Rebecca Traister is right. Brooks hates it that we commoners have our own bully pulpit thanks to the internet. And no, David. Aside from our humanity, the left and the right online have little in common. The death threats invariably come from the right. Conservatives, fascists, white supremacists-whatever you want to call your peeps-are playing a zero sum game. They literally want to eradicate any disagreement.
16
David hit it out of the park with this one. I also agree with him that this can come from the right or the left. While the left is less inclined to shoot random people, this sort of vicious moral righteousness has certainly been used by the left to destroy many careers and get you thrown out of a university.
20
David recently proclaimed that slavery once existed here. Making it official. Until then it was some assertion of fanatics who didn't understand the differences between lets say "Welfare Queens" modest, measured, on target and "Mexican rapists" racist generalization. He recently proclaimed that there are such things as homophobia and misogeny. Making it official. But there are also things called religeous beliefs. Well there should be a sane poliocy around abortion. Three months okay what can you do. But any more than that upsets too many people. Reproductive and sexual freedom. Only fanatics believe in such things. Anthing more is is trying to impose notions of freedom on very decent and kind people who want to keep uppity women and LGBTQ+ people from contaminating them spaces. And a Green New Deal is fantacism. An alt left authoritarian fantasy that is equivelant to the worst excesses of corporate greed.
The beauty of capitalism's genius for creative destruction is the cornerstone of David's political belief system. Just look at all the good that has flowed from it. It has allowed communities to form of people deeply suffering, of people up against it, people looking out for each other, the weaving of networks of love and concern. But if the people for one second organize themselves as they look at the structual issues that are opressing and harming them than to David they are slipping into fanaticism.
15
As someone who taught college literature courses for decades, including up to 4chan times, I can attest that the incel boys do not read "Notes from Underground" or much other literature, even when it is assigned in class. They are too busy online or playing video games (or both).
Most of the students who do love Dostoevsky's Underground Man are like I was when I discovered the novel at 18: the kind of kids who wouldn't think like the crazy conspiracy-obsessed angry-at-the-world kill-them-all types you see on 4chan.
You sort of have to be somewhat well-adjusted and intelligent to appreciate the Underground Man to see him for what he is. A number of us who are fans of this character go into very rational professions, like law or medicine, and lead mainstream ("normie") lives.
31
The accusations of “both-sidesism” in the comments miss Brooks’ point.
The characteristics of this contemporary anomie are eerily similar across other strains of political/social/religious fanaticism. Brooks’ fanatic could just as easily be a Flat Earther, conspiracist, ISIS-inspired radical, sovereign citizen, Christian dominionist, or anyone else from the fringe that is lashing out.
And, as the examples in the piece illustrate, this phenomenon is primarily swallowing men whole, young and old.
Online fanaticism is fueled by real-life forces, and then it manifests itself in real-life pain: depression, misogyny, fear and stress people feel when by individuals and online mobs lash out at them, stalking, assault, murder, suicide, a generation that will be left worse off than its elders...
I know how it feels to be the man whose eyes Brooks is seeing through. I know how it feels to be left utterly confused as life passes me by, having no clue how to use social tools to fix my problems or what it means to “be a man.” I’ve felt hate rise through my body—it’s like an addictive drug with no high.
And I have to remind myself every day to fight back against this. I’ve had to teach myself all over again to love, to be kind, to keep hatred from entering my heart and soul. And also, remind myself to see through other’s eyes.
Brooks is getting trashed on Twitter for this piece, but he honestly gives a damn about understanding and reversing this phenomenon, and that’s the first step.
35
David, I wonder why you didn't mention Fake News.
13
"Alt-left" is right wing fantasy. That Brooks repeats the fabrication undermines his credibility.
54
The tired, tired trope. Yoga pants wearing, Starbucks drinking moms coddled their sons into becoming mass shooters with their false values. Social ills that can’t be blamed on ethnic “others” can in a pinch be laid at the feet of middle class white women who haven’t played their proper mothering role. These bad emasculating (white) mothers wore shirtwaists in one era, girdles in the next, pantsuits in the next. Why do these insults go unchallenged?
58
There were fanatics well before lattes and yoga pants. I don't think "moral relativism" is what its about. Yes, the fanatic needs recognition, yearns for certainty and rules. Yes, the fanatic wants simple answers. But that personality type is as old as humanity. History is littered with the corpses and ruins left by the few fanatics who were recognised after all. Alexander the Great. Savanarola. Robespierre. Hitler. Stalin. Pol Pot. And that's a very short list.
21
"I am one of those fanatics on the alt-right and the alt-left"...typical false equivalence/bothsidesism. I hear the FBI testifying to Congress that the alt right-wing nationalists are a problem...but not so much a supposed alt-left.
32
I commend David for his description of a fanatic's mindset. He captures the mind of directionless young NEET quite well. However, regarding his use of the word alt-left... We all know at this point that the alt-right is a euphemism for neo-Nazis. For proof, watch footage of their 2017 rally in Charlottesville where they waved swastika flags, seig-heiled, and chanted "Jews will not replace us!" It stands to reason then, that the left's equivalent of the alt-right would be the outright Marxists.
