It struck me as odd that the main target of this individual was the “ivory tower” “nutty professor” (his words, not mine) types who, parenthetically, have spent many of their own hours away from their families to advance the field from which he has prospered (these are my words).Īnyway, this pomposity aside, I started contemplating the idea of humility in our field. The discussion focused largely on this individual's practice and how without appropriate and aggressive leadership in place the field of IR is doomed to oblivion. Humility seems not to be a stand-alone characteristic for which he uses one case example, but is a thread that runs through the fabric of all of these individuals who define “character.” As he didn't use a specific case example to describe an instance of humility, I thought I would-although from a different perspective.Ī few weeks ago, I was included in an email chain started by a fellow IR that was, simply put, a rant against all things IR.

In the book, which I highly recommend by the way, he uses case studies of individuals from American history to outline the personality traits to which we should all strive. One of the concepts that the author of this book discusses is the personality trait of humility-true humility, not forced or faked. Why my wife felt that I needed to read this book is something I'd rather not discuss and is beyond the scope of this article. Humility is the awareness that there's a lot you don't know and that a lot of what you think you know is distorted or wrong.įor the holidays last year my wife gave me a book entitled, The Road to Character by David Brooks.

The road to character david brooks pdf