David Brooks, New York Times columnist
excerpts from Greensboro News & Record, 3-7-2012
“At root,” Wilson wrote in The Public Interest, “in almost every area of important concern, we are seeking to induce persons to act virtuously, whether as schoolchildren, applicants for public assistance, would-be lawmakers or voters and public officials.”
When Wilson wrote about character and virtue, he didn’t mean anything high flow or theocratic. It was just the basics: Behave in a balanced way. Think about the long-term consequences of your actions. Cooperate. Be decent.
He did not believe that virtue was inculcated by prayer in schools. It was habituated by practicing good manners, by being dependable, punctual and responsible day by day.
Wilson emphasized that character was formed in groups. Order exists because a system of beliefs and sentiments held by members of a society set limits to what those members can do.
In “The Moral Sense,” he brilliantly investigated the virtuous sentiments we are born with and how they are cultivated by habit. Wilson’s broken window theory was promoted in an essay with George Kelling called “Character and Community.” Wilson and Kelling didn’t think of crime primarily as an individual choice. They saw it as something that emerged from the social psychology of a community. When neighborhoods feel disorganized and scary, crime increases.
Wilson understood that people are moral judgers and moral
actors, and he reintegrated the vocabulary of character into discussions of
everyday life.
