Comments on: The Decline of David Brooksian Civilization

By: Matt Rogers

Matt Rogers — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:26:25 +0000

“2) Women pick up more social signals than men do.

3) We live in a newly “networked age of social information flows.”

4) Therefore, Asians and women are better equipped to deal with the twenty-first century world.”

This is another way of saying that sociopathy (surface appearance) is and has triumphed over substance.
Readers and introverted people who may reflect more on history than hairstyles and hype on both the left and right are being increasingly pushed to the margins by the media generated corporate hologram.

Although I consider myself on the “Green” anti authoritarian left I find far more of substance to agree with here a Front Porch Republic and in Susan McWilliams’s article specifically than anything the same old, same old, tired corporate puppet Democrats or the “liberal” (decadent consumerist) media have to offer.

Keep on keeping on, and know that you don’t only have the ear of pleo-cons but a lot of us on the anti authoritarian anti corporate left as well.

By: Nick the Greek

Nick the Greek — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 11:14:36 +0000

Sorry Pale Scot. Spoilers follow for those who haven’t seen the film.

In the studio cut, a convenient deus ex machina means that Rachel doesn’t only have the standard 4-year lifespan of a replicant after all, and she and Deckard drive off into some recycled footage of the mountains (taken from The Shining) to live happily ever after.

In the director’s cut, Gaff reveals to Deckard (by way of an origami replica of the unicorn he had been dreaming about) that he too is a replicant, captured and programmed by the Tyrell Corporation to hunt down the other replicants. With the awful knowledge of the implications of this, he and Rachel go away together to die. By the simple addition of a 17 second dream sequence (the origami unicorn was also in the studio cut, but didn’t mean anything), the film is therefore transformed from a conventional thriller into a meditation on mortality.

By: The Pale Scot

The Pale Scot — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:40:11 +0000

Just to say Brook’s internet moniker is Bobo..

And if I recall correctly, in BladeRunner Ford dies with his head between Darryl Hannah thighs…

There are worse ways to go

By: Nick the Greek

Nick the Greek — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:04:18 +0000

Slightly off-topic perhaps, but I think Ms. McWilliams needs to watch Blade Runner again if she thinks that “things work out OK for Harrison Ford in that movie”, unless she’s referring to the studio cut with its tacked-on happy ending.

By: Carl Scott

Carl Scott — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:11:07 +0000

Elaine of Seinfeld and Susan of the Front Porch are right: exclamation points generally ought to be limited to birth annnouncements.
Y’all (not Susan) are too hard on Brooks, though. The man knows more about our politics and our culture than most of us do. But it’s undeniable that being a brainy conservative-leaning moderate without having the wisdom (i.e., the grounding) commensurate with that braininess makes must make one, despite the semi-approval of NYT-types, a bit tiresome to oneself. And obviously, the columnists’ task of perpetually providing pithy lil points about “linear thinking” and what not, a la Tom Freidman and bad management books, must really, realy suck!!! (3 exclamation points are hardly enough!) His Bobo books are so much better, and I’m sure Susan likes them or would if she hasn’t picked them up. And if Mark Shields, the 1,342,678th example of a stale-boomer-who-so-obviously-needs-to-retire, were to finally leave the News Hour, Brooks might be able to have some intelligent and politically wise conversations there. Perhaps his talents are more suited to pundit-talk and the book, and the column is deadly for him.
Ciao, I’m off to get in touch with my socially-networked and informationally flowing metro-asiatical side.

By: D.W. Sabin

D.W. Sabin — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:15:22 +0000

The best way to interact with the output of David Brooks is to consider them a kind of inadvertent satire, burbling up like a viscous ooze out of the popular culture he inhabits with such steady alacrity. When one is Most Favored Conservative Court Jester to the so-called “Liberal” Media, one inhabits a kind of lark and if Willson thinks Brooks might not have a body while any sentient being knows his head is a mirage, we are confronted with the fact that he is some kind of phantasm for the internet age. Perhaps he is one of those manifestations of modernity he likes to cover…like the BoBo…maybe he’s one of those role playing figures…a statistical creation representing the Greatest Hits of Semi-conservative Sophistry.

By: J.D. Salyer

J.D. Salyer — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:36:15 +0000

In composing intelligent remarks in response to Brooks gems such as — “This seems like a gross generalization but it is robustly supported by hundreds and hundreds of studies” — Ms. McWilliams has squeezed blood from a stone (head).

I mean, honestly, I should think it’s like trying to rebut a Monty Python character or something.

We’re doomed, my good chap! No, no point denying it — doomed! Too much linear thinking, and too many Greeks!

And shrubbery!

By: Anamaria

Anamaria — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:28:05 +0000

Ms. McWilliams, thank you! This is great (though apparently we’re no longer supposed to make these kind of comments. Sorry.).

Mr. Willson, thank you for the visualization of body-self dualism! Ha. We should suggest some Aristotle for him to read.

By: John Willson

John Willson — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:47:32 +0000

Susan, I haven’t read the piece and now don’t intend to. Your gentle destruction of Brooksy is so compelling that I think the picture should show the head and not the body. He apparently does not exist below the neck.