If you read David Brooks even only
periodically, you will note one theme that is the foundation of his approach to
almost every subject: the belief that man's nature requires that he obediently
submit to authority. More particularly, Brooks believes that authority is
properly embodied in those traditional structures that have withstood the test
of time. We must revere the past because it is the past. We must obey
our parents, our elders in general, and the State above all. The centrality and
necessity of obedience is a long-running theme for Brooks, one I wrote about as
long as three years ago; see The
Demand for Obedience, in my series of essays based
on Alice Miller's work.
In himself, there is nothing about Brooks worthy of note. He is both a mediocre
intellect and a mediocre writer. His arguments can be refuted after only a
moment of reflection, and he often leaves massive holes where facts and
evidence ought to appear. But Brooks is typical of a certain strain in
conservatism today. Because this brand of conservative thought has led, among
other things, to our notably destructive and criminal foreign policy, and to
the destruction of the basis
for liberty here at home, appreciating the flaws in Brooks' approach has a
certain value. (I must emphasize once again that, with regard to its broadest
outlines, the Bush administration is only continuing what has been U.S. foreign
policy for a century and longer. See my Dominion
Over the World series for much more on this.
Nonetheless, this particular current iteration of
In his
latest column, Brooks returns to this favorite theme. Because some of you
may not have access to it, I will summarize his key points. Titled "Human
Nature Redux," the column speaks of the
"fading" from public consciousness of "the belief in natural
human goodness." This belief assumed that "[h]uman
beings are virtuous and free in their natural state. It is only corrupt
institutions that make them venal."
A marked tendentiousness distorts Brooks' listing of the "gigantic
ramifications" of this belief, in accordance with his personal values: for
example, he speaks of "romantic revolts against tradition and
etiquette" (and a more trivial view of the roots and significance of the
Romantic movement is hard to imagine, and it is an idiotic oversimplification,
even given the limitations of a newspaper column) -- and almost immediately,
Brooks proceeds to, "It led people to hit the road, do drugs, form
communes and explore free love in order to unleash their authentic
selves." It would appear safe to assume that Brooks does not approve of
such behaviors. This is intellectual history written by and for
dummies.
Just as Charles Murray unforgivably appropriates "science" to justify
unapologetic racism, Brooks maintains that it is "science" that
delivered the "big blow" to the idea of human goodness. According to
Brooks, "science" now tells us that humans
are, by nature, viciously competitive, always striving for dominance,
and "deadly warriors." Brooks tells us that "there is a
universal human nature; that it has nasty, competitive elements; that we don't
understand much about it; and that the conventions and institutions that have
evolved to keep us from slitting each other's throats are valuable and are
altered at great peril."
Brooks then describes how "order" and "obedience" will save
us individually, and society in general, from our own depravity. He also says:
If the horrors of what we have done in
At the end of his column, Brooks lists some thinkers who, Brooks maintains,
share this "Tragic Vision" of humankind. To Brooks' shame, he
includes Burke,
I want to comment on another thinker Brooks includes in his criminally
misleading list: Isaiah
Brooks' views, as stated in this latest column and in much of his previous
work, flow directly from
The spectacle of the Jacobin Terror was something which [
"[T]here are certain things which are common to them
all ... What they had in common was the belief that men were by nature, if
not good, at any rate not bad, potentially benevolent, and that each man was
the best expert on his own interests and his own values, when he was not being
bamboozled by knaves or fools; that on the whole men were prone to follow the
rules of conduct which their own understanding provided. Most thinkers of the
eighteenth century believed that progress was desirable -- that is to say, for
example, that freedom was better than slavery; that legislation founded on what
was called 'the precepts of nature' could right almost every wrong; that nature
was only reason in action, and its workings, therefore, could in principle be
deduced from a set of axioms like those of a theory in geometry, or like those
of physics and chemistry, if only you knew them. ... The more
empirically-minded among them were sure that the science of human nature could
be developed no less than that of inanimate things, that ethical and political
questions, provided they were genuine -- and how could they not be so? -- could
be answered no less certainly than those of mathematics and astronomy, and that
a life founded upon these answers would be free, secure, happy and wise.
