People who act in complete self-interest are generally great big sociopathic drains on the rest of society.
― anna sui generis (suzy), Tuesday, 1 March 2011 20:11 (thirteen years ago) link
to turn it around, i guess i mean more than just voting behavior. conservatives looking at rich liberals suffer from some kind of total incomprehension. the jokes don't even make sense. the logic of what's 'hypocritical' doesn't make sense. the resentment doesn't make sense, considering their own leaders. the whole thing is bizarre.
you just want to say, no really, believing in civil rights, gay rights, a fair shot for everyone, full bodily right for women, a decent regulatory state, religious ideas kept to the private sphere, a frank and adult culture... people just believe this stuff! even some rich people! it's pretty simple!
― goole, Tuesday, 1 March 2011 20:16 (thirteen years ago) link
tom scocca goes hard http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/scocca/archive/2011/03/01/the-politics-of-entitlement-david-brooks-will-decide-when-it-s-time-for-you-to-die.aspx
― ice cr?m, Wednesday, 2 March 2011 03:54 (thirteen years ago) link
Words designed to chill the heart:
David Brooks introduces a new blog in which he hopes to publicize, discuss and evaluate new work in the study of human nature
― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 7 March 2011 15:24 (thirteen years ago) link
http://grab.by/9kJ1
why do humans keep punching me
― ice cr?m, Monday, 7 March 2011 15:25 (thirteen years ago) link
The secret to good writing is to write about things you're passionate about imo
http://brooks.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/the-thrill-of-victory/
― reggaeton for the painfully alone (polyphonic), Tuesday, 8 March 2011 21:22 (thirteen years ago) link
I just discovered this old article via a Tom Scocca link. A great point-by-point takedown of the Brooks method. Includes Brooks's whiny rebuttal.
http://www.phillymag.com/articles/booboos_in_paradise/
― Pop is superior to all other genres (DL), Friday, 18 March 2011 09:10 (thirteen years ago) link
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2011/05/03/christopher-tayler/yo-douche-bag/
― joe, Wednesday, 4 May 2011 23:34 (thirteen years ago) link
Jeez
― Crazed Mister Handy (kingfish), Wednesday, 4 May 2011 23:42 (thirteen years ago) link
^^^deserves a poll imo
― mookieproof, Thursday, 5 May 2011 09:09 (thirteen years ago) link
David Aaronovitch performs a great hatchet job on Brooks in the Times today. Final paragraphs:
The result is that the book explains everything and absolutely nothing. What makes the person that is you, as opposed to the person that is your brother or sister or your neighbour, is missing. Do we really pick our partners because of facial symmetry as Brooks avers, or is there something deeper at work? But what can you expect from a book supposedly about the unconscious, but whose index doesn’t even include the words hate, envy, guilt or dreams?
And “murder” appears only once, on page 8. After ploughing through 400 pages of superficial scientism masquerading as wisdom, I felt that was not enough.
― Pop is superior to all other genres (DL), Friday, 6 May 2011 07:56 (thirteen years ago) link
god, what a treasure trove of display names
― Matt Armstrong, Friday, 6 May 2011 09:26 (thirteen years ago) link
Link?
― Crazed Mister Handy (kingfish), Friday, 6 May 2011 15:14 (thirteen years ago) link
Like most women, she got lubricated even while looking at nature shows of animals copulating
I mean, what
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Friday, 6 May 2011 16:58 (thirteen years ago) link
I feel like this book could be a career-ender for David Brooks. I mean a man can hope, right?
― bin caught laden (Hurting 2), Friday, 6 May 2011 17:02 (thirteen years ago) link
I’m writing this story, first, because while researchers in a wide variety of fields have shone their flashlights into different parts of the cave of the unconscious, much of their work is done in academic silos.
we need someone out there livin' the life to tell us how shit is really going down.
http://i.imgur.com/lHiZ2.jpg
― You Get Hoynes (bnw), Friday, 6 May 2011 17:24 (thirteen years ago) link
Like most women, she got lubricated even while looking at nature shows of animals copulatingI mean, what
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Friday, May 6, 2011 4:58 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark
studies have shown
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 6 May 2011 17:25 (thirteen years ago) link
^^^ a Reagan quote
― ginny thomas and tonic (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 6 May 2011 17:27 (thirteen years ago) link
much of their work is done in academic silos.
As opposed to the real world of upper class Washington DC suburb Bethesda
― curmudgeon, Friday, 6 May 2011 17:49 (thirteen years ago) link
I'll admit this made me want to read at least part of the book:
Imagine a man who buys a chicken from the grocery store, manages to bring himself to orgasm by penetrating it, then cooks and eats the chicken.
