How America Got Mean
August 14, 2023 12:12 PM Subscribe
How America Got Mean (archive link) is David Brooks' musings on why Americans are so sad and why Americans are so mean.
His proposed culprits: social media, increased isolation, increased diversity, economic inequality and insecurity.
His proposed solutions: a new vision of how to build character, social skills courses, acts of service, "moral" organizations.
His proposed culprits: social media, increased isolation, increased diversity, economic inequality and insecurity.
His proposed solutions: a new vision of how to build character, social skills courses, acts of service, "moral" organizations.
Ctrl-F "Reagan" not found
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 12:18 PM on August 14, 2023 [24 favorites]
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 12:18 PM on August 14, 2023 [24 favorites]
Hmmm, I see a few missing culprits from that last: chiefly, America's Most Famous Man, who was so brazenly and wildly mean and who seemed completely immune from any pushback or accountability and then also the enormous apparatus of lies and propaganda that supported and condoned and explained away his massive assholery and, intertwined, the rising fascist movement that so viciously and falsely blames and scapegoats marginalized people.
Without those crucial pieces, I don't think we can even begin to have a conversation about these dynamics.
posted by overglow at 12:22 PM on August 14, 2023 [72 favorites]
Without those crucial pieces, I don't think we can even begin to have a conversation about these dynamics.
posted by overglow at 12:22 PM on August 14, 2023 [72 favorites]
"Capitalism" also not found.
posted by klanawa at 12:25 PM on August 14, 2023 [64 favorites]
posted by klanawa at 12:25 PM on August 14, 2023 [64 favorites]
His proposed culprits: social media, increased isolation, increased diversity, economic inequality and insecurity
He doesn't propose those culprits but dismisses them, otherwise the obvious solution, instead of teaching people morality would be
1) Regulate social media
2) Increased Community and Acceptance of others
3) Increased Community and Acceptance of others
4) Tax the Rich
posted by vacapinta at 12:25 PM on August 14, 2023 [24 favorites]
He doesn't propose those culprits but dismisses them, otherwise the obvious solution, instead of teaching people morality would be
1) Regulate social media
2) Increased Community and Acceptance of others
3) Increased Community and Acceptance of others
4) Tax the Rich
posted by vacapinta at 12:25 PM on August 14, 2023 [24 favorites]
Bobo is still trying to be relevant?
posted by Chuffy at 12:35 PM on August 14, 2023 [31 favorites]
posted by Chuffy at 12:35 PM on August 14, 2023 [31 favorites]
I know this is an Atlantic piece and not an NYT piece, but I'm going to say it anyway: we need term limits for newspaper columnists. It is only his station, and nothing further, which allows David Brooks to regularly go, "Let me muse about this one thing I know very little about, and then why don't I make a massive logical leap to something else I know very little about, and then I'll make a few tidy little recommendations that may or may not address a problem that exists in reality."
I'm actually a sucker for any chatter about institutions and morals and navigating the tensions between the collective and the individual, so it's really a feat that I found this essay so annoying.
My biggest problem is simply that dang premise: "Why have Americans become so mean?" Have we? His evidence, his entire jumping off point, is justified in seven sentences, and is roughly: (1) a nurse I know said patients in the notoriously garbage American health care system are unkind, (2) there is an increase in hate crimes, and (3) there are more murder, and (4) there are more gun sales.
"There is a rise in crime" does not mean that "everyone here has gotten so mean." Some people are acting increasingly badly, and we are awash in guns and racism and insane media narratives and on and on. Would a new core curriculum fix that? Is there some universe where the Girl Scouts refocus on service and suddenly the guns evaporate and Donald Trump goes away?
posted by kensington314 at 12:35 PM on August 14, 2023 [80 favorites]
I'm actually a sucker for any chatter about institutions and morals and navigating the tensions between the collective and the individual, so it's really a feat that I found this essay so annoying.
My biggest problem is simply that dang premise: "Why have Americans become so mean?" Have we? His evidence, his entire jumping off point, is justified in seven sentences, and is roughly: (1) a nurse I know said patients in the notoriously garbage American health care system are unkind, (2) there is an increase in hate crimes, and (3) there are more murder, and (4) there are more gun sales.
"There is a rise in crime" does not mean that "everyone here has gotten so mean." Some people are acting increasingly badly, and we are awash in guns and racism and insane media narratives and on and on. Would a new core curriculum fix that? Is there some universe where the Girl Scouts refocus on service and suddenly the guns evaporate and Donald Trump goes away?
posted by kensington314 at 12:35 PM on August 14, 2023 [80 favorites]
This is a conservative cliché in action. Problem: society/the economy. Solution: hold individuals responsible. So this guy notices economic insecurity is bad for people, and his solution is that individual people should Build Character. I can't take this construct seriously anymore in any context.
posted by prefpara at 12:37 PM on August 14, 2023 [91 favorites]
posted by prefpara at 12:37 PM on August 14, 2023 [91 favorites]
We don't need some grift college of character, what a goddamn numpty.
We are experiencing the highest rate of Deaths of Despair in this country since the metric was measured/estimated back to 1890. This isn't character this is no one getting paid fairly.
We don't need to build character, we need to tear out the foundations Reagan and his similarly criminal ilk laid. We don't need social skills courses, we need an abolishment of single-family-zoning restrictions so we can have social high streets and town centers again (that aren't $2500/month rent """Districts""" i.e. live in Theme Parks). We don't need acts of service we need a government without the cancer of conservative leeching off money to the rich, money that can hire people across the board to provide those services, at a living wage, with the money taxed from the leech class, the way it goddamn used to be before goddamn Reagan cheated his way in with Iran Contra.
The US has been sacked by criminals for forty fucking years.
posted by Slackermagee at 12:37 PM on August 14, 2023 [101 favorites]
We are experiencing the highest rate of Deaths of Despair in this country since the metric was measured/estimated back to 1890. This isn't character this is no one getting paid fairly.
We don't need to build character, we need to tear out the foundations Reagan and his similarly criminal ilk laid. We don't need social skills courses, we need an abolishment of single-family-zoning restrictions so we can have social high streets and town centers again (that aren't $2500/month rent """Districts""" i.e. live in Theme Parks). We don't need acts of service we need a government without the cancer of conservative leeching off money to the rich, money that can hire people across the board to provide those services, at a living wage, with the money taxed from the leech class, the way it goddamn used to be before goddamn Reagan cheated his way in with Iran Contra.
