The Moral Bucket List

Much of Brooks’s argumentation unfolds through contrasts between external achievement and inner character. He introduces this contrast early in the essay when he juxtaposes his achievement of career success with his failure to achieve depth of character, and he expands on it when he distinguishes the resume and the eulogy virtues. He then reiterates the idea by citing examples in each item on his moral bucket list. Under the “humility leap,” he contrasts our culture of the “Big Me” with the humility achieved by people who radiate inner light. He introduces “self-defeat” with the observation that external achievement depends on competition with others, while moral character is forged through a confrontation with one’s self and weaknesses. His depiction of the “dependency leap” hinges on the opposition of American individualism to the intimate relationships of morally accomplished people. And under the “call within the call,” he distinguishes between a career, which one pursues for money or status, and a vocation or calling. Although the details differ from example to example, these oppositions serve to support Brooks’s critique of American culture and his thesis that he and his readers need to spend more time cultivating depth of character.

Brooks uses classic rhetorical strategies to persuade his reader of his thesis that a rich and meaningful life can be cultivated through moral achievement and education. According to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, persuasion involves three elements: ethos (the trustworthiness of the speaker), pathos (the emotions of the audience), and logos (the coherence of the speaker’s argument).

Ethos: Brooks establishes his qualifications to write about moral education by demonstrating his cultural fluency and expertise. By citing and alluding to important cultural figures like Dwight Eisenhower, George Eliot, Frances Perkins, Dorothy Day, and Paul Tillich, Brooks shows that he has read widely in history, politics, literature, and philosophy. In addition, he establishes credibility by explaining that he has studied those individuals who radiate an inner light to discover “how those deeply good people got that way” (Paragraph 7). He is a student of moral goodness and is therefore qualified to explain it to his reader.

Pathos: Brooks employs pathos, or an appeal to the emotions of his readers, when he paints a verbal picture of people who radiate an inner light. By using the second-person pronoun “you” as he explains that “these people make you feel funny and valued” (Paragraph 1), he places the reader in the position of identifying with the people interacting with the individuals who radiate an inner light. He shows the reader how people with an inner light make others feel, and he, furthermore, uses words like “musical” and “joy” to elicit the reader’s positive emotional response.

Logos: Brooks defines his terms and lays out his argument logically. He specifies that “humility,” for example, means “an intense self-awareness from a position of other-centeredness” (Paragraph 7). He similarly defines resume virtues as “the skills you bring to the marketplace” and eulogy virtues as “the ones that are talked about at your funeral” (Paragraph 5). Furthermore, Brooks’s use of logos is evident in his explanations of causation. When he writes that “external success is achieved through competition with others. But character is built during the confrontation with your own weakness” (Paragraph 12), he ascertains the origins of external success and character.

A metonym is a figurative device in which an author refers to something by using a feature of it. One example is when an author says “the crown” to refer to a monarch or monarchy. Brooks employs several metonyms. When he writes that the resume virtues are “the skills you bring to the marketplace” (Paragraph 4), “marketplace” symbolizes the broader structures of American consumerism and free-market capitalism. The marketplace is a feature of consumerism and capitalism and therefore becomes a stand-in for them. In another instance, he writes that “[m]any people give away the book ‘Oh, the Places You’ll Go!’ as a graduation gift. This book suggests that life is an autonomous journey” (Paragraph 13). The graduation gift and the book are features of and therefore symbolize not just the educational achievement of earning a diploma but also the educational system that values prestige and the kind of external achievement that, if left unbalanced with moral achievement, can lead to moral mediocrity.