The first headmaster of Stowe school, J F Roxburgh, declared his goal to be
turning out young men who would be “acceptable at a dance and invaluable in
a shipwreck”.
A mixture of courtesy and courage used to be essential to the idea of a
British citizen’s character. Brits were the sort of people who knew both how
to survive a blitz and queue politely. Similarly, Robert Baden-Powell, the
founder of the Scout movement, aimed to induce in his young charges “some of
the spirit of self-negation, self-discipline, sense of humour,
responsibility, helpful-ness to others, loyalty and patriotism which go to
make ‘character’ ”. He described his movement as nothing less than a
“character factory”.
But in the postwar shift towards a less constrained and judgmental society –
“character talk”, in Stefan Collini’s phrase – dropped out of public
discourse, except when considering someone’s suitability for high office.
The idea of good character came to sound old-fashioned and patronising.
“The reason we find the concept of character difficult is because of class
conflict in British society,” says Matthew Taylor, former head of strategy
for Tony Blair.
“There was a sense that good character was handed down from a patrician class
to the great unwashed.” Thinkers and politicians across the political
spectrum are trying to revive “character talk”.
Taylor is pushing the idea of “pro-social behaviour” recognising, he says,
that changes in personal behaviour are essential to successful policy in
everything from climate change to obesity. David Cameron last month called
for politicians to tackle issues of “public morality”.
Against the backdrop of the impoverished east end of Glasgow, he insisted
politicians had to drop “moral neutrality”.
He criticised the political classes for “a refusal to make judgments about
what is good and bad behaviour, right and wrong”. Some people on the left
are also starting to argue that character might matter as much as resources
in improving life chances. Bestselling books such as Lynne Truss’s Talk to
the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rude-ness of Everyday Life speak to a generalised
anxiety about the breakdown of positive social norms of behaviour.
But it is important to keep this in perspective. Most of the time, most people
are perfectly pleasant. British society as a whole is not “broken” in any
meaningful sense. Of course, it is notoriously hard for politicians to get
traction in the area of behaviour.
They often fall into the trap described by the philosopher Jon Elster of
“willing what cannot be willed”. And Cameron is certainly taking some risks
with his incursions into morality.
By insisting that individuals should take a share of responsibility for their
obesity or poverty, he is thinking his way towards an integration of his
ideas on responsibility, morality and “broken Britain” that may lead him
towards a consideration of character formation. Conservatism and character
seem natural political bedfellows, given traditional right-wing concerns
with social order and reducing state dependency. What is more surprising is
the number of people on the centre-left who can also see the point of a new
focus on character.
For them, the concern is less with general social interaction – although they
worry about that, too – than with the character of a small, influen-tial and
expensive group that Blair once labelled the “deeply excluded”. Since
character is an unfashionable concept, it is important to be clear what it
means in this public policy context.
The three key ingredients of a good character are: a sense of personal agency
or self-direction; an acceptance of personal responsibility; and effective
regulation of one’s own emotions, in particular the ability to resist
temptation or at least defer gratification. Progressives are realising that,
thus defined, character is intimately linked to The specific concerns of
progressives can be divided into three themes: the link between character
attributes and life chances; the life chances “penalty” being paid by the
children who do not develop a good character; and the growing demand for
good character in the labour market.
Recent claims about social mobility in Britain grinding to a halt are
exaggerated, but it does seem that the likelihood of a person being upwardly
mobile is increasingly influenced by personal qualities such as confidence
and self-control. Julia Margo, associate director of the Institute for
Public Policy Research, has assembled an impressive body of evidence linking
character to life chances.
Her work, which draws on that by Leon Feinstein at the Institute of Education,
shows that measured levels of “application” – defined as dedication and a
capacity for concentration – at the age of 10 have a bigger impact on
earnings by the age of 30 than ability in maths.
Avner Offer, professor of economic history at Oxford, likewise describes how
“commitment devices” can help individuals to manage their own desires. In
his book The Challenge of Affluence: Self-Control and Well-Being in the
United States and Britain Since 1950, Offer provides a vignette of a
familiar self-control challenge. “A young student ponders whether to spend
the evening revising at her desk or to go out with friends.
How much to sacrifice tonight for a remote future? When to stop having fun,
but also when to stop being serious? Conventions, expectations and
institutions have built up gradually over decades and centuries to form a
stock of equipment available to deal with her problem . . . sources and
strategies of self-control, both cognitive and social, take time to
develop.” Offer argues that “personal capacity for commitment” is inculcated
in institutions such as the family along what Margo calls “paths to
socialisation”.
Character is made, not born. Offer argues that consumer capitalism, by
providing a constant flow of novelty, undermines these sources and
strategies. It is harder for us to stick to our commitments in a society
bombarded with advertising temptations and saturated with the idea of
individual consumer choice.
This seems implausible: after all, as Margo’s work shows, plenty of people do
end up with good character traits – and, if anything, it is the more
affluent who do so. Nonetheless, Offer is surely right to argue that the
“stock of equipment” that makes up character is of vital importance in the
construction of a successful life. The second concern is that children who
fail to develop positive character traits are less likely to succeed – and
these children come overwhelmingly from low-income homes.
