David Brooks’ “High Five Nation” column – the usual historically-ignorant hagiography of an imagined past – has been passed around quite a bit, lately. It’s usually accompanied by some well-meaning agreement with the premise – that the US used to be such a humble country, despite its goodness and strength, and that modern America has just destroyed that.
When you look from today back to 1945, you are looking into a different cultural epoch, across a sort of narcissism line. Humility, the sense that nobody is that different from anybody else, was a large part of the culture then.
But that humility came under attack in the ensuing decades. Self-effacement became identified with conformity and self-repression. A different ethos came to the fore, which the sociologists call “expressive individualism.”
[ . . . ]
Before long, self-exposure and self-love became ways to win shares in the competition for attention. Muhammad Ali would tell all cameras that he was the greatest of all time. Norman Mailer wrote a book called “Advertisements for Myself.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates sees Brooks’ revisionism for the bullshit it is, and injects a fine dose of reality:
Part of this is Brooks critique of the past half-century, or rather half-critique. From Brooks’ perspective, the problem is that Sonia Sotomayor didn’t go to school in 50s or early 60s, not that her chosen school didn’t admit women in the 50s and 60s. Likewise Brooks doesn’t cite the immodesty of George Wallace declaring eternal segregation “in the name of the greatest people to trod this earth,” he cites the immodesty of Muhammad Ali. The response offends Brooks. The conditions that produce the response, less so.
That’s because the conditions are, themselves, built on American immodesty. I’m thinking of the Jack Johnson winning the championship, and modest Americans launching pogroms against their fellow immodest Americans. I’m thinking about Birth of a Nation’s defense of the treason, and a sitting president offering his immodest endorsement. I’m thinking about a country, circa 1850, whose politicians lorded over one of the last slave societies in the known world, and immodestly argued that it was a gift from God.
Brooks’ revisionism is the same practiced by so many today. The right pushes “death panels”, Obama calls it a lie, and Palin says “so much for civility.” Loads of Virginians supported barring fellow Virginians from enjoying the same basic rights they do, and when I openly call that bigotry, I’m shushed (right and left) for being rude. As Ta-Nehisi put it, the response offends them. The conditions that produced it, less so. Speaks volumes, I think.
Mike@Blueweeds
A good read and smart post.
tx2vadem
I would just offer that experience shapes perception. So, the difference in experience of the two men, I think explains how one can see something more clearly. I saw David Brooks interview Gwen Ifill about her book on C-SPAN. That was very telling for me anyway on where he is coming from.
Maybe it’s willful ignorance though. But then again, how many people know that Woodrow Wilson loved Birth of a Nation?
LFS
I’ve never been much of a fan of David Brooks. But let’s see here… where he sees sunshine and goodness, you see darkness and despair. Where he sees reasons to be proud, you see only shame. MB, you are just the opposite side of the same coin.
MB
Thanks, Mike.
And LFS, it’s hardly opposite sides of the same coin. It’s that I (and most folks who have any appreciation for history and honesty) see that there’s (to use your analogy) a coin, and that if you’ve not acknowledged both sides, you’ve done a pretty poor job of describing it. What Brooks does here is somewhat akin to lauding the economic powerhouse that the South was in the early 1800s, without saying anything about that whole slavery thing that made it possible. It’s about lamenting over how much easier life used to be when you were 8, ignoring what your parents did to make that life possible. It’s a destructive revisionism.
LFS
Dude… you and Ta-Nehisi Coates need to quit with the bong hits before sitting down at a keyboard. Did you even read David Brooks column? It is nothing about glossing over the hardships of an oppressed class so as to bask in the glow of mighty achievements. In fact, it is almost the opposite. His column is about the humble nature of Americans on V-J Day and how many people today don’t practice humility — he even called out Joe Wilson for yelling at Obama.
Where did you get this slavery crap? Exactly how you made your contorted leap of logic is beyond me… Actually, it is not since you have in the past insinuated that all Republicans are racist. You seem to have a hard-on for painting all those you do not see as “progressives” as the direct descendants of slave owners striving to return their rule over the black man. The Evil South is a recurring theme in your screeds, but never you mind that even during the height of slavery in this country most Southerners didn’t own slaves, that racist pricks exist in all parts of this country to this day, and the modern KKK is based in Connecticut.
MB
LFS, you’d benefit from more listening, and less hyperventilating, about things you don’t quite understand. But hey, that’s just this toker’s opinion.
LFS
Sorry to ruin your echo chamber, MB. But since you perceive yourself to be one of those intelligent liberals now talking down to somebody who obviously needs schooling evidenced merely by the fact that said person has the audacity to disagree with you, please explain what it is I am not comprehending. If you are of such high intelligence, then it should be no trouble for you to communicate the mental gymnastics you performed with regard to Brook’s article and the distant landing point you pegged.
And yes, I am being strident. I am simply giving it back to you. It is a little stunning that both you and mike@blueeweeds think my comments are over the top. Have you guys read the things you’ve posted?
CG
Humility, the sense that nobody is that different from anybody else, was a large part of the culture then.
What was the leap in logic? Blacks didn’t start coming close to sharing in sense “that nobody is that different from anybody else” until many years later.
One assumes, at best, Brooks forgot a significant portion of America’s population.
(not to mention the women’s movement was going to have a few more issues of their own about equality)
So, what did I miss that makes that conclusion absurd?
We are warm and fuzzy, my brother. Now, sit in the back of the bus. Thanks.
Of course, not to mention Gays were mostly hiding in the closet, and one assumes not sharing in much of a normal life.
yeah, yeah, we’re now griping about another class of people not getting something other people feel they don’t deserve apparently — those without affordable health care.
Just call me a perpetual whiner then.
Still miles to go before we sleep. (apologies to Frost)
So, far, appears to me, I see what side of these issues the losers are on in the long run. No matter what the outcome, I’m not going to the other side.
Sort of a rant, I guess. heh.
MB
Tour de force, CG. BTW, I’ll be in your neck of the woods (god save me) in Nov. Drinks this time. Seriously.