I ask my fellows, have you seen these Marxists? Not "cultural Marxists" with dyed hair. Actual red-flag waving, hammer-and-sickle baring, seize-the-factories-and-kill-the-market, Lenin quoting Communists? Though some certainly exist, they're so dissolute as to be unnoticeable on the national stage. Call Bernie a socialist, he's not advocating killing Jeff Bezos and nationalizing Amazon, now is he? The Reds, the legitimate "alt-left", are nowhere to be seen.
The alt-right neo-Nazis, however, got their man into the White House. Just last month, one of their number murdered more than 20 people. Last year, another murdered nine Jews in Pittsburgh. The alt-right alone has a body count that's reached the triple digits. As it happens, they're the ones who coined "alt-left" as an evasion tactic, since they know they'll be rejected once the public realizes who they are. I cast no aspersions at Mr. Brooks, as I know covering for Nazis isn't his intention. Just some food for thought.
38
I would like the left wing equivalent of Alex Jones, his Infowars, and the legal suit brought against him.
17
This column is a phony. I know that because whoever Brooks is describing wouldn't know a "simulacrum" from a toasted cheese sandwich. Dostoyevsky? Don't make me laugh. I can't even pronounce it. "Notes from Underground" might just be a subway map, for all I know.
The neo-Nazis who marched through the streets of Charlottesville were anything but "alone." Neither are their fellow Fox News viewers.
No, David, you'll need to dig somewhat deeper than this.
30
Just... wow!
3
Sadly, David, the monsters you describe so well are too real.....
… and for many, 'Civilization' is a scary, uncontrollable thing....
3
Brilliant
3
There is no Alt left. Just people who don't like Nazis. If hating Nazis makes me Alt Left than by god I am Alt Left.
Just another sad false equivalency argument from Mr. Brooks. GOP whataboutism at its best. Intellectually bankrupt piece.
49
Another Brooksian adventure in false equivalence.
34
Mr. Brooks, I have not hear of any left wing mass murderers. your false equivalence falls flat!
29
Excellent.
1
Mr. Brooks, you should have added:
P. S. I am white.
9
Wow, wow, wow.
Your version Crime & Punishment next please.
Wow Mr. Brooks, extraordinary,
2
You were also raised in a world full of deadly armaments that were easily available to you.
You are drinking the Kool-Aid that the people who are killing other people are somehow sick in the head, mortally wounded from birth by rejection and misdirection (most parents know what's right and what's wrong, and they provide role models for their children).
4
Huh, Mr Brooks, you’re about half right.
5
Start the healing by turning off MSNBC, CNN and Fox.
9
Your writing reflect these confessions, daily. It's painful for me to read, or hear, anything you express, but certainly enlightening enough to get me off my butt to fight against your unfortunate beliefs and theories. I'm glad you do your damage in public.
8
Mr. Brooks were you at Charlottesville to observe what real deep down hatred looks like up close and personal? Have you ever escorted at a women's clinic which provides pregnancy terminations? I have been an escort at such a clinic for many years (although my time there is very limited anymore). The protestors there are where fundamentalism meets right wing conservatism. As an escort I have been called a murderer, a Nazi guard, and told I would burn in Hell. I can assure you nothing can surpass the viciousness of those on the far right, and until you have experienced it personally, you cannot fully comprehend the depth of deep-seated hatred, that fuels the vitriol. There is no room for compromise. While I have seen arrogance and condescension from those who might be deemed fanatics on the left, I have seen nothing to equal what I have personally experienced from those on the far right. One other commenter stated it correctly. You are presenting a false equivalency here. IMHO, "yoga pants and gourmet coffee" aside, those on the left are driven by compassion, and those on the right are driven by hate.
One other thing, we are being further divided and manipulated by social media and some news organizations to deepen hatreds and suspicions of one another and create fanaticism on a level we have never experienced before in this country. We are living in dangerous times, and I am uncertain as to how this will all play out.
34
So its like the fanatics who deny climate change and evolution and the fanatics who actually believe those things exist? Even believe it (believe it or not) with a sense of certainty!
The fanatics who find immigrants to be an invasive species and fanatics (like me) who think immigrants are human beings?
The fanatics in Germany in the 1930s who believed that Jews should be slaughtered and the fanatics who thought they should be allowed to live?
Is that what you are getting at? Any people who solidly believe they are right (other than David Brooks) are fanatics?
Did I get that right? (I mean center.)
28
I have no idea what you are trying to say. If a mom does yoga and tells her kid you have the ability to do anything you want you are breeding a future mass murderer at worst and a psychopath at a minimum? This opinion piece is ridiculous.
41
I see no evidence there is an alt-left equivalent in any way shape or form to the fascist alt-right.
38
If you simply refuse to recognize material inequalities and inequities of power, then you are left with the squishy psycho-social explanations of David Brooks. I've been reading his columns and fine books for years (and admire him in many ways), but he simply won't open his mind to serious material arguments. I do not question the description of the sad, desperate and pathetic minds here. But until you take Marx seriously -- sorry to be so blunt -- you just can't address the real problems.
6
"epic wars" is silly..
Spot on, Mr. Brooks.
