I wish that columnists would spend less time articulating the ideology of bigots and more time advancing the conversation of humanity that should be appealing to young minds on the fence about ethnic diversity.
How does gracious, tolerant, and exemplary humanity live? What is humanism, and why is it the actual heart of all religions and all politics? Why is education essentially based in the humanities, and why is educational excellence the appropriate response to unschooled bigotry?
What are the great answers to the question "Where's your humanity?"
The bigot must face the question.
Pure evil is behind the unexplainable motives behind these killers. No gun laws will cease these tragedies. God, family, and the undeniable spirit of love will conquer hate. Time for our country to look at ourselves in a mirror and make a difference. What can you do to help?
..."each of us contains multitudes"... is a move forward. A more diverse, complex, robust future that is the essence of the American Experiment (USA). Modern biology teaches us diversity ultimately protects us from extinction.
45 and increasingly, the republican party, are benefitting from crying fire in our society. The nra and gun lobby are making $ by providing matches to create fires in our communities. It's a win-win for these dark forces.
2
According to one of Trump’s mentors, Tucker Carlson @ Fox, the idea of white supremacy in America is a lie, a liberal media hoax. I rather would suggest that white supremacy in America began when first native American was murdered by a European colonist.
1
How to fight hate? First, we must remove the purveyors of it. Vote Democratic. The Democrats are certainly divided, and their policy-making clumsy, but there is a sense of inclusion that more closely resembles American ideals.
The GOP has become a well-oiled machine of money-grubbing opportunists who above all value wielding power over others. How quickly and spinelessly they have capitulated to Trump's whims. And how thoroughly the GOP has embraced a Darwinian "rat-race-ist" idea of survival of the whitest and richest. If there is any way to save our country from its worst instincts, it will not come from Republicans.
3
David Brooks has become one of my favorite columnists. A conservative with a soul. Kind of reminds me of the good old days of the GOP.
4
Several states passed laws requiring schools to display the words "In God We Trust".... maybe we pluralists should band together and introduce legislation that requires schools to display "e pluribus unum".
6
2020 presidential election is not about political ideology, it is about good and evil. To live and let live. How fundamental can you get!
3
Thanks David but there is nothing here about fighting hate. This is another example of one group explaining why their approach to life is best. We are looking for a way to convince those that fear so much they are willing to kill and die for it. Some may call that mental illness, but I suspect it is cultural. A way of thinking that is passed down through the generations. If so, it is deeply rooted and complex and must be understood.
I know we are very different than Japan, but in that culture, there is overcrowding and intense gun violence in their video games. But that rarely translates into actual violence. I suspect it's their culture that controls that.
How do we accomplish a cultural shift in this country?
2
Meanwhile, no talk about guns?
1
In 1965 I spent 6 months in Germany as a vital part of my college education. An implicit task that I had was to try to understand how a country with so many magnificent cultural contributions and wonderful people (reinforced by my personal interactions with them during my 6 months) – not all, of course, but innumerable – could have succumbed to the ideology and atrocities of Nazism and also what could be done in Germany and other countries to prevent such an dreadful transition. I returned believing that one hugely important preventive therapy is, as so cogently explicated by Mr. Brooks, is pluralism, in which everyone mixes with everyone else through activities such as school, bowling leagues, PTAs, sports teams, canoe trips, etc. (including across the urban-rural divide, for Steven from Marfa) It is both personally expanding to meet people from so many different walks of life AND difficult to demonize people you have gotten to know and like as individuals, even if you disagree on various aspects of personal belief. I still believe in pluralism, and I am glad that Mr. Brooks highlights its continued importance in this day and age so eloquently. Now the task is to increase commitment to and support for such a crucial ingredient for a healthy American cultural life.
4
In the "I got mine" world every grasshopper needs more ants to get to work, every raider needs a supply, and they both spend their time eliminating the competition. Its time to fund our schools so that each and every student is learning, not reviewing or in study hall...that will give the students who don't know history and math the time to learn enough that they can reason without having to resort to essentialism.
We Pluralists in America have, for years, spoken out about and celebrated our values via one deep and cohesive movement and set of policies or guidelines for expressing these values via norms and government activism; it's called The Democratic Party. Mr. Brooks has an open invitation to join us. It's not that complicated, David.
2
European countries and political parties on both left and right have already accepted the merit and unassailable truth of the President’s position against massive immigration occurring too fast for assimilation and so fast that it understandably threatens the existing culture and status quo. This is also the message of Tucker Carlson, who is bravely sounding the alarm. So, in addition to the shooters, who should we consider as complicit in any immigration-related mass murders? Those who have been warning us and trying every reasonable means of coping with the problem? Or those who for partisan purposes or ignorance continue to be grossly negligent in failing to join in regulating uncontrolled and illegal immigration and who hope to benefit from it?
4
there is a simple word that describes the anti-pluralists in this column: Reactionary.
One other fact to consider as a contributor to the anxiety of reactionaries is the speed at which society and economic uncertainty are changing. Two generations ago people could reasonably predict how their live's would unfold and they could feel secure in the own circumstance. Now, they are just one layoff, one medical condition away from disaster. Naturally, some will look back to different times (MAGA) and want to replicate it. And to some this means making society whiter.
This is the modern look at the problem. The traditional look at the problem is that America has always had an anti people of color faction, i.e. Hilarys's Deplorables.
2
Sorry David, I'm not with you on this one.
All major world events and movements of people in history are rooted in religious expression. It is less about plural-ness, then about religious identity and it's expression. These manifestos are often empty anger or misdirection and not filled with religious purpose.
2
I read a while ago that the Human Genome Project proved that there are not separate races, that humans form one race. I wish more was written about this. The concept of race is apparently a human construct, not a natural one.
2
@CC
The genes responsible for racial differences are a rather insignificant part of the total genetic make-up of a person. It takes very little to change the racial appearance of people through breeding. There are people who have taken genetic tests and have been surprised to find that they have a Chinese great- grandmother!
2
There is no such thing as genes for race. Race is a social concept not a biological or genetic one.
2
@ Susan
We humans are all Homo sapiens. Whether you’re white, black, brown, red; whether you paid Ancestry.com to find out your ancestors were from Kenya or Switzerland -we all belong to the Genus Homo, species sapiens (meaning ‘wise’, a narcissistic moniker if ever there was one). And we Homo sapiens in turn belong in the Order of Primates which includes the chimps, gorillas etc, groups we ‘wise ones’ also treat horridly.
These are taxonomical classifications based originally on perceived shared characteristics and now on genome data. The idea of ‘race’ is sociological or historic not genetic.
1
.
We are not a racist country though a few misguided young-people may write things that suggest -- or could be spun -- otherwise. Look around you, at your communities: all the nations of the world are represented. We tolerate one-another, respect each other, and have built a community and nation together.
Why not try building a better culture -- one that is inclusive, diverse and excellent -- and then encourage all to assimilate to it? But denigrating the past or disrespecting the contributors who brought us to this point in history will not bring a better tomorrow.
What the culture needs is a model for diving deeper into self, to understand "who am I ?" at a level more meaningful than skin-color.
Consider the six-sided, cube model: "bodysoulmindheartselfothers". It's three-dimensional and more nuanced than "body-mind-soul".
3
Guns that enabled the genocide of the Native Americans and won the West and slavery were cornerstones in building the United States, leaving a very problematic legacy.
If the US saw itself clearly, it might better be able to deal with its problems,
The US is exceptional in its ideals that it rarely lives,
and in its riches that its style of capitalism enabled the developed world's most colossal income/wealth inequality.
It is also exceptional in its gun loving violence and its prison population, the highest per capita in the world.
This creates very fertile ground for hate.
And for the election of Trump.
We need to regulate guns, but because of US culture, they will always be available, even the dreadful military style weaponry.
WE CAN DEAL WITH THE VERY UNEQUAL SOCIETY that nurtures hate.
Those immigrants did take jobs by working way more cheaply.
Trade deals offshored good jobs.
Then there is the great recession with Obama too visionless and cowardly to ease the pain of foreclosed homeowners, while he made the banks whole and never jailed a banker.
We need to invest in communities, parents and children.
Start at the root... paid parental leave, free/affordable quality childcare, quality early childhood education for all, quality K-12 education with easily available counseling for all, tuition free continuing public education, job programs to better infrastructure and a more "green" society
These would be a base for a more thriving society,
and less hate.
4
@Lucy Cooke
I agree with your comment on American history. When people ask where America's obsession with guns comes from, I tell them it is a remnant from the conquering of the N. American continent. Just watch any good Western film for a depiction of the unsettled and unsettling times on the frontier. People whose ancestors founded many towns across the country carry a subconscious sense that they must defend for themselves what was taken from Native Peoples. Guns were and still are a way of life.
Our history is short and the past dies a slow death.
1
So was the El Paso terrorist just not educated? Because Texas WAS Mexico. It was the white invasion that squeezed out the Latino population.
10
@QuietPlease
Texas was originally named for the Tejas, a Native American tribe who lived in Texas. The Tejas were a friendly peaceful tribe and were largely wiped out by the Comanches who were driven out of their own lands by US federal troops and came into Texas.
1
Brooks puts lipstick on "thoughts and prayers"
2
Pluralism has very little to do with complexion. The important social vector is behavior.
1
What do you expect from people who fetishize guns and death, drink other people's tears and like to put little children in cages?
Enough said.
5
There has always been rumor that Hitler was part Jewish. And considering the huge American melting pot, we have many bloods in us. Even for those non native born, good chance that they are also mixed breed unless their ancestral cultures were truly isolated, like the Icelanders.
So the battle for the soul of our culture is a myth.
Instead, physicalism is easy to identify and manipulate. Things like: You belong here and not there. They are not like us. It appeals to the weak minds and the dispossessed.
The recent killers were all young people and they are exposed to a lot of bad ideas and fake news. Without consequences. Immediate gratifications. Even today, Texas's John Cornyn chose to poison the well by putting the phrases "left wing," "sen warren" and Dayton's killer together. He is a Congressman, for goodness sake. And Texas just suffered a horrific mass killing! So you tell me, Mr Brooks, what kind of ideology it is?
We learn by example, if the POTUS can incite violence against others, whether they look like us or not, you don't need ideology.
Even if it is an ideological struggle, mature people debate with words, reasons and ideas. Not guns.
Regardless, guns may just be the instrument, like alcohol and drugs, which were not the original problem, it has become the problem. So, debate ideological struggles all you want, let's remove the instrument of destruction first
1
@Bos You say "Even today, Texas's John Cornyn chose to poison the well by putting the phrases "left wing," "sen warren" and Dayton's killer together. He is a Congressman, for goodness sake."
But John Cornyn said "The Dayton killer was a left-winger, but don’t blame Sen. Warren."
Um, its a verified fact that the Dayton killer was a Senator Warren supporter. What are you saying here? Is Senator Warren conservative? Are you saying that Senator Warren is in fact to blame?
"Antipluralism"? Why go to all that semantic effort when you could just say "bigotry"?
3
According to the NYT, which ran the following titles this morning, "The Nihilist in Chief -our president and our mass shooters are connected", "Trump's Racism", "Trump's China Shock", "Trump is a White Nationalist Who Inspires Terrorism", "Trump, Tax Cuts, and Terrorism", and "Jihadis- White Supremacists Aren't So Different" - whew! alot even for the NYT, you combat hate by scapegoating and smearing the president and work for his defeat daily. Simple. Done.
2
Generalities mean nothing when your own president is an agent of hate and xenophobia.
3
Jokers like Brooks and the NYT staff do as much to spread hate as any politician. They accomplish this by constantly playing the corporate piano, tone deaf to the real situation in America vis a vis the flow of all wealth to the few against the needs of the working Middle Class. Their fight against progressivism, their pandering to neoliberal foreverwar and identity politics dreck, sets up the socio-cultural circumstances in which we have freaks acting out with guns, and the tired an worried curling up in a ball.
So go look in the mirror Brooks, take Goldberg and rest of the NYT cadre of overpaid overhyped fake PC journalists with you. Wear "I love Davos" t-shirts, throw yourself a party. I doubt any of you can be in the same room without luxuriating in your own egos and power.
3
@CK
You've got to be kidding! You believe that shooters kill because they don't like liberal politics?!
Shooters kill because they have never found a way to deal with the frustrations of their lives other than to blame and demonize others for their own failures.
2
Mr. Brooks, you talk about bigots as if they are not deeply embedded in the US power structure. Any thoughts on the US president who called Africans shoeless monkies?
3
David Brooks, so well said. To note: The Native Americans, in fact, suffered from the white invaders Anti-Pluralist and racist mind set against Native Americans, not because they, American Indians, did not take the invasion of Europeans seriously enough. If what's left is a "shadow of what once was", it is in fact because of Anti-pluralist people like the shooter and the ideology they believe in. It is this same ideology that allowed for and directed the genocide of the Indians.
David Brooks lives in a white universe and severely underestimates what it takes to fight hatred. The US has a long history of hatred against people of color. To believe that "pluralism" is the answer is just stupid. It is merely a "talking point" and the only way to fight hate is to call it out! He cannot say this because of the backlash he would receive. This is cowardly.
Pure race is a pure fantasy. The current racial classification is a result of millenniums of mixing of genetic materials and geographic adaptation. Genetically, all races are extremely similar. Recent works even show that we have a substantial genetic contribution from Neanderthals. Our genetic differences from other great apes like gorillas are way less than 10%. Why we are not celebrating our near kinship in this tree of life instead of fighting over tiny differences?
3
@Peter
Because being White, living and working with a majority of Whites, makes little difference for a White person but can be a big deal for a person of color who still encounters persons who fear and hate him/her simply because of skin color. How many Whites say race is neutral until they walk into stores, restaurants and neighborhoods filled with a majority of people of color? More than a few people of color get threats, stares, store employees following them and police routinely stopping them.
Sorry, but what a total waste of space at such a critical time. Stop waxing philosophic over terrorists,and spend some time calling out those who incite and enable them. The Dems in the Senate should reconvene in DC now with or without Massacre Mitch to work on sensible gun reform.
2
This summarized the article “Trumpian nationalists, authoritarian populists and Islamic jihadists are different versions of antipluralism”. Great comparison worth taking note.
All of a sudden everyone is an expert on hate.
1
No mention of Trump and the Republican’s role; no mention of the obscene amount of guns in America. No mention of America’s history of genocide of native Americans, slavery, lynchings, bigotry.
Here’s a simpler thought: We fought the Nazis in WWII. Now the Nazis are among us.
2
Please man, you are still doing the academic moralizing! Trump is fomenting this stuff everyday. His fake teleprompter words are a joke. Speak out against him - you are too quiet DB.
4
I realize that this kind of stuff is your gig, but please stop. Many countries participate in this debate, but they do not have easy access to personal weapons of mass destruction so their attrocities are rare. Change the laws and stop electing people who have been bribed by the terrorist organization that is the nra. Then, and only then debate the nature of America.
4
Brooks, you have for too long supported, explained, condoned the racist Republican Party. Too late for you to do a makeover. You are as responsible as anyone else for the destruction of this country.
2
Brooks Column: This is bad that they (Trump, GOP, McConnell) do this. But Democrats are at fault too. And in any case the solution is to respect the crabbed self loathing of the rural a rea and follow a traditional moral and spiritual path which I am among the few that can see.
2
I wonder, David, how many different cultures have you been immersed in? Not read about, not “little“ whatevers in which you have dined, but cultures in which you have been actually immersed.
Because I can easily list 10 or so cultures in which I have been actually immersed. And a good number of them I would not like to have a significant influence on my culture.
The nonsense that “diversity makes us stronger” ignores the fact that some cultures succeed and some do not.
Care to live in Chad? Or would you prefer France?
Make a choice- and is it race that makes the difference, or culture? I think it’s culture. But it seems that lately, we can’t admit that there are more and less successful cultures. Cultures all must have equal value.
Sad.
And unrealistic.
3
@Objectively Subjective
What is your definition of cultural success? A chicken in every pot, or a McDonald's on every corner?
1
@Objectively Subjective
I had the great experience of recently enjoying ice cream in a ice cream parlor with my friends who are African American, White and Hispanic. We were seated next to several tables of Chinese Americans, Muslim Americans, Hispanic Americans and White Americans. Everyone was having a good time. No conflict. No ugly words like “Go back where you come from” etc. Just diverse groups living in peace. Pluralism can work very well in our country.
3
Guns that enabled the genocide of the Native Americans and won the West and slavery were cornerstones in building the United States, leaving a very problematic legacy.
If the US saw itself clearly, it might better be able to deal with its problems.
The US is exceptional in its ideals, that it only occasionally lives
It is is exceptional in its its riches that, with its style of capitalism, the US has the developed world's most colossal income/wealth inequality.
It is also exceptional in its gun loving violence and its prison population, the highest per capita in the world.
This creates very fertile ground for hate. And for the election of Trump.
We need to regulate guns, but because of US culture, they will always be available.
We CAN do something about the very unequal society that can nurture hate.
Immigrants did take jobs away from citizens, with their willingness to work for lower wages.
Trade deals offshored good jobs.
Then there is the great recession with Obama too visionless and cowardly to ease the pain of foreclosed homeowners, while he made the banks whole and never jailed a banker.
This left fertile ground for resentment and hate.
We need to invest in communities, parents and children. Start at the root... paid parental leave, quality childcare and education for ALL, tuition free continuing public education, job programs to rebuild infrastructure and a more "green" society
These would be a base for a more thriving society for all,
and, probably, less hate.
1
The only way to realistically fight hate and not be a hypocrite about it is to resign from the Republican Party, the party of hate and hate mongering, Trump is but the culmination of decades of hate mongering from Republicans. if you care about America, you can't be a Republican.
45
@Sipa111 Sure, one party rule is the answer.
@Sipa111
While doing whatever is possible to have more consistent background checks and disallowing the most carnage producing weaponry...
The best way to fight hate is at the root.
Forget Trump and the GOP, focus on electing Senator Bernie Sanders whose courage, integrity, vision, bold ideas and his long history of unequivocally, working to better the lives of ALL working people with medicare for all, paid parental leave, free/affordable quality childcare, quality early childhood education for all, quality K-12 education for all with the necessary counselor to student ratio, to optimize student thriving
tuition free continuing public education, and jobs rebuilding infrastructure and "going green".
These programs would go far in creating more thriving communities with less hate.
The Establishment would prefer fund the military and protect their status quo.
Their status quo is more endangered by not building more thriving communities.
Just think of all the money wasted on the drug wars only to increase the amount of drugs and drug deaths.
And the money wasted on the Endless War on Terror that has only created more terrorists and made the US and the world less safe.
We would be wise to deal with root causes.
@James
Republicans have become the party of a racist president. Disagree with Trump’s racism and xenophobia and your out! In sharp contrast, check out the diversity and range of political views within the Democratic nominees In the debates.
1
What if the human eye evolved unable to detect skin color? What if religion never took hold? What if language was the same around the world? What if everyone had enough to eat? What if we had evolved to be absurdly friendly?
How would we know who to hate then? If its roots are intertwined in the concept of 'the other', how do we remove the concept of the other in a pluralistic society?
1
@doc007
Lately, I have only heard Whites talk about how race, ethnicity and culture are barriers to community harmony. Race neutrality is like demanding we ignore the immense diversity of flower colors, shakes and sizes in a community garden.
How about we live out a pluralism whereby the common good out ways the absurd individual right to bear arms of mass destruction? Banning and confiscating assault weapons would immediately give us the most bang for the buck in lessening injury, death, and terrorism. This requires a full out assault on pro-gun Politicians and the Gun Lobby who stand in the way. Let's take aim at Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans.
4
What Brooks doesn't deal with is WHY this purity mania, this fear or hatred of pluralism, is largely a male pre-occupation. As a woman who is pluralistic, I rarely if ever hear another woman find it a problem.
5
David Brooks has been swimming right along with the conservatives of this country who have brought us this disaster. I wish he would start one of his articles by saying, "Dear readers, I helped create this mess. I endorsed many of the candidates and ideas that created this mess. I was wrong. I am sorry. p.s. I am nevertheless happy with the composition of the Supreme Court. Love, David"
5
"Pluralists believe in integration, not separation." Then America is not a pluralist nation.
3
As those Romans were wont to say, sub sole nihil novi est.
So let's cut to the chase, weed out all the "socio-babble," and get down to brass tacks here. There's little or nothing novel in what these self-styled "white nationalists" proclaim. On the contrary, they're merely spewing out recycled, albeit gussied up, scientific racist debris of the Gilded Age/Belle Epoque.
To disabuse skeptics of critical taunts or guffaws, I offer a pair of "white nationalist" screeds, penned by most worthy scions of "those born to govern" in this country, and published at the dawn of the last century, to wit:
"The passing of the great race," by Madison Grant, published in 1916; and
"The rising tide of color against white world supremacy," by [Theodore] Lothrop Stoddard, published in 1920.
Simply put - Bigotry and Racism has no place in America. And neither does Trump. To call him an election mistake is to say the obvious. Let us undo it.
3
Thank you Mr Brooks. I value your reflections. Many of us wonder and worry about these grave, fundamental, and polar-opposite distinctions between what people come to fervently believe. History can show how injustice and violence flow inevitably from irreconcilable beliefs. History holds no clue for even worse outcomes, which have never yet occurred, though we can now vividly imagine them. Can we yet devise any escape?
We all construct, as best we can, some way to escape our worst fears. Our answers are too often irreconcilable. Our feelings of fear, and our courageous struggles to prevent the worst as we see it, are universal. Is this enough common ground to start with?
As always , I like your articles and agreed with your points on it. Just want to add to make you think and to give you a homework on how to start to fight it. Which bureaucrat on our government decided years ago that it is not racist to allow employers to ask everyone for their race or ethnicity background just because you want to have statistics. (see how data (behavioral) has being use to manipulate society on democracy processes and marketing). Same way that is illegal to ask for your religious believes this kind of "square" questions should be abolish. what do you think?
While I am certain, Mr. Brooks, that you are not personally a racist, I have always contended that the basis for conservative politics in America since Goldwater and especially Nixon, is racism. I do not need to go into the Southern strategy used be every republican presidential candidate since Nixon, is straight racism. Virtually all the policies espoused by the right in this country have a negative impact on minorities. To the extent that you have endorsed many of these politicians and policies, you too are complicit in American racism and you moralizing does not remove your guilt in this association. Some things are more important in politics than economics.
4
I live David Brooks, and I believe he means well and is genuine about returning to the heart. But ...
I wish he'd work a bit on getting his religious buddies to read the Gospels and reframe their religion based on true spirituality instead of an eye for an eye. Get them to stop casting first stones, being whited sepulchers, moneychanging in the temple, crossing the road while the good Samaritan stays to help, etc. etc.
If the new testament is out of reach, try Isaiah.
True spirituality doesn't condemn and assert, it listens and tries to understand and act for the common good.
This is not apparent in much of the remaining Republican party in power, with their heavy-handed minority rule.
1
@Susan Anderson
sorry about the typo, "like" David Brooks.
1
Brooks badly misunderstands the meaning and implications of pluralism. It has nothing to do with "fluidity," "interdependence," or "integration."
Pluralism is the doctrine that equally valid values may be irreconcilable, leading to conflicts that cannot be reconciled. There are various theories about why values are plural. One is that values are relative, perhaps because values are subjective or irrational, perhaps because their validity is relative to particular contexts.
If values are plural because they are subjective, it's difficult to reconcile pluralism with liberalism, which is committed to certain universal values and rights. It's also difficult to see how pluralists could have a rational discussion about their differences and how to live with them, since all they can say about them comes down to statements of the form "You like X, I prefer Y, that's all there is to say."
Pluralism is an essentially tragic view of the human condition. It's the idea that in some cases, for one value to flourish, another must wither, and which is which is not likely to be determined by rational discussion. It lends no support to Brooks's Pollyannish view that we can resolve our differences by the ad hoc creation of a new "us."
1
I beg to differ with you about how people "see the world," in THIS county. Here, the Latino sees the world as white. The black person sees it as white. The Asian, white. That has been the overwhelming tenor and message of our country, as we can't quite manage to be the welcoming mixing pot we claim to be. We TALK, but we don't WALK. We, white people, have been delusional since our founding. We have denied our true history. Now that our majority is threatened, many have turned to violence, and terror, to try to reinforce that waning majority.
78
@ChesBay "A white sees the world as a white and a Latino sees it as a Latino." As a white, not white. I read this differently. I view the world through a particular lens as a white person, a Latino through the particular lens of a Latino. That informs what I think of it. I don't believe the author means to imply that there isn't prejudice or impediments in the world of non whites.
3
@ChesBay
Race and ethnicity is far more complex than this. There was a time when Italians and Irish were not seen as "white" or "real Americans". Our definition of "white" is constantly evolving. What it does have in common is that when one becomes "white", you get distinct advantages at birth and in life.
The groups that are always left out are Blacks, who are emeshed in the Southern caste system (and walled in the North class system), Latinos (Who have always had strong regional identity in the Southwest), and Native Americans (Who, as the original inhabitants, had their land taken and strive to retain both their land and culture).
But it gets even more complex. Within this country there are strong regional cultures that act differently to different "races" and ethnic groups even if they are predominately "white". The American South is not California, which is not Minnesota, which is not Massachusetts which is not West Virginia.
We live in a modern Roman Empire more than a true nation state. As the predominant "white" culture dissolves, we have yet to see what will take it's place. The Roman Empire evolved in the Byzantine Empire, which used Christinity to enforce both unwritten and legal forms of action. We will see what comes next....
2
"The most important thing you can know about a person is his or her race."
Is this your opinion? Because I'm not sure that's true. I think gender is up there. and what people consider 'most important' is likely culturally informed as well.
1
Good to know. In the meantime, banning assault-style weapons and high capacity magazines for semi-automatic weapons might also help.
6
I admire Mr. Brooks's thinking greatly, but here I'm afraid he's drifting off into mysticism.
'Thirty years ago, rivalries were developing between blacks and Hispanics, and so the category “people of color” was used to create a wider “us.”'
Come on, David. Labels are not magic. Categories like "people of color" don't bring people together, and aren't created to do so. They describe people who have some relationship with each other; else the label wouldn't be needed. And in America, when it's healthy, groups that have some relationship with each other tend to come together.
3
I agree Mr. Brooks, why cant people just get along ?
Problem solved !
2
Good focus here - pluralism. We migrated out of the heart of Africa, lived millions of years in various parts on the globe and diversified through diets, lifestyles, climate and languages. For my Christianity - St. Paul summed it all up as One Spirit and many gifts. Christ is all in all. This is who we humans are. To argue otherwise is madness. Thanks David!
2
The weird downside of multi-culturalism (aside from its particular disgust today for western, old, white and male) is that much of what's great about travel is their different identities.
What does it mean to love Italian food, French food, Indian food, Japanese food, Thai food, Chinese food, German food, etc. if those places become fully mixed? Most can imagine what a German looks like, or a Russian, or an African, yet they are all racist imaginations today as those countries already have people of multiple "racial" heritages within them.
And please look to Han supremacy to see it's not just a white or western thing.
1
Identity is an amalgam of multiple facets of each individual without question. In that sense, racial constructions are suspect from square one. Thank you Mr. Brooks for the reminder that the American experiment requires pluralism,
interdependence and continuous negotiation on our path forward. The myriad freedoms we cherish and defend require work, humility, mutual respect and vigilance when confronting extremists, foreign or domestic.
"The Ideology of Hate and How to Fight It"
Well, old chap, when all the smart people with all the wooly philosophy have had their go, and failed, we'll have to fight it the old-fashioned way. Just as half the world was forced to do in the 1940s; after the wooly appeasement brigade failed miserably.
Pretty darned sad that only now are these pundits writing about racism and bigotry coming from the White House. Oh, but that's right; there's probably more money in for them now. Pretty darned sad that they needed how much proof?
Oh, and from the politicians? Mostly crickets as usual, as Americans are slaughtered on the streets by other Americans, just to sustain the lunacy of the gun lobby.
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I'm not a big fan of David Brooks, but I'm glad to see that he's adopted the nonoteriety policy of not referring to mass killers by name.
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Mr. Brooks,
The current ethos of hate, bigotry and violence is a direct consequence of more than three decades of conservative commentators willfully looking the other way with regards to poorly constructed policies as they relate to taxes, immigration, foreign engagement etc.
I clearly remember euphemistic arguments in this same column regarding Trump and his antics. You called it "Lizard Wisdom". Well you now have a venomous Cobra that wants to bite everything in its path.
This spiteful hatred was given wings by Nixon and the patron saint of the GOP - Ronald Reagan - and burnished by indifferent arguments by many conservative commentators many such as yourself, George Will, Bill Kristol and others. While it is true that you are now horrified, and justifiably so, at the monster that you have helped construct, I cannot help but observe that you own this mess.
Please help unreel it. We are counting on you and it is the least you can do for the many potholes you have laid on what once promised to be a cleanly paved road.
And oh by the way - our alma mater, yours and mine - The University of Chicago owns a lot of this mess too via its insane justification of foreign, monetary and fiscal policies wrought forth by various GOP administrations.
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Thank you, Mr. Brooks for this thoughtful piece to help us make some sense out of this latest mass killing.
Rather than bask in the terror of the moment, we need to seek understanding for our 'whys.'
I myself have to wonder if the socio-economic state of the union is a relevant part to it all. How are those who espouse white nationalism doing economically? Socially?
Is there anything we can do to bring these white nationalists into our fold?
To combat the ideology of hate start by working to get every republican defeated in the upcoming elections. Cut off the head and the body withers.
Mr. Brooks has been soft-peddling republican ideology for years on these pages and bears some of the responsibility.
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Thank you, sir, once again. I especially appreciate your suggestion that we "name what the terrorists hate about us, and live it out."
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A plutocratic state will not help. Eventually the people storm the palace.
I see more Confederate flags in Oregon than I did in Mississippi or Louisiana. This may be due to Oregon's lack of diversity.