The US has been sacked by criminals for forty fucking years.
posted by Slackermagee at 12:37 PM on August 14, 2023 [101 favorites]
when i was growing up the so called moral leaders nationally or locally, were the ones responsible for turning minorities and other outcasts into targets, exploiting people by weaponizing control of the work place, sending teenaged boys to vietnam to get killed, making young women use coat hangers to abort, privileging young men to beat the crap out of classmates who didn't conform, and of course, lots of monetary and sexual oppression, not to mention the little blasphemy of having enough bombs to desstroy civilization several times over
there was a reason people rebelled in the 60s
their moral elders were thoroughly corrupt
so, bullshit
posted by pyramid termite at 12:39 PM on August 14, 2023 [30 favorites]
there was a reason people rebelled in the 60s
their moral elders were thoroughly corrupt
so, bullshit
posted by pyramid termite at 12:39 PM on August 14, 2023 [30 favorites]
By the mid‑1970s, for example, the Girl Scouts’ founding ethos of service to others had shifted: “How can you get more in touch with you? What are you thinking? What are you feeling?” one Girl Scout handbook asked.
Oh no, beware the grim spectre of self reflection.
I've always been one of those "do what's right, not what's popular" kids, I guess the posters in the library really reached me, but it wasn't until I got a little older and started reflecting on how I had been treated by others that I started seeing the injustices I had faced, and by extension made myself more able to see the injustices done to others.
How can you possibly act morally toward the world if you don't take any time to pause and consider how you are a part of it?
By the way, the Girl Scout Law, previously untouched since the 20s, had a major overhaul in the 70s. It was always mostly good, but the big revision lost "obeys orders" and the Boy Scout language of "clean in thought." Here are its major tenets today:
[I'll do my best to be]
- honest and fair
- friendly and helpful
- considerate and caring
- courageous and strong
- responsible for what I say and do
- respect myself and others
- respect authority
- use resources wisely
- make the world a better place
The bulk of the badge material for Daisy Scouts, those are the little ones, is going through each line of the law and really taking the time for each kid to make sure they understand it. What does respecting yourself mean, etc.
The Girl Scouts was never exclusively about service to others anyway. One of JGL's founding purposes was to develop girls' self reliance. Service to others is important, but the individual has always been paramount.
posted by phunniemee at 12:40 PM on August 14, 2023 [38 favorites]
Oh no, beware the grim spectre of self reflection.
I've always been one of those "do what's right, not what's popular" kids, I guess the posters in the library really reached me, but it wasn't until I got a little older and started reflecting on how I had been treated by others that I started seeing the injustices I had faced, and by extension made myself more able to see the injustices done to others.
How can you possibly act morally toward the world if you don't take any time to pause and consider how you are a part of it?
By the way, the Girl Scout Law, previously untouched since the 20s, had a major overhaul in the 70s. It was always mostly good, but the big revision lost "obeys orders" and the Boy Scout language of "clean in thought." Here are its major tenets today:
[I'll do my best to be]
- honest and fair
- friendly and helpful
- considerate and caring
- courageous and strong
- responsible for what I say and do
- respect myself and others
- respect authority
- use resources wisely
- make the world a better place
The bulk of the badge material for Daisy Scouts, those are the little ones, is going through each line of the law and really taking the time for each kid to make sure they understand it. What does respecting yourself mean, etc.
The Girl Scouts was never exclusively about service to others anyway. One of JGL's founding purposes was to develop girls' self reliance. Service to others is important, but the individual has always been paramount.
posted by phunniemee at 12:40 PM on August 14, 2023 [38 favorites]
These are some of the most important skills a person can have. And yet somehow, we don’t teach them. Our schools spend years prepping students with professional skills—but offer little guidance on how to be an upstanding person in everyday life.
This is what social-emotional learning is supposed to do, or so I understand (I am not a teacher, but live with one). Of course, conservatives think it's pinko communism or something, but it's not true that nobody is teaching this stuff.
posted by joannemerriam at 12:43 PM on August 14, 2023 [22 favorites]
This is what social-emotional learning is supposed to do, or so I understand (I am not a teacher, but live with one). Of course, conservatives think it's pinko communism or something, but it's not true that nobody is teaching this stuff.
posted by joannemerriam at 12:43 PM on August 14, 2023 [22 favorites]
By the mid‑1970s, for example, the Girl Scouts’ founding ethos of service to others had shifted
Brooks muses, "How can we blame women for this...?"
posted by amanda at 12:46 PM on August 14, 2023 [45 favorites]
Brooks muses, "How can we blame women for this...?"
posted by amanda at 12:46 PM on August 14, 2023 [45 favorites]
I know this is an Atlantic piece and not an NYT piece, but I'm going to say it anyway: we need term limits for newspaper columnists. It is only his station, and nothing further, which allows David Brooks to regularly go, "Let me muse about this one thing I know very little about, and then why don't I make a massive logical leap to something else I know very little about, and then I'll make a few tidy little recommendations that may or may not address a problem that exists in reality."
This, plus the Atlantic seems to be making its brand about being slightly controversial and publishing the kinds of semi-contrarian pieces that get people riled up and result in social media engagement. I still have a subscription but find less I like to read there than I used to, and at some point will not continue the subscription. This is the sort of piece where I read the first paragraph or two and then page past in the print edition.
posted by Dip Flash at 12:48 PM on August 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
This, plus the Atlantic seems to be making its brand about being slightly controversial and publishing the kinds of semi-contrarian pieces that get people riled up and result in social media engagement. I still have a subscription but find less I like to read there than I used to, and at some point will not continue the subscription. This is the sort of piece where I read the first paragraph or two and then page past in the print edition.
posted by Dip Flash at 12:48 PM on August 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
ugh, David Brooks - I'd like to punch that guy
Now, which of the four reasons best explains my reaction?
posted by allegedly at 12:48 PM on August 14, 2023 [21 favorites]
Now, which of the four reasons best explains my reaction?
posted by allegedly at 12:48 PM on August 14, 2023 [21 favorites]
"David Brooks' musings"
*sighs*
*reads a little bit*
*sighs*
*closes laptop*
posted by brundlefly at 12:49 PM on August 14, 2023 [35 favorites]
*sighs*
*reads a little bit*
*sighs*
*closes laptop*
posted by brundlefly at 12:49 PM on August 14, 2023 [35 favorites]
David Brooks needs to start by taking a look in the mirror
posted by interogative mood at 12:50 PM on August 14, 2023 [19 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 12:50 PM on August 14, 2023 [19 favorites]
yeah i was disappointed not to see "capitalism" called out expressly as a major contributor to ~waves hand~.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 12:51 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by misanthropicsarah at 12:51 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
The only reaction I ever have to any David Brooks piece is "You're not wrong Walter, you're just an asshole."
