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David Brooks writes a long excuse for the class war against the poorSubmitted by Prometheus 6 on March 9, 2006 - 8:46am.
on Culture wars | Education | People of the Word David Brooks's entire editorial today is a dodge.
Sounds nice, doesn't it? But parenting is not the point of his editorial. He doesn't get to the point until the very last sentence. He even says it's the core issue.
Given that all they guys passing laws (such as free dividends, privileging unearned income in the tax code, tax cuts that go almost exclusively to the wealthy ) shifting the tax burden off the wealthy are, themselves, wealthy, that is easily debatable. But the fact is, today's wealthy as individuals do NOT set out to gut the poor...they set out to benefit themselves with no concern for anyone else. Collectively, that screws everyone else with a dry broomstick. He hypes the research of a sociologist named Annette Lareau, who sat on living room floors as families went about their business, ridden in back seats as families drove hither and yon.As you know from reality TV shows, people never change their behavior when being observed by strangers, just as people poll responses are always a direct reflection of their true feelings and positions. Brooks is cracking me up:
...things working class families simply cannot afford.
That's the sort of thing that will get a nine year old Black boy slotted in the learning disabled class or dosed with Ritalin. And look how delicately Mr. Brooks describes the process of learning how to lie effectively.
And look how effective the lies are. Children, like their parents, were easily intimidated by and pushed around by verbally dexterous teachers and doctors.If you're really concerned about this, I seriously suggest reading The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter Woodson, keeping in mind the methods under discussion work on all humans. And if you really don't care, keep reading David Brooks. Yeah. What he's really using
Yeah. What he's really using is smoke and mirrors. You are correct to point out how the state subsidizes the upper crust. But 'we' knitwits are not supposed to have the ability to call it out. Brooks' analysis is really an excellent version of, or example of C-O-G-N-I-T-I-V-I-E D-I-S-S-O-N-A-N-C-E, that is, seemingly, so pervasive in the "larger community," for obvious reasons of course.
You are correct to point out how the state subsidizes the upper crust. But we knitwits are not supposed to have the ability to call it out.Huh? Methinkst he pointed out that the upper crust subsidizes itself via the instrumentality of the state. I see no cognitive dissonance in this whatsoever. Further, the dry broomstick is a respectable darwinian instrumentality which gets liberally served with little to no regard for who's on the receiving end. They're doing precisely what they're supposed to do, what they've been genetically and culturally determined to do, which is to enhance their own selective fitness. What's wrong with you militant assimilationists this morning? Quit acting like the republic by and for the rich is a popular democracy. Step up your weak-azzed game(s) and get with the muhfuggin programme!!! okay...., The criticism, if there is one to be levied here, is the extent to which this auto-motive society is looking at an evolutionary cul de sac due to its dependency on oil under muslim-venezuelan-african occupied land. The objectively valid critique has to do with the aggregate dinosauring that the elites have engineered themselves into - pursuant to their culturally preferred facets of "selective fitness". Be like small, cunning and highly adaptable mammals - looking at the once mighty dinosaurs careening down the evolutionary highway to their inevitable fall. I care not one whit for dumb-azzed dinosaurs, but rather about cunning mammals who realize that this is their moment of adaptive possibility. Caring about dinosaur ways in the fin d'siecle dinosaur days is an exercise in maladaptive rancor. Many little mammals would be far better served worrying less about the dry broomstick and more about Working they own little autodidactic programme(s)....., autodidactic programme(s) IOW, the story you tell yourself to define the terms you use about yourself. IOW, the story you tell yourself to define the terms you use about yourself. The learning center and its sphere of influence is an objective matter of fact..., As also the objectively provable core issue that today's autodidacts(who happen to be among the poor) are not indifferent to the poor; we also just outcompete them. those poor who don't get on board the autodidactic wagontrain had better learn to like the dry broomstick - cause the "wisdom of their crowd" pretty much sucked ass even in a growing net energy environment. In a declining net energy environment, it's an express train to something below a Dickensian hell...., The learning center and its sphere of influence is an objective matter of fact...,Never said otherwise. I just feel dropping "autodidact" is less clear to most folks that "the story you tell yourself." If people understand what you're doing they're more likely to join in. my bad for getting it twisted...,
 "story you tell yourself" coming from an observer and critic of "people of the word" sounded ever so faintly like the "snikt" sound you hear when black steel bout to get loosened from its sheath. My elders at the learning center been telling themselves this story now for 34 years through all kinds of adversity - and the one invariable constant in all that time and struggle - is their insistance on complete autonomy and self-sufficiency. Though we may be embedded in an encompassing cultural matrix we didn't design and that we don't control, the afrofuture is a collection of cellular microcultures completely under our control - and thus autodidactic to the bone. Perhaps the coinage, "wisdom of the cells" is apropos to describing these local enclaves..., great commentary... today's brooks column was a bloodboiler Brooks is correct in concluding that class differences determine professional success by developing or not developing verbal and coping skills. In that respect, the class system is rational, if not "fair." What he doesn't address is the potential for changing the outcome through intervention. As a working-class kid, I had to figure out in college (local) and graduate school (Ivy) that I did not speak the language of my upper-middle class classmates, or have the ability to manipulate the system that they appeared to take for granted. Once I had identified the problem, I labored to correct it -- not always successfully. My abilities, however, were measurable (I could master academic skills and materials). Had the differences in and consequences of socialization -- class, in other words -- been recognized and addressed when I was in grade school, my path would have been considerably less thornier. By "intervention", I don't mean merely enriched academic programs -- there are plenty of those around -- but rather intensive mentoring aimed at the development of precisely those verbal and social skills on which professional success appears to depend. In short, I would not interpret the data to validate the system, as Brook appears to do, but rather take it as meaning that, in America, class trumps talent. The study is an advertisement for intervention at an early age.
