TRUST AND RESILIENCE: VIRTUES THAT IMPACT CHARACTER
In recent blogs, I have introduced our readers to two pals of mine, each prominent authors and consultants, namely: Robert Porter Lynch (see his “System of Trust” http://www.warrenco.com/) and Dr Paul Stoltz’s (www.peaklearning.com) Adversity Advantage (see HBR http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/07/when_adversity_strikes_what_do.html)
First, we will hear from Mr. Lynch and later from Dr. Stoltz. Robert Porter Lynch agrees with our readers that there is a trust deficit in this country. Over the next several posts, I will cite Mr. Lynch’s views on the advice our founding fathers would give our leaders about power and trust. We begin by citing quotes by Thomas Jefferson (the Third President of the United States, Author of the Declaration of Independence, author of the Virginia statute for Religious Freedom, founder of the University of Virginia) who was supportive of the need for virtue in our Republic.
“If the Wise be the happy man… he must be virtuous too; for, without virtue, happiness cannot be. This then is the true scope of all academical emulation.” –Thomas Jefferson to Amos J. Cook, 1816. ME 14:405
“Virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of society and scattered with equal hand through all its conditions, was deemed essential to a well-ordered republic.” –Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. MW 1:54
“[In a republic, according to Montesquieu in Spirit of the Laws, IV, ch.5,] ‘virtue may be defined as the love of the laws and of our country. As such love requires a constant preference of public to private interest, it is the source of all private virtue; for they are nothing more than this very preference itself… Now a government is like everything else: to preserve it we must love it… Everything, therefore, depends on establishing this love in a republic; and to inspire it ought to be the principal business of education; but the surest way of instilling it into children is for parents to set them an example.’” –Thomas Jefferson: copied into his Commonplace Book.
Tomorrow we will learn from Robert Porter Lynch how Mr. Jefferson saw these virtues being embedded into liberal education. Later in the month, I will acquaint our readers further with their work and how trust and resilience impact character development. In the last part of this series, I will offer examples of these traits in the lives of the ten characters with character which I based my book, Politics with Principle.
I suppose this distrust of the government is something festered by both sides. It’s captured perfectly in the quintessential Reagan quote: No one ever believes it when he hears someone say, ‘I’m from the government and I am here to help.’
Alberto,Thank you. It is always nice to hear a timely quote of Ronald Reagan. Stay tuned for some excellent insight over the next few days from my guest author, Robert Porter Lynch.