Abstract
The relationship between political forms and character is symbiotic. Forms assume a certain character type that can function within their limits and constraints. Forms also shape character as individuals are compelled to conform to them. Conformity, however, depends on a willingness to abide by forms that can never fully account for circumstances. Consequently, in some circumstances it is necessary for individuals to deviate from conventional forms in order to realize the ends of politics (order, justice, social harmony, happiness, and liberty). In other circumstances, deviation has the opposite effect. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ethics provide interesting and unconventional contexts in which to examine the problem of forms and character. Using the political theories of Edmund Burke, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Irving Babbitt to analyze the relationship between forms and character in these works, it is apparent that realization of the ends of politics requires moral dexterity. Moral universality becomes evident only in historical particularity.