Cusins. By the way, have you any religion?

Undershaft. Yes.

Cusins. Anything out of the common?

Undershaft. Only that there are two things necessary to Salvation.

Cusins [disappointed, but polite] Ah, the Church Catechism. Baptism and —

Undershaft. No. Money and gunpowder.

Cusins [surprised, but interested] That is the general opinion of our governing classes. The novelty is in hearing any man confess it.

Undershaft. Just so.

Cusins. Excuse me: is there any place in your religion for honor, justice, truth, love, mercy and so forth?

Undershaft. Yes: they are the graces and luxuries of a rich, strong, and safe life.

Cusins. Suppose one is forced to choose between them and money or gunpowder?

Undershaft. Choose money and gunpowder; for without enough of both you cannot afford the others.

Cusins. That is your religion?

Undershaft. Yes.

(https://opentextbc.ca/englishliterature/chapter/major-barbar...)

As someone with a seminary background, this hits too close to home

"Cusins. Excuse me: is there any place in your religion for honor, justice, truth, love, mercy and so forth?

Undershaft. Yes: they are the graces and luxuries of a rich, strong, and safe life."

I hold the old view that justice is a source of strength rather than something bought independent of it.

There is honor even among thieves. For example, a just group of thieves splits the bounty and return to steal together again as a team with improved skill, trust and cohesion. Sure they are scoundrels to their community, but they are just with each other. If they weren't, they'd in-fight and become weaker. This is true of militias and painfully obvious when two groups of forces lose faith, trust and a sense of justice with each other.

So I think justice is a virtue, and I think it's safe to say virtue is a source of strength.

Average-wise, would you think majority of humanity fits within this view?

I was born in a 3rd world country, grew up there and now live in a 1st world country. I think in many 3rd world countries, a lot of small time criminals and prostitutes did that because they have no other choice. They have no good jobs, or any jobs. They have no home, no family, no means to pay for their sick children or families. Not saying that people who have those still won't steal.

Wikipedia on Shaw's admiration of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin:

""" Shaw's admiration for Mussolini and Stalin demonstrated his growing belief that dictatorship was the only viable political arrangement. When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in January 1933, Shaw described Hitler as "a very remarkable man, a very able man",[1] and professed himself proud to be the only writer in England who was "scrupulously polite and just to Hitler".[2] His principal admiration was for Stalin, whose regime he championed uncritically throughout the decade.[3] Shaw saw the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact as a triumph for Stalin who, he said, now had Hitler under his thumb.[4] """

[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/40682385 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw#CITEREFHol... [3] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/theatre-and-performance... [4] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/theatre-and-performance...

Interesting play!

Cusins [in a white fury] Do I understand you to imply that you can buy Barbara?

Undershaft. No; but I can buy the Salvation Army. Cusins. Quite impossible.

Undershaft. You shall see. All religious organizations exist by selling themselves to the rich.

Cusins. Not the Army. That is the Church of the poor. Undershaft. All the more reason for buying it.

Cusins. I don’t think you quite know what the Army does for the poor.

Undershaft. Oh yes I do. It draws their teeth: that is enough for me — as a man of business —

Cusins. Nonsense! It makes them sober —

Undershaft. I prefer sober workmen. The profits are larger.

Cusins. — honest — Undershaft. Honest workmen are the most economical.

Cusins. — attached to their homes —

Undershaft. So much the better: they will put up with anything sooner than change their shop.

Cusins. — happy —

Undershaft. An invaluable safeguard against revolution.

Cusins. — unselfish —

Undershaft. Indifferent to their own interests, which suits me exactly.

Cusins. — with their thoughts on heavenly things —

Undershaft [rising] And not on Trade Unionism nor Socialism. Excellent.

"We are counted as sleep for the slaughter; for thy sake we are killed all the day long."

on the other hand: rich people is the most corrupt without honor group of people

Was David Brooks dumping his wife of 3 decades for his 2-decades-younger research assistant and then writing passive-aggressive columns in the NYT about how people abandoned by their spouses should suck it up and stop bothering them an example of résumé virtuous or eulogy virtuous?