In response to the top posting, I have seen today many criticisms of Brooks' last line, harping on his use of the non-word 'outcompete' or how he seemed to be taking a shot at connecting Lareau's research to this rich-exploiting-poor, class-war entanglement. I think P6 has taken the bait a little too hard here. I enjoyed David Brooks' article while paying absolutely no regard to its last line, because he made a subtle point not often heard (which, while not true in every specific case, is useful to discuss in the aggregate) that should give most Americans pause for reflection on the upbringings of themselves and those they know. I think the content of the main portion of his essay is the relevant part - not whatever evil motives you try to ascribe to him by "connecting the dots" on his signoff. I think he was just looking for an elegant sentence to finish his essay, and, failing that, picked whatever came to his mind first because he was late for his squash game or something. *g* Your characterization of his description of upper-middle-class children learning advanced interpersonal skills, bureaucratic maneuvering and self-confidence as "lying" I think belies your own prejudices, not his. Sincerely, Cnulan might want to take is own advice and start with looking around when he goes outside--dinosaurs are all around us, they just don't look like Godzilla anymore. Mammals were right there with them all the way back to the Triassic, if not the Permian. Insects and microbes are smaller than either reptiles (or dinosaurs) or mammals, but they are the ones who make this world work, and we are all dead without them. The conceit of both liberals and conservatives (as if that meant anything anymore) is that everyone on the other side is stupid and blind to the truth. The reality is that both side are seeing a portion of it (e.g., well off households may well raise children differently, and that may confer an advantage). Brooks takes that a little farther than it warrants perhaps by saying that the lower class is outcompeted, but it doesn't change the interesting information on which his assertion is based. That said, I agree--worrying about dry broomsticks on an individual level doesn't do anyone any good--channel that energy into getting rid of the broomsticks, eh?
Steve:
Your characterization of his description of upper-middle-class children learning advanced interpersonal skills, bureaucratic maneuvering and self-confidence as "lying" I think belies your own prejudices, not his.Of course. I'm the one that wrote it, not Mr. Brooks. It might make more sense if I quoted the part about how whiney they are. Added to this: Children, like their parents, were easily intimidated by and pushed around by verbally dexterous teachers and doctors.yes, I feel quite comfortable saying they are taught to manipulate and take advantage of others. "Lying" was a lazy shortcut on my part. I have a general issue with people substituting verbal manipulations for reason. I don't think it's a good thing to subvert the truth with verbal dexterity. I enjoyed David Brooks' article while paying absolutely no regard to its last line,When a man says something is his central point, I attend to it. Mr. Brooks would shape opinion; you should never ignore his meaning for the sake of entertainment. Sure, the research he cites is interesting; I object to the use he puts it to. Adults and children from more affluent households can, as a general rule, "outcompete" adults and children who live in less affluent households. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that being affluent gives you more options in terms of your life choices. Money alone may not make you happy but it does give you more options than folks who don't have money. If you successfully exercise, that is, exploit, those options you will generally finish ahead of those who lack the means to purchase more options no matter how ambitious and talented they may be. Innate ability and drive does count but money and what it buys access to tends to trump personal grit and hustle. Not all the time and in every case but most of the time. And that's all that matters in the end.
