David Brooks

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“The Republican Rhetorical Tone Has Grown Ever More Bombastic, Hyperbolic And Imbalanced”

October 13, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics | Permalink

When you continually appeal to the margins, that’s where you end up. The GOP found the radicals and paranoiacs in their midst useful for a good while. The Reagan, Gingrich and Limbaugh surges were built on pandering to those with rigid feelings about race, religion and rights. In the early days of coded language and manipulation, the Republicans were still about winning governance and trying to do something with it. But the ante was gradually upped, the most fervent of the loyalists they’d cultivated demanded it, the discourse grew vicious, and disdain for government born in the public consciousness during the Reagan years became a full-grown monster. Now the party is a Frankenstein supported by a torch-carrying mob.

David Brooks’ opinions in the NYT often appall me, but in his latest column he sums up the party’s slow passage into insanity, how the sideshow moved to the center ring, better and more succinctly than anyone on the Left or Right has. An excerpt:

By traditional definitions, conservatism stands for intellectual humility, a belief in steady, incremental change, a preference for reform rather than revolution, a respect for hierarchy, precedence, balance and order, and a tone of voice that is prudent, measured and responsible. Conservatives of this disposition can be dull, but they know how to nurture and run institutions. They also see the nation as one organic whole. Citizens may fall into different classes and political factions, but they are still joined by chains of affection that command ultimate loyalty and love.

All of this has been overturned in dangerous parts of the Republican Party. Over the past 30 years, or at least since Rush Limbaugh came on the scene, the Republican rhetorical tone has grown ever more bombastic, hyperbolic and imbalanced. Public figures are prisoners of their own prose styles, and Republicans from Newt Gingrich through Ben Carson have become addicted to a crisis mentality. Civilization was always on the brink of collapse. Every setback, like the passage of Obamacare, became the ruination of the republic. Comparisons to Nazi Germany became a staple.•

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The 2 Worst Parts Of David Brooks’ Recent Op-Ed About Ta-Nehisi Coates

July 23, 2015 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

David Brooks’ recent op-ed about Ta-Nehisi Coates, the one in which he approached the critic and his skin color cautiously and with some surprise, as if he’d happened upon a strange creature in a forest, was most troubling to me for two reasons, both of which were demonstrated in the same passage.

This one:

You are illustrating the perspective born of the rage “that burned in me then, animates me now, and will likely leave me on fire for the rest of my days.”

I read this all like a slap and a revelation. I suppose the first obligation is to sit with it, to make sure the testimony is respected and sinks in. But I have to ask, Am I displaying my privilege if I disagree? Is my job just to respect your experience and accept your conclusions? Does a white person have standing to respond?

If I do have standing, I find the causation between the legacy of lynching and some guy’s decision to commit a crime inadequate to the complexity of most individual choices.

I think you distort American history.•

  • The line “Does a white person have standing to respond?” is a galling transference of burden from people of actual oppression to people who’ve experienced none, a time-tested trick in the country, and one used repeatedly in discussions about Affirmative Action and other issues. The faux victimhood is appalling.
  • Even worse is this doozy: “I find the causation between the legacy of lynching and some guy’s decision to commit a crime inadequate to the complexity of most individual choices.” Here’s a negation of history and culpability that’s jaw-dropping. Does Brooks believe the inordinate poverty, imprisonment and shorter lifespans of African-Americans stem solely from their decisions? Does he believe Native Americans, the targets of another American holocaust, have such pronounced social problems because of poor choices they made? From Jim Crow to George Zimmerman, American law and justice has often been designed to reduce former slaves and their descendants, not to keep the peace but to maintain the power. If Brooks wants to point out the Civil Rights Act as a remedy to Jim Crow, that’s fine, but you don’t get to do a victory lap for offering basic decency, and a sensible person doesn’t believe that improvement in our country, often a slow and grueling and bloody thing, doesn’t leave deep scars.•

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“Satirists Are Heard With Bemused Semirespect”

January 9, 2015 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

David Brooks of the New York Times, who has misunderstood the nature of meritocracy his whole life, proves it once again today with a ridiculous argument in his latest op-ed. Here’s the passage:

In most societies, there’s the adults’ table and there’s the kids’ table. The people who read Le Monde or the establishment organs are at the adults’ table. The jesters, the holy fools and people like Ann Coulter and Bill Maher are at the kids’ table. They’re not granted complete respectability, but they are heard because in their unguided missile manner, they sometimes say necessary things that no one else is saying.

Healthy societies, in other words, don’t suppress speech, but they do grant different standing to different sorts of people. Wise and considerate scholars are heard with high respect. Satirists are heard with bemused semirespect. Racists and anti-Semites are heard through a filter of opprobrium and disrespect. People who want to be heard attentively have to earn it through their conduct.

In Brooks’ worldview, Voltaire, Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain and Lenny Bruce are–and should be!–awarded only a modicum of respect, the children that they are for profanely speaking truth to abuses of power, whereas those who go through the motions of civility while (often) contributing less, should be rewarded more. In all fairness to Dr. IQ, it has worked for him his whole career, though I’ll bet the writing of those “holy fools” George Carlin and Terry Southern will be remembered much longer than Brooks’ scratchings.•

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“Baloney”

March 18, 2014 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

There are few things grosser than David Brooks breathlessly extolling the virtues of meritocracy when he’s not one of the Americans who could withstand the arrival of a system that truly values talent. Here’s someone who’s been lavishly rewarded materially for being a screaming mediocrity, not nearly one of the best writers and thinkers of his generation. If people were actually judged on real flair, almost everything Brooks has would be taken from him. What he defends isn’t a just system but one based on access and privilege, of getting into the right schools and making the right connections, of “achieving” rather than creating anything novel. There are very few people I find interesting who come from Brooks’ model for success.