And,
And this is what
In the vast domain of living nature there reigns an open
violence, a kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their
common doom. As soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom, you find the decree of
violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life. You feel it already in
the vegetable kingdom: from the vast catalpa to the humblest herb, how many
plants die, and how many are killed? But from the moment you
enter the animal kingdom, this law is suddenly in the most dreadful evidence. A
violent power, at once hidden and palpable ... has in each major subdivision of
the animals appointed a certain number of species to devour the others. Thus
there are insects of prey, reptiles of prey, birds of prey, fishes of prey, quadrupeds of prey. There is no instant of time when one
creature is not being devoured by another. Over all these numerous races of
animals man is placed, and his destructive hand spares nothing that lives.
Be sure to appreciate
Because, as
But my quotation from
Of course, writers like Brooks, William Kristol
and the rest will shy away from such explicit statements of these ideas and
their implications. In this respect, as in most others, they are abject
cowards. But given what they have written on many occasions, there is nothing
here they could disagree with.
The excerpt from
Who is this inexplicable being? ... He is like a world in
himself ... Hardly has he been assigned to his proper dwelling-place ... when
others remove their homes elsewhere ... In the midst of this desolation ... he
lives alone with his mate and his young, who acquaint him with the sound of the
human voice. But for them he would hear nothing but shrieks of agony ... One of
the lowest menials of justice knocks at his door and tells him that his
services are wanted. He goes. He arrives in a public square where people are
crowded together with faces of expectancy. A prisoner, a parricide, a man who
committed a sacrilege is flung to his feet. He seizes the man, stretches him,
ties him to a cross which is lying on the ground, raises his arms, and there is
a terrible silence. It is broken only by the sound of the crushing of bones under
the blows of the iron mace, and the screams of the victim. He unbinds the man,
he carries him to the wheel; the broken limbs are twined round the spokes and
the head hangs down; the hair stands on end and from the mouth -- open like the
door of a glowing furnace -- there come at intervals only a few broken
syllables of entreaty for death. The executioner has finished his task; his
heart is beating, but it is with pleasure; he is satisfied with his work. He
says in his heart, 'No man breaks on the wheel better than I.' He comes down
from the scaffold and holds out his bloody hand, into which, from a distance,
an official flings a few gold pieces. The executioner carries them off between
two rows of human beings who shrink from him with horror. He sits down to table
and eats, he goes to bed and sleeps, but when he awakes the next morning his
thoughts run on everything but his occupation of the day before. Is he a man?
Yes, God allows him to enter his shrines and accepts his prayers. He is no
criminal, and yet no human language dares to call him, for instance, virtuous,
honorable or estimable ... Nevertheless all greatness, all power, all social
order depends upon the executioner; he is the terror of human society and the
tie that holds it together. Take away this incomprehensible force from the world, and at that very moment order is superseded by chaos,
thrones fall, society disappears. God, who is the source of the power of the
ruler, is also the source of punishment. He has suspended our world upon these
two poles, 'for the Lord is the lord of the twin poles, and round them he sets
the world revolving'.
It was because of passages like this, and because of the
worldview out of which they arise, that Lamennais
said of
Returning to a point in my opening paragraph, concerning Brooks' reverence for
tradition and the institutions of the past, there is one further connection to
note.
In a sense, then,
...
Men may be divided into those who are in favour of
life and those who are against it. Among those who are against it there are
sensitive and wise and penetrating people who are too offended and discouraged
by the shapelessness of spontaneity, by the lack of order among human beings
who wish to live their own lives, not in obedience to any common pattern. Among
such was
As we know, and as the last six years have proved with
endless and horrifying repetition, the same is true of the current
administration and those who have been its most vocal supporters. They may
disagree now about
Like
We would do well to remember it.