The arrogant stupidity of David Brooks
Tom Tomorrow reminded me of David “Bobo” Brooks, the world’s most
annoying stupid columnist. Just as dumb and willfully ignorant, he lacks the profound kookiness and hence entertainment value of your true wingnut, having adoppted a persona that is part third rate Seinfeldian comedian, part bemused
sociology professor. He shot to fame through his “observations” of everyday American life, categorising people based on
their consuming habits. He affects the habits of a scholar, but is too lazy to do more than repeat the superficial impressions of the standup comedian: “red staters like NASCAR, but blue staters don’t. What’s up with that?”
Now that sort of observational comedy is quite justified in standup, though it can get old fast, but in allegedly serious
articles that supposedly take the pulse of the nation it’s out of place. Especially when these observations are more false than right, as Sasha Issenberg showed. Once she had proved many of Brooks’ observations are wrong, she went to the trouble of interviewing him about this. It is there where
Bobo Brooks shos how arrogantly stupid he really is:
Satire has its purpose, but assuming it?s on the mark, Brooks should be able to adduce real-world examples that are true. I asked him how I was supposed to tell what was comedy and what was sociology. “Generally, I rely on intelligent readers to know?and I think that at the Atlantic Monthly, every intelligent reader can tell what the difference is,” he replied. “I tried to describe the mainstream of Montgomery County and the mainstream of Franklin County. They?re both diverse places, and any generalization is going to have exceptions. But I was trying to capture the difference between the two places,” he said. “You?ve obviously come at this from a perspective. I don?t think if you went to the two places you wouldn?t detect a cultural difference.”
I asked him about Blue America as a bastion of illegal immigrants. “This is dishonest research. You?re not approaching the piece in the spirit of an honest reporter,” he said. “Is this how you?re going to start your career? I mean, really, doing this sort of piece? I used to do ?em, I know ?em, how one starts, but it?s just something you?ll mature beyond.”
Yes, he really does think it’s “dishonest research” to check whether or not his claim that Blue states have more illegal migrants than Red states!
But really, all this is so much nitpicking compared to his greatest fallacy, his assumption that a) there are such things
as Red and Blue states and b) that they differ hugely from each other. But look at the map of voter results by district and you’ll find most states are purple rather than Red or Blue…
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