A Letter to Supporters of David Brooks

Brooks built his career as an advocate for the 2003 Iraq War (at The Weekly Standard).  This led to the deaths of over 500,000 Iraqis, greatly strengthened Iran's influence in Iraq, destroyed the viability of international institutions, led to ISIS and the Syrian civil war with mass emigration of refugees to Europe, and brought us the Trump presidency, Brexit and Gilets Jaunes.  In April 2003, Brooks predicted a generation of stability and prosperity due to the success of the war.  In this spirit, he supported Sarah Palin as John McCain's VP choice in 2008.  He has been wrong on a truly epic level.

Now it is said that he's changed.  He is leading a new Aspen Institute initiative to understand and reduce the growing fragmentation, alienation, and division around the country.  I have finished the article we started in on the other night at Henry Ford Village -- Students Learn From People They Love.  He recommends building good relationships!

How would you design a school if you wanted to put relationship quality at the core? Come to think of it, how would you design a Congress?  

In my opinion, this is too little, too late.  Brooks and his Republican / neocon cohort (John Bolton was a fellow writer for the Weekly Standard) contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths and immense chaos around the world.  Brooks shows no self-awareness, but rather ignores his previous mistakes.  Of course, what bothers me is that, without evidence,  he casts people of my political persuasion as extremists on the same level as Trump.  (This is a recurring theme and I will provide citations upon request.)  I actually don't read Brooks as reaching out to build a good relationship with people like me.  When Brooks starts writing about cooperating on things I deeply believe in,  such as the use of democratic principles in resolving international disputes, as opposed to unilateral war based upon false grounds, then I'll take him more seriously.  

ADDENDA

Read The Collapse of the Dream Palaces to appreciate Brooks' contempt for those who were right about the Iraq War and the tragic events that would follow.  

For an example of someone who made of an effort in coming to terms with his mistakes, see Robert McNamara:

In 1982, McNamara joined several other former national security officials in urging that the United States pledge to not use nuclear weapons first in Europe in the event of hostilities; subsequently he proposed the elimination of nuclear weapons as an element of NATO's defense posture...  McNamara's memoir, In Retrospect, published in 1995, presented an account and analysis of the Vietnam War from his point of view. According to his lengthy New York Times obituary, "[h]e concluded well before leaving the Pentagon that the war was futile, but he did not share that insight with the public until late in life. In 1995, he took a stand against his own conduct of the war, confessing in a memoir that it was 'wrong, terribly wrong'." In return, he faced a "firestorm of scorn" at that time. 

Follow Up Note

Hi Bill,

Thanks for the thoughtful reply!  That's a rare thing with regard to political discussion, in my experience, and something I very much appreciate.

I see you've copied some others who did not receive my email regarding Brooks, so here's a link for those who missed it:  Getting to Yes with David Brooks.  However, I'll assume that others aren't interested and will address this message to you.  I see Jerry responded also and I'll respond to his email separately.  I haven't read his response yet as I want to address your comments directly.

I appreciate your sharing your personal evolution as it relates to your feelings about David Brooks.  If this is to be a constructive conversation, then it will probably be due to such introspection.  You note that you were staunchly anti-union until about 2000, having grown up in an anti-union environment.  

Only when I became close to union folks when working at the country club did I realize the benefits of the union movement.  

You also mentioned that you voted Republican more often than not in your earlier life, implying a sort of tribal affinity for Republicans due to your background and career.  Again, kudos for the introspection and sharing!

People change.  I continue to agree with and be enlightened by most of the columns of David Brooks 

Upon reading this, my thought is that perhaps people don't change as much as it may seem at first glance.  You and I are close friends and are both closely affiliated with a somewhat radical organization -- UU Detroit.  Yet, we bring differing world views to the conversation.  My background is a quite a bit different.  I have always voted Democratic, with few exceptions, mostly to the left of the Dems.  I was trending more centrist until 2002 when I became deeply troubled by the buildup to the Iraq War in 2002-2003. At that time, I spent a lot of time and energy trying to convince people that this proposed war was a really bad idea, and I was horrified at what actually happened.  Since then, my political opinions have turned left once again, taking me closer to where I was in my formative years.

I've done some examination of where I might have been wrong politically during my formative years, and have tried to adjust my current political stances accordingly.  Last May, I wrote Lesson from ACORN -- The Facts Matter.  In that post, I go back to my first presidential election in 1972 when I voted for George McGovern.  From there I reviewed the subsequent decades and tried to make sense of what actually happened in the context of my world view.  

