David Brooks Failure Thread

Discussion in 'Politics & Current Events' started by JohnR, Jan 3, 2012.

  1. Chris M.

    Chris M. Member+

    Jan 18, 2002
    Chicago
    What say you Rosa Parks?
     
  2. That Phat Hat

    That Phat Hat Member+

    Nov 14, 2002
    Just Barely Outside the Beltway
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Japan
    Doesn't matter. Blacks don't have bourgeois values.
     
  3. Ismitje

    Ismitje Super Moderator

    Dec 30, 2000
    The Palouse
    Club:
    Real Salt Lake
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    You argue the contrary then, that the upheavals of the mid-1960s had precedence from 1912-1962? The phrase quoted above does not claim there was no dissent, just that cohesion was the dominant tenet. It also doesn't argue equality. Cohesion - people sticking together within their defined groups, and a relative lack of social upheaval - was a predominant theme. Perhaps we'd pick 1957 as the beginning of the change in that, with the integration of Little Rock Central HS, the upsetting of the prevailing ethos, and the end of a period of comparative cohesion.

    There's so much to find fault with; this isn't it IMO.
     
  4. That Phat Hat

    That Phat Hat Member+

    Nov 14, 2002
    Just Barely Outside the Beltway
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Japan
    DELAYED RESPONSE:
    I mean, you're right. It's not a particularly outrageous statement. But I thought it captured the essence of Brooks, and something ridiculous was about to follow.

    Also, you can pretty much expect David Brooks to write something stupid about #linsanity:
    David Brooks has written the dumbest Jeremy Lin column so far
     
  5. GiuseppeSignori

    Jun 4, 2007
    Chicago
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Great article. Every profile of David Brooks ought to include this sentence...

    "David Brooks's entire career has been one long, tragic bluff, in which a spectacularly effete nerd from the University of Chicago—ensconced in the Washington D.C. suburbs and the community of elite mainstream journalists—peddles himself as an oppositional figure to the college-educated liberal professional class, an expert on Real America."
     
  6. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    It's certainly the oddest. I have no effing idea what he's going on about. The FedEx driver who wrote in 2010 that Jeremy Lin was an underrated prospect who might become a good NBA player cited several facts in making a logical and (in hindsight) compelling argument. Brooks on the other hand ... sheesh. Give his column to the FedEx guy.
     
  7. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Fight! Fight! Krugman and Brooks are Having a Fight!

    Paul Krugman and David Brooks are titans of the columnist scene, the best and most influential pundits the left and right have to offer. They’re also co-workers at the New York Times, an institution that seems to prohibit its op-ed writers from directly engaging with one another. The result can be amusing.

    On Jan. 31, for example, Brooks hailed Charles Murray’s Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 as almost certainly the most important book of the year. On Feb. 9, Krugman, without mentioning Brooks by name, denounced the book as “the heart of the conservative pushback” against Occupy Wall Street’s focus on income inequality. The real source of working-class woes, according to Krugman, are not the personal virtues cited by Brooks and Murray, but simple economic decline. Things reached the point of true absurdity this week when Brooks wrote a column about “The Materialist Fallacy” adhered to by unnamed “liberal economists” who’ve created a situation in which “the public debate is dominated by people who stopped thinking in 1975.”

    It’s too bad Brooks and Krugman can’t—or won’t—engage directly, because if they did, they might see that they’re both making good points about each other’s wrongness—and that there’s little reason to give credence to either the liberal or the conservative narrative of decline.

    Let’s start with a good point from Brooks, who rightly says “I don’t care how many factory jobs have been lost, it still doesn’t make sense to drop out of high school.” Indeed it does not. Which is presumably why most people don’t do it. . .​

     
  8. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    Krugman writes carefully about Brooks because Brooks is a fellow NY Times columnist. He wouldn't be anywhere near so polite otherwise, in fact I'm pretty sure Brooks would be near the front of Krugman's kicking pile.
     
