Character Is Destiny

One of the things I've come to realize after many years of living with myself and some of the other human beings is that we cannot really change who we are. I thought of this again recently while reading about Robert Oppenheimer's rise and fall, but the same story is written everywhere around us. In Oppenheimer's case, his brilliance and arrogance tended to overcome his charm and discretion. He could not resist the temptation to let other weaker mortals know what he thought of them. Nor, I suspect, could he imagine the depths of resentment his behavior could foster in the little men who surrounded him. That was clearly the case with Lewis Strauss and J. Edgar Hoover who were not amused. They were determined to punish him and bring him down, and they did. Anyone interested in learning what is wrong with the way the resources of the Federal Government of the United States are managed can learn much from studying Oppenheimer's security hearings. Those hearings show in stark detail that it generally isn't about truth, security, science, or anything other than power, authority, and the right to abuse even the force of the law to settle scores. That was a hard lesson for someone like Oppenheimer to learn. He was not likely to find it in himself to stop speaking his mind just because his views were out of favor, nor was it in him to flatter government bureaucrats who bristled at his arrogance.

Oppie's character was probably formed long before he went away to college. The seeds of his astonishing success and eventual public downfall were planted in his childhood. And isn't that the case for all of us. Our character is formed early, long before we are aware of its existence. By the time we are grown we can only hope to understand and sometimes control those outward expressions of our inner selves. But that seldom works. Our true character always emerges. I think that's what makes Shakespeare so popular. His plays are so often about character and the ways in which it manifests itself under the pressures of living with other human beings. But then I would say that's true of most enduring literature. That's the essential appeal of the really good stories, the classics like Sophocles's Antigone or Oedipus Rex, or the great epics of Homer and Virgil. The appeal of Achilles or Odysseus or Aeneas is in observing the ways they yield to and then master the human forces, strengths and weaknesses, that form their characters and make them live in our minds as though they were fully human.

Of course, it's hard to live up to the characters of literature, but sometimes in small ways, we see opportunities set before us and we have a chance to play a small part on the stage, just for a moment or two. When we least expect it we may find ourselves cast in one of life's little daily dramas, and we get a chance to observe ourselves as we play out our assigned role. If we are fortunate we can play the part of the hero, and that is true whether we succeed or fail in the present circumstances. That's what we can learn from the case of Robert Oppenheimer. Flawed as he was, who among us would rather be cast in the part of a Strauss or a Hoover?