But that's probably just because I was never in Girl Scouts.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:51 PM on August 14, 2023 [13 favorites]
But that's probably just because I was never in Girl Scouts.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:51 PM on August 14, 2023 [13 favorites]
ugh, David Brooks - I'd like to punch that guy
Now, which of the four reasons best explains my reaction?
Scanned it again for an answer, seems your immoral and anti-social desires ares at least partly Arthur Schlesinger's fault.
posted by kensington314 at 12:51 PM on August 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Now, which of the four reasons best explains my reaction?
Scanned it again for an answer, seems your immoral and anti-social desires ares at least partly Arthur Schlesinger's fault.
posted by kensington314 at 12:51 PM on August 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
ugh, Arthur Schlesinger - I'd like to punch that guy
posted by allegedly at 12:53 PM on August 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
posted by allegedly at 12:53 PM on August 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
It's really a shame that Carl Rogers' argument beat Reinhold Niebuhr's during the 1947 Annual Meeting of How Society Should Be Conducted and now everyone is killing everyone.
posted by kensington314 at 12:54 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by kensington314 at 12:54 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
I won't read The Atlantic. They have their fingers on the pulsepoint of left-wing grar and recreational outrage. Also: confirmation bias, but I stopped reading years ago when everytime I found myself getting worked up by a hand wringing piece about how parents, and moms especially, aren't doing things right it was an Atlantic article that a friend had posted to social media. F*ck them and f*ck Brooks. I, too, would like to know why America is so unflinchingly stupid right now but in the meantime, women need to wrest control of healthcare into their hands so that pre-teens aren't forced to carry rape pregnancies to term, so that men having feelings and guns aren't able to shoot up crowds of people, and so that we can maybe slow the rate at which the planet is burning down. Sure. "Social media and the Girls Scouts," get right on that, do-nothing pontificator Brooks.
posted by amanda at 12:54 PM on August 14, 2023 [25 favorites]
posted by amanda at 12:54 PM on August 14, 2023 [25 favorites]
Hasn't America been pretty mean for a pretty long time? Is the question really "why does it appear that superficial politeness norms/standards are eroding that used to be directed towards and between middle/upper class people?"
posted by Selena777 at 12:55 PM on August 14, 2023 [28 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 12:55 PM on August 14, 2023 [28 favorites]
I thought there were two Brooks Brothers.
posted by clavdivs at 1:01 PM on August 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by clavdivs at 1:01 PM on August 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have no intention of reading another word by David Brooks. David Brooks is definitely not "best of the web." There's nothing to learn from that insufferable, moralizing, blowhard.
STOP. READING. DAVID. FUCKING. BROOKS.
Seriously. Don't give him your attention.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 1:05 PM on August 14, 2023 [78 favorites]
STOP. READING. DAVID. FUCKING. BROOKS.
Seriously. Don't give him your attention.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 1:05 PM on August 14, 2023 [78 favorites]
I frequently wonder how David Brooks keeps a roof over his head. He's been a wind up toy that trundles around dispensing blandly right-leaning bromides for at least 20 years, seemingly without ever having bumped into a moment of wit, empathy or insight the entire time. He's somehow made a career out of being the in-flight chicken dinner of right-wing apologia, carefully engineered to cause as few opinions to occur as possible. How do you get a job being so fastidiously mediocre? How do you keep it, what sort of success conditions exist that allow somebody like him to stay so comfortable?
posted by mhoye at 1:06 PM on August 14, 2023 [23 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 1:06 PM on August 14, 2023 [23 favorites]
Not even Reagan so much - he wasnt smart enough.
Lee Atwater yes
Newt Gingrich yes
posted by Billiken at 1:07 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
Lee Atwater yes
Newt Gingrich yes
posted by Billiken at 1:07 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
The only reaction I ever have to any David Brooks piece is "You're not wrong Walter, you're just an asshole."
But that's probably just because I was never in Girl Scouts.
Well I was a Scout and let me tell you: he is also wrong!
posted by phunniemee at 1:07 PM on August 14, 2023 [19 favorites]
But that's probably just because I was never in Girl Scouts.
Well I was a Scout and let me tell you: he is also wrong!
posted by phunniemee at 1:07 PM on August 14, 2023 [19 favorites]
We are a society built on expansion, enslavement, extermination, and exploitation which no longer has room to expand and put problems elsewhere out of sight, and are turning on each other as a result? Which of those four haven’t you championed, Mr. Brooks?
To be fair, this is a very superficial and facile view of the situation, but so is Brooks’.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:07 PM on August 14, 2023 [15 favorites]
To be fair, this is a very superficial and facile view of the situation, but so is Brooks’.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:07 PM on August 14, 2023 [15 favorites]
We been mean.
We was mean as fuck when we colonized this land and genocided the inhabitants.
We found new ways to be mean when we enslaved an entire race and made them build this country.
We continued down this continuum of meanness as we fucked over and oppressed everyone that wasn't a straight white man.
When did we get mean. Get the fuck outta here.
posted by anansi at 1:09 PM on August 14, 2023 [94 favorites]
We was mean as fuck when we colonized this land and genocided the inhabitants.
We found new ways to be mean when we enslaved an entire race and made them build this country.
We continued down this continuum of meanness as we fucked over and oppressed everyone that wasn't a straight white man.
When did we get mean. Get the fuck outta here.
posted by anansi at 1:09 PM on August 14, 2023 [94 favorites]
I know this is an Atlantic piece and not an NYT piece, but I'm going to say it anyway: we need term limits for newspaper columnists. It is only his station, and nothing further, which allows David Brooks to regularly go, "Let me muse about this one thing I know very little about, and then why don't I make a massive logical leap to something else I know very little about, and then I'll make a few tidy little recommendations that may or may not address a problem that exists in reality."
I agree that columnist gigs are way too steady, if just because there are hundreds of thousands of people capable of doing the job, most of them don't get a chance, and the people who were doing it best 10, 20 years ago, whenever they got their sinecure, probably aren't the best at it anymore (if they ever were.) After all, they've been living the easiest life imaginable for years, as a newspaper columnist, so it's hard to imagine them having insights that are relatable to regular people. (Indeed, Brooks seems pathologically unable to write for any audience he wouldn't attend a dinner party with.)
That said, Brooks himself might be a counterargument to sunsetting columnists, because - although people's annoyance at this piece isn't incorrect - he's definitely gotten more perceptive and more empathetic over the years. His pieces are still full of vague moral imperatives and ill-defined solutions, but he has at least become much better at knowing what the actual problems with our society are, and it's been interesting to watch. It's part of a phenomenon I've noticed where some "Lincoln Project"-style conservatives (including Brooks's NYT colleague Ross Douthat)* have been somewhat broken out of their Reaganite trance by Trump, who has dislodged many of the flawed assumptions upon which "intellectual" conservativism lies, and that have guided their beliefs their entire lives.