I didn't link the Times review kingfish, because it's behind a paywall.
― Pop is superior to all other genres (DL), Friday, 6 May 2011 18:31 (thirteen years ago) link
the next sentence: "Just imagine it for a second. Isn't that shit fucked up? Damn!"
― bin caught laden (Hurting 2), Friday, 6 May 2011 18:39 (thirteen years ago) link
Oh, NYT, that Times. Ok.
― Crazed Mister Handy (kingfish), Friday, 6 May 2011 18:48 (thirteen years ago) link
No, London Times is behind a paywall too. Shame, because it's a great review that deserves to be passed around and around the web until it makes David Brooks cry.
― Pop is superior to all other genres (DL), Saturday, 7 May 2011 21:42 (thirteen years ago) link
can somebody copy/paste here?
― Crazed Mister Handy (kingfish), Sunday, 8 May 2011 01:06 (thirteen years ago) link
My colleague Rachel Sylvester revealed, in The Times this week, that Tory politicians have been reading David Brooks’ new book with avidity. One minister thinks it informs the reader what the Big Society really is. Another believes that it sets the framework for 21st-century Conservatism. A Cabinet minister told Rachel that The New York Times columnist’s effort was “the best description of Cameron-style Conservatism I’ve read”.
My bad self hopes it is true that the book is made compulsory reading for ministers. I can then imagine them attempting to live their lives according to its blizzard of banal insights, such as this one: “Marriage expert John Gottman argues that in a healthy relationship the partners make five positive comments to each other for every negative one.” If you spot George Osborne out and about with Mrs Osborne and he appears to be counting under his breath, you’ll know that it isn’t the deficit he’s calculating, but whether he’s managed to hit the “healthy relationship” comment ratio.
There are no bigger, fatter, more straw-filled Aunt Sallies these days than the idea that most of us somehow believe that Man lives by bread alone. We are supposedly in thrall to the notion of pure homo economicus, so that we require Lord Layard of Happiness or the odd American columnist to tell us, forcefully, that the latest research suggests that there is more to human beings than Gross Domestic Product. Because, of course, bringing up our kids, falling in and out of love, suffering loss and celebrating birth, we didn’t know all this.
Of course we did. If politicians stopped to read a novel every once in a while, or had time to watch the television, they’d realise that their fellow citizens are fully aware of how complicated it is to be human.
This book, written by a celebrated columnist who has a gift for epithet and catchphrase (I liked “sanctimommies” for a certain kind of competitive parent), works by citing some aspect of almost every psychological and neuroscientific study you’ve seen in newspapers for the past 30 years over the course of 400 pages. Perhaps that is the attraction to busy ministers.
Aware that such mass citation would make for an arid, example-strewn waste of a book, Brooks had the idea of creating two characters, Harold and Erica, on to whose conjoined lives the facts and speculations could be stuck, like a forest of Post-it Notes. So two deeply unsympathetic, professional middle-class Americans become the spattered vehicles for a mass of what I can only call semi-scientific stuff.
Some of it seems robust, some obvious, some intriguing, some utterly speculative, some absurd, some nothing more than anecdotal. Some of it leads somewhere, much of it doesn’t.
Surveys, studies, experiments in evolutionary psychology, behavioural psychology and neuroscience do service alongside stories of what Benjamin Franklin did to become a great writer (a celebrity — that’s news to me) and riffs on such revolutionary themes as practice makes perfect.
Although the ostensible theme is the human unconscious mind, what characterises the book is a sunny determinism. If we can only isolate and understand the chemical workings of the body (unconscious because we are not conscious of them) then we have the trick of it.
The result of this approach can only be described as grisly. Take this, from when Erica and Harold’s childless marriage goes through a tough time. Brooks sends himself off on a journey through the mind of a middle-aged woman. He quotes at length from a neuropsychiatrist called Louann Brizendine, who theorises that a middle-aged woman becomes difficult because she starts wanting to please herself. Why? “With her estrogen down, her oxytocin is down too . . . and she’s getting less of a dopamine rush from the things she did before, even talking with her friends. She’s not getting the calming oxytocin reward of tending and caring for her little children . . .” Fortunately, short of offering oxytocin supplements, we already know the answer on how husbands should deal with this. Make sure your positive comment ratio doesn’t fall below 5:1.