“Eighty years ago, Protestants, Catholics, and Jews did not get along, so a new category was created, Judeo-Christian, which brought formerly feuding people into a new “us.” —
Two observations: First, it’s unfair to place Protestants, Catholics, and Jews on the same footing in this description. Jewish discrimination against Christians was and has been virtually nonexistent, whereas antisemitism plagues us even unto this enlightened day. Catholics endured discrimination at the hands of Protestants for at least a century of US history.
Second, “Judeo-Christian”, in actual parlance is not genuinely inclusive. Often it is used in ways that presume that Judaism is a diluted form of Christianity - Christianity without Jesus, for example. But there are bigger differences. Jews do not believe there is Original Sin; they interpret various Bible passages differently (e.g., what Christians call “the Sacrifice of Isaac” is usually interpreted straightforwardly as God testing Abraham’s fealty), and even the contents of the Hebrew Bible differ from the Christian Old Testament). Taken to an extreme, “Judeo-Christian” is a kinder & gentler form of Supercessionism.
Instead of giving us all a lecture on pluralism which Fox News right now is decrying as the actual reason we're having mass shootings (too much diversity) perhaps you could write an open letter to the GOP. Yes David the party that you vote for, root for and are a champion for. The party whose leaders refuse to even do an interview after these terrible tragedies. The party that took 99% of all NRA lobbying money. The party that talks about mental illness and video games each and every single time this happens and yet does zero to combat either of them. The party that has a president who laughs about shooting immigrants at his rallies (you know the guy David because you've ascribed to him a certain genius in your more doting columns).
You are one of their enablers as sure as Kellyanne Conway is one of Trumps. Your column indicates you see the problem but what you fail to see or address is that it's only coming from your party. Until that happens all these words have as much meaning as the monotone delivery of remarks given by the president - it's just noise.
I usually give Krugman the gold star. This, however, is a very strong piece. Gold star to Mr. Brooks.
Just when I think he's past his prime he redeems himself.
I wonder if Mr. Brooks thought writing a column on this subject without mentioning "Donald Trump" would be a cute literary exercise. Utterly inadequate to the moment, Mr. Brooks.
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How about welding shut the magazine well of military style weapons and turning them into single shot weapons that could be loaded one shot at a time through the ejection port?
After the shot the bolt would be held back, the round inserted and the bolt released for the next shot. Good hunters only need one shot. Not 600 a minute.
Or use a bolt action rifle to hunt.
In the mean time everyone in the Walmart, Theater, School, Public Street and everywhere
Vietnam Vet
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The thing is, David, hate sells. Murdoch is a billionaire from selling hate. 'Hate for profit', as Elizabeth Warren points out. And if it sells, it's good. Because this is America and unfettered capitalism rules which means if it sells it's good. And hate sells. Ergo . . .
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I agree that the way forward is away from essentialism, and it's extremely disturbing what's happening on the right.
I'm wondering, though, if people could also address the way the left is very often subscribing to a certain degree of essentialism.
- 23andMe's "genetic playlist" Spotify partnership that makes music suggestions based on your nationality. Really? When I found out I was Jewish, the results also included a hamentaschen recipe.
This is the quite literal definition of essentialism (and also wildly inaccurate - hamentaschen are not my favorite cookie, which just goes to show that essentialism is not based in actual truth, as we know). And yet 23andMe has been embraced by the left and enjoys massive popularity.
I agree with much of the appropriation debate; I believe groups, as well as individuals, deserve credit for their contributions to the world. And it is awful and disturbing that minority groups are often ignored while the same product can be packaged and sold by majority populations, and get a completely different result.
That said, I, too, have a hard time seeing how the concept of cultural gatekeeping can exist without invoking a certain racial/nationalist essentialism. If we're told what culture *isn't* ours, necessarily, by definition, the takeaway is that another culture *is* ours.
To paraphrase Bari Weiss, "does this mean I have to spend the evening cordoned on the Upper West Side watching “Yentl” and eating gefilte fish" ?
1
What if Rosenstein is right?
Mass shooters always pick the most defenseless of "soft" targets." There is typically an effort to package the carnage as a hate crusade but they don't seem to expect to avoid capture and live to fight again. It seems more like a death wish: suicide scripted to end in what they hope will be a blaze of infamy.
Mass shooters,heavy drug users and individuals in our Federal Government know the likely consequences of their actions (or inactions) and proceed anyway, usually suggesting "Ideology" as a motive when actually it's not.
TV feeds the problem by hopping on the "Ideology" angle because it sounds so darn smart. Like "The Base," "Domestic Terrorism," "Hate," "Supremacy," "Manifesto" and so on. Look inside and it seems more like loneliness and alienation in the case of individuals and swamp politics in Washington.
As good citizens we need to demand better government. More must be done to choke off supplies used in these mischiefs. Perhaps more important we need
get better at SEEING and SAYING (and CARING).
Dem candidates should campaign for good bipartisan government rather than picking fights about social programs. Meaningful progress probably requires lots of effective aisle crossing. Amy Klobuchar seems to understand and has had some practice.
My wish, indeed my continuing passion, would be not to point the finger in judgment but to part the curtain, that invisible shadow that falls between people, the veil of indifference to each other’s presence, each other’s wonder, each other’s human plight. Eudora Welty
Later I read her David’s column and his sweeping big ideas that attempt to get us the see at the meta level the vastness of the challenges we face today.
Today was the 2nd day in reading Brooks that I’ve begun to read reactions to his ideas .. I’m struck by the often niggling responses- David I got you on this one. My big take away from The Second Mountain is moving to a more egoless and less wants to be right world of relationality. I think Welty was intimating a ground for the healthy pluralism our world needs. Call it compassion for self and other. I wonder how reactions would sound if they were written in the Welty spirit? Perhaps the nature of discourse in reaction to Brooks is a reflection of the deep internal work needed as we heal.
The struggle for competing values will hopefully always be there, as you noted David, this is what makes a culture dynamic. Guns, however, are a whole other issue. We must remove the weapons that allow not only anti-pluralists with a death wish to kill the rest of us but also every angry or deranged person in our society whether they are pluralists or anti pluralists. Guns were designed to kill. They need to be removed from civilized society. You chose to cite the mass shooter in New Zealand, but what you did not speak to was New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who acted swiftly to restrict the sales and ownership of numerous types of guns. Unlike our own leadership here in the US that has failed us miserably just to keep pocketing checks from the NRA. Time to dump trump and his Republicans. We can make a great start in 2020. We will see how many more will die at the hands of a gunman between now and then.
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Well done David Brooks. Just one thought on cultural pluralism. What kind of economic policies foster pluralism? Or to be more specific, do conservative or liberal economic policies create social contexts for a vibrant cultural pluralism? I wish Brooks would trickle this.
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One big oversight the author has made, where antipluralism refers to the exclusion of others based upon race, Trumpian nationalists is based upon the exclusion of those who break the law or reject the protection the Constitution offers, which again is denial of the law. Trumpian nationalists embraces all, regardless of race, religion, sexual preference or political affiliation. Trumpian nationalists does attack those who refuse to recognize that the voting process has spoken. There is nothing wrong with nationalism, in fact it's healthy. The same way one will protect their family and are strongly committed to defending the family unit and home is a smaller example of the same thing. Nationalism recognizes that there are not enough resources at home to save the world, however, when nurtured and developed, the home land becomes stronger and more able to assist those in other counties in need. The USA has been the most giving, charitable nation in the history of the world. Case and point.
Nice article. Before 9/11 I believed that the WWW will unite the world. Afterall we are all earthlings and the real threat maybe out there is space. Unfortunately the time of global unity is not yet here, and it looks like evolution and Darwinean style survival of the fittest prevails. Pluralism and globalism are still utopic fantasies in todays world. As long as this is the reality, we American's have to protect our national identity and the Western culture we cherish. It cant' be taken for granted.
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I can see the Neanderthals now, sitting around their campfire, worrying about how to push Homo sapiens back out of Europe. For all of the comments complaining about Mr. Brooks recent columns with great ideas about how we can all get along if we look for the best in each other and work together, and compare that to his past work for the Republicans, he is providing a very valuable service. He's giving cover, a rational that allows those hard core Republicans to vote for a Democrat next fall and deliver us from trump.
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@david
No, there was no comparison, I was just thinking of a group that might have wished things had turned out better for them. I could have said the Aztecs or the Inca, or our own indigenous peoples. Things aren't working out well for lots of trump voters, farmers in particular. Mr. Brooks is providing an excuse to get off of the bus for those who aren't locked into that nativist ideology but who were somehow convinced to vote for trump and would like to not do so again but need a little cover.
Contrary to the "manifesto," racial mixing increases genetic diversity: many descendants show "hybrid vigor." The phenomenon is well known by science and extensively used in agricultural plant and animal breeding. The author's ideology cannot reverse the principle.
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Brooks endlessly demonized Clinton during the 2015-2016 primary season and still has not acknowledged his role in trumps election. His new-found spirituality is hollow without some compunction of his past complicity with the GOP.
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"They are inspired to kill by a shared ideology, an ideology that they hope to spread through a wave of terror."
"Ideology" gives it too much credit.
It is excuses. It is a rant. It is nuts. It makes no sense when examined, except to a loon who wants it to make sense.
It is an important distinction. You can't argue against something that never did make any sense, and is spouted by people who don't care that it makes no sense.
It is pure emotion. The emotion is a mix of insecurities, blaming of others, and resulting hates. They are carried along by the rush of their emotions, not any "thinking."
Realizing that, we need to deal with those emotions. I don't mean pander to them. It is more tough love, as with an addict. However, those things start with insight into the emotions, and calculated consideration of how to deal with such emotions.
Let me give an example of such dealing with emotions. A cop I know wrote his report of a DUI stop. The driver refused to get out of the car. The cop just stepped back and told him, "I'll count to three, and then this gets worse." He counted out loud. The drunk reconsidered after "2."
I used that on my kids. They hated it. It worked. My daughter still tells me she remembers "counting" and she hated it. But we avoided a lot of confrontation when she was feeling hard-headed.
I won't be so simple, but the underlying idea is to have insight into the emotions raging, and then to deal with those calmly but firmly.
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More I read about the social problems, like hate and inequality, more I feel that Andrew Yang should be our next president.
With his ideas, he is bringing hope to America where big money rules everything , politics included. Personally I know two Trump supporters have been converted to supporting Yang after watching Yang's interviews with the media on youtube.
Yang is what America needs. Yang 2020!
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What a beautiful read. Thank you for inspiring some confidence in this world for me today!
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A pure, static world will always be disrupted by technological advances, and we are the country of technological advances. Other countries bring long pasts with them, which temper and hinder technological advances.
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Yes, the struggle ahead *is* about competing values, about pluralist values v. anti-pluralist values. And that will take time to work through. Lots of time. But right here, right now, nihilistic anti-pluralists are routinely using their AK-47s to slaughter anyone who comes across their sites. Something needs to be done. Now. Our "law makers" must act to end gun violence.
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A number of years back I read an interview with Will Durant, best known for his work The Story of Civilization, 11 volumes written in collaboration with his wife, Ariel Durant. He was asked about the racial and ethnic strife in the U.S. and how he thought the conflicts would be resolved. His response was that two of the most powerful forces in human nature would eventually come to bare - sexual attraction and procreation. Mr. Brooks stats on interracial marriage seems to confirm Mr. Durant's prediction.
I have worked with young people for most of my life. And my own observations over the many decades is that as people of color gained economic justice and more neighborhoods, workplaces and schools became more pluralistic, more young people sought friendships amongst kindred spirits, and ignored the boundaries their parents imagined.
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Here's a serious question. Don't the American people have the fundamental right to choose to not be pluralist, whatever the merits or motives of their choice? It's called self-determination. If pluralism is forced on people, it's actually a form of tyranny, however noble the intentions.
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@david While most anyone may choose to not "be a pluralist", that self-determination does not give the individual opting out the right to resort to violence in an attempt to exterminate the other parties. Life is the most basic human right, regardless of any perception, correctly, or incorrectly, of tyranny.
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@Doug I didn't say anything about violence. But if the country (i.e. the people) decide they want to restrict citizenship to people like themselves and close the borders, it's not the rest of the world's business.
What David Brooks leaves out is the next step: how to integrate the individual into a pluralist world. In particular, how to integrate the immigrant into America?
More and more, it's clear that it's a class thing. The standard accounts pointed to economic problems among the working class - all these mass shooters have been uneducated working class -but the root was a cultural collapse: While the educated and wealthy elites still enjoy strong communities, most blue-collar Americans lack strong communities and institutions that bind them to their neighbors.
And outside of the elites, the central American institution has been religion. That is, it's not the factory closings that have torn us apart; it's the church closings.
Churches, temples and mosques are important not so much for what they believe, but for what they do to foster community. The cathedrals of Europe are mostly empty. It is not surprising that Europeans, despite their extensive social safety nets, have difficulties integrating newcomers.
The fact that America has a much better record of integrating immigrants is largely due to its stronger religious institutions.
Here's the bottom line: "What the last sixty years in America have proved is that for the middle class and the working class, the options are (a) strong religious communities or (b) alienation and collapse."
The Left, to its shame, prefers (b) if the alternative includes anything having to do with (a).
Impermanence and change is evident in all of nature, in both geographic and human evolution. The mixture of what we call “races” has always happened and will continue. Call it pluralism if you need to name it; it’s the way things are. We are all connected, and though we have our differences our human condition is the same.
“Love thy neighbor” are words to live by, as is compassion for all and the knowledge that our different world views are symptoms of our differences in spiritual evolution.
Unfortunately, we do have to deal with the problems of a growing world population and global warming which creates a huge refugee situation. But we have brought that upon ourselves, so let’s do something constructive instead of going to malls and shooting people.
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The column itself is spiral, which must be intentional. Classical xenophobia is meant to be that which evolved from territorial protectionism of tribes in antholopology, I guess. In that sense, essentialism as #1, separationism as #2, racial Darwinism as #3, discussed by Brooks are, in my view, returning to the classic of no number to be their proticole. Race as the premier identity can be the visual recognition of self and similar others alike for making a safe categorical territory, both physical and mental worlds as exclusive. Separationism is the methodology. Racial Darwinism in its term is contradictory to Darwinism if the latter is understood as gene evolutions for survival via natural selections. To make his argument, Brooks intersects biology and sociology. That must be true when the large picture is viewed for a discussion to unfold. However, the massacre is driven by a totally distorted mind with an abominable pretense of having a genuine ideology, which was promoted through certain types of social media within certain users to be audience or peers. I believe one thing the news media can do is to separate mass shootings from theorizations of them, in order to avoid giving any authentication to violent insanities.
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Europe and America: it you want to diminish the violence by people fearful their countries will become something else, then stop the immigration of unassimilable people. And do it now, or else.
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A simpler solution.
Vote out every Republican you can find from every level of government.
Ban all assault rifles, high powered magazines and anything beyond a simple hunting rifle.
The end.
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The Dayton shooter was apparently admired and supported Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. In addition to right wing nuts we also know only too well of left wing nuts who also kill and inspire fanaticism and hate.
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Another serving of milquetoast, compliments of the king of milquetoast commentary. Brooks capacity for pontification is apparently inexhaustible, but inexcusable.
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Those whose livelihoods are based on trade, and intermingling of cultures, will tend to be more pluralistic and open to cultural diversity. Those who survive solely on the back of their own efforts will tend to be more opposed to pluralism. Thus the coasts, and the cities with major international airport hubs, tend to see the value in intermingling whereas monocultural farming communities tend to be conservative in this respect. And if those insular rural communities are constantly under threat, as small town America has been, it is all to easy to blame the pluralists for their plight even though the problem might be more properly laid at the foot of a different party.
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Oh I see. This pluralist bent, or the 'symphony of identities' bit is just a way to invalidate perspectives that forefront particular (read: racial) identities at the expense of others. And I'm not sure any of the analytical distinctions the author makes about essentialism are anything other than a reductive attempt to displace the primacy of race or ethnicity within the context of these shootings. Surprise! White man has difficulty talking about race (shocking!).
And yet, race and ethnicity seem to be at the core of this violence. When will Brooks stop trying to intellectualize this very hollow conservative tradition? And when will this dude stop trying to high rode people of non-white backgrounds about the manner in which they present or internalize their own sense of self?
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One thing David did not do was to expel the myth: we are all of one race, homo sapiens, though I think homo stupidist might be more appropriate. Black brown red or yellow we are all of the same race. Nor only do all white people contain the same DNA as blacks, we are 98% Chimpanzees. It is not racist, it is hate of people different, in a myriad of ways, from color to religion, to birthplace, to gender, etc. etc. The Founders of this nation, faced with the dilemma of Jefferson's equality vs Slavery, said the solution was that blacks were deemed to be subhuman, thus: not equal. And the consequences of that decision haunt us all the way to El Paso. The only way forward is to engage with everyone you come in contact with, no matter how different, with meaningful dialog and without pre-judgements. Not easy sometimes, but certainly necessary. if that doesn't happen, our 250 year old experiment is doomed.
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In this column Brooks did nothing but project his ignorance of the history and sociology of US nativism and his fancy for an "assimilationist" solution to immigration.
Of course the most violent nativist/xenophobic expressions have occurred during times of increased social anxiety and loss of confidence in a prosperous future, but the racist and xenophobic attitudes and beliefs - which Brooks fancies as "essentialism" are present and subdued otherwise.
Brooks promotes a 'consensual' history popular with 19th/early 20th century Anglo-Saxon "intellectuals" minimizes the periodic and historic racism, nativism, xenophobia and jingoism that has erupted in the US almost since it's independence. He writes about the supposed 'pluralism' of 80 years ago BECAUSE only 20 years before that the KKK was revived and spread throughout the South; Midwest and North West; immigration was severely restricted by Congress; and state and local governments passed laws prohibiting immigrants and Jews from working in many occupations.
John Higam's classic history of US nativism - Strangers in the Land - documents the three foci of nativist underbelly - (1) religious prejudice; (2) ethno-cultural/racial prejudice; and (2) anti-radicalism.
These 3 issues are at the center of white nationalist prejudice, as well as the POtuS. Brooks might spend some time reflecting on how his Republican Party addressed these issues PRIOR to Trump and when he was silent.
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The racist "essentialism" expressed by the Christchurch mass murderer is disturbingly similar to the Identity Politics and Intersectional construct pushed by the American Left. Both define virtue in terms of given biological identity, the only difference is which one is understood to be the winner. Extreme multiculturalists who gather within the Intersectional movement see the Ubermenschen as brown or black. Their essentialist racial/ethnic hierarchy is based on the putative historical sense of aggrievement experienced by the "top" groups. Interestingly, both the White Supremacists and the racial essentialists of Intersectionality despise Jews, one more commonality. Our goal, as David Brooks correctly opines, is an ever-expanding inclusiveness, genuine Pluralism. But for that to happen, the essentialist identities worshipped on the Right and the Left must yield to a more powerful sense of a common national belonging. We must be Americans and human beings first -- our other multiplicity of identities (race and ethnicity are only two of hundreds) -- must come second. This isn't about forgetting the need to correct the injustices of the past and the present; it's about recognizing as long as we persist in defining ourselves as WHITE or BROWN or BLACK we will be susceptible to racist charlatans and dangerous demagogues who will weaponize those categories and push us into a war in which all sides will lose. We need to resuscitate the concept of E Pluribus Unum.
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I beg to differ, the problem is to maintain the rule of law. This administration isn’t. All your racist theories are an aside.
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An "ideology of hate?" In that case, haters would hate foreigners who live in their homelands. They don't. When they arrive as immigrants, they are feared for the cultural and economic consequences their arrival is expected to cause or is said already to have caused. They are resented too, especially when illegally in our country. They are also scorned for the inferiority of their culture and religion as well as in extreme cases of their genetic endowment. This mix of fear, resentment, and scorn is hostile and misguided, but it's not simple hatred. I'm afraid the real problem is much deeper than hatred and harder to solve.
As a lifelong pluralist, I have to say, David, you’ve finally struck a note with me.
The terrifying thing about your analysis, though, is that it precisely confirms the parallels culturally between the rise of Nazism in 1930s Germany, and the rise of White Nationalism here in America, in our own time.
The Nazis, too, wanted purification and apartheid. The culmination of that recipe was Auschwitz.
The war between pluralism and antipluralism is also a war between a cosmopolitan, successful urban civilization and the failing, suburban and rural tribal primitivism surrounding it. That kind of conflict goes all the way back to the forces that collapsed Rome, Greek, Aztec, Chinese, Ottoman and Indian civilizations. As the rate of concentration and accumulation increases rapidly within the urban centers, the pressure upon the periphery intensifies an existential, violent terrorism deemed necessary for survival, couched in the language of “return.”
Short term, of course, simply disarming the desperate tribal terrorists is the most immediate and productive solution: gun control. ISIS wouldn’t have been a tenth the threat they were had they not existed in a rich sea of weaponry. So, too, for white nationalists here.
But the longer term involves understanding how to balance the needs of the two cultures so that the usual cycle of history doesn’t just repeat itself, this time perhaps conclusively.
The stakes are high; the thinking must improve to meet it.
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@Steven
A plutocratic state will not help. The people eventually storm the palace.
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@Steven I think you are oversimplifying the demographics. American cities--and Paris, London, Rome, and other big cities--are not simply "cosmopolitan, successful urban" civilizations, and the suburbs and rural areas are not simply failing areas of "primitivism." The El Paso shooter came from Dallas. Trump got lots of support--though not majorities--in American cities in 2016. Bernie Sanders won caucuses and primaries in Wisconsin, for example, and red states, and he did it with rural as well as urban Democrats.
This oversimplification is part of the deep crises we face, and your analysis does not help at all.
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@Steven - This is utter dreck. Trump is symptom of the world wide squeeze the Davos set, the investment class, has put upon the working middle class all over the world. It the people that Brooks likes to rub elbows with at parties that have created the rise in angst that is expressed as extreme action. David Brooks could not know American culture if you dropped him of in Idaho and told him to walk back to NYC. He'd get back and decry the lack of a good $30 filet mignon at truck stops.
The damage to world culture is done by the Ivy League graduates who go populate all the top positions at every large corporation. It is global finance and capitalism that is distressing the working people so that they act out in what these useless pundits label as hate. It's THEM, the Davos Class, that needs to have the power ripped out of their hands and put back into the grip of the working people. Then the culture will be able to afford to relax and it will self right. Pundits like Brooks will be put back into their places as interesting and complete unnecessary writers of fiction.
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Reposting:
Mr. Brooks, you have just described Donald Trump's attitudes and actions as well as that of the GOP in your column. Please explain how it is that you have supported the GOP for so long and why you continue to support them with your backhanded comments about the Democrats.
Trump is merely the most recent manifestation of GOP hatred for the working class (which is most of us). What should have frightened you and others who write in support of the GOP was their decision the day after the 2008 presidential election to make Obama a one term president by any means possible. The disrespect they displayed towards Obama should have given you pause. But it didn't and I will always wonder why.
It's one thing to be prejudiced and know it. It's another thing to spew hatred and deny the effects, particularly if the one spewing it is a public figure. It's hypocritical to keep on pretending that you have not contributed to this hate with your simplistic arguments and sneaky comparisons when you wanted to undermine Obama or any other Democrat. Perhaps you aren't alarmed at the state of our union. Others of us are.
8/5/2019 11:09pm
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Many, if not most, people need something to believe in outside themselves. Unfortunately, that can be radical religious, ethnic, political, or racial “causes”.
The white nationalists, anti fa, jihadists, and more are simply products of that need. They all have the same unfulfilled desires and longings. And innocent bystanders suffer.
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The bad irony is that the antipluralists are pluralists themselves, trying to drag all of us with white skin into their evil orbit, regardless of our religion or what part of Europe our ancestors lived in. Since it looks like they've forgotten about the one-drop rule, they define themselves in pluralistic terms too, except that these are evil ones.
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These “people” have always been there. Trump just turned over the rock and legitimized their existence. Now that they’re out, they ain’t going back under. Trump has bragged about having the police, the military and Trump bikers with him. Add to that white nationalist, neo-Nazi, and white separatist groups and in 455 days we may have a problem. He has packed the courts and contaminated the DOJ. Tin horn dictator 101. It just might come down to the side with the most 2nd Amendment punch. So, where do the generals stand?
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All of Europe is in the same situation as America. On the one hand are its values, on the other its fears. Fears of immigrants who cannot be assimilated for a variety of reasons. The first step may seem weird, but the first step must be to reassure those worried about the wrong immigration that their concerns are legitimate. Immigration has been let to exist without restrictions. The whole of Africa and the Middle East cannot settle in Europe. The whole of Latin America cannot settle in the United States. The first step: do something to curb immigration, no matter how unpleasant the task may seem. The alternative is more unpleasant.
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Call me mad in my old age, but after watching the Republican Party since the advent of Saint Reagan, I have come to the conclusion that it is not a political party. It is an evil. Its God is money. Its agenda is to keep the masses in constant turmoil, conflict, and even all out war among themselves, while they continue stealing the wealth of the nation and fly over us in the comfort of their private jets to their private islands in the Bahamas.
From the days of swamping the poor neighborhoods with drugs, and lately other poor neighborhoods with opioids, to the policy of keeping the masses uneducated by destroying our public education system, they have now graduated to the acceptance of violence in the guise of white identity vs. all others to distract, confuse, scare, and keep the masses in constant turmoil so that they can continue to get rich, more rich, and obscenely rich.
This is why they will never do anything about the hate speech spewing from the Fox News et-al, the control of weapons of war in the hands of anyone who wants one, or, God forbid, doing any thing that could be implied to mean criticism of this so-called president who is just a useful idiot carrying out their agenda.
They are a scourge on the nation. They need to be voted out, massively, and to borrow a phrase from their latest version of sainthood in the White House, sent back to wherever they came from.
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Thank you.
2
"I am against race mixing because it destroys genetic diversity"
I guess he must have flunked biology class.
8
Very circumspect and exceptionally well stated. It is a shame that more people just don't seem to get it. The only constant is change.
1
Ethnocentric ideologies do not arise in a vacuum. They grow as a reaction to economic hyper-competition and flourish in the soil of manufactured scarcity. The solution is to regulate markets so that they serve society, create a less cutthroat winner-take-all economy, reduce inequality, and reinforce the social safety net.
5
Hey, Mr. Pluralist. Maybe your pluralism can extend to leveling the economic playing field as a major component to solving the problem. Maybe your pluralism can extend to providing high quality, affordable healthcare to everybody residing in the United States, when a citizen or not and even whether documented or not. Maybe your pluralism can extend to respecting every woman's right to choose regarding her own body. You aren't there yet, and until you are, your pluralism is only the fact that at takes you many words to say nothing.
5
Pluralism logically implies the existence of people with distinct identities. But if all of the world's peoples moved into one another's countries and intermingled with one another their distinctness would come to an end.
What you present, with flourishes of high-sounding rhetoric, as pluralism is, in fact, a set of policies that must, in time, bring human difference, and therefore the possibility of pluralism, to an end.
But of course these pluralistic change processes, which you present as an inevitable feature of the modern world, are not inevitable at all, since they are occurring only in countries historically inhabited by ethnic Europeans. China, Korea or Japan are part of the modern world but their ancestral inhabitants are not going to become ethnic minorities any time soon. White people soon will be, however, in America and most of western Europe. And when they want to talk about or object to this policy-driven demographic change and its consequences for them or their descendants, instead of fact-based reasonable discussion, they encounter shrieking accusations of wickedness and comparisons with Adolf Hitler.
White people are not the only human beings in the world wuthout a right to defend their own interests. The political conversation must make space for those concerns; otherwise, those who share them will be driven to extremes.
@Robert Bruce
A descendant of Hume no doubt.
Surely you exaggerate. White people will not be a minority any time soon in Scotland or Western Europe, especially if Boris and his friends have their way.
You need to explain what you mean by white people's "own interests."
I would say a large majority of Americans are pluralists. However, the Republican party represents the white supremacists as well as the anti-government people such as the Bundy's who are mostly in the west, the evangelicals who want to break down the wall the between church and state, the extreme economic libertarians funded by the Koch brothers, the anti-abortion movement, and the anti-gun control movement. The white supremacists not only are committing acts of terror but they have a white nationalist as a president and a political party protecting him even those his misdeeds are mounting. The pluralists are facing a formidable coalition and need to unite to prevent the US from being torn apart by extremists on the right.
3
I believe most Americans welcome LEGAL immigrants, but do not want ILLEGAL immigrants. They recognize that the US cannot afford (or choose not) to support our own citizens: the poor, the ill, elderly, disabled, veterans, et al., and that they and other US taxpayers cannot possibly support the hundreds of millions of foreigners who would like to come here.
US laws allow foreigners to seek entry and citizenship. Those who do not follow these laws are in this country illegally and should be detained and deported; this is policy in other countries, too.
The cruelty lies not in limiting legal immigration, or detaining and deporting illegal immigrants, or forcing those who wish to enter the US to wait for processing. What is cruel, unethical and probably illegal is encouraging parents to bring their children on the dangerous trek to US borders and teaching the parents how to game the system to enter the US by falsely claiming asylum, persecution, etc. Indeed, many believe bringing children on such perilous journeys constitutes child abuse.
No other nation has open borders, nor should the US.
18
I agree with David Brooks but I would add one more thing. As a white immigrant who was welcomed to America, my first impression was that the people who helped our family start a new life were exceedingly generous. Much more generous than people in the Netherlands where we came from. That despite the fact that the Dutch are known for tolerance. Then I saw how the same generous people treated African Americans. I was shocked by the hate and rage they openly showed when dealing with or talking about blacks. What I came to believe is that Americans are generous when they feel safe and retreat to hateful tribalism when they become afraid. I think the current rise of xenophobia is the result of both real and imagined threats to their economic security felt by many in this country. Otherwise generous people are turning toward tribalism and a fringe group is turning to violence. The real evil in all of this is that Trump and the Republican party are actively fueling the fear and hate for their own political gain. As an immigrant I am firmly in the group David calls the pluralists. Because I had to learn to adapt to a new society, I came to understand and appreciate differences among people as a collective strength. The question is how can we explain to those who retreat to tribalism out of fear that hatred inevitably leads to violence and makes people less safe. I think the first step is to cut off the oxygen for hate by voting those who use it for gain out of public office.
