“Character is what you do when no one is watching”

Jonah Goldberg writes at National Review,

I always liked the old line, “Character is what you do when only God is watching.” The alternate version, “Character is what you do when no one is watching,” is actually theologically and philosophically a very different statement. But both have their relevance in the age of the Digital Panopticon.

...The only way to guarantee you don’t get “outed” as an adulterer is not to commit adultery in the first place. Behave as if God is watching you and you won’t much care who else is watching you.

...The phrase “Character is what you do when no one is watching,” is really a way to get you to imagine that someone is watching you. We are relearning that someone is watching us, but we aren’t being taught that that someone is God. We’ll see how that works out.

Read more here.