David Brooks is a Waste of Space.
I assume that the editors of the New York Times hired David Brooks to confront their liberal readers with an alternative point of view. How sad that rather than being an real alternative on the liberal/conservative axis, it is an alternative on the intellectual heavyweight/lightweight axis.
The more I read David Brooks, the stupider he gets.
Today's column has so many gaping holes that it's hard to know which is the worst, but my overall reaction is "Arrrrggh!"
First he quotes one of Tolstoy's lesser works of fiction as a springboard to create a false dichotomy, which he then uses as a springboard to whine about what he's really in a twist about, which is, in fact, something completely trivial and personal, and not the sign of a cosmic realignment in social relations that he seems to think it is. What a senseless waste of column inches.
"It also illustrates how the family is a countervailing force in society. Public life is individualistic. It's oriented around goals like self-development, self-advancement and personal happiness," he writes. Perhaps in the ideal fantasy of Bush-world that is true, but around here we have volunteerism, and churches, and Amnesty International, and food banks, and lots of people who think public life ought to be about community, not the individual. Public life is about societal development, community advancement, and human decency. (Which is why Bush irritates us so.) So what the heck is he talking about?
People only give up the drive for 'me, me, me' when they get married and have kids, he asserts. That's way more information about Brooks' own maturation process than I wanted. (I guess it's too bad Mother Teresa never had kids, so she never got around to thinking about something other than herself.)
Eventually Brooks reveals that what he's all cranked up about is that families are maintaining multiple checking accounts, which he translates into separate checking accounts, though it's unclear if that's accurate. Horrors! The family is becoming economically individualistic, and the sky is falling! There are even books telling people to do that! (Oh, but wait, he quotes one that says to have a "yours, mine, and ours" assortment. Oops. Pay no attention to that "ours". That should be easy, since we're already ignoring multiple accounts that include day-to-day spending accounts vs. high-balance interest-bearing ones, or house vs. home-business, or vacation house vs. city house, or whatever. Multiple accounts has got to mean marriage-threatening separate accounts!)
Brooks is shocked that some of the people interviewed in one of the books fail to realize the dichotomy he posits at the center of his reasoning, almost as if it didn't exist! Those ignorant sluts! How dare they not configure their worldview to support his vapid arguments as needed. (It couldn't possibly mean that his ideas don't hold water. It couldn't possibly be that there is something in the conceptual universe besides "me" and "the market".)
No, this modern trend shows that marriage is threatened by a growing tendency to have separate economic accounts. Apparently while reading Tolstoy, Brooks never read those British novels where the wife has her own inheritance and allowances that the husband doesn't share. (While we're getting our social and economic insights from 19th century fiction.) Oh, but wait! " Some of the reasons for separate accounts are entirely reasonable." Um, then, what are you going on about, Brooks?
Finally, we get to David's fear: "For one thing, separate accounts can easily turn into secret accounts." David, is there something about your wife that you're not sure of? Did you do something naughty on your last business trip and pad your expense account? Where is this coming from, really?
Once again, we see a rightie telling us all how to behave because he is somehow afraid he can't live morally himself. "Stop me, before I use my separate account to cheat on my wife!"
"A union based on love can easily turn into a merger based on self-interest," he continues. Well, no, David. Not easily. Unless the parties involved aren't actually the mature, 'unconditional union of souls' you were raving about earlier. Keeping secrets, financial or otherwise, sounds like that "me, me, me" thing. Perhaps one can be married and still be a selfish, infantile ass? Seems like that would be the problem, not the separate checkbook.
And if marriage isn't the guaranteed wellspring of altruism and caring for others? If people can be selfish while married, maybe they could be altruistic while single? And maybe the arrangement of banking accounts has nothing to do with emotional maturity and compassion? Gosh, prick the surface, and this whole article pops like a soap bubble. The column floats in space, and appears to have substance, but it does not.
I sure wish Brooks could work out all of his personal problems with growing out of selfish infantilism, and his insecurities about his marriage, at his therapist's, and not on the op-ed page. For all that I'm for community and altruism, I'd prefer that he kept all that to himself.