5
America was not built on unity or diversity. It was built upon unity and diversity.
Republicans fear diversity without the unity. Democrats fear unity without diversity.
We can have both. We need both. It is faith, love, and hope that make unity and diversity possible. It is fear and hatred that destroy nations and peoples.
Where are you ministers of the Gospel when we need you to speak up?
2
I haven't had time to read all responses, so perhaps this thought has come up already. When will the scientific community make it plain and simple that there are no races. There are evolutionary reasons for skin color, face shape, body shape. So simple. Why is it so hard for that "race" thing to be forever gone?
1
Are you really conflicted, or just posturing? On one hand you back technocracy and vulture capitalists set on capturing the material world and all its riches. And lately on the other hand you seem almost other-wordly as if you've been on retreat.
It's hard to picture you fighting climate change or championing non-violence in the here and now, but you seem to be softening around the edges.
1
David has outlined the benefits of what he calls “pluralism”, and sets it as the better path than its opposite, which governs the mass-murder mentality. No doubt.
But David has not followed through on the rest of his title for his article, the part about how to fight the grip of anti-pluralism.
The primary enemy of pluralism is not mass-murderers, but those that encourage them with widespread media propaganda, facilitate their access to weapons, and provide political apologists like Trump & company. A diseased deluge of alternative facts and conspiracy scenarios.
2
Every absurd dysfunction in American politics can be traced back to Citizens United and unlimited corporate (read NRA, in this case) power in selecting our representatives. Our system down-selects to deeply flawed individuals who will voluntarily beg for money for a living, and will make absurd decisions that sacrifice a remarkable number of lives to guarantee their own income via gun company campaign donations. If the domestic/private arms sales industry disappeared tomorrow, it would barely move our economic needle, but it would save thousands of lives and about $229B per year in gun violence costs. Thank you SCOTUS.
I believe the only way to reach the GOP gun rights nuts would be to require that they go straight to each mass shooting site immediately and step over the dead, walk thru the blood, severed limbs, and vomit, and maybe, just maybe, the horror of their decisions would sink in.
4
Genetically we are all mutts and as most dog lovers who find their dog in a pound will tell you a mutt with its mixed genes is stronger for it. Dog owners who breed show dogs for specific traits live in a separate world where their dogs are better than everyone else's dogs.
Perhaps some will fight my comparison of humans to dogs, but in the end we are just critters trying to find a place in this world and until we begin to share our space with others and live together humans are poisoned by by our species specific identity politics.
4
@just Robert
I'll take my mutts over most humans any day.
2
Sobering... and mass communication has only tightened the bond of the disaffected.
1
With respect, most haters do not think as deeply as David does in this analysis. They are threatened by anyone they perceive as other not because of a philosophy, but rather their own inadequacies. They resent any successes the other achieves. They need a scapegoat to blame. Demagogues throughout history have used this to galvanize populations against the other to gain and maintain power and Trump is doing the same.
The El Paso shooter complained in his post about an invasion just as Trump does. He and those like him see the world as a zero sum game in which if someone else succeeds it takes something away from them. Ironically, even though he complained about the taking of jobs, he expressed his own lack of motivation to find one. He was content to spend his time at his computer on white supremacist websites getting his hatred validated and having it simmer until it boiled over.
This has nothing to do with profound thinking or psychological damage or mental illness. It is a conscious decision to see the world through the lens of hatred. There is no justification or excuse that mitigates the fact that this is pure evil. Many people live difficult lives. Their response is not to immerse themselves in hatred and kill others.
It is time for Americans to take charge of this and demand that domestic terrorism be criminal as international terrorism is and ban weapons of war and enormous ammunition cartridges used by these shooters. That is a start.
2
I like the way you put this; but how to fight this anti-pluralism? How to convince these "racial purists" that they don't need this stance? That is the $64000000000 question! And the one we need the answer to BEFORE THE NEXT ELECTION.
1
Good opinion piece, but it says nothing about how to fight it, as the title suggests.
1
For me, this is a muddled argument at best. From a biological standpoint, race is a very dubious concept and would certainly not be determined by skin color that can vary from very light to very dark with all shades in between. There is no such animal as a white race or a brown race or a black race or race of any color. At any rate, history shows that lighter-skinned people were not always welcome as immigrants to the United States, which suggests that factors other than “white displacement” are at work.
1
A gentle reminder that the identities of LatinX and Hispanic are NOT a race. They share multiple cultures and, like America, folks from Latin American countries consist of many races (white, black, indigenous, and asian).
2
Republicanism: It's a tough world. Enemies everywhere. Arm up to fight. And praise the Lord always, hallelujah.
Need a huge overwhelming military. Lots of churches, too. And jails. More and more jails.
Secular government must go. Democracy too. People can't be trusted.
Only the Supreme Leader.
2
"Essentialism" is the official ideology of the American left, NYT and academia. Everyone is labelled by ethnic affiliation, first, before we learn anything else about him or her. Nothing else is as important in that world.
Try talking about school achievement, unemployment, opiate abuse...almost anything else in the news. Is it ever discussed without people being sorted into racial or ethnic categories? How often is the problem itself discussed, without focusing on the "disparity" between groups? In that world these problems would not matter, were there no "disparity".
It's not just these multiple murderers with their manifestos.
1
You didn’t seem to get to the how to fight it part. White supremacists are not going to become pluralists, ever. Our only solution is to see they are disarmed but how will we do that when gun manufacturers and retailers like Walmart are determined to help them arm so that they can make a buck?
1
1. The shooters et all Mr Brooks talks about here think they are doing something positive. They believe they are going to cause a positive change in the world.
2. That isolation and fear they describe is an intentionally inflicted state of affairs among white people by those who control our society. Grooming us to believe in false independence, false individuality, false self sufficiency, and all things unreal that involve not admitting to being reliant on your fellow man, often complete strangers, to have a good life. Thus when people raised to believe these lies see tight knit society in cultures whose members are increasing in population it triggers existential terror. That is not a result of hate. It is the result of our culture of allowing 1% of us to prey on the rest of us to make a living while also distracting us from paying attention to this by setting us against one another.
3. Dogs are a good example but any animal group you may know of also shows these signs. Pure breds are a human creation that are the sickest and least able to survive naturally without medical intervention. Mixture is the natural order of the animal kingdom. Most of us are at least part Neanderthal. Unless you are native American or African all Latino's are European's by descent.
4.The antipluralism bias was always the underlying bedrock of the "conservative" GOP revolution since 1967. Interdependence is not modern. This insecurity based POV is not modern either. Read the bible it is full of it.
The murderers fail to perceive two things:
(1) That their victims are made in the Image of God and
(2) That their race is not superior to that of their victims.
The Bible refutes both of these errors. It states that all life is made by God and that humans have a special role created in the Divine Image. It also states that all the races stem from a single set of parents.
Sure the bible is not a science textbook and much of it must be taken metaphorically rather than literally. But the overarching principle stands, as stated in the American Declaration of Independence: "That all men are created equal [possessing a divine soul] and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…."
If evolution is true, then America is founded on a lie and deserves to perish (as seems to be happening before our very eyes). But if evolution is false, then it must be exposed and expunged from our national fiber. Evolution is a deadly acid corroding the soul of our nation, and the only way to restore our Greatness is to uproot its pernicious claim that life is an accident and we all exist without purpose or reason. Evolution induces nihilism into our culture, and if it is false then we must oppose it with all the strength of our national and individual character.
None of us can sit on the fence without choosing. We all must decide if we will serve the Creator God asserted by our Declaration of Independence or if we will succumb to the nihilistic senselessness of Darwinism.
2nd amendment must be repealed, as suggested by many reputed legal scholars, including some Supreme Court Judges. Some of such judges were/are "very conservative", as Judge Warren Burger. https://youtu.be/Eya_k4P-iEo
This article is written by another respected judge- https://www.nytimes.com/.../john-paul-stevens-repeal...
For that we need to elect a sensible, educated, non or less religious Congressmen/Senators, who has some common sense & wisdom beyond party allegiance.
We know that city and state laws against gun are not much effective. There are so many data to show that. Even in our WI, many of the guns used to commit crime here r coning from other states, mainly Illinois/Chicago.
There have to be effective and sensible gun laws at the Federal level.
In the mean time, there are ample scope to have much stricter gun control laws despite of 2nd amendment. But many American politicians, mainly from GOP, are so addicted to NRA money and political propaganda, highly inflating its ability to influence electoral outcome, that they are literary scared to act against gun manufacturing industry which is represented by NRA.
Decades of careful grooming of- i) ignorance by destroying public education by religious charter/private schools + home schooling; ii) infusion of religious fundamentalism in public policies (many policy debates boils down to religion); iii) cleverly mixed it with racism helped GOP to promote just any rhetoric/cause using that ignorance & party loyalty.
1
@bonku
And your going to get 38 states to go for this how?
Sure hope pluralism is here to stay and to prosper. Whosoever invented the word 'racism' (perhaps Pratt, in 1902, "'kill the indian, save the man'?) didn't consider that there is only one race, the human race. Now, ethnic prejudice, a 'better' word, is based on ignorance and fear (if not hate) of 'the other'. Those that invoke 'purity' are clearly utopic, as reality defies such term as stupid...if not dangerous, for justice to be applied magnanimously, and for societal peace to have a chance. Diversity is here to stay and to be celebrated, as it makes us stronger and inclusive. The 'hate ideology' we are witnessing, willing to kill indiscriminately for the appearance of survival, must be fought with all our strength, never to allow it beyond the fringes of society. And one way to control that is to stop our sick love for guns, and to stop this 'cowboy attitude' to solve our conflicts by 'shooting first and only then asking the question'.
I don't think these guys are espousing any Isms at all. They are rationalizing, and you can't make this sort of intellectual argument with someone who's rationalizing. Their mind is made up; the route to get there is a fantasy invented for the purpose, and they will simply invent another fantasy.
These guys are sick. I'm not a psychologist, but I don't think you can treat mental illness with logic.
1
Years ago when I was in high school in the early 1960s, I went to consult the school guidance counselor about colleges—since no one in my family had ever attended one. Instead he “counseled” me—the child of white parents in a small Alabama town so racially segregated I had never in all my 16 years even met a black person my own age—about not “going off” with a black boy, because, “If you do, we will all end up kind of tan.”
Fear of the “contamination” of the white race is not new; it was part of the Southern Baptist culture from the time of slavery (preservation of “white purity” was the Southern Baptists’ cause celebre from the time they broke off from mainstream protestantism in 1845), and it remains so with many Evangelicals to this day. And talk of “pluralism” doesn’t put it to bed; it just fans it into a frenzy.
Indeed “culture mixing” is exactly what Donald Trump’s core base is afraid of—and they’ve been afraid of it for a long, long time. Trump just poured kerosene on that fear and lit a match.
2
Since you're talking about language, a professional on MSNBC -- I believe he was former FBI -- was saying that we should stop using the term "manifesto" as it signifies a level of importance, one the killer does not deserve. I think they loosely threw around "screed" instead. Please pass this on!
2
Oh, please. Mass killers hate everybody as much as they hate themselves.
It's not complicated. "Pluralism" or "essentialism" or other "isms" have nothing to do with it.
It's assault weapons. All of these massacres have the same element: weapons designed for warfare for efficiently killing as many human beings as possible. Thanks to the GOP and the NRA, these murderers have easy access to these guns.
The monsters who killed and injured scores in Las Vegas or shot young children in Sandy Hook weren't white supremacist, muslim-hating, anti-Semitic, anti-pluralists. They hated indiscriminately.
And it's the radical right. Republicans who do nothing to stop the carnage and everything to facilitate it. If they would stop selling themselves to the NRA and gun makers and ban assault weapons, mandate universal background checks, and eliminate the gun show loophole, mass slaughter would be greatly diminished if not eliminated.
If trump didn't incite white nationalist hatred, and if the GOP didn't share his views and enable him, the current rise in domestic terrorism would be pushed back.
Vote them all out. Ban assault weapons. Make American sane again.
5
I applaude your courage Mr. Brooks. Replacing the tired word “diversity” with “pluralism”. Bravo!. Hopefully, next time you can push for “melting pot” without being crucified.
Reading some of the comments “Identitarian’s” sensitivity thrives and many readers hang on this artificial construct for dear life.
The-white-supremacist-terrorists also believe in their unique “diversity” and state it in this garbage worthy manifesto. Words matter. Time to expend the vocabulary.
So please Mr. Brooks, keep your finger on the pulse of the country just watch out for the word “cosmopolitan”. Some of your progressive readers are not as progressive. Yet.
1
“...They’re not killing only because they are pathetically lonely and deeply pessimistic about their own lives. They are inspired to kill by a shared ideology, an ideology that they hope to spread through a wave of terror...
Close – try this instead...
They’re not killing only because they are empathetically adrift and deeply nihilistic about their own lives. They are driven to kill by a shared inherited tendency, a tendency that they subconsciously hope to propagate through a ripple of terror...
The moment you base your sense of self on what others say, vs what you see...
You’re as likely to be toast, as not...
Folks end lives – based on voices they hear in their heads...
Folks start religions – based on visions they see in their heads...
PS
Once you accept that it’s an inherited tendency, vs a shared ideology, you can deal with the gender-correlating aspect of it...
Without declaring war on – all – the men...
1
These are not "manifestos;" they are screeds.
Some interesting analysis, but please stop using Darwin to characterize the eugenic fantasy/nightmare that the murderers espouse. That is a false narrative promulgated by people who haven’t actually read Darwin. I know it’s short-hand for a complex idea, but David, you should know better.
1
A Simple Thank You!
A column promoting a moral approach to an ignorantly amoral president with immoral, violent followers.
To quote the Church Lady, “well isn’t that nice?”
4
The number of people calling all republicans "white supremacists" confirms that the issue has been hijacked by personal animus.
1
Has it escaped everybody that the Christchurch shooter was a hypocrite? He was not a New Zealander, but an immigrant here...
If it was possible, each and every “antipluralist” should have to submit to a genetic study of their own racial/ethnic/geographic backgrounds. As someone who has done so, there are noteworthy surprises lurking in the smallest material places in one’s being. Racial purity is a laughable oxymoron to the informed, but a toxic brew to these rabid zealots blinded by their gutter ideology.
1
“Identity is racial.“
Strongly disagree! As our world is mixing its DNA and historic race characteristics more and more, identify becomes less and less about race. The success of the race baiters lies more in their skill deploying their great new weapon, the internet, then it does through deep seated race identity or fear and hatred of “the other”.
1
Mr. Brooks, you say pluralism, I say egalitarianism. Let's call the whole thing off...LOL. Of course, I am kidding. Words are just proxies for sets of associations agreed upon between human minds. The sets of associations agreed upon within human groups that encode fear of the outsider and assigning of the right to kill or subdue them and take their stuff because they deserve it are as old as the human race. Fighting these impulses is recorded in the Hebrew Bible as orders from the Hebrew God to treat strangers with respect, indicating the opposite was true often enough to require God's intervention (I am agnostic, so I see this as human agents recognizing this was a problem, who then tried to ameliorate it). Will we evolve past this limited type of mind as a whole race? That is not certain, but if we don't and we keep acting from this destructive framework (do see human history) we can expect to fade from the evolutionary history of Earth.
1
The thoughts that you allow yourself are the real problem. If you allow yourself to hate as if it were legitimate then you have sinned against society and are headed for trouble. As if you had the right...
I'm always intrigued by the anti-immigrants who live in cities with Spanish names. The early republic of Texas "lone-star state" was created by "slave-holding/anti-catholic" immigrants pouring over the boarders of Mexico.
1
Hey, David. What about the guns?
David, you are too kind to white supremacists and their goals. They not only want a white world, but to get there, they plan genocide for all people of color and all Jews. Each attack is intended to start a race war in the hope that many whites will join against those of color. By not being clear about these goals, you paint white supremacists as merely wanting to separate races when they intend murder on a grand scale.
3
Mass murder because you think one group of people is having babies at a higher rate than "your" so-called group of people? That seems like a crazy excuse, not a reason, as proven by the fact that none of these racist haters are doing anything to address the alleged problem they claim to be exorcised over.
If the real problem these haters have is a disparity in birth rates, then why not pursue a decent job and marry a pale woman who wants to have lots of kids?
Or why not look at what is depressing birth rates and support policies that promote parenting in your community?
These lunatics don't really care about birth rates. They might as well blame the neighbor's dog.
2
Ironically, Joe Biden talks about the battle for the soul of America, and the best way to defeat the ideology of hate in America is to elect Biden in 2020. It won't be easy, because Trump has tapped into America's nasty under belly, racism.
Donald Trump is not concerned with the Democrats' barricades or bridges; he knows he does not have to be. While praising the intelligence of the American electorate, he secretly knows that they can be led around like bulls with nose rings - only instead of bull rings, he uses their beliefs and prejudices to lead them wherever he wants. If DJT doesn't destroy our fragile democracy, he has published the blueprint and playbook for some other demagogue to do it later. If a democracy like America's is going to exist, there will have to be a paradigm shift in human thought throughout the world. In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of us all. When we understand all this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
Without blacks, no jazz, no gospel, no basketball or football and far-fewer great writers, actors, dancers, painters and rap artists than we have today.
Without Jews, no Hollywood or Broadway or NBA or hedge funds and far-fewer Nobel Prize winners and orthodontists than we have today.
Without Asians, far-fewer classical musicians, computer wizards, start-up funds and dim-sum artists than we have today.
Without white Christians, no great country music or rock and roll.
Diversity and the rough-and tumble between our competing groups gets the job done.
3
Guns that enabled the genocide of the Native Americans and won the West and slavery were cornerstones in building the United States, leaving a very problematic legacy.
If the US saw itself clearly, it might better be able to deal with its problems,
The US is exceptional in its ideals that it rarely lives and in its riches that its style of capitalism enabled the developed world's most colossal income/wealth inequality.
It is also exceptional in its gun loving violence and its prison population, the highest per capita in the world.
This creates very fertile ground for hate.
And for the election of Trump.
We need to regulate guns, but because of US culture, they will always be available, even the dreadful military style weaponry.
WE CAN DEAL WITH THE VERY UNEQUAL SOCIETY that nurtures hate.
Those immigrants did take jobs by working way more cheaply.
Trade deals offshored good jobs.
Then there is the great recession with Obama too visionless and cowardly to ease the pain of foreclosed homeowners, while he made the banks whole and never jailed a banker.
We need to invest in communities, parents and children.
Start at the root... paid parental leave, free/affordable quality childcare, quality early childhood education for all, quality K-12 education with easily available counseling for all, tuition free continuing public education, job programs to better infrastructure and a more "green" society
These would be a base for a more thriving society for all.
and, probably less hate
I am a lifelong liberal, but I must confess that the cliché “Diversity strengthens” seems increasingly problematic. Different races and ethnicities ostensibly bring different strengths to a national culture. This idea works well in the realm of cuisine, which is a safe enough subject, and athletics, which is not quite as safe.
Diversity is also attended by tremendous sociopolitical stress and conflict. A cursory review of the world’s most successful nations argues on behalf of relative homogeneity by any measure—per capita GDP, quality of healthcare and longevity, low crime rate—and includes the Nordic nations, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
The US, despite its vaunted economy, has questionable healthcare, declining longevity, and a high crime rate.
My neighborhood attracts many immigrants from the Middle East, South Asia, and Eastern Europe. Too many new condos entail an accompanying increase in vehicular and human traffic. More fights, shootings, knivings, and accidents, as newcomers hustle to make ends meet and drivers race to make their turns before pedestrians have a chance to cross.
Liberal politicians who mouth this adage typically do not live in the nation’s most diversified communities but in affluent and gated enclaves.
Diversity can strengthen, but only if a nation’s citizens demonstrate allegiance to a common set of cultural values and civilities.
Otherwise, “diversity” only leads to more civil strife.
3
The number one mentally imbalanced person sits in the Oval Office. Until he and his narcissistic personality are gone, we are doomed. It's symbiotic. He is nourished by his cult followers and they are given free reign to act out their worst impulses because he is leading with fear and hatred.
2
Please NYT, it’s enough writing about trump and his evil workings. Your writers and the entire media scape is telling us every day how awful he is and what’s going on...
It is time to tell the people of America to start demonstrating to get rid of him and his evil Senate entourage.
We, your readers and also the audience of MCNBC know, but the nation is still not wholly awakened.
Please NYT and the news media uncover the whole truth for the country and every day tell the nation who trump really is and the destruction he is doing to our planet and humanity.
These criminal acts that are coming out of the White House regularly, need to be stopped. Most of us reading the NYT don’t consider him our president, and it’s time for him to go. Show us the way.
Thank you
1
DAVID!!
It is the cult of black rifles that has turned it into a sacred fetish defining their identity, their sense of self, their sacred ground—and the NRA that is their high church.
1
Mr. Brooks:. Well done article.
For the life of me, I wish these shooter and their manifestos, and folks like Mr. Brooks with his response would just give up the intellectual nonsense. Stop trying to pander to some higher level of discourse; some actual philosophic reason why 22 people had to die in a Walmart in El Paso, and 9 more in Dayton. There is no over lay of philosophy behind pulling the trigger of a rifle. These are simply sick white men trying to win the only way they know to win. They are going for the highest score. Giving their "manifestos" any credence is a joke. These are simply sick minds on the rampage with a gun. It's time to get did of the guns. Take away their fire power and you castrate their "manifestos".
1
Both political parties are to blame for the economic misery many have experienced in this country over the last twenty or so years. The Republican Party has exploited that misery all the while foisting that misery on many citizens. And Mr. Brooks thinks this is a cultural problem? This is a problem of economic elites manipulating a minority political party-because that is what the Republican Party is-to gain political power by what ever means necessary, to enrich itself and entrench itself in American society. In my personal opinion, the economic elites could care less about the incident in El Paso. That is just the 'cost of doing business.'
This is a rather clinical riff on "pluralism" and a blind eye to a murderous underground of racism.
Victor Klemperer, who survived the Nazi terror wrote a book on the language of the third Reich [lingua tertius imperii=LTI].
This is where it gets interesting,David---it is the language , we all are what our language projects.Language defines us.
We have an illiterate deal maker president who pronounces that " the US are invaded by aliens and animals that infest our country".This is not about 'pluralism', this is about the language of a fascist.It is time to analyze the language that Donald Trump uses and compare it to the way the Nazis used language to mislead and corrupt.The attack is not on pluralism; the attack is on our souls.
The lier in chief who shouts:"witch hunt and fake news" is changing our discourse, dragging us to the bottom feeder level of primitive posturing.
1
People are more pluralistic and tolerant when the economy is good. When economic uncertainty arises, they look around for someone to blame: the bad “other”.
Many young people in their 20's were kids who experienced the housing bubble collapse of 2005–2007 when they were only six or seven years old. They experienced the trauma of losing the family home. They were raised by parents struggling with the ongoing decimation of U.S. manufacturing and the collapse of middle America.
Right wing hate radio, FOX News and Trump have all exploited the perfectly natural distress experienced across the nation due to economic collapse. The haters have directed that distress at immigrants—who have precious little to do with corporations deciding to outsource operations to China or to automation decimating jobs or to big agricultural buying out small family farms.
Read what these unhappy kids write and read between the lines. Losing your home, your job, and your downtown feels very much like getting replaced. Desperate migrants who also saw their ways of life collapse are scapegoats for global economic changes. It is not easy to scream, “Build the wall!” against Walmart or Amazon or Citibank or McKinsey or JP Morgan Asset Management because those are faceless corporations. But a woman trying to cross a river has a face.
How do we explain to our fellow Americans what is really happening? How do find solutions so that we aren’t also sucked into a rage of finger-pointing and scapegoating?
2
Pluralism and antipluralism - what next? Fancy words and little else. How about "gunism" and "antigunism"? America is well beyond definitions and in dire need of positive action starting with a Congress that has the chops to kick McConnell into line with taking steps to slow down "gunism."
Our two worst enemies are Trump and McConnell and then we can move on to the NRA, I suppose.
2
Ammo. Bullets. The part that does the killing.
Ban or SEVERELY restrict them. The supply will dry up soon enough. There will always be a black market but the prices will go sky high.
An empty weapon , no matter its potential, is just a phallic symbol.
ITS THE AMMO, STUPID! (Sorry to shout)
2
"expanding 'us'...."
yup.....
1
Another in a series of come-to-Jesus columns from Brooks. He writes that "we pluralists do not believe that human beings can be reduced to a single racial label." Really?
I'm glad he now has that philosophy. But I'll believe his conversion when he start criticizing his hero, Saint Ronald Reagan, who was anything but a pluralist. You know, the guy who told another racist, Richard Nixon, in 1971 that “To see those, those monkeys from those African countries—damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!” The guy who began his 1980 presidential campaign in the city where civil rights workers were murdered in the 1960s and talked about "states rights."
2
Somewhere, quite possibly in this paper, I read that Los Angeles County--population 10,000,000--began offering free counseling in 2007 to its mentally ill citizens. Interestingly, no mass shootings have occurred since. Experts are divided as to whether the counseling was responsible. Whatever. I think the county's program should be looked into and perhaps emulated around the country.
1
How can you assert that this is not about trauma?
TRAUMA is what drives people to this kind of "evil other" psychological stance, which is a rage-aholic's/scapegoater's stance. Trauma in early childhood means no modeling or neural pathways for self regulation, reflection, curiosity, rest (all require safety).
More and more kids in our early-separation, dog-eat-dog, spare the rod society are becoming attachment disordered. Insecure attachment is on the rise. Mal attached kids do poorly with others but also yearn to belong (and an internet hate group also plays into that).
Show me a White Supremacist and I will show you a screwed up, hurting, skill-less person raised brutally, whose rage predates their consciousness of race.
2
"Pluralists are always expanding the definition of 'us,' not constricting it. Eighty years ago, Protestants, Catholics and Jews did not get along, so a new category was created, Judeo-Christian, which brought formerly feuding people into a new 'us.' Thirty years ago, rivalries were developing between blacks and Hispanics, and so the category 'people of color' was used to create a wider 'us.'"
That's a very canny observation, David. And this morning you are truly singing my tune. It's a nice start to the day, thank you.
This is probably my favorite column by Brooks...
"These movements are reactions against the diversity, fluidity and interdependent nature of modern life. Antipluralists yearn for a return to clear borders, settled truths and stable identities. They kill for a fantasy, a world that shines in their imaginations but never existed in real life."
Now one step further... BECAUSE this fantasy never existed, it follows that the relative position of people in our pluralistic society is (to a very large extent) a product of that society, and not a product of unique identity traits that (like unique biological racial identities) never existed. The racial wealth gap is a product of historic America racial attitudes and actions. One cannot support a free market approach to racial wealth inequality without condoning the soft edge of white supremacy. The gaping racial wealth gap is either a product of society or a product of race -- there is no other choice. Such a disparity cannot be a coincidence. One cannot argue against affirmative action and reparations unless one believes that the distribution of wealth with respect to race is just, and one cannot believe it is just unless one believes that non-whites merit less wealth.
All this is to say that there is a reason this kind of anti-pluralism sells so well on the right. It is bad enough that these fantasies inspire the fringe to violence. The Republican Party needs to stop implicitly perpetuating the fiction of superior white merit.
A recent reading of a classic economic history The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, points out again and again the importance of social diversity for economic vibrancy. The post WWII USA has been a classic example of this phenomena.
The counter point is that attempts to "purify" cultures results in economic stagnancy and of course violence against the "other".
Attachment to ethnic and cultural identity while in some sense important is also a slippery slope. America's view as a melting pot i think is very important to embrace because in this view one groups culture becomes all of our culture. One's groups history becomes all of our history. We all become recipients of the history of this nation with its ideals of democracy and inclusiveness as well as it's failures. This is also a model for an approach to what needs to be an international and vibrant civilization. We are all black, brown, red, white, Asian, European, African, Native American, because we are all Human.
1
Brooks, our Philosopher Laureate, presents in today's opinion and August 1, 2019, opinion a profoundly clear vision about the root cause of our nation's primary problem.
However, he totally ignores the reality that there remains, in all civil societies, the need to have shared social norms (values by which all persons interact harmoniously). These norms are not necessarily formed when persons of diverse culture insist forming tight non-inclusive groups within the mainstream. One may argue that this is due to fear of persecution, especially in Trump-Pence-GOP's USA, but to do so establishes the conundrum of 'chicken and egg'.
First step is to open doors to others, share a snack together, and discuss life's ambitions.
I have two thought on Mr. Brooks' article today. One is that "there is no easy answer" to hatred of others. It was made quite simple by respected and loved religious leaders of the past: Love One Another. Now I admit that it's easy for me to employ this when someone cuts me off or slights me, but I have a hard time "loving Mitch McConnell." And I sometimes wish that a high-up NRA person would happen to be in a crowd and fall victim to what others have and then in my fantasy, pouring money into the campaigns of politicians would be banned and assault weapons along with it.
The other point is that God must think what a pitiful silly bunch we are when those full of hate for the "other" fail to realize that nothing in nature is of itself. I'm not a scientist, but I'll bet that not even a snowflake or a raindrop or an atom exists of and by itself, and didn't I read that we all come from Africa? Maybe DNA tests could be offered on the sites that expose nationalism. In other words, none of us are pure. Thank you God.
2
There are some truths here but not enough. Firearms are an attractive nuisance. With America housing a third of a billion people there will always be more than a few off-kilter, whether ideologically, mentally, morally or emotionally -- and combinations thereof. The Las Vegas killer, still the category leader, was apparently non-ideological and not even misanthropic (though not really a people person). He was drawn to the challenge of running up a high number: video poker with higher stakes. There is not one mass killer profile; there are many. As long as there is so little regulation of the technology of killing in private hands, some will be tempted to make the evening news.
3
The problem is that pluralism today expresses itself through the politiicization of vulnerable identities that are constructed through the celebration of individual physical or character traits that individuals do not choose (racial, gender, sexual).
Vulnerability is essential to giving these identities their moral superiority and political force; thus, the identities we celebrate are all assigned to groups that were historically oppressed by the white male European. Such identities lend individuals moral authority, which is why, eg, Elizabeth Warren wanted to be a Native American.