I know Biden wasn't everybody's (anybody's?) first choice, and his career has been defined by squishy moderation, but at the same time, he has indisputably governed to the left of any president in my lifetime. Yet Brooks is enamored of him. That's a big, big shift.
If we didn't have any conservative columnists who were popular 20 years ago, then we wouldn't have any conservative columnists who were capable of making even a lick of sense. It would be MTG-style true believers all the way down.
* There is still Bret Stephens, so if you want the "I don't like Trump, because he's so uncouth, but everything he does is great" style of conservative commentary the Times still has you covered.
posted by mellow seas at 1:16 PM on August 14, 2023 [12 favorites]
I agree that columnist gigs are way too steady, if just because there are hundreds of thousands of people capable of doing the job, most of them don't get a chance, and the people who were doing it best 10, 20 years ago, whenever they got their sinecure, probably aren't the best at it anymore (if they ever were.) After all, they've been living the easiest life imaginable for years, as a newspaper columnist, so it's hard to imagine them having insights that are relatable to regular people. (Indeed, Brooks seems pathologically unable to write for any audience he wouldn't attend a dinner party with.)
That said, Brooks himself might be a counterargument to sunsetting columnists, because - although people's annoyance at this piece isn't incorrect - he's definitely gotten more perceptive and more empathetic over the years. His pieces are still full of vague moral imperatives and ill-defined solutions, but he has at least become much better at knowing what the actual problems with our society are, and it's been interesting to watch. It's part of a phenomenon I've noticed where some "Lincoln Project"-style conservatives (including Brooks's NYT colleague Ross Douthat)* have been somewhat broken out of their Reaganite trance by Trump, who has dislodged many of the flawed assumptions upon which "intellectual" conservativism lies, and that have guided their beliefs their entire lives.
I know Biden wasn't everybody's (anybody's?) first choice, and his career has been defined by squishy moderation, but at the same time, he has indisputably governed to the left of any president in my lifetime. Yet Brooks is enamored of him. That's a big, big shift.
If we didn't have any conservative columnists who were popular 20 years ago, then we wouldn't have any conservative columnists who were capable of making even a lick of sense. It would be MTG-style true believers all the way down.
* There is still Bret Stephens, so if you want the "I don't like Trump, because he's so uncouth, but everything he does is great" style of conservative commentary the Times still has you covered.
posted by mellow seas at 1:16 PM on August 14, 2023 [12 favorites]
Oh good, another excuse to link to an If Books Could Kill podcast episode, in this case about David Brooks’ Bobos in Paradise (and a bonus teaser of their subscription episode about On Bullshit, which mentions Brooks a lot). If you want to listen to two people dissect what it is about Brooks that is so annoying, and be funny about it, this is your ticket.
posted by Kattullus at 1:34 PM on August 14, 2023 [22 favorites]
posted by Kattullus at 1:34 PM on August 14, 2023 [22 favorites]
How does he continue to be employed?
posted by heyitsgogi at 1:44 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by heyitsgogi at 1:44 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
Um, maybe one of the reasons there’s so much visible meanness is because a small but disproportionately loud and visible segment of the country gets continually whipped into a froth by the right wing media ecosystem, to the point where they believe that pretty much everyone I know is literally satanic?
Also, way to drop that quick anecdote about nurses quitting en masse without mentioning that much of the abuse that drove this wave of quitting stems from people who believe in conspiracies stemming from that same right wing fever swamp. (And also for profit-healthcare, but I know better than to expect David Brooks to ever take on capitalism).
posted by ActionPopulated at 1:51 PM on August 14, 2023 [17 favorites]
Also, way to drop that quick anecdote about nurses quitting en masse without mentioning that much of the abuse that drove this wave of quitting stems from people who believe in conspiracies stemming from that same right wing fever swamp. (And also for profit-healthcare, but I know better than to expect David Brooks to ever take on capitalism).
posted by ActionPopulated at 1:51 PM on August 14, 2023 [17 favorites]
Oh for heaven's sake. This from the same man who wrote the NYT opinion column piece of August 10th titled "Hey America, Grow Up! How Therapy Culture Undermined Our Maturity," in which he refers to trying to protect people from trauma "coddling" and claims that the "therapeutic ethos" of seeking to heal trauma produces whiny narcissists. (I didn't link it, I know. . .) I'm supposed to believe this is a man trying to save America from meanness?
posted by DrMew at 1:56 PM on August 14, 2023 [21 favorites]
posted by DrMew at 1:56 PM on August 14, 2023 [21 favorites]
PS How does David Brooks plan to ensure that his moral and social skills curriculum is not immediately co-opted by fundamentalists who would use it push compulsory Christian fundamentalism? Because as much as I hate it, those are the people who are right now front and center trying to claim that they have a monopoly on how to be moral, and I am sure that they would be clamoring to create such a curriculum.
posted by ActionPopulated at 1:57 PM on August 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by ActionPopulated at 1:57 PM on August 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
The problem the piece starts out framing is an real one, I think. There is an ongoing atomization of society that's scary and without precedent. It's a shame the column then, instead of engaging with that, trails off into embarrassing nonsense.
Moral relativism makes it very hard to have the kind of shared (or enforced) value system that the US and comparable societies managed to cultivate in the past, at least within large segments of their population. But of course, the reason we have this instructive distrust of system-provided moral standards now is all the abuse, oppression, and internal contradictions they tended to come with.
Now that the past 60 years of discourse has happened, we clearly can't go back to the crude institutional moralities of the past. No one has a taste for a comics code, ham-fisted educational messages in every story, or teacher-enforced spiritual beliefs now. Yet we are finding that some aspects of society are dissolving without some shared attitudes and truths. Ravenous capitalism is, I feel, both a symptom of this process and a kind of parasite that accelerates it for its own purposes. Same for political polarization.
I have no idea if/how we'll a solution for this. But I suspect morality courses in education aren't going to be it.
posted by marijn at 2:02 PM on August 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
Moral relativism makes it very hard to have the kind of shared (or enforced) value system that the US and comparable societies managed to cultivate in the past, at least within large segments of their population. But of course, the reason we have this instructive distrust of system-provided moral standards now is all the abuse, oppression, and internal contradictions they tended to come with.
Now that the past 60 years of discourse has happened, we clearly can't go back to the crude institutional moralities of the past. No one has a taste for a comics code, ham-fisted educational messages in every story, or teacher-enforced spiritual beliefs now. Yet we are finding that some aspects of society are dissolving without some shared attitudes and truths. Ravenous capitalism is, I feel, both a symptom of this process and a kind of parasite that accelerates it for its own purposes. Same for political polarization.