Basically, I'm a humanist.  I see variants of tribalism as the biggest threats to survival and prosperity of future generations.  I'm not a pacifist --- I prefer cooperation but recognize that groups will not always be able to settle their differences peacefully.  I prefer having allies/friends to having enemies, but accept that there will be situations where fighting is better than the alternative.  In my columnist preferences, I look for both writers with a similar worldview, and writers with varying worldviews with some overlap.  In terms of similar worldview, one of my favorites is Robert Wright.  He wrote the book Nonzero (originally recommended to me by former men's group member Stuart Smith), which is in the spirit of Getting to Yes (originally recommended to me by former men's group member Dick Hasty).  I subscribe to Wright's weekly newsletter -- Mindful Resistance -- which looks at events each week from the big picture and Buddhist perspective.

I also regularly read several columnists/bloggers who despise David Brooks (and others of his type), and several that despise socialists (like me).  I don't agree with much of what they say (especially the anti-socialists), but find enough that rings true or gives me insight into others' worldviews that I find them worthwhile.  Often I will read a columnist or blogger for years before getting disillusioned or bored with what they have to say.  Paul Krugman, for example, falls into this category.  Most NY Times columnists have fallen off the charts for me, although I have seen some things I like from Michelle Alexander.  Nicholas Kristof will always have a special place in my heart because it was he who set me on the right path with regard to the prospective Iraq War in 2002-2003.

I read the piece you mentioned, The transformation of David Brooks.  In the interest of having a constructive dialog (as opposed to talking past one another), I'll repeat your comments on that here and respond to them:

A lengthy 2015 piece in the Columbia Journalism Review by Danny Funt stays away from Brooks’s views on politics and the role of America.  It focuses instead on his interest in and views on morality, humility and theology, areas treated in Brooks’s then-recent book. And discussed often in his current columns.  Such as the pablum last Friday on education.  Did you know that Brooks visited the White House perhaps 40 times during Obama’s tenure?  Brooks now says he’s not terribly interested in politics. The title of the piece is “The Transformation of David Brooks”.  Or it could be “a look at a side of David Brooks not connected with his past view of the benefits of foreign adventurism”.  

and

People change.  I continue to agree with and be enlightened by most of the columns of David Brooks.  I didn’t read him in 2003 so I don’t have to personally remember his views from then.  And I usually agree with his comments on Friday editions of the PBS Newshour.  I once worked with a guy who made cracks about movie actors: “I’m still mad at him from the last movie”.  Perhaps you have a bit of this working with your views on David Brooks?  

My objections to Brooks center on the fact that he doesn't seem to have changed enough. There can be no doubt that he needed to change, as, in my opinion, he was complicit in hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of displaced persons, and immeasurable harm to international institutions and responsible democratic governance. This is somewhat more serious than "a guy who made cracks about movie actors". This was his life's work at the Weekly Standard as summarized in his April 2003 column, The Collapse of the Dream Palaces.  In this column he belittled those who were against the 2003 war -- "the Arabists, the European elites, the Bush haters"and he glorified "Christopher Hitchens, Dennis Miller, Paul Wolfowitz, Joseph Lieberman, John McCain, Richard Holbrooke, Charles Krauthammer, the staff of Fox News, Bernard Lewis, and George Bush" as "progressives".  After the war he continued to support people such as John McCain and Sarah Palin who were militant tribalists.  His moral values at the time were heavily tribalist as opposed to humanist, and it impaired his judgment.  

Here is what Brooks predicted for a typical member of the generation of Americans who came of age around the time of the 2003 Iraq War: 

He sees that his country is an incredibly effective colossus that can drop bombs onto pinpoints, destroy enemies that aren't even aware they are under attack. He sees a ruling establishment that can conduct wars with incredible competence and skill. He sees a federal government that can perform its primary task--protecting the American people--magnificently.   These are obviously not the things Joey would have seen if he had come of age in 1972, and his mentality is likely to be radically different from that of many people of the sixties generation. He is likely to feel confident about American power. He is likely to assume that when America projects its might, it is not only great, but good.

Brooks has no doubt changed, but I still see him as a tribalist as opposed to a humanist.  Has he reached out to other factions such as Arabists, European elites, and "Bush haters" such as myself?   If so, I have not seen the columns.  Rather he has moved to middle of American politics.  That is progress!  But he seems to have a blind spot with regard to people like me -- people who predicted exactly the opposite of what Brooks predicted and who foresaw the coming of a Trump-like figure as a result of disillusionment with the incompetence of America on the world stage.  Brooks has adopted many of my positions without ever recognizing that Bernie Sanders and his followers (or many European and Arab leaders) were right and deserve to be taken seriously.  Now that he's put Fox News and Trump in the same category as me I feel better (since he's changed his view of the right wing), but not especially warm (since he hasn't changed his view of people like me). 

Anyway, that's how I see it but we're all entitled to our opinions and tastes.  Thanks again for sharing yours in a constructive manner!