"Whiteness" is the identity-with-a-chip-on-its-shoulder that Trump represents. It angers advocates of the other identities because it is the identity that defines them as vulnerable, and because it is considered inauthentic for individuals who possess "white privilege" to claim victim status. If white people become just another identity group with a gripe, then identity politics becomes incoherent.
The eternal vulnerability at the heart of identity politics is anti-modern and anti-humanist. It cannot positively universalize human experience and our understanding of the human potential, and our ability to build purposeful, forward-looking unity on that basis. Instead, as we saw in the El Paso manifesto, in identity politics it is an article of misanthropic Malthusian faith that too many people means ecological disaster.
1
quoted by HG Wells in "Infinity in all Directions" Freeman Dyson
...as a reasonable and demonstrable fact, that men form one universal brotherhood, that they spring from one common origin, that their individual lives, nations and races interbreed and blend and go on to merge again at last in one common human destiny upon this little planet among the stars. There is no peace of heart, balance or safety until man has schooled and disciplined his interests and will beyond greed, instincts, fears rivalries and narrow affections,
I don't understand who are the subject matter "experts" (if they have any) & other advisers advising these Senators /Congressmen & president. They seem to be totally out of touch or too cunning.
i) Most gun deaths are of the near & dear ones of the gun owners.
ii) Only a tiny fraction (>10% ) of gun death actually happens in mass shootings.
iii) Less than one third of all mass shootings in last many years are done by mentally unstable people.
iv) Majority of mass shooters are white & most of them are either members of some White Supremacist groups or motivated by such white supremacist rhetoric, including some by President Trump.
v) Most guns used in the mass shootings were purchased legally.
There used to be a FBI program to track & neutralize White supremacists. But GOP & Trump conveniently & silently rescinded that program. But for various reasons, mostly political, acts of such mass violence motivated by racial or religious hatred can not be prosecuted under domestic terrorism, the way USA prosecutes foreign terrorists. There is no domestic terrorism act as political parties refuse to agree/debate which groups should be considered a terrorist organization. That's a very politically sensitive issue it seems. https://is.gd/HzBUlU
FBI & other Govt law enforcement agencies are mostly barred from monitoring domestic violent/hate websites & its more violent members.
The bottom line is- easy access to deadly weapons to anyone wanting one must be stopped.
4
Whatever the many approaches to combating the escalating 'purity' war, the violence unleashed against the horrors of diversity, let's start by curtailing easy access to assault weapons. The GOP is in a type of death spiral of their own. Denying climate change. Denying that guns are an issue in mass killings. Denying. Denying. Denying. Dying.
3
"They are not killing only because they’ve been psychologically damaged by trauma. ..."
They are killing successfully, because they have easy access to guns that kill rapidly. No matter what their motivation, they would not kill as many people if they had to rely on knives. Look at any other country, and you'll see this is true.
#FaceFacts
7
This article is not about how to fight hate, which is probably an impossible task, at any rate, because hateful behaviour is an ingredient of human life that owe will never be rid of. Hate is an abstract word and it does not describe some "thing" that you can attack and destroy.
David you have disappointed me with a lot of jargon that does little to address fact that civil responsibility, leadership and order in America is in perilous decline, while the populace and its supposed leaders seem incapable of imagining or enacting measures to restore what is being lost.
1
Brooks puts his finger on something important here, something larger than the racist ideologies of these white nationalist killers and the president whose rhetoric inspires them: essentialism. "Now, 17 percent of American marriages are interracial." That's a threat to white nationalists, but it's also an inconvenient fact for trendy academic postures on the left that tend toward grounding the truth, authority and authenticity of propositions in the positional identity of the speaker in a matrix of all the old binaries that are, in fact, imperiled themselves by reality. Thus we have "male toxicity" at a moment when old notions of binary gender have been exploded. And the trope of "black bodies" that strands a growing percentage of America's population in the a-authentic limbo of the mixed race or must invoke the antebellum slave code to partially recover them. White nationalism is indisputably the greater threat -- there is no comparison on one level -- but no kind of essentialism is going to be of much service as America undergoes the transition to a minority-majority, gender-fluid nation over the course of the next generation. The shift to minority-majority is historically a difficult transition for any nation or region. We will need all the help we can get. Brooks is quite right here: "There is no resting spot. It’s change, fluidity and movement all the way down."
1
About 50 years ago when I was a young lad I turned on the TV to see a show unlike anything I had ever seen. There on the bridge of the Enterprise was a black women, a Russian (then our mortal enemy), a Japanese (within memory our mortal enemy) and a Vulcan not even human, all working together seamlessly. Yes I know that white men were in charge and the black woman was essentially answering the phone but for 1968 it was HUGE. Since then the Star Trek philosophy of "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations" has stayed with me. Thank you Gene Rodenberry
2
Every society has hate, racism, and access to violent video games. Only America has easier access to guns than a drivers license.
David Brooks pretends to behave like some moderate compared to Trump and his ilk, but he is part of the problem by continuing to divert this issue away from where it should be: guns. Guns are the problem in this country and everything else is a distraction. White nationalism, under the Trump banner, have simply lit a match on this tinderbox, but handguns alone are responsible for many of the gun deaths every single day.
Banning guns is far easier than eliminating hate — that will take far longer. America is unfortunately paralyzed by our founding documents. Democrats do us no help by talking about caring about “hunters” or only targeting “assault rifles” — there should be no distinction — guns have no place in a civilized society, period. Dozens of lives can be extinguished in minutes, long before police or any “good guy with a gun” can come to anyone’s aid. American arrogance seems to know no limits, even when children at school are mowed down.
On top of that, anyone that says mental health needs more attention is lying to you, because they are usually the same group of people trying to eliminate easier and affordable access to healthcare, which includes access to things like antidepressants, psychologists, and psychiatrists.
Democrats need to stop being defensive; commit to strong gun control and the repeal of the 2nd Amendment.
2
Thank you for this beautiful column.
There is a subtext to this piece that bothers me. Yes, the shooters in the case of El Paso (we don't know with Dayton) was based upon hatred of people he saw as "invaders" taking over 'his' country, there is no doubt, fueled no doubt by his own background as part of the white underclass, and also by the rhetoric of Trump and the whole MAGA crowd (funny you don't bother to mention that MAGA itself is a manifesto, the "Make America Great Again" has been pretty much proven to translate to "Make America White Again"). The GOP, the so called conservative party, has taken a stand and it matches the shooter, because they refuse, in the name of their 'tribe' (ie "GOP"), to call Trump out on his rantings, they stay silent, which is backing them.
The troubling part is David in his not so subtle way is putting the blame on "Identity politics". What I am reading here is if the Latinos and Blacks and Asians and LGBT people and so forth would simply live their lives and not inflame white people by 'throwing their differences" in their faces, everything would be fine. The problem, David, is that that identity politics you talk about happened because people non white, non straight, couldn't simply lead their lives, those hating them singled them out for being that. Put it this way, ask any of those groups if they would like a pluralistic world that values all of them, they would say yes. Ask that of your typical GOP voter these days or GOP politicians,it would be no.
4
Thank you Mr. Brooks. One of your best pieces.
1
Negative Circumstances bring a positive outcome... I now look forward to reading David Brooks.
We need to call this what it is: impeachable.
1
David, for decades you and other conservatives tolerated the racist dog whistles of the Republican party. Only with Donald Trump's blatent racism have you called 'enough.' You need to accept some responsibility for the anti-pluralism we have. You cannot now claim the high ground of pluralism without acknowledging that your tacit support of the white nationalist trope in Republicanism since Nixon helped create our current situation.
5
Haters and fear mongers do not need manifestos. They do need to be taught who to hate and who to fear. And today in the United States of America they have a teacher in chief, who gives them reasons, no matter how false, to hate and fear. With their easily acquired weapons, they do the rest.
2
"If we allow them into our country, brown immigrants will overwhelm whites just as Europeans overwhelmed the Native Americans centuries ago. As the El Paso suspect put it, “The natives didn’t take the invasion of Europeans seriously, and now what’s left is just a shadow of what was.” Immigration is white replacement. Immigration is white genocide."
Because human nature is what it is, this is actually a legitimate concern. Diversity without any sense of unity is a recipe for war.
To me it seems blatantly obvious that many societies in the West need to reduce immigration levels to allow some time for the current ones to assimilate. If elites continue to simply ignore the problems of having a society without any sense of unity or cohesion, they may see their countries break apart the way Iraq and Yugoslavia did.
2
In your deep search for answers you might want to consider the role a demagogic Republican president plays with statements like "I Could Stand In the Middle Of Fifth Avenue And Shoot Somebody And I Wouldn't Lose Any Voters".
3
You can’t fight it without a government that’s as determined to go after it as much as you are. Love, understanding, acceptance? Nuts! Trump has the Republican party by the throat. The senate is inflicted with Mitch paralysis. I would like to believe that when the opportunity comes, people of good will will come together to send Trump and his Republican hacks packing. Then, when our government gets serious, there can be progress. Until then...
1
A DAY after two more mass shootings in AMERICA, the home of mass gun violence, and Mr Brooks decides to focus on an isolated incident of gun violence in NEW ZEALAND?
And than, he proceeds to natter on about a "battle for the soul of our culture" and tries to muddy the waters (still red with fresh innocent blood) with squid-ink jargon about "ideology," "essentialism," "separatism," and "racial Darwinism"?
What a shocking display of sophistry!
And one which seeks to deflect the focus from where it belongs! GUNS, GUN-VIOLENCE, the needsless slaughter of INNOCENT people and pathetic rationalizations of those abominations, such as that provided here?
Instead of expressing pain at the deaths or outrage about a status quo which tolerates them, Mr Books offers rationalizations and pseudo-intellectual nattering?
This speaks volumes about an utter unwillingness to even address the real problems, much less offer anything vaguely resembling a solution. Shame!
3
For people who want and believe in pluralism it is easy to become demoralized by the ways that America seems to be backsliding.
But consider that the civil rights movement began only 50-60 years ago and many changes were enacted quickly. Perhaps a backlash was to be expected. It doesn't necessarily mean the whole thing has failed. If there were not vastly more pluralists than anti-pluralists then there would be far more incidents like the El Paso shootings than there are.
The US recently had a black president which showed how much & how quickly things have changed. Four years ago marriage equality became the law of the land. As a gay man I'm confident some of the backlash we're seeing is due in part to that as well. It was overdue from my perspective but the fact is that having government sanction certain people while condemning others to a lesser status can be a powerful ego boost for those given special approved status. No matter their problems & failings they can say "Well, at least I'm part of superior group A and not part of inferior group B!" But then the arc of history bends a little more toward justice and group B is found to have been unjustly relegated to second class status so it's given equal legal status. To some of those that just lost their special government approved superior status it feels like they have been robbed of something that they deserved & some will revolt. But most children born afterward will see the new order as fair & just the way things are.
2
At the risk of inflaming readers,,,,
As a pluralist in the middle of my 7th decade, trying desperately to learn just a bit of the "new" language increasingly being imposed on my aging brain, I would say that anti-pluralists are not just white men.
Thanks to the ease of movement and communication there is no need, much less desire to even try to assimilate into ones community. This is troubling to many (although the vast majority of "us" do not even think to kill people over this).
It is inevitable, given the birth rates of today's cultures and the fact we are a country of riches surrounded by corrupt governments and poverty, that in another generation "white" will be a historic race. While the transition is happening, my lifelong home no longer feels like that.
In a hundred years or so, our country of mostly "brown people" will be anguishing over the "green people" who speak an odd language, have habits that seem odd or even rude, who seem like invaders, pushing the brown people aside. No matter our color, we are a tribal species. We will be fighting these battles until we are extinct.
3
As most people are willing to admit.....hate IS NOT a problem.
Even Mr. Brooks begins his column with anectdotes about how travellers find it difficult to find actual "hate".
but the Journalism Outlets continue to scream about hate....much like the Yellow Press of old.....whip up emotions, sell papers.
The more immediate problem of the Modern World is twofold.......1. Overpopulation and 2. The Internet.
...
The world is crowded....yet thanks to the mechanics of the internet.....people are isolated from actual human contact.
Instead we tweet, we instagram, we post letters to the NYT editors. Then there's no response. No real interaction with anybody.
This is the dilemma of the Internet that Marshall Macluhan warned us about, even before there was an actual Internet.
The internet, contrary to the hippie nirvanna version, is NOT a private world.....it is one part a flood of information, not necessarily objectivve....and another part invasion of privacy. You are tracked....it is part of how the internet works. But you are no longer an individual.
"HAte" as we know it.....is amplified exponentially, without any counterbalance on the interent. Moderate Muslims suddenly snap and shoot people on Paris subways......isolated young men in Texas conclude its time to reduce the so-called hispanic population......on and on and on in an uncontrolled wonderful Internet universe with no borders........
Yellow Pressism. If it bleeds....it leads.
Tax the Internet....problem solved.
Yes, yes, and all of that, but one of my favorite movies is “Dances With Wolves”, and I think at the core of what you are trying to say, lies in, the white man, who, unlike other races, believed he owned or could possess the earth? When it was never his to own, or any other. It was ours to share. It belongs to us all — if we can keep it!
There are a few things in David Brooks' commentary that bear clarification and/or correction.
His statement that whites see the world as white and Latinos see it as Latino is a very narrow and decidedly American perspective, not related in true reality to the sensibilities of many other peoples around the world, particularly in 'smaller' Western developed nations.
I come from a small multi-racial Western democracy where this stated perspective of racial vision is quite different, and Mr. Brooks should not extrapolate 'his' views or those of other Americans on the rest of International societies.
Speaking about the USA specifically, where this mass carnage of racial hatred murder is a regular event, racism is baked into the American DNA if one recites and acknowledges the "factual" history of European presence on this soil, from Christopher Columbus through to Today and all the gore of vile actions in between.
It is dangerous for Americans to always look for boogey man or corrupt moral equivalency in every other place as an excuse for failed integrity of character here at home.
Dear Wanderson, you misunderstood Mr. Brooks's statements about racial identity to mean the exact opposite of what he meant: the anti-pluralists he described hold that belief, not him. His column was about the error and fallacy of that world view and the necessity and vitrue of the pluralist world view.
Mr. Brooks is right about pluralism being an adventure, an ever-moving spiral, and the like. What he doesn't say is that it's also exhausting. The constant negotiating, the never ending quest for compromise. It's fine when you're young and learning how to agree with neighbors about things like noise, cooking odors, backyard floodlights, and community wide issues like zoning regulations. It's how communities and societies evolve. But when many get old, the constant stress of that effort wears some out. They pass the torch to the young and move to gated communities for the fifty-five and older set. Quiet places with regulated shrubbery and uniform fence heights. Most of those who sneer at protected living in homogenized groups are younger than that.
Racism isn't as fancy as this gushy poetic pluralism thing.
It would be useful if you saw racism, not just retrospectively on big sentimental occasions, like when we are nationally within a centipede of mass shootings.
But speak to all racist abuses of human rights, not just this ultimate violation of a human body being ripped into by bullets at the hands of terrorists.
Because racial violence in America doesn't come at the hands of some strange basement dwelling "others".
As just one example, it is hypocritical to denounce shootings, while ignoring the racist and institutional terrorism of our government at the border, where hundreds of thousands of immigrants are incarcerated in an extra-judicial setting, which avoids the minimum standards of international conventions of human rights.
Our government exploits the fact that these people of darker skin have no rights by being viciously cruel to them in ways that are barely documented because our government prohibits it.
It isn't just these weirdo terrorists with their archaic manifestos we need to be looking at, but at our own government.
Or in other words, ourselves.
1
I appreciate that Brooks is trying to explain the mental deficit of white supremacist mass murders as they confront, but cannot find a foothold, in a complex world. However, it's rather appalling to have the opportunity to travel and appreciate other cultures, yet learn nothing from the experience but to harden into an either us or them point of view to justify murder. What limited imagination! What dangerous stupidity enabled by civilian access to military weapons.
Trevor Noah (and others, I'm sure) correctly points out that the Second Amendment of our constitution was conceived to protect people. Now it is used to protect guns. Calling people out (as mild-sounding anti-pluralists) doesn't address the elimination of personal possession of weapons of annihilation.
1
Interesting but at the same time, typical of an opinion piece trying a bit too hard.
When someone writes “I am against race mixing because it destroys genetic diversity...", there's not much to explain. The inherent contradiction within the sentence itself points to the complete non-sense that it is.
Douthat, Brooks. So many conservatives, so many blanket diagnoses, nary a word about unchecked gun proliferation.
2
Why a long treatise on tribalism and pluralism? Intelligent people already know the roots of xenophobia and need no further musings about it. Instead, write a column strongly condemning your fellow republicans for their cowardice, tribalism, and fear of losing an election for standing up against Trump and the base. The time for tepid intellectualizing is long past.
1
“The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.”
- The Anonymous NYTimes Opinion Writer
In all the discussion about Trump, racism, and white nationalism, I think we give him too much credit. If there is an “Ideology of Hate,” I doubt Trump has it. He is impetuous narcissist who cares only about being flattered and putting himself forward, even if it divides the country and the world, for that matter. Hate for him is instinctual.
2
"The Ideology of Hate and How to Fight It"
Another way as I see ir.
Hate ingredients today. Isolated life, internet, 8chan, media sensationalism, leaders like Trump, AK-47's, NRA, and a Republican Congress.
How to fight it. Eliminate the above.
1
How to fight the ideology of hate when it's the face of
America today, David Brooks? It will take more than words to repair our broken democracy. Broken under the amoral and corrupt leadership of an extreme right nihilist president and his loyalists.
Donald Trump -- our president -- is the purveyor of hateful ideology in our democracy. How do we rid our dying American social media culture today of our president? Mr. Brooks, you're an example of Amerrican Republicanism today. Can yolu please tell us how we can repair what has been smashed into a million pieces by our gun-bearing and demented nationalistic shooters?
Change the terminology too!
Illegal aliens incites negative attitudes toward all immigrants seeking the “ American Prosperity Dream”
The caged humans of America are not aliens. They are just like us. Immigrants seeking safety and a new life.
My Italian ancestors began arriving in 1850.
They were thriving businessmen and women of intelligence and diversity of thought. They believed in equality. Not slavery.
Reparations are due to the proven ancestry of slaves. Freed slaves tried and succeeded in building up thriving communities of color in the south which were summarily destroyed during the second reign of racists terror in the 1930’s. Read the history of Black communities in Florida for instance. Read about Sanford Florida’s parallel black community. Their school systems were exemplary too.
Johnson’s “ Great Society “ was a great and terrible compromise that ushered in destruction of the Black power growing to uplift former slaves and their generational need to catch up economically and socially.
We must have a constitutional convention when and if we return to our more noble value system.
Laws must reflect our diversity and prevent anarchistic racists from forming militias and assassins.
Perhaps David Brooks could read and comment on Monica Hesse's column in the Washington Post today? https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/we-need-to-talk-about-why-mass-shooters-are-almost-always-men/2019/08/05/dec0c624-b700-11e9-a091-6a96e67d9cce_story.html
What is implied by "a Darwinian struggle in which they [sic] they to out-reproduce their rivals"? And isn't this thinking in need of examination? Races don't struggle --men do. Or few men, at least.
If we can talk about an ideology of white supremacy, could we also talk about an ideology of male supremacy? And who is promoting it, and why?
1
what is so ironic is that race is being proven everyday to be a highly artificial social construct.
Genetically speaking, we are not that dissimilar. And here is the dirty little secret, Americans as a whole are admixtures of multiple subpopulations.
Whites of the south have relatively higher percentage of African genes, than Whites from other regions. Blacks of the northeast have higher percentage of Native American genes than Blacks in the South. Latinos, depending on their countries of origin, have high percentages of native American, European and/or African ancestral genes.
Caribbean Blacks have varying percentages of Asian, Asian-Indian, African, European and even Native American ancestral genes
Hence, the racial classification is rather pointless from a genetic perspective..... and it may even be pointless from a medical point of view too
the sooner we realize it the better off we will be.
1
Immigration to the US is higher now than its been for the last 100 years, maybe longer. Neo liberal economic policies, such as moving production offshore, free trade, and importing workers has massively reduced the wages of unskilled and semiskilled native born labor. The tech and AI revolution have further reduced the need for semiskilled labor.
Female empowerment has reduced the need for women to marry young men.
The divorce culture has created generations of single mother households.
The web allows frusrtrated young white men to share their pain.
The problem with mass shootings is not guns or Trump. It is economic and deep seated cultural changes.
I get the need to score political points or to focus on easy soundbite solutions. The only way to solve mass shootings is to solve the fact that young white men without college are falling behind in every metric. Earnings, marriage, home ownership, and cultural respect. Until these underlying issues are addressed, these mass shootings will continue.
2
Terrorism thrives when the media provides what the terrorists crave. Attention. Because you can be counted on to provide it to them, when they have a warped fantasy, they live it out.
1
Since this piece summarizes the screeds somewhat kindly, I think a little clarity is in order.
About "race":
Meaningless. Whites are amalgams of Siberian nomads (dark skin, blond hair), Iberian hunter gatherers (dark skin, blue eyes) and Iranian farmers (light skin), plus more. West, East, and South Africans are black, but each is more different genetically from the other than a European is from an East Asian.
About "separatism, to retain genetic diversity":
Africans have seven times more genetic diversity than the rest of the world combined. The best way to increase genetic diversity is for people of African ancestry to mate widely with people not of African ancestry. How do you like that, screed writers?
About racial Darwinism:
The robust traditions screed writers observe are based on lifestyles that are no longer present. When women had to give birth to nine kids, because agriculture depended on five, and that's how many might survive. That world is gone. Though traditions hang on, they'll also disappear.
And by the way, Native Americans were decimated by European bacteria. They also made up hundred of tribes with different languages. This isn't to downplay the deliberate slaughter of Native Americans, but they weren't a "race" that was "replaced."
The critical thought in this essay is one which must be heard not just by the anti-pluralists but also by the identity politics crowd. We are unique individuals with a plurality of cultural and biological influences. Assigning immutable characteristics to any group based upon race or ethnicity or religion has led to the worst of outcomes.
We are not just faceless numbers conveniently placed in a category defined by skin tone or ethnicity. Celebrate our uniqueness by getting back to coalition building across lines of race or category. See each person as our fellow human traveler, imperfect but capable of change.
1
Racism isn't as fancy as this gushy poetic pluralism thing.
How to fight it, huh?
It would be useful if you saw racism, not just retrospectively on big sentimental occasions, like when we are nationally within a centipede of mass shootings.
But speak to all racist abuses of human rights, not just this ultimate violation of human bodies being ripped by bullets at the hands of terrorists.
Because racial violence in America doesn't come at the hands of some strange basement dwelling "others".
As just one example: it is hypocritical to denounce shootings, while ignoring the racist and institutional terrorism of our government at the border, where hundreds of thousands of immigrants are incarcerated in an extra-judicial setting, which avoids the minimum standards of international conventions of human rights.
Our government exploits the fact that these people of darker skin have no rights by being viciously cruel to them in ways that are barely documented because our government prohibits it.
It isn't just these weirdo terrorists with their archaic manifestos we need to be looking at, but at our own government.
Or in other words, ourselves.
Along with everything else the author of the manifesto is wrong about genetics, “I am against race mixing because it destroys genetic diversity.." Mixing increases genetic diversity.
I suppose that focusing on gender--along with race/ethnicity-- would have just made this all too complicated.
The only way to de-escalate ideology is to, well, de-escalate ideology. As long as you think your ideology has righteous justification then others have license to feel the same way about their ideology. And if you feel sanctioned to act on your ideology, then you should expect others to do so.
And of course other actors contribute to righteous thinking. Media both promote ideology and gain from dedicated fans. Businesses create and manage images as they target consumers, selling not only products but ideological satisfaction. Public office holders and candidates stake out ever more extreme ideologic positions based on zero sum politics.
Speaking of public officials, perhaps the ultimate amplification comes when government institutionalizes ideology. Whether by democratic or totalitarian means, official sanctions and bans on ideas and beliefs create legal and social outcasts.
True pluralism is hard. And the Golden Rule is wrong. We need to treat other people not as we wish they treat us, but as they wish to be treated--even if we have ideological disagreements.
What's scary, or staged, is the camera shots at rallies showing young white people behind the podium, not old white men. Let's hope it is a staged tactic, not a prevalence.
Hello David, you didn't mention neanderthals. denisovans, cro magnans, early homo sapiens etc. these were very early attempts at pluralism, fluidity and community. -
This is such a disappointing comment from a columnist I love to read. I always suspected the conservative thinking patterns shaping all of his comments but never thought he will be enaging in a parsing exercise rather than simpliy calling out the evil of white supremacy behind this mass murder. He only mentions the word once but no interst in enaging with its causes in the immidiate US context but gives a generilised sermon of reflection.. .No different from the robotic, emotionless response we heard from someone else yesterday ..what is happening to the world !
@Shahin
I know! Why look deeper into the psychology of the actual perpetrators when it's so much more satisfying to say "Trump made him do it!"
So, how exactly do we address antipluralism?
1
So your prescription for hate is to be a pluralist? Are there any details to go with that advice? Vote Democratic? Pass sensible gun legislation? What?
1
I'm glad that CloudFare has decided to stop protecting 8Chan as a 'cesspool of hate'.
How to stop loser dudes alone in their bedrooms dreaming of fame from going out in a blaze of glory - is another thing.
Google is pretty good at detecting patterns - can IP addresses be used to monitor hate speech ? Now we're gettting AI an' all ... ?
E pluribus unum. Out of many, one.
That's the motto of our country. Not Build a wall. Not Lock 'em up.
1
The elder leadership is defined by its youth and education.
Todays leadership in USA was molded in 1968. Their mindset remians frozen in that unique time 50 years ago.
Everything American leadership sees in the world today is framed by that time period with John Lennon singing "imagine" to them while they began to explore their minds through drugs and new fangled computer systems...watching HAL take over the Jupiter exploration ship.
These people grew up to become the educators, the journalists, the bureaucrats, the Presidents......that push the American Agenda.
But they remain locked into a worldview that no longer matches reality....in fact it probably didnt match reality even in 1968......those times were shaped by priveledged kids insulated from the outside world of Post WW2, now finding out their Leaders were lying to them.
Now....who's doing the lying? and are they over 30?
You talk about multiculturalism and its value.
What you never talk about is the wonders of nature and the diversity of life.
You are so focused on the importance of humans with all their differences that you can't even for a moment consider the real diversity of life that is being extinguished and forever snuffed out.
One can't watch a nature film these days without the creature/species being studied having an electronic collar wrapped around its neck - given that each and every one is threatened with extinction.
IN the past these creatures could escape into the depth of the ocean, or the darkness of the night and forest. But today we have the tools to find them wherever they hide.
Trembling and alone, we show them no mercy.
The irreverence for all of life that you show is frankly disgusting ---- because you are in such a hurry to show how virtuous you are by condemning anyone who believes not all cultural differences are for the better
1
Culture is vital in that is shapes how we see ourselves, the world around us and how we relate to others. Roger Ailes understood this and use it to tribalize politics and to manipulate cultural fears and religion. To ignore the importance of this is worse than dangerous. We are living with the toxic legacy of Roger Ailes propaganda machine and it is destroying our country. I publish the "Blue Collar Review because working class literature unites us based on what we share in times of cultivated division but a small poetry magazine is not enough.
We need to re-establish limits on media regarding balance and prohibit bigoted incitement and we need to promote a culture of social cohesion and mutual responsibility rather than on of competitive materialism, ego-centrism and violence. We become what we project.
1
There are reasons for the hate and anger that need to be dealt with.
David Brooks' life may have only been enriched by immigration.
Me, I love the food and vitality of diversity, but I know that there is another, problematic side to immigration.
Immigrants have been really cheap workers.
They have probably made their employers wealthier, contributing to the colossal income/wealth inequality.
Their willingness to work cheap, often off the books, has really hurt the employment prospects of many, citizens, now angry and resentful.
The trade deals resulting in the offshoring of good manufacturing jobs created more anger and despair.
And then there is the great recession with Obama too visionless and cowardly to ease the pain of foreclosed homeowners, while he made the banks whole and never jailed a banker.
Hate is unpleasant, but reasonable under the circumstances.
We all know the life expectancy of white males is declining, while another of the NYT's clueless opinion writers, blithely writes "A Requiem for White Men".
Asking "What can I and the country do to help so you won't be so angry, other than total racial separation?"
Just get the conversation going.
For that matter, the same question needs to be asked of ISIS.
We really need to perfect our getting along skills, with the zeal we perfect our killing skills.
2
To combat the ideology of hate vote for anyone but a republican. Can anyone say southern strategy?
There is no white race.
There is no black, brown, red or yellow race.
There is a human race.
This race is moving inexorably towards integration and homogenization. This is great news. Pathetic efforts to stave off the melding of our shared humanity is causing hideous pain. The sooner the human majority makes this clear to the pathetic racist minority, the sooner we can start to reach our potential and heal our wounds.
Dan Kravitz
This prescription sounds a lot like Lincoln's before the South literally shot themselves in the foot by firing on Fort Sumter. Not having the requisite authority to confiscate slaves from southerners, Lincoln resigned himself to strangling slavery by stopping its progression into the new territories. He believed slavery would die a lonesome death in about 100 years or more. Where would we be as a country if instead of signing into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964, we saw the end of formal slavery? We'd be at least a century behind where we are now. Due to the South's reckless desire to jump the gun, Lincoln was provided additional powers to do what he wished all along - Emancipation. We can't resign ourselves to wait until the idiots with a gripe and a gun wise up. We need legislation and courts bound by a unified support to correct the damaged aspects of our society with extreme prejudice.
1
They kill because they can; because they can buy weapons of death.
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First, take away the guns, like every other civilized Western country.
2
Democracy demands pluralism, autocracy prefers antipluralism.
1
We're waiting for GOP-enabler David Brooks to acknowledge that St. Reagan was a crackpot racist, as was Nixon (see tapes), GHWBush (see Willie Horton ad he abided), and now trump. GWBush was simply criminally incompetent (see Iraq War), plus he was stupid enough to let an affective assault-rifle ban expire needlessly. Indeed, that's his contribution to rightwing domestic terrorism.
