re: NYT's David Brooks reaches unprecedented levels of woke in his Op-Ed

i'm gonna take this in a slightly new angle

did David Brooks just turn Alt-Lite?

one of the main arguments of the Alt-Lite (and Right) is that culture matters and certain cultural traits lead to more optimal outcomes

David Brooks just wrote a huge piece that pretty much argues "culture matters" and that certain cultural traits lead to...more optimal outcomes

the only real non-culture argument he made was about zoning, which is a liberal-progressive policy...that he's criticizing. so even that fits (to an extent)

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Most of those commenting in this thread know dang well that "culture matters," but now even David Brooks seems to recognize that it is so.

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well like i said in my first post

they admit it...only to criticize it. it's just like "nuclear family privilege". basically all the data points out that having a nuclear family is more optimal and leads to much better results for children. since this (a) flies in the face of progressive ortodoxy that promotes/defends the more optimal behaviors and (b) would assign blame to those who choose the sub-optimal path for the outcomes of their progeny, they attack the superior behavior as "privilege"

just like this article. he's arguing "well better culture leads to better outcome, but that means that we shouldn't support/proliferate the culture and you're bad people for caring about your children and taking steps to ensure they have a more likely positive outcome." progs like this admit there are distinct cultures AND that one culture leads to better outcomes, but they have to use mental gymnastics to describe the differences in terms of exclusion.

now this argument can work with factors that are not malleable, like race or sex (sorry gender). if a culture/society is legitimately racist or sexist, then we can exclude people for things they literally cannot control. however, when we talk about culture, it's 100% adoptable by anyone so this argument is completely misguided. as i pointed out earlier, even the "ingredient/food" class signaling is a non-issue because of cell phones. information is more available and cheaper than ever, so you can't even make the "information proliferation" argument.

basically this is like gentrification. they want an impossible system. they want to defend/support lower class culture as some sort of ideal while expecting the results of non-lower class culture. the last thing progs want to do is admit that the culture they've helped establish and continue to defend is a major reason why poor people stay poor. that would make progressives monsters (and possibly racist/classist as frick) AND remove the "boogeyman" of the white, well-off conservative. if they lose the argument that the boogeyman is TAKING from the lower class and the story that "the upper-middle class is achievable if you adopt cultural valuesof the upper-middle class", then progs lose their power, meaning, and purpose

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As usual, Brooks gropes for the fainting couch when confronted with the utterly unremarkable.

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I may hav eto borrow this line.......

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Suddenly I saw her face freeze up as she was confronted with sandwiches named “Padrino” and “Pomodoro” and ingredients like soppressata, capicollo and a striata baguette. I

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I have a college education, am part Italian, come from an upper middle class white family and don't have a clue what the frick these things are.

Liberals have an uncanny ability to make themselves feel intelligent and cultured by going to these places with fancy names for food or other items. I bet the chicken steak quesadilla covered in queso cheese dip taste better than that shite too.

I noticed in San Francisco every common item had the word smart in front of it. For example my hotel had a "smartfridge" stocked with "smart water". Nothing special about it, just a mini fridge with bottled water. But brilliant marketing toward the liberal general smugness and self importance

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did David Brooks just turn Alt-Lite?

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Did you just start reading David Brooks? He's been making these arguments about culture for a while. I used some of his op-eds in my argumentation classes back when I taught. The kids were vicious in tearing apart his arguments.

My only experience with his takes are when he is RT'd by someone ripping on him and when he was the token Debbie Downer during PBS's coverage of the RNC and general election.

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i don't want to confer celebrity status on people who mistake luck and connected networks with brilliance and creativity

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David Brooks and Bret Stephens are compelling examples that meritocracy may be dead. Brooks was great for teaching argumentation, since he makes lots of leaps in 1000 words. My students used to tear him apart.

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capicollo

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it's very similar to prosciutto except it's taken from the neck of the hog and then rolled like pancetta and then cured and air dried where as prosciutto is taken from the ham.

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soppressata

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is a sausage like salami it's every thing that's not fit to be put into something else. they start by boiling the pigs head and then striping it of all potential meat...cheeks, jowls, grind it put it in a casing and cure it.

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striata baguette

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it literally means striated baguette and it's not really a thing all proper baguettes are strait. they're using it to mean stretched but all baguettes would be stretched when formed as opposed to a boule which is round. the restaurant just added striata to be pretentious.