Hull House, Perkins went on to do courageous acts of service, “like a missionary.”
When people leave college, they no longer have a community surrounding them, so they often resort to thinking only of themselves. Jane Addams’ idea with the Hull House was to create a community for people of all walks of life that was devoted broadly to improving life.
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Perkins left behind everything and went to lobby for workers’ rights in Albany, New York. In order to effect change, she worked with callous politicians. She suppressed her sexuality and identity in order to be respected as a mother-like figure in political circles. She worked tirelessly to reduce the work week to 54 hours, finally accepting a partial triumph: a bill that reduced work week hours in most industries.
In order to affect change, Perkins was willing to do things that compromised her own self. She didn’t care if she was disrespected as a woman in political circles as long as she was able to make a difference. This shows how she cared about her vocation than about her own self.
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Perkins married Paul Wilson, a progressive political figure. In her letters to Wilson, Perkins was warm and romantic, but outwardly she was reserved and practical about their marriage. Their relationship slowly fell apart. Wilson had an affair, and Perkins felt stifled in work and spirit. They lost their first baby. Although personally devastated by this, Perkins threw her energies into a foundation supporting mothers and infants. Meanwhile, Wilson lost their money in a poor investment and suffered severe mental illness.
This sad description of Perkins’s personal life shows that a person’s effectiveness in their work or toward causes does not always translate into their personal happiness. In fact, Perkins even felt that her marriage stifled her ability to be spirited in her work. The real work of Perkins’s life was not reflected in her personal relationships but in tasks greater than herself.
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In response to these hardships in her personal life, Perkins was stoic. She concealed her private life from the public, believing that personal emotions are too complex and nuanced to be exposed. Brooks defines reticence and exposure as two opposing parties, with different views about proper social behavior. The exposure party believes that anything secret is suspect, while the reticent party, like Perkins, believes that intricate emotions, when taken out of the context of intimacy, are “trampled.”
Perkins’s privacy was probably an asset in her work. Unphased by emotional problems, she was able to fearlessly fight for her causes. In the same way that she didn’t allow insults to her femininity stop her from enacting change, she held to a code of stoicism so that her emotions didn’t derail her. Her work was about making practical improvements to life.
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Brooks shows that Perkins’s reticence had drawbacks. Her private life was unhappy. Her daughter Susanna, in response to her mother’s aloofness, was badly behaved and unsuccessful, and Perkins had to support her financially throughout her life. Perkins feared that both her husband’s and daughter’s collapses were somehow her fault. This goes to show that Perkins’s public vocation was never quite enough to make up for her private solitude.
Since Perkins’s work was about making practical improvements to life, she was not well-versed in the language of emotions and intimate relationships. Therefore, her personal life was made up of a series of failed relationships. Her vocation was so beyond herself that it never provided her full happiness. 
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Eventually, Perkins was appointed to the Industrial Commission—the governmental body that regulated workers’ conditions—by Al Smith, governor of New York. Here, she was in a man’s world, bravely engaging in disputes between labor organizations. When describing her own life, she mostly used “one” instead of “I,” suggesting that her actions weren’t hers but were what any person with a vocation would do.
By using “one” instead of “I,” Perkins suggests that people with vocations think in a universal way. They don’t think about what they personally desire, but rather they think of themselves as an instrument for a universal wish. This shows that one’s vocation is much greater than oneself.
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Perkins ended up working with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Initially, she was unimpressed by him, but when he returned after contracting polio, she found him humbled. He was physically changed, too. During one of his speeches, several women rose to obscure Roosevelt’s awkward descent from the podium. Perkins admired his willingness to accept the help.
Perkins grew to like Roosevelt better the more hardships he faced and the humbler he became through them. This suggests that a person becomes more admirable the more they learn to accept their own weaknesses.
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When Roosevelt was elected governor of New York, he employed Perkins as Industrial Commissioner. At first, she told him she didn’t feel qualified, but he insisted on having her. She proved to be an excellent administrator but an even more excellent judge of morality in the law.
Perkins initial refusal of Roosevelt’s job offer shows that she did not have an excessively high opinion of herself. She did her work because it was her duty, not because she thought she was the best.