The opening of a recent Robert Reich article in Salon which sends some of Brooks’ customary hogwash down the drain:

“Occasionally David Brooks, who personifies the oxymoron ‘conservative thinker’ better than anyone I know, displays such profound ignorance that a rejoinder is necessary lest his illogic permanently pollute public debate. Such is the case with his New York Times column last Friday, arguing that we should be focusing on the ‘interrelated social problems of the poor’ rather than on inequality, and that the two are fundamentally distinct.

Baloney.

First, when almost all the gains from growth go to the top, as they have for the last thirty years, the middle class doesn’t have the purchasing power necessary for buoyant growth.

Once the middle class has exhausted all its coping mechanisms – wives and mothers surging into paid work (as they did in the 1970s and 1980s), longer working hours (which characterized the 1990s), and deep indebtedness (2002 to 2008) – the inevitable result is fewer jobs and slow growth, as we continue to experience.

Few jobs and slow growth hit the poor especially hard because they’re the first to be fired, last to be hired, and most likely to bear the brunt of declining wages and benefits.

Second, when the middle class is stressed, it has a harder time being generous to those in need. The ‘interrelated social problems’ of the poor presumably will require some money, but the fiscal cupboard is bare. And because the middle class is so financially insecure, it doesn’t want to, nor does it feel it can afford to, pay more in taxes.

Third, America’s shrinking middle class also hobbles upward mobility. Not only is there less money for good schools, job training, and social services, but the poor face a more difficult challenge moving upward because the income ladder is far longer than it used to be, and its middle rungs have disappeared.

Brooks also argues that we should not be talking about unequal political power, because such utterances cause divisiveness and make it harder to reach political consensus over what to do for the poor.

Hogwash. The concentration of power at the top — which flows largely from the concentration of income and wealth there — has prevented Washington from dealing with the problems of the poor and the middle class.”

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“He is Violating The Honor Codes Of All Those Who Enabled Him To Rise”

June 12, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

I don’t think former NSA employee Edward Snowden did anything particularly heroic in leaking documents that told every American what we should already know: We gave our government the power to spy on us, and it’s exercising that authority. Surprisingly enough, polls show most Americans actually approve of such governmental snooping.

But as Amy Davidson pointed out yesterday at the New Yorker blog, David Brooks’ take on Snowden’s actions in his New York Times column is shockingly tone-deaf. The piece’s soft-headed sociology and demeaning character study are perplexing enough, but what’s really outrageous is the idea that Snowden should have felt too indebted to his employers who improved his life materially to speak out about what he felt was wrongdoing.

This part: “He betrayed his employers. Booz Allen and the C.I.A. took a high-school dropout and offered him positions with lavish salaries. He is violating the honor codes of all those who enabled him to rise.”

Yeah, community college slob, know your place. Be grateful to your betters in the U.S. hierarchy. And, yes, you could just as easily apply Brooks’ logic to Gitmo whistleblowers.

Although this paragraph may be worse: “He betrayed the Constitution. The founders did not create the United States so that some solitary 29-year-old could make unilateral decisions about what should be exposed.” 

Does Brooks feel the same way about the rights of solitary gun owners? Free speech is messy and inconvenient, but it’s of paramount importance, regardless if we agree with what’s being said or if personally approve of the education and financial standing of the speaker. Disagree vociferously, sure, but don’t preempt disagreement.•

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“We Are Rapidly Approaching A Historical Cusp”

February 8, 2013 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The problem I have with otherwise thoughtful people (like David Brooks, for instance) who seem to think that wealth inequality in America is fueled by sheer meritocracy is that Carly Fiorina and Donald Trump and Paul Ryan are not our best and brightest. While America strives for a level playing field in many ways, financial rewards often go to the worst among us or the plain lucky. And this issue of inequality has always existed and likely always will, so it needs to be addressed with policy. From “Return of the Oppressed,” Peter Turchin’s new Aeon essay:

“What, then, explains the rapid growth of top fortunes in the US over the past 30 years? Why did the wages of unskilled workers stagnate or decline? What accounts for the bitterness of election rhetoric in the US, the growing legislative gridlock, the rampant political polarisation? My answer is that all of these trends are part of a complex and interlocking system. I don’t just mean that everything affects everything else; that would be vacuous. Rather, that cliodynamic theory can tell us specifically how demographic, economic and cultural variables relate to one another, and how their interactions generate social change. Cliodynamics also explains why historical reversals in such diverse areas as economics and culture happen at roughly similar times. The theory of secular cycles was developed using data from historical societies, but it looks like it can provide answers to questions about our own society.

Our society, like all previous complex societies, is on a rollercoaster. Impersonal social forces bring us to the top; then comes the inevitable plunge. But the descent is not inevitable. Ours is the first society that can perceive how those forces operate, even if dimly. This means that we can avoid the worst — perhaps by switching to a less harrowing track, perhaps by redesigning the rollercoaster altogether.

Three years ago I published a short article in the science journal Nature. I pointed out that several leading indicators of political instability look set to peak around 2020. In other words, we are rapidly approaching a historical cusp, at which the US will be particularly vulnerable to violent upheaval. This prediction is not a ‘prophecy’. I don’t believe that disaster is pre-ordained, no matter what we do. On the contrary, if we understand the causes, we have a chance to prevent it from happening. But the first thing we will have to do is reverse the trend of ever-growing inequality.”

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