RIP David Brooks

In a fantastic interview that David Simon of “The Wire” gave to Bill Keller for The Marshall Project, he describes that, even in poorest Baltimore, there once were informal rules of behavior governing how cops interacted with citizens — when they’d drag them in and when they wouldn’t, what curse words you could say to a cop and what you couldn’t. But then the code dissolved. The informal guardrails of life were gone, and all was arbitrary harshness.

That’s happened across many social spheres — in schools, families and among neighbors. Individuals are left without the norms that middle-class people take for granted. It is phenomenally hard for young people in such circumstances to guide themselves.

Holy shit.

"Cops are on a rampage. Hey, that reminds me of how poor people have no morality."

how I would love to stuff David Brooks into a woodchipper

you should be able to say any and all curse words to cops without fear of anything more than a cold stare.

unless they're off-duty, in which case they might smack you like anyone else.

higher standard

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/opinion/david-brooks-what-is-your-purpose.html?ref=opinion

where is your porpoise?

"These days we live in a culture that is more diverse, decentralized, interactive and democratized. The old days when gray-haired sages had all the answers about the ultimate issues of life are over."

r.i.p. gray-haired dude...

he is for TPP in case ya missed it

(so he and T Friedman can clink glasses over that one)

Correction: May 5, 2015

An earlier version of this column misspelled the given name of a French philosopher. He was Jean-Paul Sartre, not John-Paul.

An even earlier version misspelled it as Ringo.

I think he was actually referring to Pope John-Paul Sartre. A gray-haired sage of the middle ages.

http://images.politico.com/global/news/110705_brooks_bloggers_nbc_328.jpg

Being Nothingness

As I travel on a book tour, I find there is an amazing hunger to shift the conversation.

lol

"can we talk about something else besides your stupid book plz"

oh shit more conversation

i heard Brooks being interviewed for 15 mins on WNYC last week before realizing it wasn't James Woods on downers.

Brooks and Woods comparison making my day

the voices are closer than you might think!

My disdain for Woods is earned since I usually made it halfway through a New Yorker article and then went uh, who is this jerk again? Oh, him.

James Woods, the David Brooks of literary criticism. Book him, Dan-O.

he means James Woods the actor, not James Wood the critic.

Ah hell. I was thinking "authorial" voice. Not unreasonably.

Except of course that there is no James Woods the critic. I see that now.

A joke about stopping by Wood on a snowy evening takes on a totally different meaning, doesn't it?

I don't care much for his recs these days but James Wood was often a great critic although he looks like I imagine a New Yorker critic looks.

I've heard that & figure there must be some reason for his reputation. As I hadn't paid attention, I can only go by what I've read in the New Yorker for the last ten years or so. It's sanctimony, it's unimaginative. He takes up the most boring issues one could have with books.

If you have answers to these questions, go the website for my book, “The Road to Character,” click on First Steps and send in your response.

David Brooks, click-baiter.

I vaguely remember The Road to Character.

http://media.nola.com/tpphotos/photo/2014/11/10/16305462-standard.jpg

(l-r: gray-haired sages)

Also I just noticed he was so excited about linking to his website that he left out a preposition. We really are without moral authorities these days, aren't we?

i believe the oldest sage in that photo is the only one not wearing a very obvious rug.

http://the-toast.net/2015/05/05/david-brooks-writes-a-sestina-about-poverty/

Krugman wrote a nice response

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/04/opinion/paul-krugman-race-class-and-neglect.html?_r=0

Every time you’re tempted to say that America is moving forward on race — that prejudice is no longer as important as it used to be — along comes an atrocity to puncture your complacency.

was surprised this turned out to not be a reference to Brooks' column tbh

lol

is there a thread for discussing how bad kristof is?

who's kristof

If so it needs some of this

https://sensemadehere.wordpress.com/2015/05/06/nick-kristof-is-not-smarter-than-an-8th-grader/

yes came here to post that

he's either a liar or very very stupid

in which albert burnenko proposes that brooks sent his exwife a dick pic and is swimming in existential despair http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/i-dont-think-david-brooks-is-okay-you-guys-1702674607/+AlbertBurneko

ok irl at this

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--na-ypttb--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/1242070180469282708.jpg

good overview

that krugman column linked above has its heart in the right place, but sentences like these make me cringe more than a little:

Take, for example, issues of health and mortality. Many people have pointed out that there are a number of black neighborhoods in Baltimore where life expectancy compares unfavorably with impoverished Third World nations. But what’s really striking on a national basis is the way class disparities in death rates have been soaring even among whites.

it's the phrase But what’s really striking that rankles. as if it's a competition between class and race! "yeah, i know racial disparities are profound, but what's really striking..."

also:

It has been disheartening to see some commentators still writing as if poverty were simply a matter of values, as if the poor just mysteriously make bad choices and all would be well if they adopted middle-class values. Maybe, just maybe, that was a sustainable argument four decades ago,

no, that was never a "sustainable" argument in re. structural poverty.

i mean krugman wants to make this all about the recent increase in inequality and all that portends, but in doing so he kind of hand-waves away some stuff that he really shouldn't be...

no, that was never a "sustainable" argument in re. structural poverty

yeah this bothered me too when I read it. as if there were not huge structural reasons for poverty 4 decades ago - "previous generations of poors were just bad decision makers" is not a historically valid argument imo.

Krugman doesn't write felicitous prose. He concedes that his wife severely edits him.

Fortunately to Brooks every generation of poors made bad decisions

at least previous generations of poors had elder sages to let them know what bad decisions they were making

undeserving poors will always be with us

it's the phrase But what’s really striking that rankles. as if it's a competition between class and race! "yeah, i know racial disparities are profound, but what's really striking..."

It IS a competition between - not class and race - but class and identity politics - in the competition for redress. Lobbing little victories toward the aims of identity politics is easy. Fixing class inequality is hard and is unlikely to make the Wall Street money masters happy.

Racial inequality only exacerbated by class inequality, obviously.

FP

flag this, pal