  9. That Phat Hat

    That Phat Hat Member+

    Nov 14, 2002
    Just Barely Outside the Beltway
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Japan
    1 person likes this.
  10. superdave

    superdave Member+

    Jul 14, 1999
    VB, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I've been waiting a while to drop this one on y'all.

































    [​IMG]
     
  11. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
  12. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Sadly, my hatred of David Brooks now seems inadequate after being exposed to so many high quality detractors. I kinda liked it better when I could lie to myself and think that my disdain was unique and only understood by a few fellow bigsoccer posters. Not any more.Thanks for wrecking my day, TPH.
     
  13. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    No more Wankler exceptionalism!
     
    Dr. Wankler repped this.
  14. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Okay, I'm over it.

    I share an office with a guy who teaches political theory. They're wrapping up the first half of the semester by reviewing Machiavelli, whose book The Prince started off the course.

    By the second sentence, he totally regretted printing up 22 copies of the column for his class.

    The Machiavellian Temptation

    Vintage Brooks at the start. But only true connoisseurs of Brooks Fail will appreciate the part where he starts talking about Charles Duhigg's book. Basically, about half of the column is a summary of another guy's new book.
     
  15. superdave

    superdave Member+

    Jul 14, 1999
    VB, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
  16. Barbara

    Barbara BigSoccer Supporter

    Apr 29, 2000
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
  17. That Phat Hat

    That Phat Hat Member+

    Nov 14, 2002
    Just Barely Outside the Beltway
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Japan
    David Brooks is like a very wordy Yahoo commenter.
     
  18. Knave

    Knave Member+

    May 25, 1999
    You people need to stop linking to these dumb Brooks columns.

    Because if I see them being talked about here, I feel I should read the column so I can see what all the fuss is about.

    And that's terrible because then I go and actually read the dumb column.
     
  19. Barbara

    Barbara BigSoccer Supporter

    Apr 29, 2000
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    And then the IQ points start flying out the window.
     
  20. Matt in the Hat

    Matt in the Hat Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 21, 2002
    Brooklyn
    Club:
    New York Red Bulls
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    http://reason.com/blog/2012/06/13/david-brooks-authoritarianism-watch#commentcontainer

    That's right kids. It's almost treasonous to not follow orders
     
    GiuseppeSignori repped this.
  21. tomwilhelm

    tomwilhelm Member+

    Dec 14, 2005
    Boston, MA, USA
    Club:
    Fulham FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Wow. That's disgusting. Even for Brooks.
     
  22. fatbastard

    fatbastard Member+

    Aug 1, 2003
    Lincoln (ish), Va
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Isn't the purpose of high school to be taught that lesson? Not sure there's another point ;)
     
  23. tomwilhelm

    tomwilhelm Member+

    Dec 14, 2005
    Boston, MA, USA
    Club:
    Fulham FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    There's a reason we got our education system from the Germans...
     
  24. Minnman

    Minnman Member+

    Feb 11, 2000
    Columbus, OH, USA
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    What a simpleton. Several hundred formulaic words that, in the end, say nothing of substance. I'm not giving the guys any hits, but did he reference the Civil Rights Movement?
     
  25. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    Describes every Brooks column.

    No, that's not fair. He has his moments. Consider this (a Wiki paraphrase) -

    Quite astute in describing the children of the elite. Take Mark Zuckerberg. Likely had no experience with girls in high school, only modest experience before being picked up by the woman who is now his wife. Zuck was from money, is money, that is how that class lives.

    Give Brooks credit on this point. Few people realize this. They think sex among the young elite is as portrayed in the films, a commonplace occurrence. Ummm no.

    But ... Brooks sure ain't right about most of America. The blue-collar kids on my son's club soccer team were banging up a storm, by and large. (In my son's rather prudish language -- which also supports Brooks's argument -- "blue-collar girls are such sluts.")

    That is Brooks for you, he positions himself as if he speaks for the country but he only speaks for the elite. A group that he knows quite well.
     

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