I have no idea if/how we'll a solution for this. But I suspect morality courses in education aren't going to be it.
posted by marijn at 2:02 PM on August 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
I think the case is clear for the negative effects of cars and social media - computers generally, in fact, I'm afraid to say. Though I suspect video games make us less violent.
More interesting is the possible effect of safety-first culture (harder to organise events and non-professional activities so less sociability) and most interestingly: decline of manufacturing. Maybe there IS something about physical well-paying jobs for not-very-skilled men that makes a better society?
posted by one more day at 2:10 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
More interesting is the possible effect of safety-first culture (harder to organise events and non-professional activities so less sociability) and most interestingly: decline of manufacturing. Maybe there IS something about physical well-paying jobs for not-very-skilled men that makes a better society?
posted by one more day at 2:10 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
That said, Brooks himself might be a counterargument to sunsetting columnists, because - although people's annoyance at this piece isn't incorrect - he's definitely gotten more perceptive and more empathetic over the years. His pieces are still full of vague moral imperatives and ill-defined solutions, but he has at least become much better at knowing what the actual problems with our society are, and it's been interesting to watch.
On the other hand, with the tens of thousands of people who could do his job, I bet we could find a few that not only have made his journey but are so far beyond him that he will never catch up and who soon will be so red shifted that he won't be able to see them sailing away from him. It's not like the nation owes him a platform to watch his little baby steps towards understanding, when there are better voices out there.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:10 PM on August 14, 2023 [22 favorites]
On the other hand, with the tens of thousands of people who could do his job, I bet we could find a few that not only have made his journey but are so far beyond him that he will never catch up and who soon will be so red shifted that he won't be able to see them sailing away from him. It's not like the nation owes him a platform to watch his little baby steps towards understanding, when there are better voices out there.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:10 PM on August 14, 2023 [22 favorites]
"Moral relativism" has been the trope of the center-right pundit for approximately forever. What I find baffling about it is that it never seems to occur to these people that the preoccupations of the left are in fact moral, and that we find them (and their nastier brethren) immoral.
The very word "moral" has a churchy air, so we prefer other words, like justice, fairness, compassion, ethics. Here's a site that shows how leftists have strong and very specific feelings on how people should treat each other.
posted by zompist at 2:15 PM on August 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
The very word "moral" has a churchy air, so we prefer other words, like justice, fairness, compassion, ethics. Here's a site that shows how leftists have strong and very specific feelings on how people should treat each other.
posted by zompist at 2:15 PM on August 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
At least he mentioned racism TWICE! But my meanness stems from seeing David Brooks paid to write for The Atlantic, and knowing that my subscription paid for that. And I will tell him that to his face, and continue the conversation in the parking lot if he has a problem with it.
posted by TedW at 2:32 PM on August 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by TedW at 2:32 PM on August 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
phunniemee, I like your list.
Regarding: Respect authority
My default position is, I respect authority like a I respect a downed power-line.
I think it was Utah Philips that said (paraphrasing), Love my country? Always. Love my government? Only when they've earned it.
posted by chromecow at 2:34 PM on August 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
Regarding: Respect authority
My default position is, I respect authority like a I respect a downed power-line.
I think it was Utah Philips that said (paraphrasing), Love my country? Always. Love my government? Only when they've earned it.
posted by chromecow at 2:34 PM on August 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
This is where people fail. Failure to define men as mankind, the women children queer colored foreign that can be Othered. People get caught up in the fact that technically, not everyone is created equal in the literal sense, but it absolutely is true in a moral and ethical sense. On some level you either believe all life has value for being what it is, or you don't. If someone can kick a dog, they could build a deathcamp if they could get away with it.
All life is created, but insisting that you have the one true faith and everyone else is wrong and should and will suffer makes you evil. Acknowledging that we are all deserving of joy and safety is a much happier healthier way to live. I don't have to hate those who try to oppress me, that stains my soul, whatever that may be. I don't have to let them run rampant and unopposed, but life deserves to be loved. Even the evil, though infinitely preferably if they are constrained from doing harm.
People who view others success as taking from them try to oppress others. It feels safer to be on top and beat people down than help them up and share in new things. We are at a point where we don't have to beat each other to death with sticks so our children can eat. Some people thrive in that situation, some try to cling to being 'better than you '.
Love or hate. Building life and happiness and light, or spreading fear, oppression, bigotry, and cruelty. Lifting up or casting down. Trying to do your best for all life, or trying only for those most like you. I honestly don't think there's much middle ground. Either you're trying to spread love, or you're spreading hate, no matter your intentions and what you tell yourself. Hurt people hurt others, and some of us chose to try to soothe and heal the inevitable hurts, and some try to ensure that the hurt is inflicted on others as much as possible.
posted by Jacen at 2:35 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
This is where people fail. Failure to define men as mankind, the women children queer colored foreign that can be Othered. People get caught up in the fact that technically, not everyone is created equal in the literal sense, but it absolutely is true in a moral and ethical sense. On some level you either believe all life has value for being what it is, or you don't. If someone can kick a dog, they could build a deathcamp if they could get away with it.
All life is created, but insisting that you have the one true faith and everyone else is wrong and should and will suffer makes you evil. Acknowledging that we are all deserving of joy and safety is a much happier healthier way to live. I don't have to hate those who try to oppress me, that stains my soul, whatever that may be. I don't have to let them run rampant and unopposed, but life deserves to be loved. Even the evil, though infinitely preferably if they are constrained from doing harm.
People who view others success as taking from them try to oppress others. It feels safer to be on top and beat people down than help them up and share in new things. We are at a point where we don't have to beat each other to death with sticks so our children can eat. Some people thrive in that situation, some try to cling to being 'better than you '.
Love or hate. Building life and happiness and light, or spreading fear, oppression, bigotry, and cruelty. Lifting up or casting down. Trying to do your best for all life, or trying only for those most like you. I honestly don't think there's much middle ground. Either you're trying to spread love, or you're spreading hate, no matter your intentions and what you tell yourself. Hurt people hurt others, and some of us chose to try to soothe and heal the inevitable hurts, and some try to ensure that the hurt is inflicted on others as much as possible.
posted by Jacen at 2:35 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
David Brooks can go fuck himself.
posted by slogger at 2:38 PM on August 14, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by slogger at 2:38 PM on August 14, 2023 [16 favorites]
Lee Atwater yes
Newt Gingrich yes
ahem forgetting MC Rove are we???
posted by Apocryphon at 2:39 PM on August 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Newt Gingrich yes
ahem forgetting MC Rove are we???
posted by Apocryphon at 2:39 PM on August 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
David Brooks can go fuck himself.