2
Stephen Miller? Donnie Trump?
9
My God, is this horse packed with straw, or what?
12
Your thesis seems to be "Some criticism of me is wrong thus all criticism of me is wrong'. By lumping the credible criticism with the nuts you attempt to invalidate all of it.
That's not very professional for a journalist is it?
7
So David would have us believe these lone losers are the cause of what is slowly killing us. It couldn’t be the spineless GOP, the ones with the real power to make changes, could it? You know, the McConnells of the world who continue to turn a blind eye to our president’s (and his family’s) corruption and racism. Nah. It’s easier to just keep blaming the boogey man.
17
Is it just me? I know a few men on the right that this diatribe fits perfectly, but I have never met anyone on the left whom this fits.
26
You forgot “I watch Fox News.”
11
Amazing
2
I'm getting really sick of apologists for the reactionaries' bad behavior in politics and the violent racist fascists trying to explain, yet again, that it's the same on both sides.
It's not. Between Trump's election and inauguration, there were at least 1200 or more hate incidents, and all but a few were from the right--from desecrating Jewish graveyards and synagogues, to painting swastikas in a NY Giants player's apartment, they were all from the right side of the aisle, not the left.
Most of the mass shooters have been far right racists--like the El Paso shooter. And those that defend against the planned violence of the Proud Boys , Identity Evropa, American Nazi Movement, the "antifa"? Why THIS president wants to declare them, the defenders "terrorists" while letting the violent racists off the hook, yet again.
Yet David Brooks and Ross Douthat keep trying to convince us there's equivalence. There is none.
None. The evil violence and 21st century equiv of the KKK is all from the Right, none from the left.
The GOP has sold its soul to the white racists and corruption of Trump just to hold on to their seats. Unless the Dems blow it (And the DNC, DSCC and DCCC are doing their darndest to make that happen--again, just like 2016), they'll lose their seats and power anyway.
22
I'm struggling to understand the point of this column. Is this a character sketch based on conversations with actual people, or a set a facile assumptions based on Mr Brooks's personal analysis of society's shortcomings and their possible effect on the disaffected? There are millions who have grown up in the conditions described who have not ended up as incel trolls. Is this a call to arms, a call to prayer, a call for compassion? Might not Mr Brooks, whose white maleness at least puts him in the same quadrant as the "narrator", use his non-lib status to attempt some level of relationship with one or more of these guys, since the only thing that's likely to ameliorate their situation is actual human contact?
As a libtard feminazi, neither my compassion nor my condemnation will be of any assistance. I therefore beg to be excused.
19
Brooks is like Trump: He sees good (read: bad) people on both sides. Nowadays, people have either no religion, or false religion, so we've lost our moral compass. We believe what we want to believe, and violence solves all problems.
6
Underground Man is as lonely and pathetic as ever. But as Paul A from St. Lawrence NY points out, the viciousness and hate spewed by the Right doesn't just come from its fringe -- it comes from it's leaders and their messaging machine which are the real threat to the crumbling "moral ecology" that David Brooks so highly values.
26
David just can't handle the fact that his fantasy GOP no longer exist — if it ever did.
Pretending that both right and left are the same in their dishonesty, immorality, cognitive dissidence, and much, much, more is absurd.
28
The left may be ready to rumble at demonstrations, but they don’t come armed.
15
OK, first, good points, secondly - and not to sound childish but when one tries to reason with someone and they adopt a donkey attitude - one tends to put nicities aside - If it's good enough for our President - the model of decorum and good behavior - then its good enough for us.
1
It's nice and it's cogent, but I really doubt that this guy is reading, or has ever read, Dostoyevksy.
5
There is nothing like false comparisons, generalizations, and moral equivalency, to trivialize the actual problems imposed by a system set up for the elite. And when the peasants get restless, they start with shame and end up with bullets as arguments. But no where in this article lies a solution. More charter schools? More guns? Less food stamps? Lower pay? More pollution and environmental destruction? And end to public parks? Not one of these are liberal objectives and all are Republican Party and conservative objectives, not to mention demonization of the poor, LGBT and those with expensive illnesses. Geez, Dave, when you gonna wake up and not blame those unhappy with you pompous elites and your horrible management of the country?
18
Sure, because the "alt-left" has any real presence online, or in real life. Your false equivalencies render your argument meaningless.
12
So you think you know him, do you, Mr. Brooks? "Did you really think you could raise me on gourmet coffee and yoga pants and I wouldn’t find a way to rebel against your relativism and materialism?" Sounds like his parents are latte liberal or white wine spritzer kinda folks, huh?
Maybe you know more than I do, more than everyone, but I don't think you know these men.
14
"If you can't say anything good about a person, then don't say anything at all''.
If you can't say anything good about a President, then Impeach!
It is as simple as that. What a waste of digital space,energy, time, and brain power, while democracy dissolves and Mr. President golfs on into the sunset and commenters turn to a new story.
2
...says the elite rich white male New Yorker, who, no matter what happens in Washington, or the coasts or middle America, to working Americans just trying to have a relatively decent, secure life for themselves & their family; who, due to his own privileged history, will still be able to vacation in Europe & the Hamptons, will still dine with and complain to his elitest friends & will still be able to have a life untouched by what others control.