1
Sorry, David, but it is plain wrong to quote these manifestos as if they are scholarly writings and and give the killers who write them and then murder dozens of innocent people the attention and platform they greatly seek. Shame on you for doing so.
Fear of (and loathing for) "the different" is nothing new. When my great grandparents immigrated to Canada from Ireland in 1908, they were not welcomed. My grandmother told me that, when she went looking for a job," she was faced with signs in shops saying "Saleslady needed. No Irish need apply!"
So, she founded her own business - one of the first female owned and operated businesses in Toronto.
As a youth, I listened to American TV and thought there were only minor differences between Canadians and Americans. Not so today!
Anti immigrant rhetoric seems pervasive in the USA. Mass shootings almost seem to be today's defining American characteristic while pervasive gun ownership is today's defining American characteristic.
Toronto now has a majority non-white background. Do I bemoan the loss of my "heritage"? Not for a minute! I revel in today's cultural mosaic and had great employees from all major cultural groups.
How (and why) did our two neighbouring countries move from great similarity to gross differences? Can today's societies really be defined by the residual effect of centuries ago slavery, Indian and Mexican wars?
Whatever the causes, our two countries are now vastly different places with vastly different social attitudes with respect to race and religion. I'm comfortable with today's Canadian society; are you comfortable with today's emerging American society?
1
I'm optimistic, just walk in any big city mall and notice the young people. You see black girls and white boys holding hands, Asians and Mexicans obviously girlfriend and boy friend and many other combinations, all so natural.
These young murderers are misfits who don't fit in anywhere, with family , peer groups, who attach to other loners on the web. It's a problem.
1
OK, I have to admit it: this was well done. Not a fan of Brooks by a long shot, but this is well done.
1
The Republican Party has become almost like the Bath Party in Iraq. It controls the Supreme Court, the executive branch, half the legislature and most of the state legislatures. I live in a liberal state. Most of the people I encounter support Trump. Most people in my state are DINOs - Democrat In Name Only. Hate radio can be heard emanating from every nook and cranny. Fox Propaganda "News" spews in many homes and in every, I mean every gym - even the YMCA. Every waiting room to any business has it blaring its bullying bombast and bilious hatred with gusto into the listening ether without considering that someone might have a differing view. While the Republican Party has become the White Nationalist Party, I can tell you it is more established, more imbedded and more permeating of the demos than most people would admit.
4
Thank you for this, Mr. Brooks. In this insane world, yours is a voice of sanity. We need more big-picture thinkers like you.
"The terrorists dream of a pure, static world. But the only thing that’s static is death, which is why they are so pathologically drawn to death."
Pretty good insight, I think.
1
The USA have the highest violent crime rate of the industrialized world and the highest incarceration rate , both by 8 times the European average .Mass shootings are a small statistic in there even if by themselves they represent an even bigger record .
You have 50 times more risks to be killed while being robbed in the US than in Europe .
1
David Brooks: the voice of reason in a time of utter chaos and dystopia. David, I am thankful for all your efforts to make the world a better place.
1
Thank you. I really enjoyed this piece.
This description of the pluralistic heart of western culture is unquestionably correct. Races such as the Irish are a mix of native Gaels, Scandinavian sea raiders and immigrant Scottish and British settlers. There are even some descendants of Moorish sailors abandoned in the west of Ireland in 1588, Germans and Italians
1
Anti-pluralism plus gun culture equals a country at war with itself.
Almost 400,000,000 guns in the U.S. is murder.
2
Time has come to understand the origin of hate - it is not in the animal kingdom. Why we hate others - it is the manifestation of our limited identity that creates these “others”. The American culture of extreme individualism is a double edged sword - on one side it helps to manifest the exceptional qualities of a person, on the other hand it creates the large classes of “others”. American education system should focus this aspect of human psychology to the students so that they can fully prepare their “individualism” in line with twenty-first society where different races and religious people are living closely in a society. This problem is more predominant in white people - for last 300 years their individualism and excellence was not challenged and today it is challenged. This challenge can be a positive trigger for competition or a negative trigger for hate. It is found that large section of the children are triggered negatively in the middle school and over time this caused this white supremacy hate syndrome. This is societal problem and need immediate remedial action in the schools.
I'm going to write something that won't be popular but how many of the victims of these shooting voted for Trump? I have sympathy for all the victims' families. What happened was horrendous. But if they supported this president and his hateful rhetoric, then what did they think would happen? That they would be spared and only people of color would be affected by what Trump has said? Trump supporters better wise up. Whether it's the loss of your homes, farms, factories, or the loss of your health care, you will be hurt by your choices and ignorance. No one will be spared from this president's bigotry. Love conquers hate, but let's hope love triumphs before something like this happens again. Tragic, just tragic.
2
Two ways of thinking about how to stop gun violence. One, limit access to the guns, through gun safety laws, tough background checks, and the like. Then there’s the Trump/GOP way. Identify all individuals likely to use guns for mass murder and involuntarily incarcerate them while selling war weapons to anyone who wants them. Trump specifically mentioned this ridiculous solution in his 10 minute address condemning white supremacy and video games and letting those mourning their dead know that guns don’t pull triggers.
We have voted for this nightmare. Let’s vote to end it.
3
Repeal the 2nd amendment. Hate and lunacy is universal. The easy access to guns is not.
1
@Cynical
All you have to do is get 38 states to vote for it. I'm not holding my breath.
1
Nice analysis, but not to the point. This homegrown terrorism is not a sudden thing, appearing from nowhere. It's the fruit of generations of "conservative" (and now 100% of Republican) anti-government talking points used as weapons to take down liberal democracy in America and replace it with fascism and service to rich guys...with the aid, I might add, of certain columnists who were cheerleaders for the Republican administrations of the last half century.
It is a subculture of hatred, just like any criminal subculture, it has common characteristics that bind it together. Hatred infects all skin colors, all languages, religions, genders. It demonizes another group because it needs an enemy. It has its own code.
In Trump, this subculture of hatred found a spokesperson, an implicit and eloquent leader.
1
Thank you, David. I've been waiting for someone to make the connection between domestic white nationalist terrorism and Islamic Jihad. I know that it's not the crux of your article, but I think it drives home the point that both acts should be addressed legally in the same manner.
Purity is a white light that blinds.
Panculturism is the rainbow.
Interestingly, this is why, as a product myself of different cultures and religions, I was early on instinctively a Democrat. From childhood, the gentle judgement and thinly-disguised hostility of many Republicans and the Republican mind-set in general turned me off. To me, it feels like this was always the party of the status quo, smug, full of its own natural sense of superiority and ripe for xenophobia.
1
You have to give it to David Brooks. Right in the middle of a column that's telling you what you already knew as if it were a shattering insight, he tries to reinvent the term "Judeo-Christian" as a brand of inclusion.
It's little surprises like this that keep me coming back for more.
For someone who promotes pluralism, though, he overlooks one fine historical example: A modern political party whose elite paid obeisance to pluralism in public for decades but all the while made common cause with racial and religious bigots to gain power.
Surely their fine feelings on the subject deserve congratulations.
El Paso shooter Patrick Crusius is a “white separatist” who thinks races should coexist peacefully but separately. In his manifesto, he wrote: “the ideal of deporting or murdering all non-white Americans is horrific. Many have been here as long as the whites, and have done as much to build the country. The best solution to this for now would be to divide America into a confederacy of territories with at least 1 territory for each race. This physical separation wold nearly eliminate race mixing and improve social unity by granting each race self-determination within their respective territory.”
His views are hardly unprecedented. While working on the draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, President Lincoln was also working on a plan to send freed slaves to colonies in Liberia or Central America. He told a delegation of black leaders who visited the White House in in 1862 that money has been appropriated for that purpose. He said “You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated.”
Brooks is on point. The only thing I'd add is competition. When others are in the workforce, they add different perspectives. The ideas of those described by Brooks have difficulty competing. They truly believe "she got the job because she was (insert a difference)." No reflection of self=stagnation.
Years ago, Brooks wrote an article about conservative thought in the 70's, when liberalism was rampant. It held that every public policy should be judged by two criteria: Whether it tended to increase individual initiative, and whether it increased community cohesion. It inspired me to be a much better capitalist. Add the universal religious doctrine of care for the poor, and one is almost home free.
This article not only celebrates the strength of mixing cultures, but also the joy in doing so. In 30 years, people will wonder what all the fuss was about.
So let's move this along in our private life -- and in our strong support -- time and money -- to elect leaders who will stand for hope and respect and a yet more perfect union.
1
When let loose from captivity, Stephen Miller spews his disgust for liberals and cosmopolitans who refuse to see the dangers of illegals and asylum seekers. This is the person Trump relies on for his speeches and stoking the fires of his base. Trump and Miller are the voice of the GOP's desire to keep the country white and pure. some politicians in Germany during the 1930s had similar goals.
1
I wonder if the white supremacists that love the GOP realize that GOP donors often lead multinational firms that have no interest in racial purity? These companies want to make profits in any way possible.
Why do Americans insist on reinventing the wheel? Far-right terrorism is nothing new, far-left terrorism is nothing new, Islamist (which is far-right) terrorism is nothing new.
America’s new far-right is inspired by a movement we have had for a long time, the "identitaires”. Renaud Camus, the writer that the media reports invented the “Great replacement” theory (he didn’t, no more than Nazism invented antisemitism, this kind of stuff has far deeper roots) is a symbol of this movement.
It’s nothing more than ethno-nationalism, the type that humanity has known for millennia. It’s not about pluralism or anti-pluralism or any other pie-in-the-sky, just good old classic ethnic chauvinism (well whites aren’t an ethnicity, but for American purposes we’ll pretend they are).
Now, these poetic debates are all nice and good, but ultimately useless. All extremism has a cause, and needs a solution. Let’s get to the solutions please.
America has, for some time now, fostered extremism, abroad (supporting Islamism/far-right as a tool; excusing Islamism in Europe for some on the American far-left or even more mainstream left in the name of culture), and at home. Let’s look at American extremism at home, and I’ll name you one source that, compared to its similars in the developed world, is absolutely blinding.
The Republican Party. A party so far right on economics and society that France’s Front National would be to the left of it. When is America going to do something about that?
177
@Un Laïcard What a strange comment. Brooks isn't reinventing any wheels here, and his use of the broader term anti-pluralist, which ethno-nationalism entirely fits within, covers all of the different imagined "pure" cultural communities that terrorists claim to defend (ethnic, national, racial, religious, etc.). Indeed, pluralism fits the American context perfectly, as those of us who see diversity as a source of cultural creativity and renewal specifically embrace the possibility that membership in a broader American community should be available to anyone regardless of the wide variety of identities (ethnic, racial, religious, sexual orientation, and so on) that we all possess.
9
@Jeff P - It's only a strange comment to you because you (& DB) insist on viewing these events as sociological phenomena rather than more deeply embedded in cultural identity (& the human psyche).
3
"Antipluralists yearn for a return to clear borders, settled truths and stable identities." I'd settle for enforcement of the laws as they currently exist.
2
@c smith
Therein lies one of the big rubs to this whole immigration situation, and that is that the laws we have are so outdated, so screwed up, that they basically don't work. At a time when we are asking about our children's future, for example, we have a visa system, the H1B, that once was designed to get unique skills that has been turned into a pipeline in tech to tap into cheap labor markets (basically doing in tech what we did in manufacturing), the whole process of hiring a visa holder is a game. We have a need for people like farm workers, dishwashers, landscape workers (the people coming from Mexico and points south are working those kind of jobs), yet we pretend like they are taking well paying jobs (ironic when you think of the H1B visa situation). Worse, the attempts to curb illegal immigration benefit the employers, it is no coincidence that we round up illegal immigrants but we don't punish those who employ them; want to know why? Employers love illegal immigrants in this climate, they know Trump and Trump nation are frothing at the mouth, so the employer can pay whatever little they want, can even not pay the person they illegally hire, and know the fear of being deported means they have no recourse, and believe me, the landscapers, contractors, restaurants, you name it, love it, they charge you to do work at full wage rate while paying little, with no benefits, using illegal immmigrants.
I am just this minute hearing the voice of El Paso's Congresswoman Veronica Escobar pleading that President Trump not come to her district in the wake of the atrocity that just afflicted El Paso at the hands of a mass murder operating under the president's persistent cheerleading.
This is the president who was also disinvited to the funeral of the bona fide American war hero and leading Senator John McCain. He was barely tolerated under the contemptuous glare of the Bush family at the memorial service of former president George H. W. Bush.
This is our president, unwelcome wherever decent Americans mourn. He is that reviled. We are living through these awful times, so we have no choice but to believe the unbelievable.
6
So:
-Mass killers are not only driven by bad ideas, but very stupid ones. Indeed.
-At the core of these bad ideas are forms of identity politics. This means, or is based on, the idea that demographical categories name essences. And these qualities are essentially distinct from one another, theoretically well-bounded.
-The true soul of America is liberal, democratic, open, diverse, pluralistic. Sure.
The second point warrants further reflection. What happens when politics becomes the madness of civil war---now carried out by fringe sects consisting of loosely coordinated networks of loners inspired by ideological advertising spots of like-feeling kooks? It is a new form of terrorism, earlier practiced by ISIS.
Sites advocating extremism and violence need to be taken down, since relying on the free speech ideal of an educated and rational citizenry is unrealistic. Policing administrators with any sense should know the difference between that and all kinds of art or argument. Hate-mongers should face charges.
The idea of such war (like Hobbes's of all against all) is indeed linked to notions of identity, closure, and individualism that are in turned linked to property. It is a possibility of capitalism run amok.
These insane killers are men with broken lives; for each there are a thousand others who just suffer needlessly, in a broken society that thinks people are the origin of their problems. We would fix the persons when we should change the society.
We need to name the hatred that Donald Trump and other white nationalists are preaching to their disciples: it is the hatred that fuels racism, terrorism, and mass murder. We have to use our collective power against this hatred to ban assault weapons - and vote Trump OUT.
4
Trump and these rampant terror events are creating a "network effect" - energizing, feeding and inciting more domestic terrorist to take action. I am too sad for my country. More deaths of innocent and meek seem all but certain. Why isn't my government protecting us against such horrific enemy? What more must occur to actually DO something drastic? We are under attack each month, week... When will this nation call a STATE of EMERGENCY? Your inaction is too frightening.
@KEVIN You mean why aren't Republicans protecting us; why isn't McConnell bringing the House gun control bill from February to the floor for a vote. Because why would they? Their pockets are lined with NRA and gun manufacturers' money. Domestic terrorism keeps us distracted from the harm they're doing to our institutions. And their leader in the White House stokes the flames to keep these distractions going. What will it take for something to be done about it? Either attacks against the rich and powerful instead of Walmart shoppers, or people getting out to vote in 2020.
2
Sterile platitudes about "pluralism" are rendered absurdly inadequate when juxtaposed with the gruesome carnage in El Paso and Dayton. The dispositive factors are the lethal mix of assault weapons availability, marginalized young white men threatened by demographic and cultural change, the white nationalism internet,and the insidious rhetoric of a racist president, who now has the blood and gore of innocents on his white hands. Criminalizing the possession of assault weapons, expunging white nationalist websites from the internet, and the removal of Donald Trump, via election or impeachment , are the initial mperatives necessary to eliminate this plague of mass slaughter.
1
There are always people who bend towards the small, the hatred, the feat of other. Seeing hate and prejudice run amok is as much a part of our history as "the melting pot" is.
It is part of our dark history - from slavery to the oppression and exploitation of immigrants to the elimination of native populations - that we have acknowledged was the other side of the coin, the flip side of our brilliant ideals.
That strain of hate and fear has never been vanquished, but we drove it under; we made it unacceptable, socially condemnable, contemptible, ugly and small. We buried it, and tried socially to eliminate it.
Until Trump unleashed the fury, and made it OK to hate in public again. Until Trump and his big mouth, small mind and smaller soul, the hate existed on the fringes, and we at least pretended that we did not have this ugly stain running through us. Trump brought it out, celebrated it, took it from a dog whistle to a great big triumphant shout.
And now we are left writing about the nature of hate.
Hate is always there - but usually a healthy society suppresses it, condemns it, marginalizes it. They don't channel it right to the voting booth.
And there is the worst of it: the GOP doesn't hate. They just cynically find some people expendable in the quest to feed their base voters.
MSNBC had an excellent two-hour special this evening hosted by Rachel Maddow, Brian Williams, and Nicole Wallace. They interviewed national security and FBI experts among a number of the guests. Interestingly, one of the contributors asked to please not elevate the El Paso assassin's written words as a "manifesto." His writing was nothing more than a screed, a rant, a diatribe. I appreciate David's analysis of the mind-set of these American white men, murderers all. But personally psychology gets me nowhere in helping to solve our horrendous and growing domestic terrorism. These people are humanized if "put on the couch." And they are inhuman, bad seeds. We are beyond figuring out what makes their inner bombs tick toward destruction. It is time for pragmatism. It is time for Congress to legislate. It is time to stop making excuses, whether it be video games, mental illness, the "media." Mr. Trump, I believe, does not want these killings; I will at least give him that. Yet, this president of the Republican Party, of MAGA supporters, et al., is in his own way handing killing machines to the fanatic through his inflammatory rhetoric. That rhetoric reveals his racist soul. He is ultimately accountable. As was pointed out on today's above-mentioned special, strong words of condemnation from Trump can actually initiate the end of these massacres. Yet, that is a big "if," a "can he," a "will he."
2
"The Ideology of Hate and How to Fight It"
Mr. Brooks forgot to answer his own question.
Vote for Democrats in 2020.
1
The "pluralism" of which you speak was mostly accomplished throughout human history by violence.
America is multiracial mostly because of slavery and warfare.
The English immigrants destroyed the Native Americans.
The Normans destroyed the Celts.
Homo Sapiens destroyed the Neanderthals.
I could go on. I just picked the highlights.
All life depends on the appropriate rate of change. Change too fast or too slowly, and death follows. So we have progressives pushing change and conservatives slowing it down. In a healthy society, there are cultural and legal checks and balances to ensure that these countervailing forces proceed civilly, with respect for the other side even when in profound disagreement.
Culturally, civility has largely been replaced by tribalism, echo-chambers, name-calling, overheated rhetoric, and character assassination rather than constructive debate, discussion, problem-solving, compromise and gracious acknowledgement of the inherent dignity of the other side. First talk radio and now Fox News (and MSNBC on the other side) far more powerfully shape the ways Americans interpret events and people's intentions.
Legally, the GOP has masterfully gamed the system via galvanizing messages of fear, coded or blatant racism, controlling statehouses and their gerrymandering, Citizens United, and trumping the popular vote in the electoral college. The Democrats have been far, far less adept and effective at this, obviously.
Then, a corrupt, and corrosive Donald Trump simply took advantage of the glide path that had been so well prepared for him by the cultural and legal legacy of the GOP's successes and has carried them to their natural conclusions: unprincipled, incoherent, and unhinged governance. Please, Democrats, give Brooks and those like him a candidate they will vote for.
Everything in this universe is going some place else. Our country is no different. As our racial and ethnic makeup changes, will we remain a nation of ideals or will we stumble as the socio-racial group that founded our nation becomes a minority within the country. Will we continue to impose the artificial social distinctions inherited by our founding fathers on those who come afterwards?
Sadly, there is no relief for those in El Paso and Dayton, nor will there be relief for those killed in the coming wave of pre-election attacks. But our response to all these events can make a difference. First, we respond with love for those hurt and even for those who caused the hurt. Second, we mobilize as a nation to force our leaders to accept changes and improvements to gun safety laws, and we demand that the green jobs of the future be located in those areas currently left behind by our current economy. And, next we change elementary school education to include holocaust and First Nations genocide awareness—all with the goal of teaching our young that each person is endowed with humanity, dignity, and worth to be respected. We respond to these horrific events with love, sensible changes to our laws, and education for as long as it takes for the fires of racial and ethnic hate to burn themselves out. This journey towards peace will take longer than we want and will cost more than we wish in the loss of life, but the sooner we start, the sooner the journey will end.
There is one, giant, glaring and embarrassing omission in this article: David Brooks never mentioned the President's words. He only used the man's name once in this entire piece!! We cannot survive when our "leader" continually speaks as he does. A fish rots from the head down. While Trump did not cause racism; he gave them permission to behave badly. He gave them not only a mouthpiece; but a megaphone.
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@Rogue 1303
I've read DAVID BROOKS for years and there was a time when he was proud to be a conservative but since the tRump he has all but abandon his conservatism because I think he wishes his old tribe would come back. DAVIS is an intellectual that is sometimes over my head to read but his blood runs the OLD RED as he holds the REP flame of the past hoping for the phenix of his party. It will emerge David but not in our lifetimes.
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@Rogue 1303 Trump is irrelevant in the discussion. Hate is the issue, and it's been with us for 3500 years or more. Actually, tribes see others as different, then fearful and threatening, then hate and then violence or extermination. 20,00 lynchings were not Trumpian. 3/5th compromise was not Trump's, Japanese internment was not Trump's. He is just the latest catalyst to appear on the scene, fomenting fear once again. We are in deep do-do, and unfortunately, Brooks, who I highly respect for his views did not step up to the plate and offer any solutions, though the title suggested that he would. Climbing the second mountain is a good start, however. Read his book.
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@Rogue 1303
Brooks doesn't have to reaffirm his anti-Trump bona fides with every column.
Of course policy and leadership is an essential part of the solution to this problem. But we know in our hearts that this goes a lot deeper than Trump or guns, mental health or the NRA.
There is a spiritual crisis in this nation, our culture, and we need to figure that out. We will need to look inward as much as we do outward for solutions. I'm glad to see pundits doing so.
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The right to keep and bear arms was penned when most guns were single shot muzzle loaders.
The founders could no more have anticipated a gun that could fire 600 times a minute than they could have foreseen a jet plane armed with missiles and six barreled Gatling guns firing 6000 times a minute.
So now people have the ability to kill 100 people in about 10 minutes.
The founders would think we were crazy to allow the ability to commit mass murder in their names.
These aren't weapons for self defense anymore than a household armed with an atomic bomb would be able to deter a burglar.
Let's go back to original intent and let people own single barrel muzzle loaders and let them hunt like Davy Crockett did.
VietnamVet
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@Michael
This makes a lot of sense.
Thank You.
Very accurate description of the problem, but your title promised an answer. How to fight it? I read your words twice and couldn't find the answer? Sure, pluralism v. antipluralism. Or otherwise stated, good v. evil. Education v. ignorance. Truth v. falsity. Questions plaguing humankind for centuries. But how do we insure that pluralism prevails?
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" Eighty years ago, Protestants, Catholics and Jews did not get along, so a new category was created, Judeo-Christian, which brought formerly feuding people into a new "us".
You lost me there already, Mr. Brooks. Insisting that the US is supposedly a Judeo-Christian country is an oxymoron par excellence.
And as a matter of fact, when comparing the two much younger Catholic and Protestant versions of the 10 Commandments with the original Jewish Commandments, this country now has three different ones.
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Mr. Brooks,
So many think multi-culturalism is more positive than negative.
My question is this. How would it be compatible with a democratic society to allow mass immigration of Saudi families who believe in a patriarchy so corrosive that their girls develop all sorts of stratagems to exit their country?
Just asking.
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@Blanche White
If they believe that much in patriarchy why would they come here? Thinking that that Saudi's (not sure that's the correct term but will have to suffice) are mass immigrating to the U.S. I think is not accurate.
Yes there are some who are trying to escape what they see as a repressive society many are women but to imply a mass migration?
Wow just WOW.
But I have never thought I knew a lot so I can be wrong.
Within two generations most would be in the mainstream wearing jeans and having jobs. Such insularity can function only in a country run by fundamentalists.
“The struggle ahead is about competing values as much as it is about controlling guns"
David, please get out of that DC Republican talking shell. I also imagine that when you travel around, you stay in that same mode. A friend of mine calls it "gobbledygook"
Next time try staying at a Motel Six.
The simple fact is that a group of young white men have formed an identity on 8chan and other internet neighborhoods as white supremacists. They have armed up with assault weapons, bombs, armored vests etc...
We need to outlaw their assaut weapons. In the first democratic debate, Congressman Eric Swalwell had recommended a program of banning and buying back those weapons. That can be a start. Changing values will be a long range education . Free Pre-K through adult learning for everyone who wants it. The demilitarization of our police forces and a de-escalation of our wars with more emphasis on diplomacy would also be essential.
Get REAL. Enough of the "gobbledygook"!
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Maybe what’s different this time is that, for the first time in history, citizens — people, with all their conflicting ideologies and beliefs— who are not part of an army are allowed and able to arm themselves with weapons that fire so rapidly and do so much damage to the body. This is a great experiment, if you will, and so far it’s not going well.
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My ears have grown to the size of satellite dishes in preparation for listening to a Republican tell me how to fight hate. I'm literally all attention, let 'er rip David, school me.
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The U.S.A. habitually acts in dire contrast to its avowed principles, whether in creating equal opportunity at home or spreading democracy abroad.
There is a reason for this: The cowboy mentality is deeply embedded in the national psyche and in the Constitution: Unbridled Capitalism in which "the rich deserve to be rich, and the poor are simply lazy." A preference for force, to rein in troublemakers at home (over two million incarcerated as I write), and to punish uncooperative regimes abroad (while obviously protecting the very worst, but compliant, dictatorships).
The solution is 'regime.change', beginning in November 2020. Good luck.
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You forgot to mention the one about if you are rich it is because you are a good person and God loves you and if you are poor it’s because God knows you are bad and you deserve to be poor.
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I appreciate the perspective of pluralism to define the problem behind purposeful mass shootings. I say the opposite of pluralism is segregationalism, if you must name 'isms'. That makes it clear. There is a long tradition of segregation by law, custom, and vigilante violence. But these days are mass shootings are characterized by randomness as much as ideology.
Shooting up a country rock concert in Las Vegas with a machine gun from a sniper perch was not ideology other than hate for humanity, not a special group. If the guy hated the Batman movie in 2012, he could have shot the movie screen instead of what, 72 people. Most high school shootings are not about ideas, but simply outsiders hating those who fit in.
Pluralists embody acceptance and tolerance. Mass murders attack that body, but they also attack any old body in their way. Why, because they can. It's not a sign of mental illness so much as a faculty enabled by hardware and technology. Our fearsome military machine is for sale to our militia, our police force, our neighbor. The ecology of the culture is defined by weaponry, not ideas. A hater with a golf club is a joke compared to one with a 100 round assault rifle.
It's time to buy back all assault rifles, not by force but by cash.
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The belief in separate races, which is the basis of racism, white nationalism, social darwinism, and all of the other "ideas" contained in the various manifestos created by the recent mass killers is not countered by a "pluralism" which seems to think that "mixing" is a reality.
The genetic discoveries that we all already are a mixture, and which was part of liberal thinking before genetic verification, has not yet penetrated the psyches of many racists.
Mr. Brooks, if this editorial was meant to be consoling; it isn’t. The people going about in their ordinary lives, shopping, having an evening out, were simply living their lives. Most assuredly, they were probably not thinking about how pluralistic their lives were. Especially not the children who were killed. They had no chance to even grow old enough to philosophically examine their lives. The killers of these people may have had heads full of anti-pluralistic thinking, but they had guns in their hands. And that is the difference. It is where thinking ended and where violence began: swift and deadly.
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This is a disappointing essay. While much of what he says is sound, Brooks goes through mental gymnastics to somehow implicate identity politics in domestic and jihadist terrorism (they all see race as an important, defining characteristic). But one can embrace a pluralistic society and a racial identity. Bi-racial couples do not deny their racial heritages and the cultural affiliations that come with it. In other words, having a racial identity need not (and usually does not) lead to separatism, purity, etc.
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You notice how eloquent he is in critique, but how vague he is with actual policy ideas about immigration, single mothers, etc. Its easy to espouse vague feel good ideas like pluralism. Something tells me David Brooks is not personally affected by the changes in America.
@david Interesting that you single out women, single mothers, as a problem in need of a policy idea. Where in this article are women mentioned at all?
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@MD It's one of the biggest social problems today and the fact that smart people never mention it is my point precisely. Fatherless boys is far deeper problem than gun laws. Also, we've always had lax gun laws but the depressing numbers of single mothers is truly unprecedented. If people want to blame mass shootings 9n abstract social issues instead of bad people, single mothers should definitely be on the table as part of the discussion.
@david Oh, so we have an increasing problem with mass killings because more women are single mothers. It has nothing to do with easy access to assault weapons or "abstract social issues" like racism, white nationalism, or xenophobia. Thank you for pointing out the depressing numbers of single mothers as the biggest social problem today. As one myself, I quickly ran upstairs to check my son's room for weapons, but I haven't anything yet. I'll keep checking.
Stronger gun laws, stronger gun laws, repeat. It's the only relevant difference between the US and other comparable countries
The article has a synopsis of Trump’s world view, but the title is misleading. Nothing in this article says how to actually fight white nationalism. I suggest the best course is to vote straight Democratic tickets until the GOP purges this rhetoric from its platforms.
The ideology of "hate" in the world (racism, religious extremism, xenophobia, cultural chauvinism) and how to fight it?
The world appears to me a quite hypocritical place and you can get no honest analysis, description of the situation in front of the public (we are choked with official gatekeepers of information) and in fact it appears to serve politics to keep things as simple and binary as possible.
Politics says tendencies toward racism, religious extremism, xenophobia, cultural chauvinism are connected to "hatred" but actual economics, what people trust, bet on, risk their futures on demonstrates people are quite choosy and hardly politically correct where they invest. On the political level say, a corporation will be opposed to racism, religious extremism, etc.--be for pluralism say, over anti-pluralism--but its actual practices demonstrates quite contrary selection in work force, nations and projects invested in, and so on.
I project in a world of increasing population, environmental degradation, WMD, and so on a politics of kindness, simplicity, hopelessly binary thinking (either you like or dislike, are full of love or you are a hater) on the surface (crowd control in every sense of the word) but when it comes to underlying economics, what people really trust and invest in, there will be vast imbalances according to race, ethnic group, nation, culture, religion and so on, a picture at odds with political ideal.
