Tag: david brooks

Reading Ourselves to Life

Posted on July 10, 2010

This is a follow-up from my previous post “We are Entertaining Ourselves to Death”

If immersion in a media-saturated world fosters numbness and detachment, what would it look like to re-engage the literary world? David Brooks offers some insight comments. He notes that the hierarchy of literature (beach books at bottom and classics at the top) creates a scale for personal growth in wisdom and learning.

The Internet-versus-books debate is conducted on the supposition that the medium is the message. But sometimes the medium is just the medium. What matters is the way people think about themselves while engaged in the two activities. A person who becomes a citizen of the literary world enters a hierarchical universe. There are classic works of literature at the top and beach reading at the bottom.

A person enters this world as a novice, and slowly studies the works of great writers and scholars. Readers immerse themselves in deep, alternative worlds and hope to gain some lasting wisdom. Respect is paid to the writers who transmit that wisdom.

The internet, on the other hand, is radically egalitarian. There is no hierarchy.

A citizen of the Internet has a very different experience. The Internet smashes hierarchy and is not marked by deference…Internet culture is egalitarian. The young are more accomplished than the old. The new media is supposedly savvier than the old media. The dominant activity is free-wheeling, disrespectful, antiauthority disputation.

But the literary world is still better at helping you become cultivated, mastering significant things of lasting import. To learn these sorts of things, you have to defer to greater minds than your own. You have to take the time to immerse yourself in a great writer’s world. You have to respect the authority of the teacher.

On My Desk…

Posted on December 29, 2009

Here are a few things on my desk:

  • New Issue of Critique – this fine, free publication, edited by Denis Haack, Director of Ransom Ministries, promotes spiritual discernment on cultural issues. This issue contains a nice editorial by Haack on the brokenness of everything, and the hope of restoration of all things, “Heaven working backwards” (Lewis). The book review on Hidden Worldviews piqued my interest, and the review of The Road by McCarthy includes some good discussion questions (see my review).
  • “The Protocol Society” – this Op-ed piece by David Brooks is intriguing. He compares and contrasts the protocol economy with the “physical stuff” economy. Protocols are “sets of instructions”, that our technological world relies upon, from binary code to suped up automobiles. But protocol isn’t merely technological; it is economical. It drives the production of new drugs. The up front cost is in coming up with the right pill, but the cost of reproduction of that right pill is minimal. The protocol is what was costly. Physical stuff is subject to scarcity, whereas protocol isn’t.  New ideas are spread quickly and easily, pushing the economy in a decidedly intellectual direction. A lot of this isn’t new. Sounds like old observation of our economic shift from “skilled worker” to “knowledge worker” (compare Detroit to Austin), but with a nuance of protocol. It’s a certain type of knowledge that seems to be driving our economy.  Where will that leave us, open and unguarded or flourishing and advanced?
  • It Might Get Loud – DVD that traces the careers of guitarists Jack White, the Edge, and Jimmy Page. So far, so good. On a side note, starting this year I am taking a discipline a year and trying to read deeply. Art, and music in particular, is my focus for 2010. Feel free to drop some recommendations in the comments.
  • Contact: Who is Jesus – the quarterly publication of Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, with some insightful contributions from Sean McDonough and Alvin Padilla.

…and now they are off my desk!

David Brooks on Bailout Plan

Posted on September 30, 2008

David Brooks with a scathing critique of both Democrats and Republicans regarding the failure of theBailout Bill.

And let us recognize above all the 228 who voted no — the authors of this revolt of the nihilists. They showed the world how much they detest their own leaders and the collected expertise of the Treasury and Fed. They did the momentarily popular thing, and if the country slides into a deep recession, they will have the time and leisure to watch public opinion shift against them.

He underscores the foolishness of revolting against this bill given the financial crisis. Markets have continued to tumble under the unnecessarily prolonged economic uncertainty. In the face of wobbly leadership and House nihilsts, Brooks calls for stabilizing authority:

What we need in this situation is authority. Not heavy-handed government regulation, but the steady and powerful hand of some public institutions that can guard against the corrupting influences of sloppy money and then prevent destructive contagions when the credit dries up.

The Congressional plan was nobody’s darling, but it was an effort to assert some authority. It was an effort to alter the psychology of the markets. People don’t trust the banks; the bankers don’t trust each other. It was an effort to address the crisis of authority in Washington. At least it might have stabilized the situation so fundamental reforms of the world’s financial architecture could be undertaken later.

A wise and eloquent word.