We should all be so lucky. Maybe then, when our lives are not destroyed by the games of the rich, we can join in not taking this mayhem, that is America, so seriously.
8
I guess when all you know is the banter of other clueless rich people at dinner parties any input from regular people right or left would be shocking.
11
Please stop equating the extremes of left and right.
15
World War Two generation, baby boomers, GenX, Millennials. Who is responsible?
It's difficult to imagine Dylan Roof or the typical MAGA man reading Dostoyevsky's "Notes from the Underground."
15
So my politics is not really about issues, it’s epic wars for recognition. I don’t deal with the complexities of economics or foreign affairs. I seize upon the minor missteps made by my opponents in order to discredit their kind. You stumbled? I delight in crushing you!
Yesterday CNN posted, for 30 seconds, a map misidentifying Alabama. They apologized. The White House communication lady sent out a snarky tweet that was followed by many more from the "rite". Sick, sick, sick.
5
But I know young men raised within fundamentalist religious sects and traditional patriarchal family structures who think this way. How do you explain them, Brooks? Sorry, but your yoga pants theory just doesn't hold water.
18
The “alt-left” is not comparable to the “alt right” in any way. Although both sides have heated opinions, the “alt-left” is for the enfranchisement of more people. It is optimistic that the United States can adapt to the needs of the 21st century. This is not a particularly “left” stance. It’s human generosity.
The “alt-right” capitalizes on fear, hate, and the pessimism that the United States will not keep room for white privileged and bigotry. It’s rhetoric is notoriously false and pernicious. It spurns violence, and eventually, the complete manipulation or self serving interpretations of the Constitution that do nothing but work to create less of a republic and more of a violent plutocracy.
The “alt-right” seeks to destroy democracy and is not afraid to use violence.
The left argues about how can more people get health care? How can we work to ease the climate crisis? Why can’t we get the violence against women act passed in the Senate?
There is no comparison. The right is violent
And undemocratic. It seeks only to help the Uber rich and arm the disenfranchised white working class.
We are not comparing Chamberlain to Churchill. We’re comparing Roosevelt to Hitler.
Candyce Pelfrey
Engaged Citizen
22
I don't know why Brooks is given this forum - he's all about obfuscation, pointless satire, random condemnation - in a time where people need clarity he offers NONE.
15
When did you score an interview with Mitch McConnell?
7
Sorry, stopped reading at "alt-left."
15
The missing element in this column is the seething hatred of women that is the essential core of most of these misfits. That element of the on-line troll is perhaps the most important and dangerous one, and it is far more prevalent among right-wing trolls than left-wing ones. "InCels" ain't Democrats. Downplaying that element because it doesn't fit the both-sides narrative renders this column non-descriptive to the point of dishonesty.
14
Sounds like high school to me. Maybe the internet is just a massive force for keeping us all in high school?
Gawd! It's like getting an indeterminate sentence.
2
Wow . . .didnt know there was an "alt-left" which Mr. Brooks tries to compare with the alt-right. . . what are the examples of the alt-left . . . Antifa? . . . Bernie Supporters? . . .Pro choice activists? Really? Not sure if I have heard of any"alt-left" young disaffected and alienated white males who support Bernie Sanders, Immigration Reform, Pro Choice or the anti fascists actions of the Trump administration espousing a leftist manifesto and committing a mass shooting at a school or black church.
11
A reading of some 40 comments here reveals just how deep, subtle and revealing the article actually is!
Excellent David.
2
Incredibly literate but just ban military weapons
3
David
With you up until the part about Manichaean binaries and Dostoyevsky. To realistically keep with the first person narrative might be to say—“I don’t read books or use big words.”
1
Again, and yet again, Mr. Brooks equates the left with the right. He really needs to read Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" where that admirable leftist pointed out that deciding which side to support in a civil war, one should not focus on the atrocities. As he noted and I'm sure observed, both sides commit atrocities. Instead, he advised, one should focus on what each side stands for and what kind of world they are trying to bring about.
What does the Right do? They shoot up family planning clinics. They deny transgender citizens the right to serve in the military (though not white supremacists!). They defend the likes of Tucker Carlson and Richard Lowry (a ardent supporter of Sarah Palin). They shout and kill shoppers, worshipers, and anyone else they believe will make this country less white, less evangelical christian, and less racist.
In the 1932 German elections, the Social Democrats and the Nazis engaged in street fighting. Mr. Brooks would have you believe the two sides were therefore equivalent.
It really is a matter now of "which side are you on?"
Are you pro-slavery or are you pro-union?
14
It is unfortunate that one of the right wing internet trolls you describe here was elected President. In office, he seems to have nothing to offer the country beyond the trolling.
There has never been an equivalent on the left.
11
I like your writing regarding the alt-right, but comparing them to the supposed, non-violent, non-racist, non/murderous and non-misogynistic alt-left is like comparing a cantaloupe to a canary.
6
maddening false equivalencies ...
POTUS is squarely "alt right"
Where is the "equivalent" on the left ?