Ask yourself honestly what you trust for future.
Mr. Brooks, I believe I read, recently, that our new member of the Supreme Court wants to see that it is o.k. for people in Washington D.C. to carry a gun.
So what's so sacrosanct about the 2nd Amendment that it cannot be repealed? I know, I know... Easier said than done.
Where's the political will. Besides Americans do hang on to their macho/paranoid myths like the immutable right to gun ownership no matter how guns have made us less safe as a nation. But it's worth the start and even Justice John Paul Stevens brought up its repeal as the best solution to our gun folly.
Trump repeatedly shows lack of empathy. Empathy is necessary for peace and coexistence. It does appear that the majority of Republican politicians is so afraid of Trump that either they quit or they are silent. It may be to late to shame them. We can only hope that it doesn’t take another incident for them to get a backbone. Or just vote them out.
Pluralism in a monolithic society can be challenging. You have to persuade people to accept the change and you should not enforce them to accept it. And selfishness is part of human nature. Nobody wants changes which threaten one’s own interests. Idealistic pluralism is as much fantastical as ideal pursuit of purity.
When hatred, greed and corruption begin at the top, then 'trickle down' to the masses, what else can we expect? Polysyllabic words like the one I just used and others that I just read simply add more fog to the war, yet some of us continue deluding ourselves thinking that they're a solution. We're all armchair psychologists when the many of the solutions we seek require more common sense than merely affixing labels to the problems.
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You want to talk, "manifestos"? Then, let's not leave out the Republican's "Southern Strategy". That wasn't written by some kid living in their mother's basement playing violent video games.
The problem isn't racism per se. The problem is the accepted historical practice of methodically exploiting racism to gain political power.
What we are witnessing is the sins of the fathers visited on the sons
The conservative op-ed writers of NYT have spoken up for plurality and civility. However the majority of the conservative media is either silent or dissembling while the country is burning.
How many mass shootings by white extremists will it take for President Bush, Gen Colin Powell, Gen Mattis, Sen. Romney and other senior members of the Republican Party to condemn President Trump for leading the country down this hateful path? Why are the Republican leaders of industry silent? Why are they allowing Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon et al to turn the GOP into the party of the far right.
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Get rid of guns you get rid of the problem. Don't make it harder than it has to be.
David,
Thank you for a thoughtful, well written article.
This particular one seems logical in its layout and conclusions.
However, how can a NY Times columnist, isolated from the young people in the middle class suburbs, sitting on their shoot em up video games all day because their performance to date has disabled them from getting a job at anything but Home Depot or Wendy's, and, they are way too good for those jobs,....
how can you pretend to know what is driving these folks?
Maybe it is not the high level issues you describe?
Maybe these guys just want to see what it is like to really shoot em up? I mean, some of these guys spend 15 hours a day on video games where the whole experience, all day long, is shooting other people.
Maybe, David, it is as simple as: Having spent much of their lives shooting up people in fantasy land, where, you and I think that does not matter, ....
maybe they just decide they want a real experience. Real blood. Real dead bodies that don't come back to life at the next session?
Maybe they just want to live what they have been training, for years on the video gamues, to be?
Killers.
Me? I think that is the real reason.
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The Christchurch killer was an Australian who carried out the atrocity in New Zealand because the guns he needed weren’t available to him in Australia. Australia introduced strict gun controls after the Port Arthur massacre and now New Zealand has belatedly followed.
You can’t do much about beliefs, many still believe the earth is flat and Elvis is still alive. You can do something about guns.
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Missing in this essay is condemnation of the regressive, atomizing, and soul crushing version of capitalism called MAGA.
Mr. Brooks; for decades you have enabled and normalized the election of Republicans. Largely ignoring "conservatives'" antipathy toward pluralism: women's rights, voter's rights, civil rights and far too often - human rights.
The GOP - indebted to the NRA (some would say servile), committed to "states rights, perverting the Second Amendment, and dismissive of public goods (anything shared by all). These values have been on display - for all to see - long before Donald Trump began his hate-filled campaign for presidents.
Now, you blather about battling for the soul of our culture - while you have been missing in action since Pat Buchanan issued his clarion call to the culture wars.
Do you have no sense of accountability, sir?
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All good. But it is anti-pluralists who own semiautomatic rifles and seem perfectly happy to use them on pluralists shopping at Walmart. Indeed the real motivation for advocates of Second Amendment protections is too often protecting the right of people to arm themselves against “invasion” by, well, pluralists, and frankly, I am getting tired of looking over my shoulder for long guns.
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Why pluralism? Why not equality, solidarity, responsible and mild patriotism, and integration? Why not a renewed stress on humanity and the universal? The problem with stressing pluralism of a deep sort is that people end up defining themselves by their differences and then feel insecure and alienated when what's different about them is challenged. They feel separate and unequal (superior or inferior) unless there is an overarching commitment to equality. And then all that's left is for people in different groups to compete for group position.
Islamists who think their religion is everything feel threatened by the modern world and the existence of other groups (Boko Haram means "western education is forbidden"). They lash out. Some African Americans humiliated by lack of equality, especially before the Civil Rights Movement, felt the temptations of black nationalism. Now unsuccessful white males who are told routinely--by far too many NYT opinion writers and progressive academics--that the main, unchangeable, and bad thing about them is that they are white and male are not going to get much out pluralism, especially if other groups actively celebrate their dwindling numbers. (It's a cliche on the left that America will be better in the future when it is less white.)
The answer to the xenophobia arising from the immigration of the early twentieth century was to make America a melting pot. E pluribus unum.
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@Alexander Menzies Indeed, the national motto is anti-pluralism: E Pluribus Unum.
@Alexander Menzies
Your comment is self-contradictory.
And it is not "the left" that is killing people.
Clue time.
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@Alexander Menzies We wrestle with a lot of cultural “structures”—systems of ideas that shape us in profound ways. I’d say the meritocracy is one. Most of our lives are structured by the competition for achievement, starting in our first classroom. I’d say pluralism is the other big one. We are more likely to live in diverse societies than people in just about any other age. We can try to ignore that diversity, but it keeps biting us in the rear. So I’ve come to the belief that we have to address it head on and build thick pluralism. Not just tolerating each other but really getting involved with each other.
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David comes closer, than most who just say “racism”, of understanding the real problem.
Real or not, people have a very real fear of their culture being replaced.
This is an extremely powerful force, and nothing good comes from it.
And it is not an entirely irrational fear, see the Native Americans.
The solutions only come from treating it as a real and rational problem, and not just declaring “racism” and walking away.
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Ugh. Brooks misreads so many realities in this piece. Terms like "Judeo-Christian" or "people of color" are not terms of plural inclusion: they're new boundaries of identity and conflict. "Judeo-Christian" in political context is a catch-phrase most often used by the Evangelical Right to sharpen the political difference between American and Israeli Right against Islam. "People of color" is a term most closely associated with college campus activism that asserts the shared political interests of blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans in contrast to whites. The opposite of a pluralist is an assimilationist: the latter asserts that immigrant should conform to America's mainstream Anglo culture ("Anglo-conformity" according to sociologist Milton Gordon) and the former argues the merits of cultural pluralism as a desirable outcome of immigrant incorporation. There's no advocate of "pure culture." Even the most rabid racist understands that Anglo-Saxon culture is "mixed": Angles and Saxons from today's Germany that mixed with the Celts and Normans. The battle lines for modern racists are that much more dangerous than belief in some ideal pure past: they're based on today's economic, demographic, social, and cultural anxieties in search for the convenient enemy. Trump's recklessness with words and deeds reveal him to be one of the most dangerous or foolish persons in America.
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@UC Graduate
Brooks abounds with contradictions. He is a conservative, yet he champions pluralism. “Antipluralists yearn for a return to clear borders, settled truths and stable identities.” Yet you couldn’t get a better description of conservatism than “settled truths and stable identities.” Conservatism is about preserving established tradition, about “loyalty to a creed and a set of norms [Brooks].”
Brooks: “Our lives are rich because each of us contains multitudes.” Is this a conscious appropriation of Walt Whitman’s “I am large, I contain multitudes”? If so, Brooks might want to note that Whitman called blacks “baboons” and “wild brutes.”
Brooks wants it both ways. He wants to do his best Jesus impersonation, to appear as the wise, gentle guru of universal inclusion. Yet, at the same time, he has championed bedrock, anti-collective conservative values like individualism and the free market that produced the very “white insecurity” he speaks of. He giveth with one hand and taketh away with another.
You can’t be a “weaver of community” and at the same time apotheosize individualism as conservatism does. To the conservative mind the collective is the dreaded “S word.”
Oh, I know: the collective must be organic, not planned by the government. But that position conveniently avoids the irrational outcome of organic individualism. One person’s individual choices compounded by, say 327 million, produces collective irrationality. Like our 393 million guns.
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@UC Graduate I’d recommend Eboo Patel’s book, “Out of Many Faiths.” He’s got a good description of how the phrase Judeo-Christian came into being. It was an attempt to bridge differences, or more precisely to create a new wider boundary. I’m sticking to my belief that the opposite of a pluralist is a separatist. We’re always going to live in groups and define meaning from our community. The question is whether the boundaries between communities are soft or hard, whether they allow interchange and intermarriage or not.
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Mr. Brooks states: "As the El Paso suspect put it, “The natives didn’t take the invasion of Europeans seriously, and now what’s left is just a shadow of what was.” Immigration is white replacement. Immigration is white genocide."
It seems to me there is, underlying the rhetoric we hear about "replacement", not just fear of the other, but a consciousness of having done wrong. It is not necessarily contrition for the wrong done, but fear that the wrong that one has done will be done to one's own group.
Can we, as a society, harness that consciousness and turn it toward actual contrition and making amends? Our lives might depend upon it.
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@Andy Jo This is an excellent point that I’d never thought of. I wonder if some of the replacement folks are aware they are benefiting from oppression and instead of facing that just decide that oppression is the natural and eternal state of play between different groups.
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Thank you David. This short and concise essay is an important contribution to the process we must now go through as a nation.
What is happening now and for some years is a result of how people think about and talk about themselves in relation to others who are different. Actions flow as a result. It has taken some time for seeds long planted to take root and result in action. That is now happening.
By naming in a few clear and simple terms the various components of the worldview that is driving white nationalist terrorists, you enable people to recognize its roots in the day to day talk of our nation and its leaders.
Only when large numbers of people recognize these roots - and distance themselves from those who endlessly replay them - will we be able to isolate this danger and expose it for what it is.
It will time, but I don't think it will be so complicated to slow and reverse the expansion of extremism, once people are widely alert to its roots in language and thought. The essential decency of the vast majority of Americans will guide a large number of people to do the right thing and step away from the seed planters of extremism, once they are able to recognize them.
I hope the Times will do everything possible to give this piece the widest possible distribution.
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If this column had been written in the period 1929 to 1944 few people would have understood much of it.
Those 15 years held the Great Depression and World War II The mere fact that the civilization survived was a unique testament to the the will of humanity everywhere
but especially in the U.S. We never gave a single thought to pluralism even though we lived, fought and survived those 15 years. We held our hands out, we lifted up our neighbors, and literally saved the world. We didn't point fingers, accuse or demonize individuals.
We, most of us, were in the same
boat. We had no idea then that 75 years later, well after the world nearly perished that we would face a different kind of Civil War - one that pits hate against the very soul of this nation. They don't refer to that generation as the Greatest Generation for nothing. Hate, if you will, but the only result you will get is
is a flimsy world of misery. And you will be watching a world that was defined by struggle disappear from the face of the earth.
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@Tom osterman The 1929-1944 years were years of collective suffering, few were beyond the pain of economic implosion and war. All witnessed the consequences. What emerged was a sense of commonality and interdependence. That has eroded over time. One can only hope that renewal of common good and a moral code founded on interdependence will not require an equivalent 15 year tragedy of suffering.
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@Tom osterman
We didn't "demonize or accuse individuals"? Tell that to the Japanese Americans who were rounded up in California and sent to Middle of Nowhere Montana and placed in concentration camps for years.
The problem with America is the judge-mental illness that now plagues our country.
As for my fathers generation, they had as many problems with compulsive gambling, alcohol, and pills and powder and backhanding woman as the generation before them and after them.
They were more "silent" than "great".
Tom Brokaw branded them with that title and made a nice little side business out of it selling books and tv productions and lectures.
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@Tom osterman Yes, and it's it's ironic that so many people who consider themslves progressive think the US will be a better place when that entire generation and the one that followed are dead.
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The great civilizations in history, such as the Romans, India under the Emperor Ashoka, China during the Han and Tang Dynasties and the evolving pluralism of the modern West and East have all been multi-ethnic and multi-cultural. For example, the Li family who occupied the throne in China during the Tang Dynasty were as fluent in Turkic as they were in Chinese.
Homogeneity is not strength: it is decay and sterility.
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@Donald Seekins what about the Nordic countries who cant seem to integrate
1
Genuinely curious: to the extent there is a "Jewish" culture, is not its long-term survival the result of "purity" rather than "amalgamation"?
@Enthusiast
It is true that the Jews have to a remarkable degree retained a certain biological purity (I recently learned that my ancestry is 99.8% Ashkenazi Jewish), but for the past 2000 years they have thrived, with the exception of modern Israel, as just one group in multi-ethnic societies - and nowhere more so than in the United States.
1
Can't we see this in terms of "change"? Society is constantly changing, with some people accepting or even welcoming this inevitability and others arrogantly resisting.
History does not stop. It did not when the British Empire was in its heyday and it is not stopping now when US is still enjoying its relative predominance. Our cultures, beliefs and values will continue to be questioned and tested, from within and without, including our almost sacrosanct "Judeo-Christian" patrimony.
18
All humans - no exceptions - have hatreds; some ideological, some not; but most of us don't act them out. And fewer still do so with military assault weapons. Most democracies have banned them. As simple as that. As for the GOP insistence that the internet is the problem: most of the world shares the internet - but not our pathological mass homicide rate. As for GOP claims that psych counseling is the answer: A) it's the least effective branch of the healthcare profession B) GOP is the party that wants to limit healthcare - they are clearly lying about wanting to pay for years of 'counseling' C) which potential mass shooters are you going to proactively identify and 'counsel.'? Ban assault weapons.
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@Rethinking
I would add, all humans - no exceptions - have insecurities and fears; some acknowledged, some not. To ignore them allows those insecurities and fears to twist our thought process. And our thought process becomes fertile ground for blame-based, fear-driven actions. Your observation about the US' mass homicide rate ({pathological") and how to face and correct it ("ban assault weapons") seem solid. It's way past time to keep our elected officials' feet to the fire and support groups like Moms Demand Action.
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Thank you for this thoughtful piece, Mr. Brooks. The lines I found most striking are, "The terrorists dream of a pure, static world. But the only thing that’s static is death, which is why they are so pathologically drawn to death." I tend to think of mass shooters in terms of Gavin DeBecker's / John Douglas's psychological profiling. I will be chewing on the notion that stasis = death and change = creativity (read: life). I want to know more about what draws certain types of minds to the "stasis / death" side of the scale but not others--even others who have experienced similar upbringing and so on.
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@Leila W Thank you. Your note reminds me of that concept of negative capacity, the ability to rest in a state of uncertainty. Some people are able to rest in uncertainty until things become clear, while others panic.
3
@David Brooks--ah, yes. Negative capability. I'm an English teacher, so I pretty much live in the land of negative capability. Interestingly (regarding the original topic of pluralism), my public charter school draws a fair amount of LGBTQ students because they feel safe, protected and loved there, which is a wonderful thing that I celebrate--but boy oh boy, those same children, who would claim to embrace pluralism, are sometimes highly intolerant themselves, to the point of bullying the occasional rural / conservative student who is not so comfortable with the LGBTQ lifestyle (or at least, not yet). Pluralism does NOT mean "everyone should be accepted. . . except those annoying idiots whom I don't like. We can exclude, berate, and mock them all we want," nor does it mean, "I will accept everyone who accepts me." That's just tribalism. To live in a truly pluralistic society means allowing those with whom we profoundly disagree to speak, and it means holding ourselves to the highest standards of modeling tolerant behaviors.
4
People function and thrive when they feel valued and have a path forward.
Do you know what helps people function and thrive? Policies and a government that functions for all and not the few.
A benevolent government that works to support is citizens through access to well-funded education, affordable healthcare for all, and prioritizing community safety.
Conservatism has fought for so long to marginalize so many. The answer is not a flowery column waxing and waning about pluralism. The answer is passing legislation that shows that it cares and values its citizens.
90
@Kelly
While pontificating on PBS Newshour, David Brooks
described Senator Bernie Sanders as very materialistic, and not spiritual.
To David Brooks, being materialistic must mean you care about the well being of people and
communities that are having a hard time and support programs that enable them and their children to have better lives.
To David Brooks, medicare for all, paid parental leave, quality K-12 education for all are simply not spiritual enough for him.
Reading his clueless stuff makes me understand hate... for his ideas
It's astonishing how many people on this comment page are calling on Brooks to write exactly the same column that at least a half dozen others working for this one paper have already written, not to mention every other place on the internet. No, Brooks hasn't spent his column inches on gun control. He acknowledges that there are several aspects to the problem of white nationalist violence, then moves to a part of the issue that nobody else is addressing. Why do readers feel the need to hear only one, simple, bumper-sticker-sized solution for every issue? Engage with some complexity; broaden your perspective; you'll be less surprised when the most obvious solution is only a partial one. White nationalism would still be a problem if violent perpetrators had fewer, less efficient means of killing people available to them. Gun control is an obvious, sensible reaction to gun violence, and we should start with it first and foremost. But gun control won't end white nationalism or more broadly violence based on racial identitarianism. It will simply reduce the death toll; let's discuss the deeper issue that undermines our democracy.
1
Thank you David, this is quite interesting. In the short term I believe our nation should act more like New Zealand and focus laser like on getting rid of the military grade weapons that enable these angry, lost souls to do so much violence so quickly. Yes, we can work on changing minds and perspectives, but the world will always have violent people . I think New Zealand had it right when they refused to discuss the killer, publish his name, or give him the days of fame he craved. Rather, they focused on what they as lawmakers could do immediately to reduce the likelihood it would happen again and banned military-grade weapons. That our government is unable to take that simple step shows just how broken our nation is at the moment. It can’t protect its citizens. That’s where we should focus first, not on the twisted psyche of a few young men.
68
@Sara in Australia we had a mass shooting at Port Arthur Tasmania. A gun buy back was legislated and we have not had another mass shooting some 25plus years later. I am not saying this us the answer for the US, but maybe just banning military grade weapons being sold to civilians is a step that can and should be taken.
6
@Sara
I agree. The shooters want attention. The media should not put their names in type. Their existence deserves to be ignored.
Ban assault weapons. There is no reason individuals need them.
6
This is a really important article, with a thesis that frames so well what is happening. I hope it gets disseminated widely and becomes the language of our conversation. How do we foster pluralism? How do we counter the insecurities of essentialists? Difficult enough to do with physical traits like race, more difficult with plural cultural traits like ethnicity, and most difficult when it comes to ethical and moral diversities.
11
Brooks should just get it over and join the Democratic party already. No one can protect pluralism without power, and the Democrats don't have it--not enough of it, anyway--so if he truly cares about the values of community, peaceful coexistence, healing, and interdependence, he needs to help put Democrats in office.
And just to translate values into policy:
community=leisure time for working/middle class
peaceful coexistence=gun control, cut defense budget
healing=universal health care, including mental health
interdependence=social safety net
12
@Julie You don't have to join to appreciate the policy. Just as the Republicans have some policies which in theory are "progressive", many of the Democrats' policies are just pandering. Sometimes it is best to go where the fight is as a ronin.
Unfortunately, a pure pluralism would encompass hateful voices as part of the plurality. That is always its challenge and its downfall.
I’m surprised at how many readers have chastised Brooks for being “philosophical “ instead of “proposing action”. I loved the philosophy and felt pleasure at the examples of how pluralism enhances our personal lives. This gives us a basis for action. Of course we should be working for candidates , calling and writing our Senators and Representatives and doing anything we can to change our current circumstances.
34
Actually there is a single answer for how we should live together: in peace.
8
I really appreciatrd this article. I'd also like to think that the most important threads that bind us (or don't) are the ones based our ideas about pluralism and how much we value diversity. Those who tolerate others and those who dont. Id like to believe this because the degree to which we accept and act kindly toward others is a choice we make, and cuts across all the other ways people choose to identify people; ways based on the things we have zero control over, like our skin color, where we were born, our sexuality, or who our parents are.
15
Brooks misses the point here. The problem is not one of pluralism over identity essentialism. It is history and science over ignorance and its derived prejudice that is the issue.
The world history of humans, migrating out of Africa and spreading throughout the world, mixing, fighting, joining together, challenging and supporting each other is a complex and fascinating history. By studying and understanding it we can begin to understand why we are what we are, and maybe learn how to improve ourselves and our relation with others.
Science teaches us about genetics and about human physiology, human political and social interactions, and a lot more.
These murderers, international and domestic terrorists, have their history and their science wrong. They find simplistic and wrong answers to misunderstood injustices.
And similar distorted views, albeit not so immediately violent, are found among those, mostly Republicans, who try to limit a solid education in history and science.
Our education battles get at the foundations of these dangerous views about people. They are all too important to ignore.
20
@JustThinkin. Thanks for bringing up education and science. One does have to wonder how the Board of Education in Texas - which approves all textbooks used in the State - presents the history of Texas to its young people. Is the Hispanic culture given its rightful and historical place in Texas history? The Board has made a mockery of teaching evolutionary science. An incomplete and distorted history allows dangerous ideas to take hold.
3
@Pmalex
Some of our teachers are great, and are able to go beyond the textbooks. But some are not very capable or informed. And it also matters who teaches the teachers -- recently the community colleges and 4-year colleges are doing a better job. We need to get good teachers into the rural communities.
@JustThinkin Quite right. And the current science shows that the supposedly "pure races" we see today are the results of mixtures among previous "races" over the last several thousand years. What we see is just one glimpse of an ongoing kaleidoscope. I have never understood what the racists are so afraid of.
David
Agree that this particular mass murderer sounds like he had “whiteness insecurity”, yet the previous Nevada shooter was just angry, and the Parkland kid (who did have at least one psych diagnosis basically felt left out). All mass shootings even those by an individual with mental illness are well thought out premeditated acts of terror. Rather than focusing on the source of anger, realize anger and disappointment will happen to many of us but when it happens with access to a gun or worse a weapon of mass killing, the results are devastating. Yes for other reasons we need to come together in the commonality of humans but know we will never be safe and we will always live in fear as we shop, worship, and gather until the guns are gone.
22
@SC Good comment. There is no murderer or mass murderer profile or personality type because we all get angry and confused about all sorts of things. Guns, anger and confusion are a bad combination. That's all it takes.
It doesn't help matters that on many days, 15 out of 15 op-eds in the NYT, WaPo, and WSJ are all about politics. We need to figure out our shared experiences - a World's Fair, art, literature, travel, humor, curiosity, all the things that make life human. It would help if when the discussion of immigration came up - there were side by side articles by novelists, artists, scientists and technologists, and business people discussing their creativity. There wasn't even a musical festival - like the old days. It dosn't help matters when our candidates are so dull. Not only Trump, but Romney ran because they had no idea what else to do with their lives. Among the Democratics candidates, is there anyone besides Mayor Pete who would say twoof his/her most valuable posessions are a passport and a library card? Make America United Again. Focus on what's human.
42
“The struggle ahead is about competing values as much as it is about controlling guns and healing damaged psyches.” If we had stringent and effective gun laws, no amount of “damaged psyches” would result in 22 dead. But by all means, David, keep up the right-wing talking points. I expect the next column to be about Call Of Duty and maybe throw in some heavy metal music for good measure.
17
The Philosopher King dives down the rabbit hole again.
Does he think the past doesn't exist, that a wave of fancy words will erase his complicity?
Nixon, Reagan, and the Bush family, all of whom David had no trouble celebrating, used divisive tactics for political ends.
David was right there in the mix waving the flag and leading the charge. Pontificating.
He has yet to denounce any of it.
79
Brooks can never seem to bring himself to fully speak to the issues at play. Putting it all on those writing manifestos misses the role of outside forces- ie the President, that also has an influence. He cannot bring himself to tell McConnell to pass gun legislation. Most of the time he simply is wishy-washy about issues and cannot face the truth of the role of the president and the republican party.
50
@Arthur l Frank. I have a friend of over 45 years with whom I no longer communicate because he cannot take a moral stand on the issue of gun control and continues to be “non-partisan” on the value of the human life vs the value of owning the gun.
The argument by some respondents here that "identity politics" is a concoction of modern liberalism would be laughable if it didn't display such a basic ignorance of history. This nation began with only one kind of eligible voter: white, male, over 21, and property owning. Identity politics is as American as apple pie, and the left sure didn't invent it.
The beauty and brilliance of this nation are its Constitution and the founders' foresight to know that they did not have all the answers; that the survival of this country they created demanded two things: acknowledging when we get it wrong; and then daring to make it right. A Civil War, Great Depression, 2WW's, Civil Rights Movement--are a few instances that testify to how generations preceding us met those burdens.
Now it is on us--with all our failings--to rise to meet ours. However, it seems unlikely that we shall ever ascend to the enlightened behavior that Mr. Brooks extolls. We never have. As Alexander Hamilton wrote: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary."
But we might move closer to our better angels if we could acknowledge race as a social confection and not a scientific reality. That realization alone might go a long way to declassifying the ridiculous correlations we assign each other as if any human being anywhere was a "pure" anything. Until we get to that truth, any "solution to race relations" is bound to be as illusory as the very concept of race itself.
72
@Gui:
Racial differences aren’t unreal—some of them are even visible to the naked eye. What they are not is important. Racial identity is one of the least important—and ought to be one of the least interesting—characteristics of an individual. Instead, we have now made it a matter of almost obsessive interest, and therefore factitious importance. And this goes for both those we call “racists” and those who are fiercely opposed to their “racism.” The common fallacy is simplism, the result of mental laziness. It’s a pernicious form of human weakness. We reduce things like the individual human being (and there is no other kind), which we know are complex and ultimately unfathomable, into things our mind can grasp without much effort and our will use as a spur to soul-satisfying action.
I'm tired of all these unfair comparisons to New Zealand. New Zealand is a small country which rapidly united after the mass shooting in Christchurch. Political parties forgot their differences and did what was best for the entire country. That's not the case here. Each shooting spree divides America to the point of no return. No one is going to believe Donald Trump no matter what he says because he's a divider not a uniter. The Democratic candidates are going to try to use these disasters for political gain.
What's the use??
11
Yes, New Zealand had a mass murder, and has had others in its past. But New Zealand has reacted to mass murder by making strict gun laws more strict, legislating against automatic and semi-automatic weapons, and has launched a gun buyback program.
Our Republican controlled White House and Senate are discussing, again, video games and mental illness, their two tried and true policy dummies, about which they’ve never done anything anyway, as will happen this time.
And neither will they the next time, the next time, the next time, and the next time.
67
Brooks makes interesting remarks about racism and a pluralistic society. However, he has been a staunch supporter of the GOP since I can remember, and as such, has contributed to the racist atmosphere we now have. Think of Nixon's "southern strategy", Reagan's remarks about "states' rights" and the kick-off of his campaign in Philadelphia MS, the Republican rants against equal opportunity, etc.
As Eldridge Cleaver once said, "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem."
Mr. Brooks, let's see you offer more than philosophical thoughts on racism. Advocating some sort of strict gun control would be a very good first solution.
131
@Sally I wish I could 'like' this a thousand times.
2
There is only one human race. We are differently coloured because of the sun. Where there is less sun, the skin bleaches out to get more Vitamin D, the nose narrows to protect from cold air, and eyes turn blue in order to capture more light. We have all immigrated from Africa where people are protected from strong sunshine in similar remarkably adaptive ways.
27
@Rose
It's more than the sun!
Black people don't turn white in Montana.
There are many other characteristics that differentiate the races as well, body and mind.
1
@Raz
The changes happened millennia ago and have become genetically encrypted. It does not happen overnight! As for body and mind, we are all individual.
This is a nice article, but Mr Brooks is writing about the world as he thinks it is, or should be. This is the world of the old fashioned liberal, which I think Mr Brooks is. But it has been overwhelmed by "identity" which has been promulgated by the left. The left forces people to choose - who said something about brown people have to act brown That was not a Republican! There is increasing tribalism, not pluralism - which is being relegated to the past. Mr Brooks needs a reality check, as I am sure most conservatives, me included would support his vision, but not what is actually happening.
13
@Patrick Yet, this ideal of " a colorblind society" was never reality. And it was used by conservatives like Mr. Brooks to deny policies that would actually affirm and create greater opportunity for groups who have been disadvantaged and victims of bias, both conscious and unconscious. It was the denial of identity in service of preserving a comfortable status-quo for which Mr. Brooks and Reagan conservatism is culpable. Nobody, not the nationalists on the right, nor the progressives on the left, buys that any more. We are dealing with the consequences of Mr. Brooks formalism and lack of understanding of the concrete lives of the others today.
9
@Patrick-what you say is gaslighting. To accuse the left of identity politics while ignoring the right’s long strategy of divide and conquer. I believe the left is reacting to this by defending minorities right to equality. So by just bringing up the facts, they are accused of stoking the fire.
Please.
4
@Patrick I posted similar thoughts earlier. Nice idyllic vision, not one that fits reality.
The only way this gets solved is mandatory education in the K-12 curriculum on tolerance, acceptance and diversity. Any state or county that refuses to implement it gets ZERO federal funding. Graduating seniors must prove proficiency on the topics.
15
Surely you jest. Tolerance, acceptance, and diversity is about the only thing on the curriculum these days, preschool through college. The problem is that it is being taught in an authoritarian manner with zero room for questions or critical thought (kind of like school zero tolerance policies which have seen five year olds expelled from kindergarten because they nibbled pop tarts into the shape of guns.) Perhaps that’s what you are seeking but for those of us who don’t relish a government mandated and media enforced groupthink, it feels threatening.
