The Ethical as the Beautiful

Part 4, At the Improv

In thinking about David Bentley Hart's essay "A Sense of Style: Beauty and the Christian Moral Life" I was reminded of the argument made by Samuel Wells in his book Improvisation: The Drama of Christian Ethics.

To review, Hart uses a "sense of style" to make an argument for a type of virtue ethics. At its heart, virtue ethics argues that the moral life isn't about following a list of moral Do's or Don'ts but is, rather, acquiring habits that lead to good moral outcomes. In his essay, Hart describes these virtues from the perspective of aesthetics, judging our moral actions as "beautiful" or not. Virtuous living is living beautifully, where Jesus becomes our standard of beauty. 

In his treatment of virtue ethics, Wells makes a similar sort of argument using the metaphor of theatric improv. 

To the audience, improv can look as if the actors are "making it up" as they go along. Improv artists don't follow a memorized script. But the spontaneity of improv belies the training, preparation and discipline underneath. Improv only looks spontaneous and effortless because of years of hard work and habit formation on the part of the actors. Learning improv is all about acquiring these good habits, habits like "Yes, and", that allow you and your partners to take the story coherently forward given the situation posed to you.

Wells argues that Christian living is a form of moral improv. The Bible isn't a rule book we consult to make ethical decisions. Rather, the Bible forms us into good improv actors. Wells writes:

Ethics cannot be simply about rehearsing and repeating the same script and story over and over again, albeit on a fresh stage with new players. This does not do sufficient justice to the unfolding newness of each moment of creation. The Bible is not so much a script that the church learns and performs as it is a training school that shapes the habits and practices of a community. This community learns to take the right things for granted, and on the basis of this faithfulness, it trusts itself to improvise within it tradition. Improvisation means a community formed in the right habits trusting itself to embody its tradition in new and often challenging circumstances ... Ethics is not about being clever in a crisis but about forming a character that does not realize it has been in a crisis until the "crisis" is over. It is just the same for improvisers in the theater. Improvisation is not about being spontaneous and witty in the moment, but about trusting oneself to do and say the obvious.

We can connect this vision of improv with Hart's "sense of style." Everyday, life will throw "a situation" at you, just like the improv artist is thrown a situation from the audience or a fellow actor. In these moments of life there is no clear script to follow. We've memorized no lines. There haven't been any rehearsals. We don't know where the plot is going. But we have to do something. And yet, we don't want to respond randomly. Here, in-between random and scripted, is improvisation. And as a Christian, we want this improvisation to be in the style of Jesus. We want to improv throughout the day artfully, skillfully, and beautifully. 

But here's the rub: to be a good improv artist you have to train in the craft. Consequently, if the Christian life is moral improv we must have the rhythms and movements of the Christian life habituated into our body and mind. Good art, like good improv, takes practice. Because once the lights are up, and you're facing a moral crisis, you won't have time to think. Your improvised actions in that moment need to flow from your training, and we want that training and improv to produce beautiful things.