“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth,
impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor,
blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice.
Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.”
― Joseph Heller, “Catch-22”
In a piece I wrote some time ago titled “Word Casualties,” I discussed my concerns about the vagueness and ambiguity surrounding key terms that frequent our discourse on matters of human identity and behavior. One particularly aggrieved victim of this phenomenon, the word “character,” will be my focus here. Even in the context of the passage quoted above, within Heller’s shrewd and eloquent profile of its key role in shaping perception, the essential nature of character itself remains obscure.
It is the case of “character” as much as any word common in the vocabulary of human psychology that it is regularly abandoned to inferences and suppositions held by speakers, listeners, writers and readers; thereby, each individual construes something of it from the context in which it appears. As with other “word casualties” “character” serves mainly as a convenient placeholder among participants for some presumed, consensual understanding (which in truth may be quite disparate). Observations of character frequently revolve around individuals having a good or bad version of it, or as in Joseph Heller’s citing, lacking it entirely within their communications and behaviors. All the while, despite its omnipresence, the psychological essence of “character” remains nebulous; recognition of the processes that contribute to it and how it operates dynamically within individuals is bypassed.
My primary intent here is to take the word “character” beyond its customary placeholder role, to impart it with a more distinct psychological identity among those factors that determine how we human beings operate amongst ourselves. I hope that my attempt to better delineate character will not only lend greater specificity to its sources and function but also demonstrate its critical role in determining how all individuals navigate their moment-to-moment interpersonal contacts, ultimately defining their presence and impact within their respective cultures and societies. In my view it is not an overstatement to suggest that a more rigorous understanding of the origins, structure and functioning of our character is essential to a coherent analysis and effective resolution of most of the conflicts and crises that beset our relationships. In its ubiquity and its impact upon our motivation and behavior, character is truly the key psychological agent that determines how we live and interact with others and are regarded by them; thereby it directs the very course of our lives.
Nonetheless, the imprecision enveloping use of the term “character” is persistent, perpetuated by frequent offhand references to it that rarely point toward its specific psychological processes and their contribution to individuals’ feelings, thinking, motivations, and behavior. Even as the troubled workings of character within individuals render much of the confusion, conflict, and pain in their interpersonal relations, on a broader plane, vagueness surrounding its essential nature undermines our society’s capacity to challenge its most extreme and toxic manifestations in the exercise of power in public life and politics. Therefore, a clearer understanding of the psychological nature of character has never been more critical in our society than it is now.
Let’s first review how character is commonly evoked within discourse that concerns human affairs, as these instances are rife with generality. We regularly hear references to a person’s having or lacking “character,” or displaying good or bad “character.” We speak of individuals’ choice of conduct in certain situations as a reflection of their “character,” of situations that are conducive to “character building,” or others that reveal a person’s “character.” In clinical/psychoanalytic circles the adjective “characterological” is still commonly evoked, and in the modern culture of Recovery there is much emphasis upon individuals’ recognizing and dealing with their “character defects.” Entire narratives of fiction and drama are described as “character studies” or “character driven.” All the while, a central question is deferred: Just what is character?
Taken as a whole, the common references to “character” in such contexts often do hint at an answer, as they carry connotations as to an individual’s level of integrity, discipline or degree of moral rigor. They may further reflect a person’s awareness of, or diligence in relation to, ethical concerns and standards. While common use of “character” describes something of its outward manifestations in our personalities and choices of behavior, it bypasses recognition of any of its distinct psychological essence, its origins and its processes.. My intent therefore is to describe my understanding of the structure upon which the character of all individuals is based, to identify its psychological components, their origins, and the mechanisms by which they continually function. At very least, this may disambiguate character from a range of closely associated concepts and terms with which it is so freely conflated, among these, “integrity,” “ethics,” “morality,” “personality,” and “temperament.”
My general approach to a more rigorous understanding of character reflects its central role in human affairs by locating it within a framework of mental faculties that are universal, that form a “through line” in human psychology and are present in individuals within all cultures or societies, irrespective of their distinct values and ideologies. Thereby, in broadest terms, I identify character as an aggregation of processes operating largely within the programming of the unconscious mind, and that mediates between how we feel and understand our Self and its best interests, and how we experience and construe the Other or others. These processes coordinate to function as a ‘scale’ that registers and weighs our sense of the priorities of our own needs and wants, against our awareness of other beings and all things external to ourselves. The psychological processes contributing to character ultimately direct our behavioral motivation and shape our personalities by weighing our natural pursuit of our Self-realization and Self-interests against its impact upon others and things beyond us.