See, this is why he's writing all of us a prescription for church.
posted by Selena777 at 2:54 PM on August 14, 2023 [14 favorites]
See, this is why he's writing all of us a prescription for church.
posted by Selena777 at 2:54 PM on August 14, 2023 [14 favorites]
I deeply, truly don't give a fuck what David Brooks thinks about anything.
posted by so fucking future at 3:11 PM on August 14, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by so fucking future at 3:11 PM on August 14, 2023 [8 favorites]
All the talk about moral education reminds me of the perennial discussion of the need for stronger ethical education for STEM students, which has always struck me as well-intentioned but largely irrelevant - your students go on to do ethically dubious things because they live in a society in which, having acquired a marketable skill, they will be offered a salary of several hundred thousand dollars to work on the most abstracted parts of such things.
Presumably a guy like Brooks thinks this environment is all downstream of cultural values, and I suppose it is, but I think a lot of them are the kind that are transmitted through implicit instruction that’s more powerful than anything that happens in the classroom.
posted by atoxyl at 3:30 PM on August 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
Presumably a guy like Brooks thinks this environment is all downstream of cultural values, and I suppose it is, but I think a lot of them are the kind that are transmitted through implicit instruction that’s more powerful than anything that happens in the classroom.
posted by atoxyl at 3:30 PM on August 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
Has anyone tried ignoring David Brooks to see if he goes away?
posted by angrynerd at 3:32 PM on August 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by angrynerd at 3:32 PM on August 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
I will admit, though, that I am interested in the subjective observation (as reported independently by a lot of people I’ve talked to) that people have generally been more antisocial and unpleasant in public since the beginning of the pandemic, and the coinciding spike in violence in many cities. It’s not that hard to hypothesize about (is it really just the same causes as “deaths of despair?”) but still, I feel like there’s something to dig into there.
posted by atoxyl at 3:37 PM on August 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 3:37 PM on August 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
My reaction is pretty similar to anansi's upthread. "GET" mean?! GET MEAN?! When have we, as a nation, ever not been? During colonization? While we were twisting ourselves in knots to preserve chattel slavery? While we were genociding a whole continent? And then when we were out of neighbors to murder, moving on to people on other continents? The fuck?? I am literally loling alone in my house at how crackers this is.
The fact that Brooks makes such a self-indulgent, obvious inanity the premise of a couple-thousand-word article exposes the latter as a total waste of time. Sweet Jesus.
posted by peakes at 3:57 PM on August 14, 2023 [10 favorites]
The fact that Brooks makes such a self-indulgent, obvious inanity the premise of a couple-thousand-word article exposes the latter as a total waste of time. Sweet Jesus.
posted by peakes at 3:57 PM on August 14, 2023 [10 favorites]
To avoid abusing the edit button: I do realize that what Brooks is actually referring to is the deterioration of standards of general public civility we've witnessed since at least the mid 2010s, but I maintain that the lower incidence of public freakouts in years past was not evidence of a kinder or less fundamentally violent society. Previously comfortable whites are finally being subjected to the sort of economic and public-heath conditions that oppressed groups have borne up under--which we, indeed, forced on them for our own benefit--for centuries, and as such have zero resilience or tools for coping with their new reality. Result: literal and metaphorical breakdowns.
posted by peakes at 4:06 PM on August 14, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by peakes at 4:06 PM on August 14, 2023 [13 favorites]
I've taught at several different kinds of institutions of higher education.
Know which kind is, hell-bent for leather, do or die, more than all of the others, dedicated to educating students to be ethical and moral, and, yes, have good character?
The small liberal arts college.
I would not describe our students, however, as polite and courteous, especially if somebody's trying to push an oppressive agenda.
posted by BrashTech at 4:11 PM on August 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
Know which kind is, hell-bent for leather, do or die, more than all of the others, dedicated to educating students to be ethical and moral, and, yes, have good character?
The small liberal arts college.
I would not describe our students, however, as polite and courteous, especially if somebody's trying to push an oppressive agenda.
posted by BrashTech at 4:11 PM on August 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
Willy F Buckley's little pet asking how people got so mean is beyond laughable.
Atlantic Monthly, morelike the Mid Atlantic, what a shitty rag.
posted by StarkRoads at 4:57 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
Atlantic Monthly, morelike the Mid Atlantic, what a shitty rag.
posted by StarkRoads at 4:57 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
Hasn't America been pretty mean for a pretty long time?
I think he means to people who look like him. That's the part that changed.
posted by klanawa at 5:08 PM on August 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
I think he means to people who look like him. That's the part that changed.
posted by klanawa at 5:08 PM on August 14, 2023 [9 favorites]
Does leaving your age appropriate wife for your assistant who is your child’s age count as an act of meanness?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:18 PM on August 14, 2023 [17 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:18 PM on August 14, 2023 [17 favorites]
Does David Brooks own a mirror
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:23 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:23 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
I would suggest a heavy dose of civility on all sides as a remedy...
posted by jim in austin at 5:40 PM on August 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by jim in austin at 5:40 PM on August 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
"Bobos in Paradise and Eurydice."
I look forward to Putnam's updated piece on this, "Blowing Alone."
His proposed culprits: social media, increased isolation, increased diversity, economic inequality and insecurity.
His proposed solutions: a new vision of how to build character, social skills courses, acts of service, "moral" organizations.
Oops, he must have forgot the redistribution of wealth and security part.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:47 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
I look forward to Putnam's updated piece on this, "Blowing Alone."
His proposed culprits: social media, increased isolation, increased diversity, economic inequality and insecurity.
His proposed solutions: a new vision of how to build character, social skills courses, acts of service, "moral" organizations.
Oops, he must have forgot the redistribution of wealth and security part.
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:47 PM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
Somewhere around the turn of the century, I sorted out that the entire purpose of David Brooks is and has always been to steer educated Boomers back to the right. Go on ahead and appreciate the unearned part of your privileges as much as you do the earned part. I've never read him since other than once in a blue moon, just to see whether he's changed. He has not.
He's light-years better than Thomas Friedman or Maureen Dowd, though.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 5:58 PM on August 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
He's light-years better than Thomas Friedman or Maureen Dowd, though.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 5:58 PM on August 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
"If we all went ahead and came in to mass on Sunday, that would be great."
To a late convert to Christianity, of course all of these answers point to traditional church going.
I'm going to have to say no to that Bob.
posted by bonehead at 6:49 PM on August 14, 2023
To a late convert to Christianity, of course all of these answers point to traditional church going.
I'm going to have to say no to that Bob.
posted by bonehead at 6:49 PM on August 14, 2023
Does leaving your age appropriate wife for your assistant who is your child’s age count as an act of meanness?