Following your heart is a virtue. Writing about it bluntly, doubly so. Is one not free to leave a spouse for someone else? Regardless of age (assuming everyone is a consenting adult!)?

I give credit to those who live their life intentionally. You only get one. If you’re unhappy, pull the sails and head towards happiness. Valid point to not be a dick about it though (I haven’t read to know if these articles you mention are passive aggressive in tone). You can be direct but still kind.

>Following your heart is a virtue.

No, that's a modern misconception.

"Following your heart" is just an action with no moral value in itself. Whether it's a virtue depends on the contents of your heart.

All kinds of scumbags and horrible people who hurt others "followed their heart" in doing so.

Who cares about virtue? All we should really measure is destructiveness. If following your heart isn't destructive, then go for it. Make your own virtues out of something else.

It is really hard to invest in this line of thinking, but to live 'intentionally' is something admirable.

Maximize your happiness while minimizing the suffering you cause. You will cause suffering, even if unintentional, this is the human condition. “Mindful hedonism” if you will.

Life has many chapters. Celebrate the joy, happiness, and success there was, mourn your losses and failures, then move on. This too shall pass.

E.g. Newt Gingrich.

Food for thought: People live as they live, and can have great thoughts, insights and advice without adhering to your interpretation of their words or actions.

Food for thought: People can publicly express half-baked thoughts, banal “insights”, hypocritical advice, and horribly wrong predictions for decades without ever admitting their mistakes, and can pretend independence where convenient but unfailingly fall in line with their assigned talking points when directed, but still be treated as worth taking seriously because of their social position.

I knew about the wives, but did he in fact write such columns? I read the NY Times, but seldom Brooks's columns.

Thanks. A handy reminder why I seldom read his columns. Is that what it's about?

Thing is, by the time your eulogy is written, you're already dead. I prefer to leave my kids with a tangible legacy than a beautiful story of a guy who was too kind to be a dick when he needed to.

Besides, words chosen for your eulogy depend on the influence you managed to build while still living.

"...a tangible legacy than a beautiful story of a guy who was too kind to be a dick when he needed to..."

That is the shortest, best description of Machiavelli's ideas that I've ever seen.

> a beautiful story of a guy who was too kind to be a dick when he needed to.

This is a narrow and incomplete view of what's being talked about.

> words chosen for your eulogy depend on the influence you managed to build while still living.

Assuming there's anybody at all around to choose them, and assuming that they are honest, I'd say they depend much more on what sort of person you were.

Maybe the influence you built will have a large effect on who hears them, but if you weren't "obsessed with success and prestige" in life then you would probably have been fine with a smaller crowd at your funeral anyway.

To each their own interpretation, but I definitely did not read that to imply people should be overly kind. To the contrary, I think someone failing to "be a dick when he needed to" is probably a moral failure. As to your last sentence, it probably falls under the quality of the relationships formed that he listed as a 'eulogy virtue'.

I would also argue that if legacy is your goal, a legacy of specific ideals can last longer than most tangible artifacts.

The idea is that the eulogy talks about how you lived your life and what kind of person you were. The way Brooks is using it is just as a tool to grant some perspective; the eulogy in a literal sense is a convenient proxy for something deeper: consider how it would feel if the only honest nice things people could say about you at your funeral were that you were ambitious and successful. Most people would be strongly displeased by that—and yet it's all too easy for the same people to fall into a trap of living their lives in such a way that the values of ambition and success take precedence over everything else.

“You’ll care less what others think of you when you realize how seldom they do.”

But you'll care a hell of a lot about what other people think of you when that thinking is the difference between having food on the table for your kids, or seeing them go hungry.

That's generally why people give so much of a shit about resume values.

But this is such a false dichotomy. The daily choice is not between providing for your children or being a jerk to your fellow man. There is a balance that ought to be struck between not caring about what other people think of you and caring deeply about how we treat other people.

It's only a false dichotomy, in the sense that it was presented by Brooks.

