On dignity

David Brooks recently wrote an op-ed column in the New York Times entitled In Search of Dignity. He pointed out the importance that George Washington, the first president of the USA, attached to what Brooks called the "dignity code". Washington drew up a list of etiquette rules, Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour and also lived his life in accordance with these rules.


According to Brooks:

"They (the rules) were designed to improve inner morals by shaping the outward man. Washington took them very seriously. He worked hard to follow them. Throughout his life, he remained acutely conscious of his own rectitude.

In so doing, he turned himself into a new kind of hero. He wasn’t primarily a military hero or a political hero. As the historian Gordon Wood has written, “Washington became a great man and was acclaimed as a classical hero because of the way he conducted himself during times of temptation. It was his moral character that set him off from other men."

More of a few of South Africa's public figures would do well to heed Washington's rules, dignity in public life being in short supply these days. How often do we see public figures making spectacles of themselves by behaving with absolute disregard of dignity and decency? But, no names, no pack-drill. I'm sure readers of Occam's Donkey can fill in the blanks.