The calculations that comprise our character integrate a broad array of psychological faculties that are rooted in our Nature (our heritable bio-psychological constitution), while they are continuously shaped and modified by Nurture (our life experience, our acquired perspectives and knowledge). Together these determine the intensity and quality of our Self-awareness, of our sense of ourselves in relation to others, and the degree to which we are inclined to account to ourselves for our impact upon all things beyond us. This reckoning reflects continuous, primarily unconscious processes that are ultimately manifested in all behavioral choices that we make on behalf of ourselves within the social sphere at any of the many decision points we encounter, even within the span of a single day.
To further illustrate my understanding of those psychological components that specifically contribute to the development and functioning of character, I propose that we first consider and accept two basic premises concerning human nature and how it operates within the social environment:
The first is that all human beings may be accurately understood as fundamentally and naturally Self-centered (Egocentric), for as we emerge into adulthood, we all gradually come to understand and undertake our primary role as the guarantor of our own survival and the steward of our quality of life. This task is continually reinforced by the fact that our most direct, immediate, and impactful experience is within our own physical and mental processes, our own feelings and thoughts.
The second premise is that while we do operate primarily on behalf of whatever may be our sense of our best interests, we rarely, if ever, do so in a social vacuum totally devoid of the presence of other beings or entities. Thus, each one of the innumerable decisions that we make (largely unconsciously) while navigating the course of even a single day will have some degree of impact, however imperceptible or obvious, subtle or stark, on someone or something outside ourselves.
Thereby, against the backdrop of our natural inclination to maintain competent oversight of our own survival and quality of life, and to attend to the priorities of our Self-interest, continuous calculations within our unconscious mind weigh these basic existential concerns against the consideration of our impact upon beings and things beyond us. Over time, these complex reckonings of each moment produce our choices of behavior that connect, like coordinates on a map, to define our character.
In service to those calculations that generate character, the human psyche draws upon the two tiers of psychological resources that are commonly recognized as the foundation of the living identity of all individuals. The first, that of Nature, is represented in our innate bio-psychological constitution. It is largely genetically predetermined and sometimes referred to as our “temperament,” or popularly described as our “basic wiring.” Among the components of identity primarily attributable to our psychological constitution, the two that most directly shape our character are our capacity for empathic connection, and the intensity and range of our emotional experience, particularly that of anxiety.
Empathy, the ability to viscerally register the feelings of others as though their internal experience were our own, provides an indispensable means for construing others as complete “Selves” who, like us, possess a full range of human feelings and needs. Empathy creates a psychological basis for self-recognition in the presence and experience of another or others, thereby rendering it a key factor in the calculations of our character. On the other hand, the absence of a capacity for empathy in certain individuals limits their sense of commonality with others and instead inclines them toward what is frequently described as “objectification.” This tendency involves the narrowing of a person’s feeling for and perception of others, by which persons and things external to the individual are defined primarily by their utility. That is to say that via objectification a person construes and engages with others predominantly for their perceived usefulness in meeting that individual’s needs and interests, or in supporting and validating some aspects of his/her Ego (idealized Self-concept).
Our bio-psychological constitution is responsible for yet another key factor in character formation. It determines both the intensity level of the anxiety continuously present within each of us, as well as the flow of its onset and dissipation under fraught circumstances. Thereby, the more elevated our general level of anxiety, and the more intense the anxiety we feel in moments we experience vulnerability or threat, the more our attentional priorities are automatically directed toward our defense and meeting our immediate needs. Conversely, the less we experience the encroachment of anxiety upon our emotional equanimity, the freer we are to engage our capacity for empathic connection; consequently, the greater the depth of our attunement to and consideration of others.
Much research has suggested that our capacity to experience empathy is largely a function of genetic predetermination, that it is not equally apportioned at birth among individuals. Nonetheless, especially through early life experience, empathy can also be instilled and cultivated. Thereby, the second-tier contributor, that of Nurture, of experiential learning, is integrated into the reckonings of character, in a way demonstrated by the following vignette:
A toddler sitting in a sandbox playing with a pail and shovel spots another child’s toy truck, takes interest in it, and impulsively reaches for it. At this moment the toddler’s attentive parent may or may not intervene to point out that the truck belongs to the other child, gently suggesting that he return the truck to its rightful owner. The parent may specifically promote empathy by putting this question to his/her child: “How would you feel if that kid took your pail and shovel from you?”