Nothing about chasing resume skills precludes you from being a decent human being. But there's also nothing shocking about people focusing on employable values, early in their lives.

>The daily choice is not between providing for your children or being a jerk to your fellow man.

You'd be surprised. People think so because we rationalize all kinds of bad behavior (e.g. not speaking up when a colleague was wrongly fired or abused, or working for a company that runs sweatshops, or does all kind of damage). As long as they don't do it directly (and just "follow orders" or "doing their job") they think it's OK.

But it's still a daily choice, and the other option to being principled is often not putting food on the table.

This is anecdotal, but I experienced a tectonic shift in both my personal success and happiness when I refocused my attention on the "eulogy" virtues. In my experience if you live those honestly the others fall into place rather organically.

Note also that the "eulogy" virtues are actually possible for the vast majority of people.

I’m not sure they’re entirely separate. To phrase things in a way that you shouldn’t, and taking my perspective as a reasonably junior guy: you need one letter of reference from your job. If you have the “eulogy virtues” and are reasonably competent, probably you’ll impress one guy with a combined display of competence and good character. It doesn’t really matter that much if everyone else thought you were a moron. You’ve got the bullet on the resume and one glowing rec. Now I believe this only holds to a point, but I think that point is a bit further than most people would put it.

Thanks for that. I think it's a great way to express how we should not lose sight of the bigger picture.

Article for those interested: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/opinion/sunday/david-broo...

The eulogy virtue is what we need to make the society a better place. A resume virtue is what we need to sustain ourselves. One is closer to ideal, one is closer to reality. Balance is the only thing we need for a healthy and happy life.

Mr Money Mustache said in his YC interview, “don’t start a blog, start a cult.” This sounds like the sort of (positive) cult to found. Using peer support and reinforcement to better enable success in living a virtuous life.

A positive cult is either a contradiction in terms, or a religion, depending on your perspective.

But I get what the quote is saying - to aim to inspire passion in others.

I prefer to focus on the virtues that bring happiness and joy to my life while I'm alive. Money is one of those things. I don't care about what people will say at my funeral because I won't be there. If being brave and honest makes you happy and brings joy to your life then go for it. If the challenges of becoming a billionaire is what makes you feel alive, then go for it.

I think Brooks would probably push back on the hedonic idea of "do whatever makes you happy" somewhat. He seems to advocate cultivating moral character over chasing "happiness".

In The Road to Character he writes,

"All human beings seek to lead lives not just of pleasure, but of purpose, righteousness, and virtue. As John Stuart Mill put it, people have a responsibility to become more moral over time. The best life is oriented around the increasing excellence of the soul and is nourished by moral joy, the quiet sense of gratitude and tranquillity that comes as a byproduct of successful moral struggle. The meaningful life is the same eternal thing, the combination of some set of ideals and some man or woman’s struggle for those ideals. Life is essentially a moral drama, not a hedonistic one."

What makes that last line so powerful coming from Brooks’ pen is that he wrote it as he was having an affair with his research assistant, for whom he later divorced his wife of 28 years. That must’ve been so morally joyful!

Do you know the circumstances of his divorce? What led up to it? Or are you just saying divorce is immoral?

Holy shit, that seems to be actually true!! Man, how hiprocate can people be?!

> I don't care about what people will say at my funeral because I won't be there.

Sorry, that's just stupid. Having people (honestly) say something nice about you at your funeral is not the end goal, but it's a _symptom_ of heaving lead a life that brought your closest people joy over a long time, and that is the end goal.

But those virtues make one likable, and sometimes people give people they like things like investment capital. Or party invites where you can have fun and network.

Of course in today's world you get the social butterflies/climbers who fake all that shit to get the same stuff, and to get, as the article says, status and prestige.

It's pretty hard to become happy by focusing on what you don't have.

Not really. Learning new things really makes me happy. Some people spend their entire life trying to solve a problem or find a cure for a disease. It's all about finding something that you enjoy. That could be spend time with friends or family but that doesn't mean it's the same for everyone.