7
Dacid Brooks was blessed and privileged and empowered to be born white European Canadian American Jewish to be educated at the University of Chicago and write for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
When, where and how can any black African American sign up to carry such a heavy color aka race aka ethnicity aka national origin aka sectarian historical burden?
Of the 44,000 Americans who die from gunshot every year about 2/3rds are suicides. And a majority are white men and veterans who tend to use handguns.
White European American Judeo-Christian majority life expectancy is uniquely decreasing in America due to alcoholism, drug addiction, depression and suicide.
The most powerful fictional depiction of America seen from the black African American bottom is the iconic 'Invisible Man ' by Ralph Ellison
' I am an invisible man' from the unnamed protagonist
Black African Americans are expected to be grateful, invisible and silent.
5
Speaking of fanaticism, David Brooks, when are you going to acknowledge that your crazy project to invade Iraq and occupy it for 10 years was a radically bad idea? When will you acknowledge that tax-cuts-in-a-time-of war transformed balanced budgets into the $1.4 trillion deficit-mongering monstrosity George Bush II handed to Barack Obama? Please do not traffic in these crazy-man scenarios. The freaks did not bring us here. Think long and hard about the conservative, Republican policies that brought us here. Please.
16
I can see how being forced by their parents to wear yoga pants while drinking coffee might lead some men to be rageful.
10
You nailed it David. It’s all the fault of the morally bankrupt Obama administration.
I know a lot of people that own multiple guns, none of them are leftists.
10
It’s always projection with you guys.
7
People that are obsessed by people that insult them online or were rude to them seems limited mostly to the media industry. How many of these meaningless opinion pieces have been written by op-ed section over the last year? Close to a thousand. I don’t know how people find this stuff remotely interesting or worth dedicating space to in a legacy publication.
1
I wish David Brooks would stop trying to describe liberals. It seems he does not know any, does not speak to any, or, perhaps, just does not listen. So much of his descriptions seems like he just made them up, projecting right wing weaknesses on to some non-existent lefty straw man.
14
When I saw the headline on this opinion piece,"And Now, a Word from a Fanatic," and the sub-head, "Inside the mind of an internet extremist," I was sure it was going to be about Trump and his obsession with the hurricane map.
4
It doesn't take Brooks even a paragraph to clumsily launch into the usual false equivalences, possibly without even noticing it. The alt-right exists by self-defintion, in an attempt by white supremacists to euphemize the Nazi stench away. It is a real thing. The "alt-left" is a nonsense phrase hurled by the alt-right to create - you guessed it - a false-equivalence trap for empty-headed poseurs like David Brooks. There must be some way to drive the truth home to our Punditburo: there is no mysterious "breakdown" of civility. There has been a sustained attack on civility, democracy, and the concept of public order, by increasingly unhinged rightists and hate-mongers. We put crazy people in asylums. We don't pretend that the whole world is one.
10
Just want Trump and his ilk gone.
3
For god’s sake David, That was poorly-dressed lefty correctness. Say it loud and be proud: Right is wrong.
1
False equivalency is easy, & makes David Brooks his good living churning column inch after column inch of "Republican are wrong, but..." whataboutism that gives him rent money for the week.
An opinion writer like Jennifer Rubin, who actually takes a long look at her party and sees the rot and decides to address it, David Brooks is not.
It would be interesting to read something he put some actual work & thought into. He is not a stupid man, which is why his work is so frustrating.
4
Isn't it funny how, in an article about American extremists, David Brooks NEVER mentioned the word "Trump" once?
5
Please David relax. Think. (And can someone tell me these leftists David means who are anything as prevalent as the rightists who are all over the US.) Since 2016 David you have been outraged and ashamed of Trump and McConnel. Now you have swerved back to your conservative viewpoint. You know the rightists and their "base" are the galloping threat. And growing up bourgeois in yoga pants is not their problem. But angry simplification is. Yes we live in a loose country but the threat right now is not your Other -making leftists. It is these agitated, mean , so-called populists whose hearts can't stand diversity. Instead of dissing everybody please help us fight the rightist disruptors who want to shut you up.
4
Actually, what you are most lacking is an emotional voice, something that was likely silenced when you were 3 or 4 and were crying because someone may have been unkind to you without warrant.
At the time, you felt your feelings keenly. You felt sad, hurt, needy, vulnerable. Instead of an adult exploring these feelings with you, validating your right to feel them and giving you some tools and words with which to deal, you were silenced. You were told big boys don't cry. You were told to stop acting like a sissy. You were told to keep a stiff upper lip.
When you expressed originality in your ideas, or a flair for empathy, storytelling, insight, nuance, you were told that real boys did not behave that way. You were told that the correct way to deal with life is in a gruff, unfeeling manner. You were told magic is not real and that facts are only true if you can observe them and they fit into your world view. Your independent streak, your intuition and your ability to sense the world emotionally was literally castrated out of you.
You grew up without an adequate tool of language to express your needs, desires and emotional observations. You were raised in a narrow lane of what constitutes joy: winning and losing the only values that you were ever taught. Growth, acceptance only words with no real meaning.
You resent women because of their emotional fluidity and you claim your superiority because it was the prize you were offered for the price of your soul.
