In a column entitled “The Nature of Poverty,” where he recycles nearly every lazy assumption and distortion about “the culture of poverty” that the Right has been spouting for half a century – half a century folks, that’s half of 100 years of this stuff! – he ends, after explaining that poverty is not really about money but “relationships,” with this gem: “The world is waiting for a thinker who can describe poverty through the lens of social psychology.”Īpparently, Brooks has never heard of Albert K. I do have something to say, however, about Brooks’ latest masterpiece.

I wish I possessed the special power to articulate exactly how his only profundity lies in how amazingly good he is as at being amazingly wrong, but so many others have done it so well and I myself find that my brain somehow stalls, aches, and nearly shuts down altogether in frustration as it tries to process both the inanity and frightening power of Brooks’ masterly oeuvre of nonsense. The evil brilliance of this, of course, is that they then walk away from the experience of reading a Brooks column feeling satisfied that what do you know!, they are even smarter than they assumed. How can we describe it? It is a skilled stupidity, really Brooks, more than any other conservative posing as not-completely-delusional and/or shameless, is extremely talented at transforming thoughtless middle-class biases into what thoughtless middle-class people then take to be wisdom. David Brooks is a special kind of stupid.

Its not about you david brooks appeal