MetaFilter posts tagged with davidbrooks

Asian socities drive like this...

afu — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:57:34 -0800

David Brooks, Social Psychologist, Mark Liberman at Language Log looks at the science behind David Brook's latest column in which he claims there is a fundamental differences between the thought processes of individuals in Asian "collectivist" societies and Western "individualist" ones. (via)

Buzz is forever?

l33tpolicywonk — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 23:18:24 -0800

Lord of the Memes : Now that MeFi has taught me how to beat the hipsters, how do I beat the poseurs? David Brooks says "prestige has shifted from the producer of art to the aggregator and the appraiser;" the cultural elite are early adopters and, more importantly, early discarders, of culture. The article is worthwhile if only because Brooks provides an interesting narration on what being cool by being anti-cool has meant in the last 75 years or so. Has the exponential growth of culture blurred the lines between high and low culture? If we no longer define cultural literacy by a set of notable reference points, can we even speak of a one culture?

Chaka, When the Walls Fell.

rzklkng — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 06:14:54 -0800

Reagan at Neshoba. Some time ago, a blog post was authored at Mahablog which suggested that movement politics can best be understood when their rhetoric is viewed as a series of metaphors, with an allegory made to a spectacular episode of Stark Trek: The Next Generation featuring Paul Winfield titled "Darmok". Picard and crew stumble across an alien race that speaks only in metaphor. The alien captain, frustrated by the failure to communicate, transports Picard to the surface of a planet, where they must learn to communicate or die. The alien captain does finally reach Picard, but dies as a result of his injuries battling an invisible predator. By way of comparison, examine Candidate Ronald Reagan's speech at Neshoba [audio, 57MB, via, additional context here]. Some pundits are claiming that it is an example of the Southern Strategy codified as dog-whistle politics, whilst others view it as an honest mistake, and others still find an inconvenient long sequence of other "honest mistakes". Bonus YouTubery: The Star Trek:TNG Episode Guide Song.

Sasha Issenberg fact-checks David Brooks

russilwvong — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 15:54:19 -0800

David Brooks gets fact-checked by Sasha Issenberg, who finds that Brooks appears to have invented some of his red-state reporting. ... Brooks acknowledges that all he does is present his readers with the familiar and ask them to recognize it. Why, then, has his particular brand of stereotype-peddling met with such success? From April 2004. Via Brad DeLong.

Another take on class war

MattD — Sun, 29 May 2005 19:49:46 -0800

"They [the bipartisan elite] have imposed a public morality that affords maximum sexual opportunity for themselves and guarantees maximum domestic chaos for those lower down." While a lot of people (okay, maybe just me) have criticized David Brooks' column as an only-infrequently-successful attempt to channel Malcom Gladwell for the McCain-Specter set, I think he may have stumbled onto a provocative insight here.

...as in the Dreyfus Affair, stay with me people!

leotrotsky — Sat, 22 May 2004 06:07:56 -0800

Kinsley goes Zola on Brooks "In his writing and on television, he actually seems reasonable. More than that, he seems cuddly. He gives the impression of being open to persuasion. Like the elderly Jewish lady who thinks someone must be Jewish because ''he's so nice,'' liberals suspect that a writer as amiable as Brooks must be a liberal at heart. Some conservatives think so too." via A&L Daily

sprawl suburbs

thedailygrowl — Fri, 30 Apr 2004 23:42:22 -0800

Boom! A master planned community. Boom! A big-box mall! Our Sprawling, Supersize Utopia. This article, by New York Times columnist David Brooks, takes a look at exploding suburbs and exurban migration. This migration is nothing new, author Joel Garreau wrote extensively about it in his 1991 book Edge Cities. The phenomonon really took off after World War II, during the period of post war prosperity, and is best represented by this famous postwar American suburb. A veritable army of "suburban sprawl critics" has emerged over the years including Jane Jacobs and James Howard Knunstler plus many others including some who are predicting the immenent demise of suburbs because of oil depletion. For Brooks the critics of suburbs "just regurgitate the same critiques decade after decade, regardless of the suburban reality flowering around them" but you can't dismiss what the architect Paolo Soleri says about American society that "we have a society that is moving very rapidly to the super-, super-, super-consumptive."

Simple Truth

BlueTrain — Tue, 30 Sep 2003 20:09:52 -0800

David Brooks nicely summarizes the current state of politics. I appreciate this article. It is simple, easy to read, and represents what I've been feeling for quite some time now. (NY Times)

The congealing pot

rainbaby — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 09:21:23 -0800

Americans pay lip service to diversity says David Brooks in The Atlantic. Though we talk about the melting pot, we tend to group ourselves with similar people. Do you really care enough about diversity to actively seek it out? Is metafilter a virtual example of this phenomenon?

scarlet SUV

serafinapekkala — Tue, 21 Jan 2003 10:54:04 -0800

"Buying an SUV is partly an act of fantasy." In the interest of throwing gasoline on the fire, I present David Brooks, SUV apologist, in the Wall Street Journal.

arco — Fri, 01 Nov 2002 07:59:19 -0800

Time was, American society had at least a loose pecking order, with the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts, et al, setting standards for snobbery and WASP-y elitism. Now, says David Brooks, “we’ve democratized elitism in this country,” with everyone finding their own niche in which to be a snob. [more inside…]

gen — Tue, 06 Aug 2002 13:48:39 -0800

The Weekly Standard: Patio Man and the Sprawl People
There he is atop the uppermost tier of his multi-level backyard patio/outdoor recreation area posed like an admiral on the deck of his destroyer. In his mind's eye he can see himself coolly flipping the garlic and pepper T-bones on the front acreage of his new grill while carefully testing the citrus-tarragon trout filets that sizzle fragrantly in the rear. On the lawn below he can see his kids, Haley and Cody, frolicking on the weedless community lawn that is mowed twice weekly by the people who run Monument Crowne Preserve, his townhome community.
More inside...

MiguelCardoso — Sun, 14 Apr 2002 08:30:56 -0800

Why Europeans And Arabs Hate America And Israel: In this brash, provocative essay for The Weekly Standard, good old David Brooks blames what he calls bourgeoisophobia. He may have gone too far in his desire to make his point, but there's something in what he says. Is it envy? Is it anti-semitism? Is it hypocrisy pure and simple? There's definitely a ressurgence of the pushy, garish, ostentatious and arrogant "ugly American" stereotype after September 11. Apart from the conservative Daily Telegraph and Spectator, it's becoming more and more difficult for Atlanticists such as myself to avoid ritual America-bashing in the European mainstream press. What in the hell is going on? My feeling is that Americans themselves are going out of their way to reaffirm their way of life and reinforce those prejudices. It's as if you vont to be alone. Or is it, as I suspect, just us? [More inside]