5
David Gerson's column in the Washington Post represents something of a flip side to this column. Worth reading together imo.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/americans-face-a-rising-tide-of-despair-we-have-a-duty-to-act/2019/09/05/8d98c0c2-d01d-11e9-8c1c-7c8ee785b855_story.html
2
Good description of Donald Trump!
3
It is gratifying to read other outlets on the internet where David Brooks and his "whataboutism" are being taken to the woodshed of hypocrisy.
2
Cancel the "I read..." part and the column could end with:
Sincerely,
Donald Trump
1
Yes, David, there are simplistic idiots / fanatics on the left who yearn for clarity and meaning and self-esteem and who can't comprehend that life at any level is complex and often difficult.
But as always, you emphasize the foibles of the silly left, subtly or not so much, while giving more of a pass to the equally crazy but far more vicious and dangerous equivalents on the right.
How about this for a replacement line in your essay:
Did you really think you could raise me on football and McDonalds and cherry-picked Bible verses and I wouldn't find a way to rebel against your so-called education and ethics and citizenship?
9
Tremendously clever description of the gazillions of alt somethings who go to the internet to hear the echo of their own angry shout. Not so different from yelling 'I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore' out the window, I suppose, but what's changed since the '70s is that the Internet makes it possible to find the city block where everyone is yelling out the window with a few clicks. Perhaps it was the internet -- and the territorial, angry, knee jerk behaviors it encourages -- that prepared us for the current resident of the white house. Is he not the echo of all anger? Is he not the incoherent, random thought spewing, gibbering reflection of an America in which anger, and anger alone, is the thing we have found, to misquote Beckett, that gives us the impression we exist.
Yes, yes, we're magicians.
1
Um ... alt right AND alt left?
I don't think so. The tip of the iceberg is mass shootings, nearly all of which are perpetrated by right wing fanatics. The left does not have a cottage industry of hate-filled media; i.e. there are no equivalents of Infowars, Brietbart and Daily Stormer on the left.
David tries very hard to twist himself into position as a centrist, but it's just not working.
10
The idea these guys read Notes from the Underground shows how out of touch this piece is. Truly showing your age Mr. Brooks.
2
Yeah, I should have been raised Catholic like David, then everything would be so clear as to why the world is self destructing. And it's not my fault!
1
"Alt left." Are you kidding? An argument from false equivalence. How Brooksian.
5
Excellent! No alt-left? I am mildly amused to read so many comments decrying Brooks' inclusion of leftist fanatics. Of course there are fanatics on the left! Just wait until you meet them. They will insist that everything about America is evil. They will flog themselves and demand that you do too because of our collective white guilt. They will insist that you use gender neutral pronouns and call you out if you raise questions about "safe places" and the banning of conservative speakers on campus. Oh, but THEY are not the fanatics. Yet they have no tolerance for your questions.
2
Ever think about the word reactionary. Back in the day, no one wanted to be one. It was on step away from being a fascist. But why did they exist? Who were they reacting to? The Left. Could Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco have existed without Communism?
What's the score on mass killings? Mostly kids that wanted to be in the news and a handful of terrorist. More right-wingers than left (the left thinks this is proof of their goodness) and a few Jihadi. I can't help remembering leftist discussions during the '70s. Ideally, they said a revolutionary cell not connected to any outside organization would carry out acts of terrorism. The reactionary government would be hopeless against them. Is that what's happening today?
The score, if you're keeping one. The left continues to be too smart for their own good and the right is more violent. It must be poor social upbringing.
1
And now a word from C.S. Lewis—
“The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.”
The Iraq War was not pushed by “ fanatics”. It was pushed by David Brooks and other likeminded people. Global warming denial was not pushed by fanatics, but by men in the offices of thoroughly nasty business concerns.
8
I suspect that fanatics, right and left, will be offended by this article, as evidenced by comments below.
1
Perhaps Mr. Brooks has not had the experience of picking up his 1st graded after school on the day they had the School Shooter drill. What would a column look like if he did?
1
Underground Man would be deeply insulted by David Brooks' simplistic allusions of him.
2
Respectfully, Mr. Brooks, stay in your lane. Pop psychology isn’t it.
2
Mr. Brooks:
Please read something from the Souther Poverty Law Center which actually tracks violence in the United States emanating from the Right, versus from the Left:
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/06/11/accusations-mirror-how-radical-right-blames-rising-political-violence-left
Don't we have enough fake news from Republicans, from Fox News, from Vladimir Putin's Internet Research Agency, without the New York Times giving you a platform to publish even more fake claims in the face of the actual statistics?
2
Much of this is valid, but one crucial point is not: This is not an equal-opportunity of despair between the alt-right and alt-left.
There aren't many weasellier words than 'vast majority', but here they apply: These people are overwhelmingly on the right; the neo-nazis birthed by pointy-headed, ivory-tower, ethically bankrupt 'conservative' intellectuals outnumber the neo-Stalinists by at least an order of magnitude.
Dan Kravitz
2
The "radical left" is a hilarious mystical beast dreamed up by Republicans seeking a false equivalence for their blatant embrace of all things white supremacist. A silly trap one would hope David Brooks would be sophisticated enough not to fall into, but apparently not the case. When I read Brooks I always brace myself for what reads like spontaneous off-target hyperbole and he never disappoints.