The more I read David Brooks, the stupider he gets.
Today's column has so many gaping holes that it's hard to know which is the worst, but my overall reaction is "Arrrrggh!"
First he quotes one of Tolstoy's lesser works of fiction as a springboard to create a false dichotomy, which he then uses as a springboard to whine about what he's really in a twist about, which is, in fact, something completely trivial and personal, and not the sign of a cosmic realignment in social relations that he seems to think it is. What a senseless waste of column inches.
"It also illustrates how the family is a countervailing force in society. Public life is individualistic. It's oriented around goals like self-development, self-advancement and personal happiness," he writes. Perhaps in the ideal fantasy of Bush-world that is true, but around here we have volunteerism, and churches, and Amnesty International, and food banks, and lots of people who think public life ought to be about community, not the individual. Public life is about societal development, community advancement, and human decency. (Which is why Bush irritates us so.) So what the heck is he talking about?
People only give up the drive for 'me, me, me' when they get married and have kids, he asserts. That's way more information about Brooks' own maturation process than I wanted. (I guess it's too bad Mother Teresa never had kids, so she never got around to thinking about something other than herself.)
Eventually Brooks reveals that what he's all cranked up about is that families are maintaining multiple checking accounts, which he translates into separate checking accounts, though it's unclear if that's accurate. Horrors! The family is becoming economically individualistic, and the sky is falling! There are even books telling people to do that! (Oh, but wait, he quotes one that says to have a "yours, mine, and ours" assortment. Oops. Pay no attention to that "ours". That should be easy, since we're already ignoring multiple accounts that include day-to-day spending accounts vs. high-balance interest-bearing ones, or house vs. home-business, or vacation house vs. city house, or whatever. Multiple accounts has got to mean marriage-threatening separate accounts!)
Brooks is shocked that some of the people interviewed in one of the books fail to realize the dichotomy he posits at the center of his reasoning, almost as if it didn't exist! Those ignorant sluts! How dare they not configure their worldview to support his vapid arguments as needed. (It couldn't possibly mean that his ideas don't hold water. It couldn't possibly be that there is something in the conceptual universe besides "me" and "the market".)
No, this modern trend shows that marriage is threatened by a growing tendency to have separate economic accounts. Apparently while reading Tolstoy, Brooks never read those British novels where the wife has her own inheritance and allowances that the husband doesn't share. (While we're getting our social and economic insights from 19th century fiction.) Oh, but wait! " Some of the reasons for separate accounts are entirely reasonable." Um, then, what are you going on about, Brooks?
Finally, we get to David's fear: "For one thing, separate accounts can easily turn into secret accounts." David, is there something about your wife that you're not sure of? Did you do something naughty on your last business trip and pad your expense account? Where is this coming from, really?
Once again, we see a rightie telling us all how to behave because he is somehow afraid he can't live morally himself. "Stop me, before I use my separate account to cheat on my wife!"
"A union based on love can easily turn into a merger based on self-interest," he continues. Well, no, David. Not easily. Unless the parties involved aren't actually the mature, 'unconditional union of souls' you were raving about earlier. Keeping secrets, financial or otherwise, sounds like that "me, me, me" thing. Perhaps one can be married and still be a selfish, infantile ass? Seems like that would be the problem, not the separate checkbook.
And if marriage isn't the guaranteed wellspring of altruism and caring for others? If people can be selfish while married, maybe they could be altruistic while single? And maybe the arrangement of banking accounts has nothing to do with emotional maturity and compassion? Gosh, prick the surface, and this whole article pops like a soap bubble. The column floats in space, and appears to have substance, but it does not.
I sure wish Brooks could work out all of his personal problems with growing out of selfish infantilism, and his insecurities about his marriage, at his therapist's, and not on the op-ed page. For all that I'm for community and altruism, I'd prefer that he kept all that to himself.
posted by Paul at 9:17 AM |
|
email this