Is it ironic that you were writing "The Road to Character" at the time?
posted by Iris Gambol at 6:53 PM on August 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
Is it ironic that you were writing "The Road to Character" at the time?
posted by Iris Gambol at 6:53 PM on August 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
Somewhere around the turn of the century, I sorted out that the entire purpose of David Brooks is and has always been to steer educated Boomers back to the right.
I always thought of him as the ideal NYT “editorial balance” conservative, occupying exactly the right ideological range to make slightly left of center readers feel open-minded for getting through his column.
Which is why it’s funny to me that this is exactly how they thought of him in hiring him!
"I was looking for the kind of conservative writer that wouldn't make our readers shriek and throw the paper out the window," says Collins. "He was perfect.
I remember him being a pretty big Iraq War proponent, that probably accounts for the largest share of the damage he’s done.
posted by atoxyl at 7:19 PM on August 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
I always thought of him as the ideal NYT “editorial balance” conservative, occupying exactly the right ideological range to make slightly left of center readers feel open-minded for getting through his column.
Which is why it’s funny to me that this is exactly how they thought of him in hiring him!
"I was looking for the kind of conservative writer that wouldn't make our readers shriek and throw the paper out the window," says Collins. "He was perfect.
I remember him being a pretty big Iraq War proponent, that probably accounts for the largest share of the damage he’s done.
posted by atoxyl at 7:19 PM on August 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Has anyone tried ignoring David Brooks to see if he goes away?
Oh, we've tried. IIRC he just turned it into fodder for "This Country Will Be What It Needs To Be When We Listen To Our Sage Moral Superiors Again."
But seriously, I'm not going to claim to know what the country needs. I just know that it has never, for an instant, needed David Brooks.
posted by Navelgazer at 7:39 PM on August 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
Oh, we've tried. IIRC he just turned it into fodder for "This Country Will Be What It Needs To Be When We Listen To Our Sage Moral Superiors Again."
But seriously, I'm not going to claim to know what the country needs. I just know that it has never, for an instant, needed David Brooks.
posted by Navelgazer at 7:39 PM on August 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
My god, David Brooks is SUCH a tool.
Week after WEEK - and for decades now - he writes a column/goes on Newshour, and every week, it's
"Here's the appalling thing the Republicans are doing this week, and there's no way to justify it - and THAT is why I'm a steadfast conservative!"
It's like even HE doesn't listen to himself.
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 7:49 PM on August 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
Week after WEEK - and for decades now - he writes a column/goes on Newshour, and every week, it's
"Here's the appalling thing the Republicans are doing this week, and there's no way to justify it - and THAT is why I'm a steadfast conservative!"
It's like even HE doesn't listen to himself.
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 7:49 PM on August 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
Oh look, a paywall. Question answered.
posted by metametamind at 8:14 PM on August 14, 2023
posted by metametamind at 8:14 PM on August 14, 2023
The polite country club fascism of Brooks, Sullivan, Will et al turned out to be lard on the skids into a pit. I’m not sure what more there is to say about it.
posted by ryanshepard at 8:15 PM on August 14, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by ryanshepard at 8:15 PM on August 14, 2023 [8 favorites]
Could one factor in this meanness be the 24-hour megaphone of hate that is talk radio and broadcast TV? Heck, even in Canada some of my rural relatives who live close to the border know all the talking points of Fox and Friends, despite most issues having next to no relevance north of the 49th. 20 years ago if you lived in rural Southern Manitoba and didn't have a satellite dish, your TV choices were ABC, CBC and Fox. Guess which won out in conservative-leaning rural areas?
Decades of bigoted, divisive talk in one's media environment, could this possibly anger the blood? Yes, even from a distance.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 8:20 PM on August 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
Decades of bigoted, divisive talk in one's media environment, could this possibly anger the blood? Yes, even from a distance.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 8:20 PM on August 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
Is he still at it? He's been pitting different types of white people against each other for more than 20 years; if there was a real race party in the United States, they would have gotten him by now for attempting to break the noble unity of the Caucasians. Fortunately, racism has lessened somewhat, so he's safe to waffle on about how watching Ted Lasso is the highest moral goal.
However, he still comes across as so vapid and naive that after reading him I'm embarrassed to ever have had a goal outside my own strict self-interest, which I suspect is his secondary purpose (the first being positive engagement for the over 55s and negative engagement for anyone younger). Whenever I read him, I'm reminded of the scene from the 40-Year-Old Virgin where Steve Carell describes a breast as feeling like a bag of sand--does Brooks have one clue about anything that he's talking about?
posted by kingdead at 8:22 PM on August 14, 2023
However, he still comes across as so vapid and naive that after reading him I'm embarrassed to ever have had a goal outside my own strict self-interest, which I suspect is his secondary purpose (the first being positive engagement for the over 55s and negative engagement for anyone younger). Whenever I read him, I'm reminded of the scene from the 40-Year-Old Virgin where Steve Carell describes a breast as feeling like a bag of sand--does Brooks have one clue about anything that he's talking about?
posted by kingdead at 8:22 PM on August 14, 2023
Metafilter: beware the grim spectre of self reflection
posted by clew at 11:37 PM on August 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by clew at 11:37 PM on August 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
Noted do nothing incompetent who blames suffering people for suffering wonders why people are mean to him...
You want TERFs? This is how you get TERFs.
Brooks signed the TERF letter, which is pretty much the same as this op-ed.
posted by constraint at 11:40 PM on August 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
You want TERFs? This is how you get TERFs.
Brooks signed the TERF letter, which is pretty much the same as this op-ed.
posted by constraint at 11:40 PM on August 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
Joyce Carol Oates posts some real headscratchers on the old bird platform but she's very entertaining on this subject. Her back-and-forth with detractors who came for her-- mistaking her for a soft target?-- is pretty good too.
posted by BibiRose at 5:43 AM on August 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by BibiRose at 5:43 AM on August 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
You want TERFs? This is how you get TERFs.
This was the reason I stopped reading The Atlantic. Far too much platforming of transphobic opinion content under the guise of "just asking some reasonable questions!".
posted by terretu at 6:34 AM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
This was the reason I stopped reading The Atlantic. Far too much platforming of transphobic opinion content under the guise of "just asking some reasonable questions!".
posted by terretu at 6:34 AM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
> Brooks seems pathologically unable to write for any audience he wouldn't attend a dinner party with
Ah, that's perfect.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:03 AM on August 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
Ah, that's perfect.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:03 AM on August 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
Decades of bigoted, divisive talk in one's media environment, could this possibly anger the blood? Yes, even from a distance.
