- Village Idiot At The New York Times

I deal with a lot of very smart people in my day to day life. Practically everyone I know is a genius, and some of them make your average genius look dim. I think it’s a fair claim when I say that I know what ‘the elite’ of America are about, so when I say that David Brooks is totally full of $%it…. again…. I know from where I speak.

In his poorly argued NY Times column, he’s making the threadbare claim that as the elite of American society have increased their degree of merit, the common people of America have become detached from them and trust them less. The latter part is obviously true, but the connections he draws to his imagined causes are typically useless David Brooks pabulum.

The cause of America’s distrust of the elite is obvious to everyone not sealed in the NY Times editorial cocoon. Never before in history has the elite been so consistent in their assumption that it’s them who should be making all the decisions in our life. In short, this is a generational problem. The children of the 60’s and 70’s, the boomers who currently make up the elite, all feel that they are the only ones with the knowledge and wisdom to make the decisions about the lives of 300 million Americans.

Those 300 million Americans did not cede them that authority however so they are balking as the elite try to fit them with their yoke. Brooks’ column is a laughable parody of that; a boomer trying to fathom excuses for why the unwashed won’t simply obey their betters like they should. It's a common Brooks theme. And since so much of the boomer philosophy is based on nothing but self congratulation, they remain too insecure and too egotistical to admit the truth to themselves.

The truth of course, is that they aren’t nearly as smart as they think they are, and therefore have no business trying to tell the rest of America how to live their lives. They don’t really possess the wisdom that they’ve awarded themselves. And everyone knows it but them. The village idiot may think he’s the smartest person in town, but his thinking it doesn’t make it so. And apparently the same is true of David Brooks.

David Brooks:
The Power Elite