23
You’re right. It needs to be highly interactive between a skilled teacher ( not the regular classroom teacher) and students who are encouraged to participate.
5
@Alan
Before you teach tolerance you must teach history and science.
Brooks misses the point here. The problem is not one of pluralism over identity essentialism. It is history and science over ignorance and its derived prejudice that is the issue.
The world history of humans, migrating out of Africa and spreading throughout the world, mixing, fighting, joining together, challenging and supporting each other is a complex and fascinating history. By studying and understanding it we can begin to understand why we are what we are, and maybe learn how to improve ourselves and our relation with others.
Science teaches us about genetics and about human physiology, human political and social interactions, and a lot more.
These murderers, international and domestic terrorists, have their history and their science wrong. They find simplistic and wrong answers to misunderstood injustices.
And similar distorted views, albeit not so immediately violent, are found among those, mostly Republicans, who try to limit a solid education in history and science.
Our education battles get at the foundations of these dangerous views about people. They are all too important to ignore.
And with a good education, tolerance can become more accepted.
1
There is a difference between a rational inquiry and an apologetic.
It’s interesting, I suppose, to read the writings of deranged men, and in time one might become a connoisseur. It’s possible that the more deadly killers have more nicely crafted rationales. A professional writer of apologetics might come to appreciate them.
Rational inquiry, however, might tell us something else, such as where we might find the cry for help that often precedes these outbursts, and how we might prevent the enablers of terrorism from being as effective as they are.
7
Mr Brooks,
As usual, you dodge the fundamental issue.
A democratic government cannot function without commity among its participants. The question is how do we secure that mutual respect when the experienced reality of pluralism and multiculturalism divide rather than unite and we have chosen a demagogue to accentuate those divisions. We are not Norway or Finland or Iceland.
We are at a stage where we are separated not by mere distrust, but by hate. How, Mr Brooks do we overcome that reality. It has existed for well over 200 years so I don't expect you to solve it, but please address it.
14
David Brooks,
Can you let go of your ever-moving abstractions, ideology of alientation, and the nature of modern life, (etc. etc.) and just face the fact that these mass murders happen because the killers have easy access to weapons?
Sometimes the platitudes and over-the-shoulder cultural explications fall a bit short.
188
@UWSder:
Tighter gun laws would no doubt be a good thing. Whether they would make much difference to the amount of mass murder going on is doubtful. Mass murderers have other means at their disposal: massively explosive mines, air- and water-borne poisons, motor vehicles employed as crowd-crushers, etc. No doubt they welcome the availability of military-grade automatic firearms. But they don’t need them. No one commits mass murder because it is easy, or refrains from committing it because the laws have made it a little more difficult.
1
@UWSder
It would be nice to believe that is true. But a mass murderer in Nice, France killed 86 and injured over 400 with a simple truck.
Aside from the fact that they won’t obey any laws, whether part of some movement or alone, it is naive to think that these killers won’t adopt and use other tools.
3
@Jo So if we're to understand your post and PL's, we should just throw up our hands, dive under our covers, and let the weapons of war proliferate on our streets.
5
Sounds idyllic. Unfortunately, it seems to be a bit of a fantasy. Fact is, while pluralism enhances and enriches many of us, it also comes with inherent problems. It seems that people of all races, nationalities, religions have a natural tendency to want to be with "their own." Does not much of the world live that way?
The tendency to dislike, distrust and be wary of other societies and cultures may be a natural product of living among our own. Perhaps it is those of us who are raised to love all people, no matter who they are, or are able to fight off or overcome those natural tendencies are able to enjoy pluralism.
9
@Rich ....But what it your definition of "their own"? Is it simply skin color? Of course not. Is it X, or Y, or Z? No it is not. There are many thousands of healthy "interracial" marriages. There are many businesses where people of different ethnicities, colors, and educations work well together. There are many organizations where diverse people work happily for the same common cause.
The common human need to be respected and heard, to be safe, to have a decent shot at reasonable prosperity and a decent education is the recipe for pluralistic success. The United States has, at least at one level, tried to forward such a "grand experiment". And this even though portions of our society have never bought into this vision and have hook, line, and sinker bought the narrative of the goodness of the colonizing Europans, the "required" genocide of the native populations, and the importation of slaves to do the job. These folks are now primarily Trump's base and feel frightened and bitter that the US is not the white and conservative Christian haven it was supposed to be in their minds.
So on the one hand, such a grand experiment has struggled because of the lack of leadership to better communicate what many have wished America could be. On the other hand we see glimpses of solemn joy as we saw in Grant Park when Obama was elected, with thousands weeping and heats bursting with love and gratitude, which tell us that this pluralistic America is a dream that lives on.
8
@John H Thanks for the reply. Good points. I don't wholly agree but I get what you're saying. yes, when I wrote "their own", I put it in parentheses to highlight the idea that we often are separated, naturally (many countries are mostly of the same color or religion) or by choice. Many people in this country primarily hang out with people of their own color or religion, though that is changing. I'm not judging that. That's just what I see.
And, yes, the American dream does live on. My point was that Brooks' view seems to be very idealistic. Whatever the reason, there are many problems in this country that are related to pluralism. Again, not a judgement. I do think it's important to point out, though, that people of ALL colors, religions, etc. can have a tendency to be and sometimes are racist, homophobic, etc. It's a human problem, not just a white one.
6
@Rich The devil and the opportunity, are always in the details. I'm 62 years old and "my own" have seldom been much of a crowd. I can always find people I'm comfortable with, share interests or values with, but race, nationality, and religion have never defined my comfort zone or happy place.
I'd say, "*Some* people prefer to be with "their own." With those they are familiar with, of various races, nationalities, *and* religions. Some live that way, some think they do, and some wish they did. Others are drawn outside familiar paths, wondering what's over the next hill."
5
Why I am hopeful despite horror:
Worldwide, the number of people who learn about and embrace different cultures is definitely INCREASING, thanks to the exposure granted them via the internet. Travel, even virtual travel, the refreshing and inspiring experience of mixing with people who lead very different lives from our own, could be the antidote to provincial white supremacy. MOST people are receptive and able to appreciate novel ways of doing things, appreciate manifestations of true talent, and empathize with the troubles of individuals anywhere on the globe.
YES RESPECT, ACCEPTANCE, AND PLURALISM SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN OUR SCHOOLS, BUT...
It is our nonexistant US gun regulation that allows and amplifies the bigotry and hatred of a VERY FEW pathetic males, and makes massacres like El Paso ETC a possibility.
US citizens (and lawmakers) have witnessed the New Zealand response to a gun massacre, the Australian gun buy-back program, the UK's absence of weaponry in the citizenry.
SO LET'S LEARN FROM THESE OTHER COUNTRIES AND ADOPT THEIR GOOD IDEAS IN THE US ASAP!
17
How is anti-pluralism ever going to win? The world is open even as Trump, and leaders of various European countries would rather it not be so. Not only can people travel but there is a need for younger people in Europe, Japan and the U.S.A. Again, it is a delusion that anti-pluralism can do anything but bring tears and then be crushed.
1
You nailed it. Some of the best and latest scholarship on contemporary terrorism is illustrative of these themes.
Scholars are a bit ahead of the curve. Too bad they are stovepiped.
2
The best hope of defending the country from Trump and his Republican collaborator's ideology of hate is to vote against Republicans at every opportunity, until the party either rights itself or implodes.
The Republican Party, as an institution, is a danger to the rule of law and the integrity of our democracy.
The problem is not just Donald Trump; it’s Republicans who have chosen to collaborate with him.
42
For a rather short time I worked for CDC. I learned about the Epidemiological Triad.
"The term 'epidemiologic triad' is used to describe the intersection of Host, Agent, and Environment in analyzing an outbreak. "
We have an outbreak of mass murder! My parents used to tell me that good things don't happen in a vacuum. Bad things don't happen in a vacuum.
When considering the issues surrounding our last two massacres. We must admit that we are a violent society. That's how we enjoy ourselves, through sports, television, movies, video games etc. We are not a "huggy, kissy" nation!However, there is another variable floating around our national hood. Access to weapons of mass destruction.
My son is a Psychiatrist in residence. A question he often asks is. Do you have a gun? Do you have access to a gun?
Of course the responses he gets are shaped by the psychological state of his patients. Some are wildly psychotic. But others are lucid. A frequent answer is, "No, but I know where to get one on the street. It's as easy as getting drugs."
10
I really don't think the name changes made a difference to discrimination. Christians, Jews, Muslims are all children of Abraham but calling them that does not lesson the hatred some expend upon the differences. Semantics will not save us, only a celebration of our similarities and our differences both, acknowledging the strength that diversity brings to unity.
1
I believe David Brooks has used the term “culture “ where society would have been more accurate. A decade or so ago, everyone was using society when they meant culture.
Now the shoe is on the other foot. A culture of fashion in a society of emulation perhaps?
The subtle difference between the two is meaningful, but takes an anthropologist, or sociologist, if they can agree, to explain it.
1
@RjW
Yes, culture rather than such things as "mental illness" embeds feelings of while supremacy in many white people. During slavery, and to some extent through the present, it has been essential for a lot of white people to know that they were better than black people. I hope that that's no longer what most of us want but I don't really know.
"A half century ago, few marriages crossed a color line. Now, 17 percent of American marriages are interracial."
As stats like this suggest, I think pluralism has been on the rise for a long time now, and the trend will continue. The problem is not so much the growth of antipluralists (although that must be addressed as well and I agree with Brooks' sentiments) but rather that we have a hackable, highly interconnected media ecosystem that bestows glory/notoriety on any individual or group that commits a psychopathic act against a large number of people. These acts feed on each other, advertising a possibility for any disturbed mind that may be receptive.
There's no panacea for this in an open society with 120 guns per 100 people at present, and the best we can do is to take incremental steps on gun control, mental health awareness/treatment, security in public spaces, and better policing of the internet for sites that foster extremism. The argument that any given measure (like background checks or stronger licensing procedures) would not have prevented a given crime is nonsense. It is to say that since we can't prevent every incident, we shouldn't do anything.
17
In 1963 President Kennedy was
murdered with a gun, five years later
Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy
were murdered with guns. As gun violence
escalated, a brave Senator from Indiana,
Birch Bayh, advocated gun control and
he was defeated partially because of this
issue. A man took a stand and his political
career ended.
Three hugely distinguished Americans
murdered and no movement on gun control.
I remember it well and I remember despairing;
if a President, a Civil Rights Leader and
a Senator could be murdered in a short period
of time and a Senator defeated for attempting
some controls, our future was dim. Guns would
never be controlled, I feared the escalation of
violence.
Now mass murders are a constant, innocent
human beings are murdered because insane men
can easily get war-grade guns, ammunition and
body armor. It took 30 seconds in Dayton for all
those people to be killed. It is such insanity.
We are a psycho-nation. We have no leadership.
Our population is polarized. People love
their guns more than they love innocent beings.
We are in a brutal war. Tomorrow gun sales will
probably increase and more mass murders will
follow. Is there any hope for us?
68
@Karen
In 1968 gun control was enacted. Your story doesn’t fit the facts.
Don’t vote in hateful leaders: No matter what others say, they are not the better of two bad choices. People tell u who they are, he told us he’s an empty shell. Yes, Moral compass matters. Don’t make excuse after excuse after they are elected. Do participate in the process. Focus on those who will replace him. Do be the example we need. Respond with love and hope. Do reject cynicism and stand your ground. Do speak, scream if you have to. Even if you are the only 1 speaking, do it. When you want to run from others, lean in and embrace learning about them. Fear is not the answer.
14
I do not like writing this but
I am afraid, not just for myself
but thinking about what could happen
people at the hospital where I work,
the university where I study,
the elementary school I drive past,
the mall with the movie theater, the grocery
store, the little discount housewares store.
The places where I cross paths with people
who are trying to live their life and can be
gunned down for no other reason than
“just because” or with a hate manifesto.
This doesn’t mean that the fear will lock us in
but we have to be aware that these acts of
madness can happen any time, any where and often.
And a big part of the “just because” has a reason.
Spineless politicians who will not take on the
gun and bullet industry. People who know
someone with mental health issues who
do not speak out to get help for that person.
The gun store personnel who sell body armor.
(Why is body armor sold to a civilian?)
People who live by hate.
People who laugh if a prominent person
makes racist or anti-Semitic comments.
Everything has to be called out. Leaders
have to seriously work towards change.
We cannot be complacent.
"Steven Pinker has it right. The world is a dramatically safer place than at any time in human history, yet we’re allowing ourselves to be manipulated by the 24 hour everything cycle into believing things are worse. "
This is hog-wash. Nuclear weapons are poised to destroy nearly all life on earth. Climate change is already undoing the livability of our planet. Over population has lead to resource degradation and is the leading tip of mass extinctions.
When I was born, there were 2 billion citizens on the planet. Now there are nearly 8 billion, with 2 billion more predicated to be born in the next 30 years. Our forests are already cut, our oceans are already full of plastic, and our footprints crowd out more and more species.
There is nothing safer, or saner, about the state of the conditions for life today compared to historical conditions. Growing the economic pie will only hasten our demise. This planet is, after all, about so much more than only human beings.
And that is what we don't get. Everything else on the planet that is beautiful, that is alive, is based in an existence of biology. Humans live economic and political lives first, without counting the costs of natural resource consumption in the ledger books.
To be the best we can be, to be truly 'safe', we must insist on the right to be biological creatures - each person born is a citizen of Earth before all else. Our separate political boundaries are made up lines, causing anguish and hate.
84
so it's your argument that we should all chill because, in the big picture, a couple of mass murders don't count? that's nihilism.
if political will exists, technological solutions to our problems can be found. they may require societal adaptation. but how can we hope to create the political will if we live in a society born if hatred and the belief in a zero sum game.
4
@David Roy
You did a great job of explaining population effects on a finite planet and, personally, I believe it is the greatest problem we face. All else flows from it.
I'm not sure I understand your final paragraph. Do you mean that as biological creatures borders should be open to accommodate effects of climate change?
Also, you say "each person born is a citizen of Earth before all else". I wish that were true...But, I believe most people are not that connected to the planet, and, instead see themselves as part of their tribe/religion first.
Those disparate values are the root of most of the problems we face ... after the effects of the sheer numbers of humans who see it as their right to reproduce with abandon.
7
How can the planet be a safer place than it ever was when we are at the brink of global disaster because of human overpopulation? How does that make us safer? We and a great many other species are heading pell-mell for extinction in the not too distant future, due entirely to the proclivity of humans to destroy everything around them in pursuit of their selfish wants and reckless breeding. Humans are not worthy of life in this wonderful world, we have treated it so badly.
7
America imports its spirit. It's that spirit driving the American dream. That spirit is both colorful and colorless. That American dream provides hope. Once hope is achieved it gives us happiness. The cycle repeats itself. Within every soul they're exist a spirit of adventure that luckily immigrates to America.
We are becoming a more pluralistic society. But, we still import the American spirit that drives the dream and give us all hope.
The problem in your perspective on pluralism lies in the equal treatment you give values, guns and psyches when you say: ‘The struggle ahead is about competing values as much as it is about controlling guns and healing damaged psyches.’
The ‘struggle’ is ONLY about giving up guns. Competing values and damaged psyches are a part of any liberal, plural democracy.
A plural democracy will always have a variety of opinions, lots of argumentation, many different psyches... but guns cancel out the need for discussion, argumentation and rationality.
Mr Brooks, an appreciation of pluralism cannot take place with the fear of imminent death, yours or mine, today or tomorrow, looming in the background.
Remove the guns from the equation, so that we can be a true democracy.
46
@Gitanjali
"The problem in your perspective on pluralism lies in the equal treatment you give values, guns and psyches when you say:"
I think your opening would have been a perfect assessment of Mr. Brooks' piece if you had said, "the problem in your perspective on pluralism lies in the equal treatment you give values".
4
@Blanche White
Yes! Guns have been part of the equation for centuries, but something has obviously gone haywire -- and that's about (loss of shared) values. As I'm fond of saying to my cat: "Lucy, I don't think we're in Woodstoick anymore."
3
@Mitchell - guns that can fire 5 rounds a second from 100 round magazines is what's gone haywire.
Nothing to do with 'loss of shared values' - such a thing never existed, a figment of imagination or just another idealistic myth.
5
David, but just to be objective, consider this controversial possibility: You are committing a "moralistic fallacy" by assuming that what is moral, is true. Multiculturalism and diversity have been attempted in the past 50 years, and since we all want it to work, we naturally assume that it *does* work, under normal circumstances. If it doesn't work, then that is an aberration that must be addressed or fixed. But if what this assumption is flawed? What if the outcome of this experiment is not what we expect should happen based on our views of morality? We're applying intellectual concepts but possibly running into evolutionary barriers. Maybe it is indeed the case that for most people, at this step of the human evolution, there is what you call essentialism, separatism, and reproductive Darwinism. Maybe these are evolutionary forces that must be acknowledged rather than just dismissed as an aberration because they are immoral, which is the easy way out.
6
@Eugene
Consider this fallacy "Multiculturalism and diversity have been attempted in the past 50 years..." 50 years? Nonsense. How about from the onset of human social history? Visit Venice and pay particular attention to the windows of Gothic buildings that clearly show the influence of Byzantine architecture, and some from Islamic architecture, reflecting Venice's trading network established in the Middle Ages. As labels, you have noticed and used, multiculturalism and diversity may be new and trendy but cultural integration has been around much longer than your 50-year estimate and has indeed worked for the better time and time again.
13
@Eugene
so you are staying human history has existed for only the last 50 years in the United States.
@Rob D
Not to mention genetic integration. Many modern people carry Neanderthal or Denisovan genes from Upper Paleolithic couplings between Homo sapiens and peoples who were much more distinct from them than any two people on earth are today.
This is a strange essay. Brooks seems to want to analyze the El Paso shooter's manifesto. He seems to believe that if he can demolish the arguments in that manifesto, conservatives who want to control immigration will realize, "Oh, Brooks is right! I support controlling immigration because I'm a racist."
He tries to characterize the arguments: essentialism, separatism, social Darwinism,... He suggests that the shooter believes: "Races are locked in a Darwinian struggle in which they try to out-reproduce their rivals...."
He takes the kernel of an argument that is actually quite valid and holds it up for public ridicule. "Anybody who believes that people should have smaller families is a racist like the El Paso shooter."
But the argument about population growth is quite old. Paul Ehrlich made in his 1968 book the Population Bomb, and in 1972 a related book appeared---the Limits to Growth.
These books argued that continued population growth would lead to a decline in living standards, particularly among the poorer nations.
And population growth has come back with a vengeance. The doubling of world population since 1971 is part of the explanation for global warming which provides an existential threat to mankind.
So maybe the argument that we should have fewer children isn't all that bad. If Guatemala had had a one-child policy like China, perhaps its population wouldn't have quadrupled since 1960. And that might have prevented the current border crisis.
16
@Jake Wagner
Brooks' last three columns have been studies in dissembling as he processes what Trump has done to the Republican Party and conservative ideology.
He can't bring himself to say straight out that every voter needs to vote for anyone other than a Republican candidate in every election in 2020.
But he knows that is what he has come to believe.
19
After reading Mr Brooks’ column today, I have a good understanding of what he considers the ideology of hate, but precious little about how to fight it. I suppose that he would argue that the more society adopts a pluralist worldview, the more likely antipluralism will weaken. While that may be true, by his own admission, the weaker that movement becomes, the more dangerous and violent it is.
At the very least, caring Republicans like Mr Brooks need to demand that their co-partisans fund studies into radical domestic terrorism, like the one DHS was forced to retract a decade ago under pushback from Republicans. They need to work hard to defeat Donald Trump in 2020 by encouraging moderate Republicans and independents to vote for the alternative candidate on the ballot, be she Democrat or 3rd party. They need to back substantive gun safety legislation that includes background checks for every sale, a renewal of the assault weapons ban, and substantial buy-back programs.
Philosophizing about the foundations of hate may be an interesting armchair exercise, but we are way past the point when people need to get out of their chairs, into the streets and demand meaningful laws to restrict and reduce hateful acts.
13
@Ockham9
"...caring Republicans..."
the caring Republicans have all ceded the battlefield, walking away from their political careers and abandoning their political party to the hoard of usurpers who would see the nation devolve into civil war.
There will always be small numbers of people with hateful ideologies. What makes them do great harm is when political movements fan the flames of their hate for political gain, inflaming and expanding the extremists; and when the extremists can easily get weapons of mass murder, e.g. automatic assault rifles designed for war and 100-bullet clips.
Instead of calling for philosophical debate, why not focus first on the factors that are making the small numbers of extremists so dangerous? Namely, the Republican Party you have supported for so many years, whose members either tolerate or amplify Trump's messages of hate, and who have been using racism for political gain at least since Richard Nixon; and the easy availability of assault weapons. It's hard to find you credible when you ignore the the most obvious elements inflaming a small philosophical group into a lethal threat.
8
Mr. Brooks, I think you fail to e that white insecurity is embedded in white self-confidence. The ideology of white supremacists relies on the belief that they have to defend the white race because of its supposed superiority over others. The problem is not the "values" of these shooters its the radicalization of young, aloof, white men who feel that because of their race that they are entitled to something (jobs, cars, partners)that others who are not white should have. It comes from the rhetoric of conservatives who tweet about infestations and invasions. These shooters are often brought up with the same pluralistic values you describe, but between the rise of white nationalism on the internet and the rhetoric of the President, it simply becomes more likely for an attack like the ones we have seen to take place again.
6
These varied racial and ethnic tensions have been embedded in our nation since the days of the Atlantic Slave Trade. We have had a number of waves covering our country, although the most endemic is still related to slavery.
Other problems have included what we did with Native Americans, Chinese laborers in the 19th century, the Japanese internment camps of WWII, and the various modern problems exemplified (but not restricted to) Donald Trump.
These prolonged bigotries are built into both the conscious and unconscious fabric of our country, with a particularly ugly turn--cruelty being the point--during the current administration. How we overcome these behaviors--if we overcome them--will determine our legacy. We are not looking good.
7
@ JSK
This country has been described as “The Land of Unlimited Possibilities,” accurately I think, given our great resources and our minimal demands for collective responsibility. Unfortunately, those possibilities include the cultivation of the worst aspects of human nature. We could be better if we chose to be: “Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.”
1
This is not the time to philosophize. Actually, it hasn't been the time for a long, long time.
Brooks should just get on the phone and call his conservative 'intellectual' buddies to draft a petition addressed to all Republican politicians.
Enough talk, do something about it.
390
@college prof
that ship has sailed...the Republican Party can not come back from what Trump has done to it in the last 30 months.
13
@college prof
And not to forget that in the very last sentence Brooks blames again the so-called damaged psyche.
Other advanced countries have as many mentally 'damaged' people among them. Blaming massacres on people with mental illnesses again and again puts even more stigma on those suffering from it, while statistics clearly show that they hardly ever hurt others, but far too often themselves by committing suicide.
And yes, taking healthcare away from those that urgently need it to prevent suicide, is yet another policy by the Trump administration.
9
@college prof we all play our role to the best of our ability; me, Brooks, you.
"The struggle ahead is about competing values as much as it is about controlling guns and healing damaged psyches."
Mr. Brooks,, you are always describing every issue under the sun as about culture and the soul. Meanwhile, how about saving some lives until we can reconstruct society's values from scratch?
Like controlling guns and healing damaged psysches: universal background checks for gun ownership, no more military-style assault rifles or large magazines of ammunition in civilian hands, medical care for all that includes mental health? Otherwise, though the souls haven't been all saved in Europe or Australia or New Zealand, the U. S. will remain Number One in deaths due to firearms.
168
@Howard = you may well be a political animal, I tend to see the world on economic terms, and Brooks, bless his little heart, he thinks in terms of culture and the soul. I find it refreshing. And if I am not in the mood, I don't read his pieces
1
I think you're both under- and over-thinking this. The fundamental problem is not pluralism or non-pluralism or anti-pluralism or ante-non-anti-pluralism... The primary source of white American fear and hatred of other races is the vivid belief that "They will do to us what we did to them". American slavery and genocide are still unresolved issues, unpunished crimes, unrighted wrongs, denied and repressed, shoved down deep in the dark of the American soul. Inevitably, from time to time they come back to haunt the living.
But then, of course, "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race", and discussing racial identities is divisive, and the 2016 election was lost because the white underclass had been ignored too long, and white people no longer feel at home in "their own" country...
The first thing we can all do is be honest about these issues. For example, I'm still looking forward, David, to the (no doubt imminently forthcoming) explanation of your revised position on Ronald Reagan's racism...
31
@Edward A lot of us just got here and we can't relate to those past issues the left loves to chew over.
The way to fight this is to continue embracing the enlightenment ideals of free speech and cultural pluralism, ramp up global trade and technological innovation, and implement social safety nets wherever they are needed.
Steven Pinker has it right. The world is a dramatically safer place than at any time in human history, yet we’re allowing ourselves to be manipulated by the 24 hour everything cycle into believing things are worse. Let’s not get sidetracked by these White supremacists. They’re a tiny threat that will eventually be neutralized by gun control and law enforcement.
We need to elect a decent president who stands for kindness, freedom and economic growth, and continue on the upward trajectory of societal evolution.
29
Does Pinker evaluate the heating of our planet (perhaps an increase of 8 degrees by the end of the century)? What of the threat of nuclear weapons? It’s troubling to be assured of any statement that the current state is to be preferred. Humility, or doubt, or caution, on these existential threats, is a more needed virtue.
6
"Eighty years ago, Protestants, Catholics and Jews did not get along, so a new category was created, Judeo-Christian, which brought formerly feuding people into a new “us.”
Ever the optimist Mr. Brooks. Sorry, in this case there is no "us", there is no "Judaeo-Christian". What you do have is over-simplification.
As for your reconstruction of history on this re Judaeo-Christian: Two notable books addressed the relations between contemporary Judaism and Christianity, Abba Hillel Silver's Where Judaism Differs and Leo Baeck's Judaism and Christianity, both motivated by an impulse to clarify Judaism's distinctiveness "in a world where the term Judeo-Christian had obscured critical differences between the two faiths.". Reacting against the blurring of theological distinctions, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits wrote that "Judaism is Judaism because it rejects Christianity, and Christianity is Christianity because it rejects Judaism." Theologian and author Arthur A. Cohen, in The Myth of the Judeo-Christian Tradition, questioned the theological validity of the Judeo-Christian concept and suggested that it was essentially an invention of American politics, while Jacob Neusner, in Jews and Christians: The Myth of a Common Tradition, writes, "The two faiths stand for different people talking about different things to different people."
And this has nothing to with pluralism or anti-pluralism.
2
Brooks is not equating Judaism and Christianity. His point is that better relations were sought by members of these different faiths and theologies. That is what is meant by Judeo-Christian tradition. Perhaps the word tradition should be replaced by relations or co-existence.
And you could argue your point of different beliefs within each of these categories:
Catholic vs Protestant (and multiple variations within each), Orthodox versus Conservative vs Reform Judaism....etc.
No surprise that there are differences.
3
“Judeo-Christian” is totally an invention of American (another invention) politics and one that created a shift in our culture. That is obvious in the article. Theology has nothing to do with it, thankfully. It seems like there will always be somebody to marginalize, to demonize, or to fight. The impulse to fussily highlight differences, to claim superiority of thought, and to demean the different are toxic and do nothing to create unity. However, I do appreciate the effort to meld formerly disparate groups into one. It helps expose and dissolve prejudices. It’s probably wishful thinking that someday the world will run out of “others.” Yet migration has been going on for eons and will continue to go on indefinitely so it’s not improbable that someday the superficial features of humans (religion, skin color, language, culture, etc) will be more alike than different. It may be quaint, given the current political tone, to admire the impulse to think about different kinds of people in a more unified way but it’s a fundamental, and essential, American quality. This reinvention, this reclassification, this flexibility has been essential to our survival and the reason we thrive. We could use a new paradigm in the US right now, and I hope we get one soon, but other places could do worse than learning a few of these lessons. Perhaps there is a Palisraeli identity in the works? Couldn’t be worse than what you’ve got now.
1
@Daniel Doern "This reinvention, this reclassification, this flexibility has been essential to our survival and the reason we thrive."
Perhaps you are correct. Alas, identity politics and intersectionality on the left and plain old racism on the right (a rose by any other name...) seem today to counter-indicate what you claim to be inherent in US society.
Instead of pluralism, Mr. Brooks might postulate an open multiculturalism, the kind that would not object to my braiding the hair which I do not alas have in braids of a particular type were I to wish to do so.
1
David Brooks columns are always interesting. But he is unwilling to call out the rot that has invaded the Republican party through Donald Trump and instead has opted for philosophical discourse, with only episodic asides about the main actors. It would be much more helpful if he and other conservatives of conscience could focus on the specific people who are the major problems and call them out.
37
"Finally, pluralism is the adventure of life. "
One of your finest sentences.
11
What I learned from this column:
1. "Anti-pluralism" is another word for racism - although it's possible David made up that word just for this column. Kind of like Shakespeare coining the word "lackluster," which also describes my response to this column.
2. The racists and the non-racists oppose each other. I did know that already though.
3. The New Zealand shooter felt welcomed by other races, but wanted to kill them anyway. A little public interest aside there, and some irony. Macbeth being welcomed by Duncan.
What I would have liked to learn from this column:
- What are the POLICY choices we should be making to improve the white nationalism and domestic terrorism problems?
- Is gun control an issue (it is), and what POLICY should we pursue to improve that situation?
- Do the two major political parties approach this problem differently, and why? (Answer: see Paul Krugman's vastly more informative column)
- Does David Brooks believe government POLICY has any role, or does he think his weavers and pluralists and anti-pluralists bind and rip fluidly all the way down in some kind of "double double toil and trouble" dance of anarchy? Because that is not the world in which we live.
This column is therefore graded sound and fury (although not much fury here), signifying nothing.
82
Race is a false concept according to biology. The genomes of people have shown that any human being shares more traits among people not in the racial category which his or her features would determine than with those sharing those racial features. The presumption of shared characteristics beyond a few obvious visible features is not supported by reality.