6
David - consider the two works entitled "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump" - 27 or 37 psychiatrists - take your pick. You are in so many ways describing this president - the loudest voice on Twitter. The paranoia and narcisism run hand in hand in your discourse.
4
You are not alone. You are with almost half of the voting population. You have found a leader. When he's gone, you'll find another.
141
Can’t newspapers filter out the bad comments? This newspaper must, because another paper I read seems to print every squabble, which it becomes more about the squabble then the topic. When I find them, I interject something which makes them pause. Unruly kids!
Powerful column, David, and doubly dismaying: first, in its portrait of true fanatics, and,second, in describing attitudes and habits of mind that we are ALL guilty of. You’ve triggered the predictable responses that “the Right is worse than the Left” and “Yes, the other side is awful (but I of course am blameless and reasonable, which I feel an urgent need to express, vitriolically).” Everyone should read this and ask, “What does this say about the fanatic that’s growing in me?”
8
Fascinating that the most liked comments disagree with Brooks. But then, I suspect that the NYTimes readership is strongly skewed. My personal opinion is that Mr Brooks has hit the nail on the head and the dissenters don't lke the pain.
11
@Smarty's Mom
I agree with you about the skewed readership of NY Times readers. As Prof. Krugman is fond of saying, "Facts have a well known liberal bias." Nevertheless, Mr. Brooks, as I've noted in my other comment, posits a false equivalence because of the severity of the threats posed by the extreme factions of both sides. That posed by the left is virtually non-existent, while the threat from today's right is a clear and present danger to us all.
37
Please be more specific I would love to understand your reasoning. Other than the “bathroom bill’ and other liberal “nanny state” efforts please mention something that the left is doing that comes close to shredding the Constitution, destroying the environment, and violating numerous laws and conventions.
6
I believe there is a false equivalency here between the right and the left fanaticism. Why the right one is rooted in (unfounded or not - that depends on your point of view) rational concern for the well-being of this Country as it has been constructed, for Her principles, believes, and moral codes, the left one is very much as it is described by Brooks: the free-for-all, no-morals (anything goes) anarchism of Dostoyevsky's many iconic characters. The left fanaticism destroyed my old country (the USSR) to the detriment, suffering, and death of millions in the mid-to late 90s. It now tries to do the same with my newly adopted one (the US). Having met hundreds of Soviet emigrees here, I am yet to find one who votes Democratic. Just think about it. we have seen what the left fanaticism can truly do to a society...
5
Reading this article makes me stop and attempt to objectively list the forces in my life that shaped my current sense of self - how did I get here - to this version of me - what I know, what I believe, what I value?
How do I go about molding and carving future me - on purpose this time?
84
I don’t need to pile on regarding the false equivalence Brooks makes. Of course the right is more aggressive.
I will defend the aggressiveness from the right and say that it represents the part of our culture/society that is needed. We have enemies and they’re ready to go to war, to fight for us, for the country, for their/our way of life.
They don’t do well without enemies- they need them to justify their innate aggression, to give them purpose and meaning. Unfortunately our leaders manipulate that instinct to cause division, to turn on ourselves and separate us when really we have far more in common than our differences.
David, you and I of the Boomer generation remember when we were told the internet would transform the world in ways large and small. All of it (dare anyone in those days engage in nay-saying?) positive and wonderful. The truth, as with so many things, has turned out to be much more complex, and much of it is negative.
The radicals, mostly of the noxious and all too often violently deadly far right, have been energized. They plot and plan or when loners, have their paranoia or bi-polar illness inflamed into action. Call me a dreamer or a fool but I still think they are a small minority, albeit a potentially deadly one. Nonetheless they must be stopped and arrested when the proof is there before they act.
Then in the age of Trump, and a major party, the Republicans, turned into fawning (or frightened) enablers of his mendacity, bigotry and dictatorial cravings, we have an opposite reaction. Ignoring the vast center ground and/or pragmatism of the American electorate, the activist left sees their moment. Trump, in their telling has opened a cleft in the political firmament. Ideas previously the province of elite academic seminars are now mainstreamed along with a dollop of black nationalism. Seize the moment for the revolution is the cry.
But no one asked the rest of us in the broad middle and the seekers of pragmatic solutions and clear-eyed free discussion and nuance. We will be heard.
1
This is satirizing and blaming a liberal upbringing. Well, I can only speak from my own experience: I raised two boys with my pediatrician's motto always in mind: "There's no such thing as too much love." Both boys are now men, successful and kind to others. I don't think their liberal upbringing corrupted them. Here's what I think the real truth is: Those who have been abused in childhood, subjected to "spankings" are the ones who will eventually act out violently. Studies have shown that "spanking" is brain damaging; other studies have pointed to childhood abuse as an important factor in later conservatism. To the PTSD resulting from childhood abuse add the ready access to guns in this country, and there you have it - just the opposite of what David Brooks posits here.
5
Alienation and angst do exist throughout the left-right political spectrum. Statistically the far right is more prone to react with physical violence. Big difference. To equate the effect side of the cause-effect dynamic in this manner is preposterous.