Hey, nice comments... about a fevered but intelligent Conservative writer at the NYTimes. I read Brooks as he's at the heart of Conservative Appoligists and Brooks who has a little consciousness about why Conservatism is failing America currently. Reading Brooks is so fun as he knows he's full of shit but at least has a brain to know that.. Unlike so many other of the Oligarchists. I too, was shocked by his last sentence as it was a crude betrayal of everything else in the article. Your calling it a Dodge was "spot-on" as the English say.. (I gave up on the old 60's phrase "Right-on" as I despise the Right soo much..) I didn't get what you meant about Lying...but now do (manipulation and pushing around by teachers and doctors.....as Brooks put it...) Brooke's is on thin ice in his argumentation but at least he admits that Conservatism is in trouble as ordinary people feel the shaft from our increasingly Oligarchic economy. Thanks for your quick response about Brooks although I am not sure he's worth it... but I do read him to see how the "enemy" is thinking.... the best to you and your readers.
Brooks' column and our comments reminds me of something that one of my late college advisors once told me. He was a Korean and a mathematician who the CIA had once attempted to recruit into their ranks. He often referred to himself as a "communist with a small c." He told me one day over a bottle of wine that the rich never have to conspire about anything at all. They are always in general agreement, he said, with each other about everything. That's why their kids go to the same schools; they marry each other and their families vacation together, he went on, because they find each other's company enjoyable, mutually reenforcing and agreeable.
I agree with your critique of the article. But I think most of what Brook's says is true. But besides the point. The leap in reasoning, I think is here: But the point is that the working-class parents were not bad parents. In a perhaps more old-fashioned manner, they were attentive. They taught right from wrong. In some ways they raised their kids in a healthier atmosphere. (When presented with the schedules of the more affluent families, they thought such a life would just make kids sad.) But they did not prepare their kids for a world in which verbal skills and the ability to thrive in organizations are so important. I think this is where he implicitly and wrongly assumes that the world the rich kids face, and the one the poor kids face, is the same. The bringing-up part is possibly important, but the world-outside-the-house that the kids grow up in plays a huge role. The girl who build dollhouses had a drug problem not because she did not have the verbal skills, but because several people around her were doing drugs. And the rich girl who also had a drug problem from 12-17 is not washing dishes today but recovering from her addiction and going to college. And the rich girl who also had a drug problem from 12-17 is not washing dishes today but recovering from her addiction and going to college.
Because her relatively greater affluence buys her more life options than the girl who builds dollhouses. The college girl's drug problems are not seen by her, her family and their respective peer groups as a life defining issue. If the drug usage of she and her friends ever came to the attention of the police any charges that were brought were probably dismissed pending their completion of a treatment program. The college girl's friends and acquaintances probably used drugs as well but, again, their use of drugs is simply seen as an unfortunate phase of their lives. The likelihood of their being arrested and subsequently incarcerated is very slight. So...,
What precisely must the outcompeted working/poor do - in order to increase our fitness in the money-driven ecosystem? After all, money is a curious artifact of psychological governance that works both like a drug and a tool. How might one practically be - both in that world - but not of that world? Oh, and trust, this is not a theological or philosophical kwestin...., though it is plainly and clearly addressed in writings vested with the full gravity of centuries of superstitious indoctrination..., Keeping in mind this thread is not about out-competed workers but David Brook's decision to hide his class war behind a bullshit editorial about parenting styles, you remain apart from it by not selling out.
you remain apart from it by not selling out.selling out is Gamble and Ford's cover story this week..., looks like the militant assimiliationist camp is beginning to gel around a litmus test for political "integrity". Too bad that that litmus test fails to take into consideration the backdrop of declining net energy, and is thus stillborn even as it's only beginning to be articulated. the more important question left begging is "what precisely must the working/poor buy into?" - in order to have something of their own that is a viable alternative to sticking their hands out to get more of somebody elses? Those "somebody elses" have made it abundantly clear that they're not about to give up a goddamn thing. Universal healthcare? HAH!!!!! More money for public schools? HAH!!!! As for the played out notion of class war...., class is what you do, not what you have. Proper execution along the first line - ensures accumulation along the second. Unity - or the graalquest backdrop against which one would presumeably rather fight than switch - has got to be more than just broke-azz busters hollaring "where's mine?" in unison. Only those working/poor who recognize that it's adapt or perish time - and begin with all due haste to adapt - will achieve the levels of fitness required to persist. Persistence being the indispensible prerequisite for recruitment, and recruitment the indispensible prerequisite for possible victory - in a real class war of competing behavioural models. The more I see and hear of utterly bankrupt progressive prescriptions - which all boil down to an in unison plea of "where's mine?" the clearer it becomes that the so-called progressive camp is simply setting up its followers - in their masses - to perish. Keeping in mind this thread is not about out-competed workers but David Brook's decision to hide his class war behind a bullshit editorial about parenting styles, think of a way to start a fresh thread about all that. I like the pristene clarity of this one.
Just for my edification P6..., is this {more or less} what you mean when you write class war?
Big picture, yes. Specific gestures in the war may not have all the attributes Wikipedia describes, just as most individual battles in WW II didn't involve atomic bombs.
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