Delphic Maxim 54: Test the character
I’ve set myself the challenge of responding to each Delphic Maxim for 15 minutes a day
54. Test the character
Of all the ways to measure the value of a person, character has to be among the best. Often people will talk about actions, attitudes, physicality or some other external measure of worth, but character goes to something much deeper. A person’s character is the seat of the virtues. It’s the moral and ethical core of a person — their sense of right and wrong, their relationship to self and other. Character is a fuller measure by which to weight our assessments of people — so it’s unsurprising that one of the maxims calls on us to ‘test the character’.
As always, there are a couple of senses in which we might read this: test the character or others, but — perhaps more importantly — test the character of ourselves. The Greek myths are full of stories about character being tested, of Zeus coming down to Earth in disguise and seeking hospitality, of Athena, Apollo and Artemis checking the worth of humanity. The heroes — like Perseus, Bellerophon, Heracles and Theseus — all endured tests of character. These tests were not just about physical endurance or wit and aptitude, but also about the sense of righteousness and virtue these heroes brought into the world. When they fail these tests, they fail badly (hubris is the ultimate failure of character in the Greek myths — the more arrogant pride, the harder the fall).
Character is a contextual thing though: like the virtues it operates in a particular way in particular social and cultural contexts. Odysseus faced ten years of character tests on his journey home from the war against Troy. How wisdom, cunning, strategy and sense of concern for his crew propelled him through struggle after struggle. He is occasionally side-tracked (even for years at a time with Circe and Calypso), but eventually he returns to his wife Penelope, his son Telemachus, and his kingdom of Ithica, and the Gods — some begrudgingly — respect his strength of character.
Alright, we don’t all go on ten years odysseys, how do we test our character (or the character of others) today? Part of this involves an awareness of our characters, and our relationship to the idea of virtue. There are some things that we find easy, and some things with which we struggle. It’s in the struggle that we best get a sense of our ‘better angels’ (or our darker demons if we are inclined that way). Doing things that might scare us, making an effort to improve, and confronting challenges with the same sense of righteous virtue as Odysseus is one way that we can test our character.
I can think of plenty occasions where I delay sending an email — fretting over it relentlessly in case it gets misread. From time to time, I put off work that I know I just need to get in and do, just because it might be tedious (or challenging, an even bigger struggle). Sometimes it’s easier to let a problem bubble a way, rather than confront it clearly and directly. Perhaps instead of being honest, I behave ‘politely’ and don’t explain when something needs improvement. These don’t all add up to a ‘failure’ of character, but these little daily tests are a chance to improve our character.
We make mistakes, constantly, but a person of good character aims to make up for them: to improve with each challenge, to become more virtuous over time, and hopefully not to slip back into the same mistakes. Character is a habit, not an innate quality — it is learned over time, and reinforced with effort. And the best way to improve it is by applying yourself to it each day.
