Character breakdown

 

A lot in this book is familiar. 

One of the authors is a soldier, the other a sociologist, so that's a fair combination of hands on and theory. They will usually take a real example from the US army - either training or combat - and show how the character and leadership of the people in charge contributed to either the failure or the success of the project. 

Army is strictly hierarchical, so it's mostly giving that bad character of the commander eventually leads to character breakdown of the whole unit. People will at best stop communicating, usually start low-key abusing each other in a way that still can pass off as a joke and at worst commit violent crimes and so on. 

I like the conclusion they make, which is (obviously?) to fucking stay away from people with a characterless sort of behavior. If you work with them, you've got to find something reportable on them to get rid of them. If they are your friends, you need new friends. If they are your entire neighborhood, you've got to get out.

So far this book haven't given the usual advice you'll get from a psychology professional nowadays: If you feel like you can't trust someone, it probably means you need meds or therapy because you have attachment issues. 

Needless to say, this book operates in a specific niche of reality. At one point they explain how sensible relationships develop when a person with good character acts in a way that benefits another, and in turn the other treats them with common decency in return. So, the relationship is transactional, but the exchange comes from a good place. 

Obviously, there are millions of people who have never experienced this in their life, or at least not since childhood. The Czechs have a saying that every good deed will be met with a suitable punishment, and that is a lot of people's experience in work and personal relationships. 

Interactions like this are what, over time, gets you the character breakdown: You act with a certain standard, others will start using that against you, over time you figure that if you can't beat the dogs you'll have to join them. 

The authors have a good practical solution: You've got to get grittier, more creative and overall tougher to weather the time period before you can get yourself out of these unfortunate circumstances. One good way to achieve that is to start expecting a lot from yourself, sort of, start operating with very high standards in every detail of your life. One thing, you cannot out-grit racism, sexism, xenophobia and such. Also, it can take years of hard work. But eventually it's bound to pay off, unless your bad circumstances drag you down first.

This is why I like how the authors say pretty explicitly that trust builds when someone shows up consistently over a long enough period of time. Trust is not something a healthy person does by default to just about everyone. 

(Also brings to mind that Zizek's quote - "it always astonishes me to what extent are stereotypes usually true." There's a classist stereotype that poor people have poor character, because they have been like dogs to each other over money and so their characters would have broken down. That is why in Great Britain noname people who continuously demonstrated that their character is exceptionally strong would get knighted, or in rarer cases would get a hereditary title. That's apparently how Laura Marling's ancestors got their baronetcy.)

Reviewing book The Character Edge: Leading and Winning with Integrity by Robert L. Caslen Jr., Michael D. Matthews