The political right used to argue that poverty is caused by weakness of
character; the left is now realising it may be the other way around. “Over
time, poverty has become more associated with differences in character
development,” Margo told me. “So while in the past a poor deprived child
would have about the same chance of developing a good character as a more
affluent one, our research suggests that children who were born into
deprivation in the 1970s as opposed to the late 1950s were much less likely
to develop good character than more affluent groups.”
The family is the main “character factory” – and Margo’s work shows that some
families are much more effective manufacturers than others.
We need a better understanding of what is going on in these failing families.
Some evolutionary biologists point to genetic inheritance and it is clear
that some character traits are inherited. Traditional left- wing analyses,
on the other hand, high- light material deprivation. But the weight of
evidence is that good parents provide good insulation against inherited
negative traits – and that being a good parent has little to do with having
a good income.
Stephen Scott, professor of child health and behaviour at King’s College
London, has conducted a range of studies showing how the behaviour of
parents influences the life trajectories of their children, even when
genetic predispositions are taken into account.
“There’s an interaction between your genetic predisposition and the way you
turn out according to the way you’re raised,” says Scott. “When it comes
to being antisocial, aggressive, stealing and lying, the interaction is a
big one. If you have poor self-control and a rather twitchy, irritable
temperament and you’re brought up in a harsh way, it’s bad news. For that
group, the rate of criminality aged 17 is about 40%. But if you have that
twitchy character and you’re brought up in a reasonably calm, soothing way,
you will do well.”
If low-income parents are doing less well on this front – as it seems they are
– the question of how poverty interacts with parenting becomes important.
Scott is emphatic here. “Financial poverty is a factor, but not a central
one,” he says. “I am fond of saying: poverty of what? And actually it seems
to be poverty of the parent-child experience . . . that leads to poor child
outcomes rather than poverty of a material kind.” Consistent parental love
and discipline is the motor of the character production line and not all
children are lucky enough to receive it.
A poor start in life, in terms of character development, reduces educational
performance, which obviously lessens labour market opportunities. But – the
third concern – lack of good character has a more direct influence on job
opportunities too. In Aesthetic Labour and the Policy-Making Agenda: Time
for a Reappraisal of Skills, Chris Warhurst and his colleagues at
Strathclyde University show that an increasing number of employers are
following the advice of Rocco Forte, who when asked the secret of providing
great service in hotels, replied: “Hire nice people.”
As the economy shifts towards service jobs, the person increasingly becomes
part of the product. This means that “soft skills" such as social
confidence, patience and kindness grow in importance. Ironically it is often
the children of the middle classes who make the best servants. In Glasgow,
studied in detail by Warhurst and his colleagues, 80% of jobs are in the
service sector, but the people living in nearby places such as Easterhouse
aren’t getting them.
“The danger is that many people in deprived areas are being denied work
because of a lack of cultural capital,” says Warhurst. “In Glasgow, 50% of
jobs are now filled by commuters from the middle- class suburbs.”
What helps to form good character? Margo says there are key ingredients that
make for success: “It is regular time with the same adult over an extended
period, so you respect them and learn from them. Which is why things like
the Scout movement are so effective, because you’re progressing, you’re
ageing through the institution. And there tends to be a very good staying-on
rate for the adult workers, so you have a lot of interaction with the same
adult over a long period of time.”
Baden-Powell and all of us involved in the Scout movement – I’ve recently
“come out” as a Scout leader – would agree.
Character is an old idea with contemporary relevance. A considerable number of
pressing social problems – obesity, welfare reform, pensions, public
disorder, educational failure, social immobility – are all, in part,
questions of character. It is a treacherous political terrain but one in
which governments are increasingly entangled. Anyone who is interested in
creating a successful liberal society is interested in character, too,
whether they admit it or not. Good societies need good people.
Richard Reeves is director of the think tank
Demos; this is an edited version of a longer essay in Prospect www.prospect-magazine.co.uk
A big problem with our society is our worship of celebrity such as Mick Jagger. The lesson is that you can behave appallingly over the years yet still profit immensely and get knighted later on. The huge flaw in this 'fun today, for tomorrow' dictum is the 99.9% of musicians who got nowhere.
Gavin Wilson, Thames Ditton, UK
Once again politicians have short memories. It wasn't too long ago that they were moralising in a very patronising way about family values etc etc, while committing adultory themselves. They should stick to politics.
Neil, Gloucestershire, England
Judy is dead right!
There is nothing more stunting to human development than the phrase "dont do that".
Eventually a kid will say "So why am I alive? Whats the point?
You wont let me grow. You are not interested in what I think? Why should I show character - as you understand it?"
kevin, Cape Town, SA
Oh p..lease! We've just had 11 years of you can't say this and you can't do that to the point where everybody has just about given up! People doing the right thing and trying to live honest lives have been positively derided under this Labour regime. Governments deserve exactly what they get.
judy, Liverpool, England