All people are very closely related and differ in few ways. The idea of races needing to be preserved is silly because what would be preserved is very little in comparison to what we all share.
8
This column has a wonderfully simple message- diversity is lifegiving. We know this in nature- biodiversity is crucial to a healthy ecosystem.
8
People finding the need to celebrating their race to the exclusion of all others reminds me of Arthur Schopenhauer's observation on the basis of national pride:
“The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; for if a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen. The man who is endowed with important personal qualities will be only too ready to see clearly in what respects his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.”
12
We must heal even as we teach through realization and engagement. Get your students and volunteers out there to interact and bond!!
Thank you for posting your wisdom
1
To believe something -- such as a conspiracy theory or the rightness of a global hatred -- that is demonstrably untrue is to convince yourself that you believe it. Without probative evidence, you cleave to a constellation of beliefs or platforms because they feel right. That is not the same as knowing something. It is not the same as thinking something. Please stop giving credit to these seemingly deep and wide thinkers. The substantiality of all these sick ideologies is arbitrariness and air. The feeling is the thing.
2
If mental health is the problem -- how can we execute anyone who is mentally ill. Was hoping from the headline that DB was going to list steps to lead us away from gun violence.
1
The ideology of hate, or anti-pluralism (racism, xenophobia, religious extremism, cultural chauvinism) and the challenge pluralists face in overcoming these problems in the world?
In the face of challenges today, overpopulation, destruction of natural environment, WMD, communications technology pressing everybody into each other's faces, the world threatens to break apart along lines of well established racial, ethnic, religious, national, cultural identity. It's something of an every identity for itself situation.
Pluralists face an extraordinary challenge, perhaps one as difficult as physicists attempting nuclear fusion as an energy source. Here is nuclear fusion in a nutshell: It takes considerable energy to force nuclei to fuse, even those of the lightest element, hydrogen. When accelerated to high enough speeds, nuclei can overcome electrostatic repulsion and be brought close enough such that the attractive nuclear force is greater than the repulsive Coulomb force. The strong force grows rapidly once the nuclei are close enough, and the fusing nucleons can essentially "fall" into each other and the result is fusion and net energy produced.
The analogy to attempting pluralism is obvious: Repulsion between various identity groups must be overcome, but this comes at considerable energy (money, etc.) costs, but if enough effort is made fusion can occur and energy release (new and potentially better cultural accomplishment, progress) will be evident.
Fusion reactor time?
1
We must end the madness in this country.
We must buy back and destroy as many guns as possible, and we must prevent future manufacture and sale.
There is no other solution.
22
Great. It's perhaps a bit at odds with some other columns that supported idea that political violence comitted by white people was a mental health problem and not a part of, or encouraged by, what is now called white nationalism. Which, along with sovereign citizen thing (more than a little overlap) are considered by national security people - including FB1- as the US's most serious terrorist threat.
So why not write about actual steps? You could start with reviewing some of Lani Guinier's work. Her career has been entirely about how to make democracy work with pluralistic societies. Some ideas might be elimination of gerrymandering and money in politics, and ranked choice voting. So everyone feels heard.
And you might write something about Republican attempts (and talking about National Review conference) to intellectually legitimize white nationalism.
5
This article is interesting because of what it ignores and excludes. It doesn't mention the Republican party which has used racism, xenophobia and white spite to campaign for elections since at least the beginning of the 20th century. It doesn't mention that these white terrorists espouse the monstrous bigotry of Trump and the Republicans. It ignores the despicable NRA and the mutual support that it gives the GOP. It ignores that many Republican presidents have been racists, including Reagan, Nixon and Trump along with most southern Republican governors. Somehow Brooks seems to have suffered a terrible case of amnesia for the hatred that his party has grown and spread for political gain. One has to ask whether he is an amnesiac, or so partisan that he cannot see the huge log of GOP racism that is lodged in his mind's eye.
259
@Michael it seems like David Brooks wears blinders or something. He almost entirely ignores reality. It's like he takes a small nibble of a cookie, feels bad and them runs up to his bedroom and stays firmly under covers. I do not understand why he does this. It's a real mystery and it is sad. He could be of service and he is not. Actually, it makes me pretty darned mad.
8
@Michael
You are absolutely right. David Brooks should spend the remainder of his life flagellating himself in front of the NYT's main offices, for the tremendous sin he committed of once having certain wrong opinions (many of which he has since revoked). You and I should count ourselves blessed that we never have the wrong opinions about things.
David Brooks is making a broader philosophical argument: it is wrong to critique such an argument for omitting important details of particular cases.
You seem obsessed with blame. Brooks's argument doesn't ignore the problematic entities you mention; it is working at a different, more general level. This article isn't about assigning blame; it is about antipluralism and pointing out that the way to combat antipluralism is pluralism. Do you disagree with that sentiment? If not, then you don't disagree with this piece. All the entities you mention are but mere examples of this problem, which existed long before these entities existed, and will continue to exist long after they are gone.
Also, the NRA is irrelevant to this piece. While the NRA has certainly enabled much of the gun violence in this country, this piece is not about listing all the causes of gun violence: it is about antipluralism (which is a big factor in mass shootings). Even if it didn't kill anyone, antipluralism would still be a problem. It is a real problem if someone is an antipluralist, even if they don't act on it.
2
Brooks is what used to be known as a "moderate" Republican. This is now an endangered species.
1
We don't need a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, and a white male lecturing the rest of us on race. Many of us understand exactly what racism is. We're the intended victims of white nationalist terrorism. Those of us who are ethnic minorities have talks with our kids about safety that white parents will never have with their kids. We live this experience every day.
But Mr. Brooks leaves out a central theme of the ideology of hate. I understand why he does, because he will most likely never be its victim, at least in this country. But the central element is fear.
It isn't only that Trump voters hate us and want to remain separate. It isn't only that they believe they are the "real" Americans. It isn't even that they believe the rest of us should accept the scraps of second-class citizenship. All these statements about them are undoubtedly true.
But what is not written about is fear. Trump and his voters want to instill fear in us. Trump voters want to make sure that we never feel safe in this country, brown-skinned native-born Americans and immigrants alike. They want us to understand that we are only here as long as they permit us to be.
It is this fear that many whites will never understand. It is a given in our communities. We educate our children about the dangers they will face in majority white communities.
Do we care that whites hate us? Personally, I don't care. But this is much more than hatred. This racism is an existential threat for many of our families.
39
Society will always be filled with hateful, imbalanced and disturbed individuals who have trouble evolving and adjusting to modern reality.
We will always have crackpots among us.
The key is to not hand out out mass murder weapons to them with no questions asked, which America, led by the NRA-GOP, keeps doing.
Yes, they could all kill by some other means, but let them at least work hard to commit mass murder instead of being able to stroll into the local gun shop and stroll out ready for mass murder.
It's the guns and bullets that are the problem.
Let's heavily regulate them....like most sane societies do.
685
@Socrates
It seems to me that the American myths of rugged individualism and self determination have turned the gun into the ultimate expression of individualism. My life is worth more than yours and my gun proves it. It really is sad to think that many Americans think it is necessary and right to be able to kill your fellow citizens at a moments notice.
Our culture of violence and the glorification of it through our media has led many deranged people to see a mass murder as an expression of their issues.
We regulate all manner of harmful products but guns are exempt, almost like a religion.
We are in deep.
135
@Socrates get rid of the guns you get rid of the problem.
Not hard at all. We just like to make things difficult.
If I were a king for a day that's what I would do.
Maybe we should have a monarchy. Our plutocracy aint workin so good.
14
@Socrates
Republicans will twist themselves into knots to avoid saying that Socrates. It's a lone wolf; it's mental illness; it's video games. Video games? As if the rest of the world doesn't have all of the above.
What the rest of the world doesn't have is more guns than citizens. Vote blue no matter who. 2020.
37
It is important to remember that white supremacism in the US and elsewhere is fueled by, among other things, a romanticized narrative of "Western civilization" that supposedly unites Euro-American societies and histories and that champions "reasoned discourse, the importance of property rights." (Such a homogenous civilization never existed historically, and the West is no less marked by incidents of anti-reason, hatred, and violence than any other civilization.) Yet white supremacists argue that this "civilization" and its superior values are in danger of being lost because of immigration, because "we" are forgetting them, forgetting their superiority, etcetera.
This is exactly what David Brooks himself does in "The Crisis of Western Civ" (April 21, 2017). He paints a rosy picture of "Western civilization" and laments the fact that intellectuals now treat it critically rather than simply lauding it. His arguments echo those of white supremicists that suggest Western (read "white") culture is under siege: "Now various scattered enemies of those Western values have emerged, and there is apparently nobody to defend them."
The fear-mongering pushed by Brooks and others that our civilization is going to be "overwhelmed" is exactly what encourages white supremacists, xenophobes, and other home-grown terrorists to commit violence. Make no mistake: the "us" he suggests in this piece is "whites," and the "Judeo-Christian" the non-Muslim, non-Hindu, etcetera.
5
Mr Brooks, you say it so well here,
"The terrorists dream of a pure, static world. But the only thing that’s static is death, which is why they are so pathologically drawn to death."
This fear of indirect-white genocide is so accurately described.
However, there is an absolute absence from your very astute article about "your" own party's representatives drive to kill this very pluralism you are talking about.
When will the insightful republicans, upholders of conservative thought take their party, their Congressmen and Senators to account?? When?
When is there going to be a revolt against the grim-reaper-of-bills McConnell... all we hear is owl hooting in there.
Unless, this happens, unless republicans open their own rattly closet and purge themselves of this anti-plural behavior, which has been silently practiced over decades now...
I see no hope.
Your words are 'mere' words.
"As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do." ~ Andrew Carnegie
10
@Ash.
And Benjamin Franklin:
“Well done is better than well said”
&
“A good example is the best sermon”
This piece speaks of pluralism and the strength we gain culturally
through the “constant dialogue” of mixing. Yet, I frequently hear Democrats speak highly favorably of “the browning of America” and “people of color” while turning the racial term “white” into an epithet (“white privilege,” “old white men,” etc.) The identity politics of the left, which stress the singular importance of racial and ethnic identity, has no doubt spurred the much more recent and unusual focus on white identity.
Moreover, at the same time well meaning people like David Brooks are trying to sing a chorus of We Are the World, the left attempts to quash mixing and an embrace of diversity by labeling it cultural appropriation when a white person does it. A white girl or woman goes on a Caribbean beach vacation and pays for braids in her hair: cultural appropriation. A white celebrity wears a kimono: cultural appropriation. A white chef dares to open a Chinese or Mexican restaurant: cultural appropriation. It is endless and speaks to the point that not everyone who hates white nationalism embraces mixing the way that David Brooks does.
Now is the time to turn down the heated dialogue and do some soul searching in many quarters. If you’re a person who uses “white” as a pejorative term, you are part of the problem.
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This is such a great piece! And an accurate diagnosis. It does not preclude banning assault weapons - which I believe must be banned. It addresses the root cause of the pathology that has been metastasizing in our country - where Trump has been feeding this tumor. Collectively we will have to address it and promote pluralism; it is the antidote to hate.
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There are people who are born with a personality that makes it difficult for them to succeed in interpersonal relationships and in the business world.
A certain small percentage of them blame their failures and frustrations on the "other' and vote for Trump. A smaller percentage try to eliminate as many of the other as they can.
That is what happened in El Paso.
Then there are those who are born with no sense of empathy and very poor social skills. A small fraction of those take out their frustrations by killing not in a rage but with indifference.
That is what happened at Sandy Hook.
There are far too many assault rifles out there to confiscate or declare them illegal to make a difference in reducing these killings.
But what can be done is what I have argued for years is to prevent the manufacture, sale and possession of magazines that hold more than five rounds.
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How absolutely correct. Our responsibility to ourselves is upon ourselves and the time for the change is now. If not us than, who?
It would appear Demonstrates are going to have to lead the way to the better tomorrow we know as Americans we must strive and achieve!
A social science truism is that exposure to human diversity is essential to empathy for others -- which is why the whitening of the Republican party is so troublesome. How can you be a party of pluralism when you do not practice it yourself?
While the debate squabbling among Democratic candidates has been disappointing, I’ve learned to occasionally turn off the sound and simply watch the unprecedented diversity among the candidates. This is the real future of America.
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Fine. Great. Thank you for that analysis.
Now, in the meantime, can we please get the guns off the streets to prevent all this deep historical and philosophical analysis of the human condition from turning into mass bloodshed?
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@Bill, a while ago I watched the fictional Blue Bloods TV drama series. In one of the episodes a black Pastor in NYC gets rid of guns in a buy back program, no questions asked. Worth trying.
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@Bill
Of course, limiting access to guns, especially certain kinds of guns will help. But if that is what you wanted to hear, you could have read one of the hundred other articles in the NYT about how America has a gun problem.
If you get rid of guns, violence will likely decrease, but there still will be bombings, people driving into crowds, etc. Getting rid of guns will solve part of the problem, but not the whole problem. There will still be politicians who espouse antipluralistic ideas and who promote antipluralistic policies. There will still be antipluralists who harbor hate towards their neighbor, etc.
Antipluralism is a deep, important problem--one that must be addressed to fix our mass killing epidemic.
I for one am grateful to David Brooks for writing this piece. I think he points out many worthwhile things to think about. But these are not things merely to think about--the thinking should inform our behavior. It should lead us to become better pluralists.
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I can't imagine anything more uninteresting and unnatural than the nightmarish fantasy of racial (or religious or even political) "purity." I came of age in the 1960s and 1970s, when our country's motto was still E Pluribus Unum ("Out of Many, One"). I was so proud of that. Talk to people who've lived in other countries (like China or India or the President's favorite, Norway) and they'll tell you how they marvel at our diversity, and how stimulating they find it.
That America isn't gone, but there are evidently millions of white Christian extremists living among us who want to tear it down, wipe it out. Are we going to let them? What are we going to do in defense of our country?
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The scourge of identity politics encompasses far more than “white Christian extremists.”
Until we can have an honest discussion about that, these problems will only get worse.
"The terrorists dream of a pure, static world."
The United States has been many things but it has never been static. Our mainstream narrative frequently emphasizes a sanitized version of how the nation has developed but even a cursory revision shows American society that has changed dramatically. We have had more than our share of inequality, tragedy, injustices and violence but we have also had personal triumph, redemption (in sometimes unexpected ways), and social and political change. We have a long way to go--and we never seem to get it quite right. But most of want to keep trying.
I want my children, grandchildren and their children to come of age in a United States that embraces all of us, embodies the change that we need to succeed in the future, and taps in our individual and collective potential.
We owe it to ourselves to, as Mr Brooks indicates, continue to try to find the path forward, including everyone, in the knowledge that there will always be those who disagree.
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Some folks are criticizing this excellent column, saying - essentially - "You're giving us a bunch of abstract ideas; we need action."
Perhaps it is this widespread idea that ideas and action (or more properly, contemplation and action) are somehow "separate" that is the fundamental problem.
ALL actions begin with "contemplation" - that is, before we move a muscle, we perceive a 'self' and a "world' that somehow relates to that self.
Understanding this leads us straight to the solution.
If our perceived self is somehow felt to be at odds with the world (ie "I am a white male and the increasingly pluralistic world threatens me") then we will most likely act out of some combination of fear and anger.
Now the solution is clear - we have to find some way to connect our perceived (ie threatned) self with larger world.
Are the solutions not starting to be obvious?
Category 1: Common enemies. Everyone knows this one. My wife and I observed it the day after 9/11 in NYC - Muslim, brown, black, Jew, Sikh, Polish, young, old, male, female - we were all one in mourning, in fear, in anger, and - yes, in our compassion for each other.
Category 2: Inspiring leaders. President Obama singing amazing grace; Dr. King, Gandhi, Julian of Norwich
Category 3: We find that underlying commonalty in ourselves. This is the goal of contemplatives the world over; it may seem far away, but there is no other sustainable solution. That awareness "in which we live and move and have our being."
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@don salmon
For those who don't know the last line, yes, it's from St. Paul, but I could just as well quoted Buddhists, atheists, panentheists, Jews, Muslims, agnostics, and, well, countless others - every one of us - even the haters - have had glimpses in our lifetime of those moments of "just being" - a glimpse of the timeless, the Infinite, that which is beyond words, beyond all that separates us. The religious folks and philosophers make it into something endlessly complex and remote, but it's as much here and now as it will ever be (how could it not be if it is timeless and spaceless?)
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Thank you for remembering President Obama singing Amazing Grace!
Joan Baez has done a lovely salute to that remarkably moving event, underscoring how It was heartfelt, believable, it was.
Nothing remotely like it in the pathetic remarks by the current occupant of the White House.
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David Brook’s columns are never easy to read. He and William F. Buckley who famously called on the University of Chicago student Brooks to come forward, represent two unique American thinkers.
After reading this piece I am reminded of a comment from a graduate student in a class I taught at American University while working in the Carter Administration. The course was micro economics. The students were seeking MBA’s at night. One very good student, a white male, explained to me that when he finished his MBA he would be in the same position as a minority woman or man who had just hired on with his employer, the C&P Telephone Company. He was bitter that changes in firm policy were preventing him from rising. He also recognized the need for new policies to redress past mistakes.
I have no idea what became of the student. However, I can understand his ambiguousness.
Brooks is correct to praise pluralism. However, praise is not enough.
The anger we see today is a combination of the need to correct past social wrongs combined with the emphasis on the “winner take all society,” The emphasis of large firms such as Verizon (the successor to my student’s company) on the balanced treatment of all employees with advantages given to some combined with the aggressive effort to depress incomes has created the fodder for the white male nationalists who, sadly, have nothing to lose.
The problem needs to be fixed. History says the fix will not occur.
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@Philip Verleger: I bet the woman and the minority man hired at the C&P hit the glass ceiling very early in their careers, remaining in menial jobs, and the white male MBA moved on to the upper echelons of management with the corresponding executive compensation.
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David’s point on valuing America’s pluralism is at the heart of the matter. We tend to deal with such tragedies from the point of view of their material and efficient causes, i.e. the weapons and the shooters. But that's dealing with the means of hate. We need to focus a great deal more on the final causes, the purpose of the killings, the attempt of the killers to get rid of those seen by them as parasites.
There is an analogy here with the drug epidemic (which is having much deeper immediate effects than the mass shootings). It seemed clear that the way to handle that was to control the material, the drugs, from getting into the country. But that effort is very inefficient. Why? Because the reason for wanting drugs is rooted in a hedonistic milieu. Those desiring a life of just pleasure will find a way. And the suppliers will be there to help. I asked a prisoner I worked with how he could justify selling drugs. "I don't force them to buy. But if they want it, I'll give it to them."
It is important to work at controlling the material of killing, i.e. the guns and bullets. The killers hateful purposes, will be much, much harder to change. But we must.
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Mr. Brooks, you can best promote racial unity by simply reminding your audience the humanity is one. There is only one race...the human race. There is no need for an intellectual discussion. It is a very simple matter. Children do not discriminate. Adults do.
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@Thomas
What a wonderful comment.
I think in this all consuming hate race rhetoric, we have all forgotten, colour has no meaning and we are all humans.
Just humans.
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I thought we had already fought hate and won. Little did I know you can only beat back hate, you can never conquer it. It being part of human nature or, at least, part of the human condition. It was with us before Trump and it will continue long after he's gone. What he has been able to do, and maybe we should thank him for this, is smoke out those who are susceptible to hate's siren song. I see these people at Trump rallies and cringe at the thought that they are somebody's parents or have an authoritarian or respected place in some young person's upbringing. Pluralism should not be a problem for anyone who was brought up well, brought up Christian or brought up American. My therapist sister once told me that the opposite of hate is not love, it is indifference. I understand the best way to fight hate is with love but I don't think I can muster that, so I choose to fight the ideology of hate but, from now on, ignore those who I know will embrace the ideology when presented with it. As Nicole Wallace said when she saw the crowd behind Trump laughing at some racist trope or cruel joke or call to violence, "You know we can see you, right?".
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17% of American marriages are interracial? More than that. Census doesn't accurately reflect races so it won't accurately reflect marriages. In my family alone--we have 100% interracial marriages. My father born in 1922 was a product of an interracial marriage. More like 33% or higher.
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Diversity lives every day in communities across America. In many communities, diversity flourishes. In others, people of the same ilk seem to congregate and separate, keeping to themselves. Fortunately, so many places in America, urban, rural and suburban, are diverse. People live together, work together, play together, and, of course, live, fight and die together in our Armed Forces. Our goal should be to figure out ways to maintain and encourage community diversity so that it flourishes everywhere. When people learn to live together, the pluralistic philosophy succeeds. I like to think that, in spite of white supremacists, we in America have reached a pluralistic tipping point of no return. One could argue that white supremacist terrorism is a last gasp attempt to stop the move towards a better, more diverse America. It is very unlikely to succeed.
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Unfortunately, humans started out as tribal and in many ways remain that way. Humans are generally happier when they feel that they are part of a close knit community whose members care about them. Pluralism may make our personal lives richer and lead to creativity but the price for many is increased loneliness and feelings of insignificance. We need to recognize and treat the painful side effects of pluralism and those suffering from them. We ignore them at our own peril.
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I've been a teacher for over 40 years now and I've worked in some varied environments such as one that served a predominantly Korean and Hispanic population in downtown Los Angeles, and another that served a predominantly white rural population on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. I've seen an inexorable move toward pluralism in the last 20 years, first in a south Oklahoma City School with a large Vietnamese and Hispanic population and now in a Norman, Oklahoma middle school that is terrifically exciting due to the mix of kids from many continents. I find it thrilling and it gives me hope. This generation's Silent generation is the one that accepts and cares for everyone. I am not an optimist by nature and I am fully cognizant of this frightening trend, but I am cautiously optimistic about the American people.
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I have not always been drawn to read Mr Brooks but I become a bigger fan as he evolves. This was the type of article that explains what is going on in a way that many of us can understand. It also helps me personally to be more tolerant of everybody else. Thank you.
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Democracy is a very messy business, and the more diverse and committed to the ideal of individual rights a democracy is, the messier it gets. The great promise and peril of the American experiment in democracy, as Lincoln noted in 1838, was that, "as a nation of free men, we will live forever, or die by suicide." My sense is that the US is the world's largest democracy, and also its most diverse. While bringing us through our terrible adolescence, Lincoln reminded us that 'the great task remaining before us.....is to ensure that government of (all) the people, by (all) the people, and for (all) the people shall not perish from the earth." Unfortunately this is a rather vague goal which, during times when it is not under threat from outside is hard to remain as fiercely dedicated to as are those who would restrict the power of that government to a more exclusive group, regardless of other circumstances. This is the dilemma facing the Democratic party as they try to influence those who are more comfortable with a single focus. The idea of inclusivity needs to come from the top of the political leadership, a function at which which our current crop of political leaders is largely failing.
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@James Quinn: You call the US a democracy. How is it then possible that a president can be elected without getting 50.01% of the popular vote? How is gerrymandering possible in a democracy? And how come, if it is a democracy, can the Republicans go to great efforts to prevent citizens from voting?
Democracy works differently, and a truly democratic system would do much towards solving the problems the nation has, in particular in preventing the present occupant of the White House from ever haven gotten there in the first place.
Do away with the electoral college and introduce proportional voting for the house of representatives, and increase the number of senators for more populous states for starters.
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I lived in Nairobi prior to guns being run into the Somali war and afterwards.
It's simple, when there were no guns there was no gun violence.
When guns entered the scene, there were violent carjackings (and eventually worse).
Draw your own conclusions.
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@Jo Mo, America seems to be the biggest manufacturer and supplier of weapons. Strangely many of the American forces fighting (unnecessary and other people's wars) were attacked by jihadists who used American weapons (second hand third hand) on them. What goes around comes around, even when it comes to weapons.
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@Jo Mo
I think Kenyan history is a bit more complicated than you are suggesting
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-12997138
@Jo Mo
Simple yet eloquent explanation Jo Mo.
Good job!
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Of the op-ed's I've read on the shooters and manifestos, yours is by far the most intelligent. Thank goodness someone actually bothered to read the manifesto and think about it. I think your analysis of the components of the ideology are spot on.
Certainly the El Paso shooter had some genuine concerns about automation and political leadership. Together with a paragraph saying that the races should stay separate to promote cultural and genetic diversity which is not quite how culture and genetics work. As you say, separatism and racial Darwinism.
You say "They’re not killing only because they are pathetically lonely and deeply pessimistic about their own lives. They are inspired to kill by a shared ideology..."
Yes, but there are not too many people with an optimistic outlook on life who are inspired to kill by extreme ideologies. I think a major component of your analysis that is missing is why would someone pick up such an ideology in the first place. Also, much of the ideology you describe invoke the value of purity, namely racial purity, which seems to imply that someone feels under attack.
Also, you talk about pluralism towards the end. I think that is great for someone who is very open to other ideas and cultures like yourself. Lots of people are not as open. It seems that we are building a future where many conservative working class white folk wouldn't have a place.
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@James I am trying to understand why "conservative working class white folks" wouldn't have a place in a culture which embraces everyone. It seems to me that the only such folks who wouldn't have a place would be those who cannot accept the fundamental tenet of our democracy -- that all people are actually created equal.
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@Susan Is this a question or an emotive assertion?
It has to do with personality. Some people are very open to different ideas and cultures, many people are not. Lack of openness is not a vice, as it can help facility the formation of communities.
Brooks did not merely promote pluralisms as "a culture that embraces everyone". Brooks was advocating the virtues of pluralism from the perspective of someone who is very open to other ideas and cultures. "Finally, pluralism is the adventure of life. ... It’s going out and getting into each other’s lives. It’s a constant dialogue that has no end because there is no single answer to how we should live." This works very well for someone who is high in openness. Many people aren't. Many people don't want to go out and engage with other cultures and communities. They want a clear set of moral values where there is a single answer on how we should live. Be it the Bible, traditional values, etc. They aren't evil people, there is a great deal of value in valuing family and community.
Brooks ideals of pluralism would leave behind those who are low in openness, which includes many conservatives. In addition to the modern economy with globalization and automation leaving those people behind.
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@Susan
Maybe the culture doesn’t embrace everyone?
Sadly, people are living in a fantasy world if they think we can tackle this problem by addressing emotional issues. Understanding their views may provide clarity, but it will make no difference. We will almost never be able to identify and transform these perpetrators before they act. The only way to end this problem is to make it extremely difficult to purchase a gun and take as many guns as possible out of circulation, just like they did in Australia.
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@JF
OR, because making it difficult to purchase the weapon appears difficult, let's make it extremely difficult - limited quantities, wait times, back ground checks, licenses - to purchase the ammunition. That man in Dayton had 200 rounds. And make it retroactive . . . Plus, you can only purchase these if you own the weapon so as to prevent second-party purchasers.
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@JF I disagree - the whole issue is an emotional issue! These people *feel* a certain way. Of course we need better gun control - absolutely. But we also need to address their faulty understanding of race, the question of where their feeling of being replaced comes from and how and why it develops, and promote a broader respect for cultural difference and mixing in our society.
This does not have to result in meaningless platitudes, nor does it mean giving respect to these sad people co-opted by evil - rather, it means understanding them to eliminate the root causes of their hatred.
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@JS27
Very well said, and I totally agree it's an emotional issue; it's crucially important to understand these people feel a certain way.
One dimension of that feeling that almost no one talks about straightforwardly (at least in my reading) is their *vanity*. They feel like they're heroes. Their internal world is profoundly self-congratulatory. The particular bogus ideology they grab onto, that explains why they're better, is secondary, in a sense, to that fact about their psychological interiority: they gravitate to these ideologies because they confirm a prior sense of immutable personal greatness.
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So how do we fight the ideology of hate, Mr. Brooks?
I agree with all the positive things you said about pluralism, but what do we do to convert or protect ourselves from the enemies of pluralism?
Some suggestions would be helpful.
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@JediProf I agree- it would be wonderful if Mr Brooks followed up with suggestions. His thoughts seem always thoughtful and balanced so his advice would be welcomed.
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It’s important to remember that the perpetrators of these heinous crimes are invariably disturbed individuals who often end their own lives in the process, not sane men on a political mission. In trying to make sense of the incomprehensible, we give them too much credit.
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@Chris They're very angry, but, in many cases, nowhere near as disturbed as you think. That's what the right would like the rest of us to think, so that we don't crack down on gun ownership.
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Incomprehensible? No. Don't dress it up or explain it away. This is evil.
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@JF
Don't apply a political agenda to mental instability. They're too similar.
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Thanks for the quotes from the manifestos and analysis, which helped me understand the "we will not be replaced" issue. And I agree with your last sentence -- it helps to see and state clearly “what the terrorists hate about us.” And then to live into the world as we want it to be.
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Once we had a president who said the terrorists struck because "they hate our freedoms."
He took that as a mandate to take away as many freedoms as possible. So the terrorists would hate us less, I suppose.
Didn't work.
Evil does not seek to be understood and will not be bargained with.
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If you want to know how to fight this you need to spend a lot of time looking at what has worked in the past and building strategies around that/those. Flowery writing about pluralism with a bunch platitudes is unhelpful. I mean "a pure culture is a dead culture" -- what on earth does this mean? Take for example, the families of the victims of El Paso -- how exactly does this article help them either specifically or in the abstract? How does it help prevent attacks? Who is more learned now that they read this? I am squarely in the camp that this writer continues to present arguments and points of which he has no expertise and which do not move us ahead, only sideways. If we are to make improvements to the many problems we face we need to explore ways to find very real solutions and stop talking in the echo chamber about how things might be if we could just get them all read The Times.
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@Andrew Disagree. Everything starts with ideas and of course this piece doesn't give immediate relief for the victims of recent shootings and there is no reason to expect that.
What you are complaining about is the timing.
And yes: A "pure" culture is indeed a dead culture.
That's not hard to understand if you grasp the meaning of culture.
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@Roger Holmquist
Nah, everything starts with hard work. Doing stuff. Changing. Helping. Pitching in.
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@Andrew
This article made David Brooks feel better about his role in promoting Republican anti immigration policies.
That's how it helped him.
The rest of us?
Not so much.
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