Don't forget that their party has continuously asked them to move the moral lines in the sand. Trump was a huge ask. He was everything that the right wing is supposedly so against and yet... and yet... they supported him. They had to adjust their value system to make it make sense. The constant blatant lying and hypocrisy doesn't help either. Nobody is more gaslit than the right wingers who watch fox news or live in a fox news environment. Trump took republican party piss, threw it on your leg, told you that it was rain and that anyone who suggests otherwise is out to kill you so you better get them first. The cognitive dissonance at this point is overwhelming. And we're supposed to coddle these brainwashed bigots. They are unreachable. We need to go on without them.
posted by amanda at 10:47 AM on August 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
Don't forget that their party has continuously asked them to move the moral lines in the sand. Trump was a huge ask. He was everything that the right wing is supposedly so against and yet... and yet... they supported him. They had to adjust their value system to make it make sense. The constant blatant lying and hypocrisy doesn't help either. Nobody is more gaslit than the right wingers who watch fox news or live in a fox news environment. Trump took republican party piss, threw it on your leg, told you that it was rain and that anyone who suggests otherwise is out to kill you so you better get them first. The cognitive dissonance at this point is overwhelming. And we're supposed to coddle these brainwashed bigots. They are unreachable. We need to go on without them.
posted by amanda at 10:47 AM on August 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
I deeply, truly don't give a fuck what David Brooks thinks about anything.
Likewise. I would, however, read a piece in which he and Friedman list all of the things that are wrong with the other.
posted by flabdablet at 11:41 AM on August 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
Likewise. I would, however, read a piece in which he and Friedman list all of the things that are wrong with the other.
posted by flabdablet at 11:41 AM on August 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
There’s a joke about averages in here somewhere but damned if I’m wasting it on this perpetual dingus.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:16 PM on August 15, 2023
posted by aspersioncast at 7:16 PM on August 15, 2023
Few people exemplify better than David Brooks the toxic veneer of traditional conservative pseudo-civility that has done so much to distract from and prevent real solutions to our world's rapidly compounding ills.
posted by Pouteria at 10:57 PM on August 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Pouteria at 10:57 PM on August 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
the toxic veneer of traditional conservative pseudo-civility
Hate speech! That's hate speech, that is! That's just so typical of the Left. Why can't they be nice to me for once?
Protesting angrily about being systematically impoverished and killed is just so rude. The Left is mean. How on earth did they get that way?
posted by flabdablet at 12:31 AM on August 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
Hate speech! That's hate speech, that is! That's just so typical of the Left. Why can't they be nice to me for once?
Protesting angrily about being systematically impoverished and killed is just so rude. The Left is mean. How on earth did they get that way?
posted by flabdablet at 12:31 AM on August 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
The Left is mean. How on earth did they get that way?
Well, there I was, believing in at least some sanity & decency in humans under all that shit, and it turned out that for many of them it was just shit all the way down.
posted by Pouteria at 1:19 AM on August 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
Well, there I was, believing in at least some sanity & decency in humans under all that shit, and it turned out that for many of them it was just shit all the way down.
posted by Pouteria at 1:19 AM on August 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
Few people exemplify better than David Brooks the toxic veneer of traditional conservative pseudo-civility that has done so much to distract from and prevent real solutions to our world's rapidly compounding ills.
Dishonesty is uncivil. Refusing to argue in good faith is uncivil. No matter how polite a tone it adopts, most conservative debate is inherently uncivil, as it's rife with dishonesty. (Paul Krugman has commented more than once that NYT editorial page policy prevented him from addressing Brooks' many dishonesties in his own column.) Brooks may adopt a polite tone for the NPR crowd, but he, and the conservative policies for which he shills, have no hold on civility. The "civility" argument is nothing but tone policing to tamp down the withering contempt their positions deserve.
posted by Gelatin at 4:03 AM on August 16, 2023 [5 favorites]
Dishonesty is uncivil. Refusing to argue in good faith is uncivil. No matter how polite a tone it adopts, most conservative debate is inherently uncivil, as it's rife with dishonesty. (Paul Krugman has commented more than once that NYT editorial page policy prevented him from addressing Brooks' many dishonesties in his own column.) Brooks may adopt a polite tone for the NPR crowd, but he, and the conservative policies for which he shills, have no hold on civility. The "civility" argument is nothing but tone policing to tamp down the withering contempt their positions deserve.
posted by Gelatin at 4:03 AM on August 16, 2023 [5 favorites]
I like Frank Wilhoit's pungent dismissal of people like Brooks even more than I like his oft-quoted formulation of what conservatism actually is:
posted by flabdablet at 6:02 AM on August 16, 2023 [5 favorites]
As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny.And yet "liberal" outfits like the NYT and The Atlantic continue to scrute this worthless fishwrap with unfailing scrupe.
posted by flabdablet at 6:02 AM on August 16, 2023 [5 favorites]
America got mean because if we consider the median and standard distribution instead the disparities would lead us to despair.
posted by interogative mood at 7:52 AM on August 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 7:52 AM on August 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
“Moralizing Nostalgia Leads to Bad History – and Helps the Anti-Democratic Right,” Thomas Zimmer, Democracy Americana, 22 August 2023
David Brooks’ “How America Got Mean” offers an ahistorical tale that obscures rather than illuminates – and provides fertile ground for a politics of reactionposted by ob1quixote at 6:17 AM on August 23, 2023 [3 favorites]
They say 'civility,' but them mean 'gentility.' See also politics and politesse.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:43 AM on August 23, 2023
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:43 AM on August 23, 2023
Brooks describes what he sees as a largely amoral younger generation, devoid of a discernible moral compass.Now I have in my mind a picture of David Brooks marching in circles in the wilderness, staring at his compass, marveling that the Earth continues to spin around him while he himself is traveling in a perfectly straight line, not realizing that the compass' needle is stuck.
posted by klanawa at 12:04 PM on August 24, 2023
“The Triumph of Weaponized Nostalgia,” Thomas Zimmer, Democracy Americana, 02 September 2023
Past eras of stable white Christian patriarchal dominance are widely sanitized and mythologized in our political discourseposted by ob1quixote at 6:00 AM on September 2, 2023
Structural nostalgia characterizes the discourse of both the official state and its most lawless citizens. In fact, the idea of a time when state intervention was unnecessary for the conduct of a decent social life provides these two parties with the common ground of their continuing mutual engagement. Two features are crucial to the definition of structural nostalgia. One is its replicability in every succeeding generation. The second feature concerns the object of this rhetorical longing....
Michael Herzfeld, Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation State
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:24 AM on September 2, 2023
Michael Herzfeld, Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation State
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:24 AM on September 2, 2023
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