David Brooks writes a really good column - "The Dark Century"

[NewHendoLib]

I don't often - always- agree with him, but with a few quibbles, he is pretty spot on. And this is pretty sobering stuff - and of course not a surprise to any of us.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/17/opinion/liberalism-democracy-russia-ukraine.html

In the early 1990s I was a roving correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, based in Europe. Some years it felt as if all I did was cover good news: the end of the Soviet Union, Ukrainians voting for independence, German reunification, the spread of democracy across Eastern Europe, Mandela coming out of prison and the end of apartheid, the Oslo peace process that seemed to bring stability to the Middle East.

I obsess about those years now. I obsess about them because the good times did not last. History is reverting toward barbarism. We have an authoritarian strongman in Russia threatening to invade his neighbor, an increasingly authoritarian China waging genocide on its people and threatening Taiwan, cyberattacks undermining the world order, democracy in retreat worldwide, thuggish populists across the West undermining nations from within.

What the hell happened? Why were the hopes of the 1990s not realized? What is the key factor that has made the 21st century so dark, regressive and dangerous?

The normal thing to say is that the liberal world order is in crisis. But just saying that doesn’t explain why. Why are people rejecting liberalism? What weakness in liberalism are its enemies exploiting? What is at the root of this dark century? Let me offer one explanation.

snip


so many good paragraphs - so sorry for the paywall - it is well worth reading it all.

[Tommy Carcetti]

1. Brooks is a good writer and a palatable Never Trump conservative.

I too don't typically agree with all his takes, but at least it's something we can debate with on a civil level.

Sadly, the intellectual brand of conservatives (Brooks, Will, etc.) got banished from their own movement when Trump took over.

[NewHendoLib]

2. he is clearly on a path towards "us" - this is his most left wing column I've ever read

[Martin68]

5. Brooks has always been a knee jerk supporter of the Republican Party no matter what. He's a polite

George Will. I used to listen to him discuss issues of the day with E.J. Dionne every Friday on NPR, and he was so out-classed by a real intellectual.

[HUAJIAO]

9. +1000000000000000000

[FreepFryer]

19. +1 (Nt)

[HUAJIAO]

10. I don't thinks Brooks is an intellectual at all. He is intelligent, yes, but he just takes positions

like anybody else. How he gets hired as a 'pundit' is beyond me.

[Fiendish Thingy]

11. Brooks is a horrible hack - the print version of Chuck Todd. Nt

[HUAJIAO]

3. While I used to laugh at Brooks on the old McNeil/Lehrer News Hour,

I would be interested in what he feels are the reasons...

Eh, on second thought. he is always late to the game... forget it...

[NewHendoLib]

4. I remember Mark Shields pretty regularly destroying his stances

[HUAJIAO]

7. Yes, and Mark tried so hard not to make him look like a jerk...

[struggle4progress]

6. He's intelligent and can be sensitive but but he's reflexively rightwing

[HUAJIAO]

8. I think there is something about his sensitivity that is out of balance.

Somewhere inside he instinctively KNOWS what is right, what is compassionate, constructive, but somehow he is afraid to follow that instinct. So, at least on the McNeil/Lehrer News Hour, he always ended up sort of apologizing for himself, for his positions after Mark Shields, despite his continued efforts not to make him look like a fool, always did just that.

[FreepFryer]

18. Excellent observation. Without a "straight man," Brooks unknowingly veers way off base (Nt)

[summer_in_TX]

12. A descent into ad hominem attacks on David Brooks?

But what about what he wrote?

I sent the link to my dad, sisters and brother, nieces and nephews and sons, and posted it on my social media page as well. Brilliant insights.

What a disappointment to come here and see the level of non-engagement with the ideas in the column.


snip

Liberalism is a way of life built on respect for the dignity of each individual. A liberal order, John Stuart Mill suggested, is one in which people are free to conduct “experiments in living” so you wind up with “a large variety in types of character.” There’s no one best way to live, so liberals celebrate freedom, personal growth and diversity.

Many of America’s founders were fervent believers in liberal democracy — up to a point. They had a profound respect for individual virtue, but also individual frailty. Samuel Adams said, “Ambitions and lust for power … are predominant passions in the breasts of most men.” Patrick Henry admitted to feelings of dread when he contemplated the “depravity of human nature.” One delegate to the constitutional convention said that the people “lack information and are constantly liable to be misled.”

Our founders were aware that majorities are easily led by ambitious demagogues.

So our founders built a system that respected popular opinion and majority rule while trying to build guardrails to check popular passion and prejudice. The crimes of the constitutional order are by now well known. It acquiesced to the existence of slavery and prolonged that institution for nearly another century. Early democratic systems enfranchised only a small share of adult Americans. But the genius of the Constitution was in its attempt to move toward democracy while trying to prevent undue concentrations of power. The founders divided power among the branches. They built in a whole series of republican checks, so that demagogues and populist crazes would not sweep over the land.

“They designed a constitution for fallen people,” the historian Robert Tracy McKenzie writes in his book “We the Fallen People.” “Its genius lay in how it held in tension two seemingly incompatible beliefs: first, that the majority must generally prevail; and second, that the majority is predisposed to seek personal advantage above the common good.”

snip

The whole column is as thoughtful an explanation of what is happening to us now as I've seen.

[NewHendoLib]

13. yes, it is a shame. very brilliant article. thanks for your comment.

[summer_in_TX]

14. It points to what has lead to the current unraveling of democracy.

But it also shows what needs to be done to reinvigorate and restore democracy here and elsewhere.

