Brooks: Two Good Columns

David Brooks wrote two good columns recently that I want to touch on. Here is a quote from the first one:

A second austerity principle is this: Trim from the old to invest in the young. We should adjust pension promises and reduce the amount of money spent on health care during the last months of life so we can preserve programs for those who are growing and learning the most.

So far, this principle is being trampled. Seniors vote. Taxpayers revolt. Public employees occupy capitol buildings to protect their bargaining power for future benefits negotiations. As a result, seniors are being protected while children are getting pummeled. If you look across the country, you see education financing getting sliced — often in the most thoughtless and destructive ways. The future has no union.”

I think he is absolutely right that it is terrible policy to disinvest in education and our future. Republicans are portraying it as taking money from overpaid and greedy teachers, which we all know is absurd. We can tweak salary and benefits for teachers, but the real cuts that are coming to education are coming to staffing levels.

I will say though that I don't completely agree with his comment to cuts for the old. I think the only humane policy will support both the young and the old. But maybe it is his tone that strikes me more than his actual proposal. Tweaking pension payouts can make sense, and if that is what he is saying, than I can agree. Although I don't know if we can make a dent with the future cuts through tweaking.

Here are quotes from his second column that I liked:

In retrospect, I’d say that Huntington committed the Fundamental Attribution Error. That is, he ascribed to traits qualities that are actually determined by context.

He argued that people in Arab lands are intrinsically not nationalistic. He argued that they do not hunger for pluralism and democracy in the way these things are understood in the West. But it now appears as though they were simply living in circumstances that did not allow that patriotism or those spiritual hungers to come to the surface.

It now appears that people in these nations, like people in all nations, have multiple authentic selves. In some circumstances, one set of identities manifests itself, but when those circumstances change, other equally authentic identities and desires get activated.

[Edit]

In some ways, each of us is like every person on earth; in some ways, each of us is like the members of our culture and group; and, in some ways, each of us is unique. Huntington minimized the power of universal political values and exaggerated the influence of distinct cultural values. It’s easy to see why he did this. He was arguing against global elites who sometimes refuse to acknowledge the power of culture at all.

I like this, and I like that it is coming from a relative conservative. I think many people overplay culture when talking about peoples' demand for democracy (ie China and Confucius, Muslims, etc). But culture plays a role, especially in what form democracy can take. So yes, we are unique, yet shaped by our culture, but also share many things with others in the human race. And all people want freedom and self-rule.