Nurture continually channels an entire history of such life experience and acquired knowledge, ultimately to shape our internal map of reality and define both our expectations for ourselves within the social environment and our sense of responsibility to it. It thereby shapes our character by directing how we interpret and navigate the demands of our Self-care and Self-defense within the world as we come to understand it. Modern theories across psychologies underscore this view by recognizing that key aspects of our lived experience, ranging from the sensory to concrete facts and conscious awareness, are committed to memory and archived in the unconscious mind; simultaneously, they are continuously recalled to the background of present experiences and shape our feelings and perceptions of the moment.
Current understanding of the connection of past and present within such a continuous circular processes further suggests that the historic content of our internal mental archive is organized as a whole within a broad framework sometimes termed a “Self-narrative” – our continuously evolving life story. The cornerstone of this narrative, our “worldview” profoundly impacts our character. In the context of this analysis, it can be understood as a deeply held overall perspective that defines our sense of place within the world at large. First acquired and set early in life, our “worldview” acts as a foundational model embedded in the background of our present operations that continually informs our expectations for ourselves within the broad scheme of life in our cultures and societies.
Specifically, our worldview informs our sense of how the world essentially is – generous or withholding, welcoming or hostile, of what possibilities it holds for us, and what place we may have in it. It serves as our most basic and enduring reference point in our understanding of the demands of life and of the priorities that will best serve our Self’s story; thereby, it is a primary determinant of our character. This link provides a fuller discussion on my website of the origins and formation of our worldview: https://marcspetalnik.com/performers/#worldview
Furthermore, as we navigate the social landscape according to the map which is our world view, we are continually and deeply impacted by whatever feelings of existential insecurity may arise within us at any given moment. That is to say that in any situation in which we sense our vulnerability to failure or to imminent or anticipated danger, anxiety generates an alert, a felt sense of alarm within our bio-psychological apparatus. Moreover, these heightened feelings of momentary vulnerability are linked to and intensified by whatever enduring, underlying sense of basic deficiency or defect may be embedded in our experience of ourselves. The presence of any such haunting insecurity – to which we may be acutely yet unconsciously vulnerable – is the very essence of what is often termed, “chronic shame.” Feelings of shame/vulnerability, signaled to us internally through fluctuations in anxiety, can range from the ephemeral to the persistent. They can present both as a continual sense of vague insecurity, and as a more strident presence under fraught circumstances. (For a fuller discussion of shame see https://marcspetalnik.com/performers/#shame).
It is widely recognized that the natural, inevitable response to the presence of shame within the human psyche is manifest in its primary defense, that of narcissism (self-idealization) and its concomitant in grandiose ideation (fantasy). The processes of narcissism largely involve the cultivation of idealized distortions of the Ego (The Self-concept) whose imagined imperatives and entitlements profoundly impact the individual’s pursuit of interests and needs as they are measured against another’s.
We see that continuous and dynamic coordination among a myriad of psychological faculties rooted both in Nature and Nurture determines the degree and the quality of our connection to things external to ourselves, and in what contexts we are able and inclined to access these connections. Operating at the very heart of our subjective universe, our character mediates between tending to the safety and best interests of our Self and our consideration of the other as an equivalent Self. It determines the range and quality of our self-awareness, of our sense of accountability to ourselves and to others for the impact of our choices within all social interactions.
The confluence of a broad array of internal calculations within the human psyche continually delineates our character: It serves as the root system of the conscious and unconscious motivations that profoundly shape our thinking and render our choices of behaviors. In any given moment, our character place us at some point within a spectrum: At one of its extremes, we tend to pursue the fulfillment of our appetites and the realization of our idealized Self-concept, our Ego, with few or no constraints, heedless of the full humanity of others whom we inevitably impact. At the other extreme of the character spectrum, we tend to surrender appropriate oversight of our well-being, the rights of our legitimate personhood; instead, we may primarily favor our perception of the needs of others and prioritize meeting their needs and demands. In whatever way the operations of our character direct us, its essence is continuously manifest in the world through our complex personalities: our affect, our body language, our verbal communication, and active behaviors.
As it firmly directs our navigation through life in the social environment, our character is clearly the cornerstone of our identity. It positions us within the shared human experience, precisely determining how we relate to ourselves, to others, to the world at large, and thus, how we are regarded within it. Its absolute sovereignty over the course of our lives is captured in the famous quote attributed to Heraclitus:
“Character is destiny.”