[NewHendoLib]

15. Yes. I read the entire article to my wife .

[moonscape]

16. Whole editorial can be read at

https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0221-brooks-dark-century-20220218-scqrluzkobaezcqv5en56ajeb4-story.html

No paywall.

[Hekate]

23. Many thanks

[Martin68]

20. I've heard him say the opposite so many times I don't believe anything he says anymore.

He used to try EJ Dionne's patience to the limit, and that takes some doing.

[Johonny]

21. Yah

Brooks has laid blame on us for everything while backing Bush Co. as a loyal marcher, and now wants to make nice? If Jeb had won in 2016, Brooks is writing the same garbage he's had for years instead of this. We all know this. He's worn out his welcome with me years ago.

[FreepFryer]

32. Big time. DU fanboying on Brooks while he argues about liberalism's "failure." (Nt)

[Hekate]

22. I am also disappointed in those reactions. Brooks is thoughtful; I hope to read the whole thing

[sammythecat]

24. Completely agree

"What a disappointment to come here and see the level of non-engagement with the ideas in the column."

[FreepFryer]

17. Brooks can't help but condemn Liberalism, especially when he is decrying it's "failings"

Odd post for DU.

[NewHendoLib]

26. Did you actually read the entire article?

[FreepFryer]

27. Same old same old. Start from an erroneous premise that liberalism fails, win a cash prize.

[NewHendoLib]

28. So you didn't. Thx.

[FreepFryer]

31. ... about a phenomenon he himself promulgated. Thx. (Nt)

[Hekate]

30. Small "l" small "d" liberal democracy in a small "r" republic was what the founders aimed for...

He goes into historical context, acknowledges places they got it wrong (slavery), acknowledges places they got right.

Incidentally, I am old enough to remember when calling America a “liberal democracy” was just what you did in public life. Those were not political parties, they were descriptive words as how we saw ourselves in the world and how we had from the beginning.

Then it changed. Thank Newt Gingrich. It took awhile, and until I came to DU I could not figure out how it happened, but over time I saw both words become nasty expletives. Nasty expletives like using a person’s race or religion as a nasty expletive.

As Fiona Hill said, “And here we are.”

[Hekate]

25. Thank you, NewHendoLib, for your OP. This is very good. More excerpts....

Brooks is well-intentioned and observant; he’s never been our enemy. Disagreement on some points is not a sin.

ETA: At his best — and this is one of those times — Brooks shows how deeply grounded he is in the study of History. In this context, democracy has a small d, and liberal has a small l — the way the founders used the terms.

Especially cogent is his explanation of “normal” — and it really is not pretty. The planet is reverting.

Just as America’s founders understood that democracy is not natural, the postwar generation understood that peace is not natural — it has to be tended and cultivated from the frailties of human passion and greed.
…….

Over the past few generations, that hopeful but sober view of human nature has faded. What has been called the Culture of Narcissism took hold, with the view that human beings should be unshackled from restraint. You can trust yourself to be unselfish! Democracy and world peace were taken for granted.

What happens when you don’t tend the seedbeds of democracy? Chaos? War? No, you return to normal. The 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th centuries were normal. Big countries such as China, Russia and Turkey are ruled by fierce leaders with massive power. That’s normal. Small aristocracies in many nations hog gigantic shares of their nations’ wealth. That’s normal. Many people come to despise cultural outsiders, such as immigrants. Normal. Global affairs resembles the law of the jungle, with big countries threatening small ones. This is the way it has been for most of human history.
In normal times, people crave order and leaders such as Vladimir Putin arise to give it to them. Mr. Putin and Xi Jinping have arisen to be the 21st century’s paradigmatic men.
Mr. Putin, Mr. Xi and the other global conservatives make comprehensive critiques of liberalism and the failings of liberal society. Unlike past authoritarians, they have the massive power of modern surveillance technology to control their citizens.

[gulliver]

29. "What weakness in liberalism are its enemies exploiting?"

Just asking the question is a great service to liberalism. Every liberal should be asking that same question of themselves as a mantra. I like the article a lot, and I always tend to learn from Brooks. I think he might have taken the scenic route in response to the question. That and subject-verb disagreement are my main quibbles.

There is no reason our ideas shouldn't plain dominate if we go by the quality of the ideas themselves. Equality, opportunity, sustainability, justice...no problem. Our problem is mainly an image problem. If one person says, for example, "defund the police" or "tear down that Lincoln statue," all of the rest of us liberals pay for that foolishness. The media hand the mic to anyone. It's their paycheck.

I don't know how to solve the problem of "self-elected, Dunning Krueger effect voices" getting handed mics. Maybe we can firewall the Democratic Party from fools if not all of liberalism. The Democratic Party, unlike liberalism, has an official institution, the DNC. If some self-elected rhetorical maladroit says something dumb and a meme takes off, perhaps DNC arbitration boards can check the statement against the current platform. That would result in an immediate, authoritative response.

For example, someone says, "defund the police." The DNC arbitration board system could very quickly check the platform and note that the platform doesn't in any way support that idea. Biden, Pelosi, and Clyburn don't have to worry and "unsay" what the fool said. The DNC can just "rule on it" and say, "The Democratic Party arbitration board reviewed this idea. The Democratic Party platform firmly opposes defunding the police. Those who support defunding the police do not speak for us."

Then, take it from there and use the "official ruling" to explain to the audience what our position really is.