― Pop is superior to all other genres (DL), Monday, 9 May 2011 14:00 (thirteen years ago) link
http://dailydish.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451c45669e201538e84b1cc970b-550wi
― j., Monday, 16 May 2011 20:32 (thirteen years ago) link
When I first saw that picture I was sure it was Photoshopped. Too fucking funny.
― that's not funny. (unperson), Monday, 16 May 2011 20:44 (thirteen years ago) link
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/19/david-brooks-big-idea-society
― iatee, Friday, 20 May 2011 03:14 (thirteen years ago) link
Ha ha...ha.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/05/david-brooks-responds-to-brooksmeme/239256/
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 24 May 2011 14:47 (thirteen years ago) link
Ned, you and I read Sully at the same time.
― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 24 May 2011 14:48 (thirteen years ago) link
This thread title is really one of those evergreen phrases, applicable to the end of time.
― Aimless, Tuesday, 24 May 2011 19:32 (thirteen years ago) link
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/05/24/brooks/index.html
Greenwald discusses how Brooks just visited the UK and wrote this:
Britain is also blessed with a functioning political culture. It is dominated by people who live in London and who have often known each other since prep school. This makes it gossipy and often incestuous. But the plusses outweigh the minuses
Needless to say Greenwald does not agree and he also dissects some older David Brooks quotes
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 25 May 2011 16:46 (thirteen years ago) link
Well, yeah.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 25 May 2011 16:49 (thirteen years ago) link
In my head it's Dave Chappelle saying this
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 25 May 2011 16:52 (thirteen years ago) link
"Do you know how hard it is to cum inside a chicken?"
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 25 May 2011 16:53 (thirteen years ago) link
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielknowles/100089174/david-brooks-of-the-new-york-times-thinks-he-understands-great-britain-he-doesnt/
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 25 May 2011 17:12 (thirteen years ago) link
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielknowles/100089174/david-brooks-of-the-new-york-times-thinks-he-understands-great-britain-and-he-so-does/
― da croupier, Wednesday, 25 May 2011 17:20 (thirteen years ago) link
Shortly after the midterm elections, the New York Times’ David Brooks insisted that Republicans were feeling “modest and cautious.” They’re “sober,” Brooks said, adding that the GOP wouldn’t “overreach.” Republican leaders, Brooks assured readers, were “prepared to take what they can get, even if it’s not always what they would like.”
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 12 July 2011 14:42 (twelve years ago) link
Which is exactly why Dems shouldn't be rushing to praise his judgement now that he's singing their tune
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 12 July 2011 14:51 (twelve years ago) link
He shouldn't be even given legitimacy, but since he's on NPR and PBS and in the NY Times and book stores, some Dems jumped favorably on his recent comments attacking Republicans so they can say "look even David Brooks says they're crazy"
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 12 July 2011 15:24 (twelve years ago) link
when you praise the judgement of someone you have always lambasted for having terrible judgement, what does that say about your judgement?
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 12 July 2011 15:25 (twelve years ago) link
I agree with you if people are praising him. But I also think that some people on the Rolling US politics thread who may have referred to his more recent comments realize that Brooks is an idiot, even while they quote him. Some people may be quoting him but not praising him.
I think Obama should refer to Reagan raising taxes as part of a debt deal as a debate strategy in the current mess, even if I despise Reagan.
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 12 July 2011 15:58 (twelve years ago) link
http://matthias.tanaya.net/Images/2009/090303-brooks.jpg
― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 12 July 2011 15:59 (twelve years ago) link
When he tries to be a high-brow Tom Friedman he also can be so annoying:
"These three groups — bankers, Democratic Keynesians and staunch Republicans — have one thing in common: They all believe they have identified the magic lever.
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 12 July 2011 16:14 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/87035/why-do-paul-krugman-and-david-brooks-hate-each-other
― j., Wednesday, 20 July 2011 05:50 (twelve years ago) link
I'd be surprised if krugman didn't hate brooks but you don't need to imagine some silly grudge about a magazine cover to understand why.
― iatee, Wednesday, 20 July 2011 12:36 (twelve years ago) link
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, July 12, 2011 10:42 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
haha
― ice cr?m, Wednesday, 20 July 2011 12:40 (twelve years ago) link
they need to make a slapstick comedy based on david brooks life where this random mr. bean type falls his way up to prestigious journalist positions
― iatee, Wednesday, 20 July 2011 12:49 (twelve years ago) link
http://i54.tinypic.com/2rrmjnq.jpg
― ice cr?m, Wednesday, 20 July 2011 12:54 (twelve years ago) link