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Emma Watson is twenty-four years old. She is in the public eye because she has made some films. But what she has to offer us is an example of positive character traits that have nothing really to do with the cinema. We may benefit from having her example selectively in mind in relation to many apparently distant matters.
First and foremost, Emma Watson is an example of the virtue of dignity. It's quite hard to pin down what's meant by dignity. Probably everyone wants more of this quality - but it feels odd to say so. That's because we easily confuse dignity with a couple of other things that we tend to be very suspicious of: coldness and stand-offish pride. There's a worry that if someone has dignity they are not going to be very nice to be around.
But really, dignity has to do with being confident of one's own decency and fundamental soundness in situations where there is pressure to lose this confidence and act otherwise. When participating in a TV chat show, Emma mixes easily with people who are at times rather clownish or crass. But she doesn't become like them. And so she can be a good sport - and join in - without losing her natural honour. She is not cold, and hence is a good example to have in mind of how to pull off without strain a crucial everyday diplomatic move: how to get on well with all sorts of people and yet be yourself.
We might might tend to think that the great lessons we need to learn from others are complicated. But a lesson is great because it is basic; because we need it a lot - and so it will by definition look quite simple when stated.
Emma is also good at gratitude. It would be understandable if a person got sick of being labelled with just one thing ('Potter girl'), and therefore turned against being in the limelight, becoming a bit hollow or mechanical in acknowledging the thing that had given them so much. But Emma Watson seems to be genuinely understanding of the role that she has to play for other people. She will always be, especially for younger girls, Hermione. She has to be Hermione just as Elizabeth Windsor has to be the Queen for people, even if she has moments of inward frustration at having to be this character.
In this way, Emma is like a good parent: she knows the character is bigger than her; just as being mummy (someone loving, kind and understanding) is more important than being recognised by your children for being the fuller, more complex, more ambivalent person you really are.
Emma is good, too, at generosity. She's clever, but doesn't humiliate people with the fact. She doesn't go on chat shows and talk about post-structuralism or the early novels of George Eliot (two of her specialisms). Not because she wouldn't do that very well, but because it would be unkind. In fact her generosity is such that it seems strange even to note these possibilities: she beautifully evades even a hint that she might have loves and needs and insights that would leave others bereft, and feeling abandoned by their old friend from Hogwarts.
In a similar way, she is casual in the way she dresses, where she shops and how she lives. What does it mean when she dresses down? Is she a strange kind of fake? Fake ordinary? She could afford a chauffeur; she could have bodyguards, she could always look a million dollars. Is she just playing at being like us? More likely, she is making a point about how good it is to have an ordinary life. She wants something we already have. In the Christian tradition, Jesus - the son of God and prince of heaven - becomes a man; he is born to very ordinary parents, he does all the ordinary things: he works, gets tired, feels lonely. And this is imagined as the consequence of love: to love is to want to share in the ordinary existence of another person.
Watson looks at people who are not glamorous, not famous, never invited onto the red carpet and she says, implicitly: I like how you do things. That's very helpful indeed. It is important for us to have people in mind who have the option of opting out, who don't have to live ordinary lives, but who actually freely choose everyday things. By so doing, they teach us to appreciate a little more the things which we love less than we should.
Credit: The Philosopher's Mail
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