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When Roosevelt became president, he appointed Perkins as secretary of labor. She agreed on the condition that he work to enact certain social policies, such as unemployment relief and social security. She stayed with Roosevelt throughout his entire presidency and was integral to creating the New Deal. She established the nation’s first minimum wage law and procured jobs for women whose husbands were drafted in World War II.
Perkins made a great deal of change in the field of workers’ rights not by striking out on her own, but by working loyally with someone superior to her and forging gradual change through them. She always worked with other politicians so that the changes she made were lasting and written in law.
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Perkins was the author of The Roosevelt I Knew, the most detailed biography of Roosevelt to date. She noted his quality of accepting mistakes in his judgment and taking small steps toward change. He was more of an “instrument than an engineer.” While working with him, she handled his changes of mind by asking him to confirm his decisions many times so as to cement them in the president’s own mind.
The fact that Perkins wrote an autobiography of Roosevelt but no memoir of herself suggests that she was Brooks’s definition of wise: she accepted the fact that she didn’t know everything and instead admired the examples of greatness she found outside herself. Her privacy and self-renunciation allowed her to be a great moral judge of others. 
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Roosevelt didn’t always support Perkins against the dislike the rest of the Cabinet felt toward her. Her privacy made her unpopular with the press. Many times, she tried to resign, but Roosevelt convinced her not to. When she shielded Harry Bridges, a man suspected of Communist activities and later confirmed to be a Communist agent, she herself was accused of being a Communist and a Russian Jew. Roosevelt was too afraid of ruining his reputation to defend her.
This passage again shows that Perkins life was not entirely happy. However, it also shows that she didn’t care about things like reputation, and always stood up for what she believed in, no matter what people would think of her. She continued to maintain her attitude that she was nothing special, trying to resign multiple times.
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All this time, Perkins held on to her New England integrity, refusing to destroy the “inner core” that made her capable of such good deeds. In reality, it was all she could do to hold herself together. She took to praying at a local convent whenever she could. She asked herself whether a good deed is done for the poor or for God. She concluded that it must be done for God, because only then is it intrinsically good.
Perkins’s conclusion that a good deed must be done for God shows that she remained wary of good deeds that were actually self-involved. In doing a good deed for the poor, one might expect immense gratitude or a material reward in return—but if one does something for God, one can’t have these expectations.
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In 1939, Perkins appeared before court for her shielding of Bridges and defended herself against brutal accusations. She was cleared, but her reputation was ruined for good. She continued to serve Roosevelt quietly. When he died, she wrote his biography instead of her own memoir. She taught at Cornell and lived in the Telluride House with fraternity boys, taking simple delight in their youthfulness.
Perkins wrote a biography of Roosevelt even though he hadn’t always been loyal to her, refusing to defend her when her reputation was in danger. This shows that, on principle, Perkins wasn’t self-involved. She always did more for others than she did for herself.
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Perkins destroyed papers so that biographers couldn’t document her in the future. She died in 1965 at 85, alone in the hospital. Looking at her college yearbook photo, Brooks expresses that it is hard to believe how much hardship this “small, cute, almost mousy” lady survived. It is also hard to believe how much she accomplished. She sacrificed her identity to serve causes and remained steadfast throughout adversity.
Perkins took her principle of selflessness to the extreme, making sure no one else could even tell the story of her life. Looking at her young photo is shocking because what she accomplished in her life was so immense that it far surpassed what her appearance indicated she was capable of. She also sacrificed all the youthfulness she had in the photo in order to make change in demeaning political circles.
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Perkins was energetic in activism and traditional in morality. Her self-discipline diminished her personal life. However, this helped her completely devote herself to her vocation and lead “a summoned life.” She didn’t choose her life. Rather, she answered a calling, sacrificing all things dear to her to follow it. Her activities transcended her lifetime. Therefore, she had to commit herself to a “historical process.”
Perkins devoted herself to a “historical process,” which means she was arguably more an agent of historical change than she was a person with a well-rounded life. She sacrificed many of the things that fulfill a human being’s personal life and instead did things that made her go down in history. In this sense, she chose heroism over happiness.
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