7
May inject a couple of blatant statistic, David?
Once again:
(1) America spends as much as the rest of the world on defense, even though the next biggest spenders are supposed to be our allies.
(2) America has more people in jail than any other country - even those with four times our population.
(3) America, while the richest country, is also the most unequal. How American dream is that?
(4) Awash in guns and shamed before the world by regular mass shootings.
(5) Now we have a "money changer" of Biblical proportions in the highest temple of our land - put their by our nation's Christians.
Want to keep going, David, about the extreme Left? Only the Right has gone extreme. The rightward drift began with Clinton/Gingrich and continued with Bush and Obama.
Try liberalism for a change.
12
David could you compare/contrast your columns during the Trump and Obama administrations please.
Obviously Obama had an extra term and the Recession was a large part of the economic agenda, but other areas in the last Obama term like foreign policy, civil debate, morality and ethics, leadership, constitutionality would be common to each admin.
If the national economy was to be included then the last 3 years of increasing inequality in favor of more well off people and businesses has only exacerbated the divide on all other levels. Rollbacks of all things Obama/Dem really is just a dumb play to Republican base. Absolute libertarian free markets aren't the answer since economic growth at the total expense of even minimal equality is hugely damaging in the long run. Even the great elite powers of Rome fell to the those who they alienated
'I read Dostoyevsky’s “Notes From the Underground.” I am alone.'
I suspect that anyone who reads and understands Dostoyevsky would know better than to fall for that sort of nonsense. Isn't that the point?
As many have pointed out, the equivalence between right and left is flawed. The magnitude of sin rests with the right. When is the last time somebody shot up a church or a mall because the people there were too conservative?
7
I find the responses to this article more interesting than the article itself. It is acting as a mirror to everyone's world view in many ways.
I find it interesting that a dew people make a comment about guns.
When I got done reading it, I thought more about this theoretical person not wanting a gun but wanting the means to do another Bath School massacre.
One thing I have been urging my friends with young children is to get them interested in the analog world by any means necessary. Get them out of and disinterested in the digital world.
2
False equivalency adding alt-left in there, David. I know of nobody on the left who takes that label, while the alt-right has plenty who willingly do.
You forgot to mention the conflicting messages of being told what is manly and what is not. Toxic masculinity is also toxic for the men and boys steeped in it.
The ultimate truth is that we cannot easily put everything down into a simplistic narrative without shoving people out. We need to learn to embrace some degree of ambiguity and complexity, and that is something we routinely fail to teach.
It's a reasonably entertaining read, this piece, but a few things threw me. Three stars.
2
I'm not sure why Mr. Brooks (often) feels the need to come across as "balanced" in his remarks about extremists. I remember shortly before the 2016 election, when Trump and his toadies were lambasting Hillary about the email nonsense, John Oliver had two huge jars - one for Trump and the other for Hillary - and a boatload of yellow marbles, each representing a lie, wretched act, moral flaw, personal transgression, or other failing on the part of the candidates. He then proceeded to fill the jars, side by side, and...well you can probably visualize the result. On the bottom of Hillary's jar a handful of marbles rolled around; Trump's jar was overflowing with marbles and they just kept on coming. I think Mr. Brooks is still somehow unable to face the realities of what this grossly disfigured version of his "party" has wrought on our country.
4
Really? But I suppose I should not expect anything but Both-Siderism from Brooks. The GOP leveraged itself politically on alt- right loonies and some will try now to distance themselves. This is the obvious strategy, but it's weak sauce. The Democratic party has not tied itself to extremism; extremists are the GOP base. Just watch the crowd at a Trump rally. That's your handiwork and we won't forget it.
7
A good peek into the mind of a deranged internet fanatic; but I take issue with two aspects: The danger in MUCH greater on the "right" ... that's where the deepest well of hatred, violence and destruction lies (just look at who does most of the mass shootings). Also, the individual would not be reading Dostoyevsky...
7
So, an example of the alt-right is the Proud Boys.
And an example of the alt-left is Bernie Sanders?
9
When will Brooks recognize the fallacy of his both-sides-ism? Yes, there are emotionally stunted, violence-prone trolls on both the right and the left, but the problem is so disproportionately on the right that to engage in this kind of false equivalence is disingenuous. It's fine that Brooks is a moderate by temperament, but it's not fine to justify his intellectual timidity by painting everyone else with the same brush.
4
Close. But the attempt at false left/right equivalency holds this piece back. Better would have been two separate columns in two distinctly different voices, backgrounds and mindsets.
# 1 slightly revised version of this one: a monologue which is exclusively that of the mindset of the angry, alienated young men (always men) who are drawn to the often-but-not-always right leaning us vs. them ideologies (white supremacy, self-professed "incels") and which have been seen to explode an nihilistic homicidal rage.
#2: a monologue of a self-righteous political correctness police-dog who finds objectionable any comment or speaker who dares say something that doesn't square with the latest up-to-the-minute "this is how we see and say things now" orthodoxy.
Both are intolerant. But their intolerance both comes from and leads to very different places.
2
When I read this I so easily saw the conservatives especially when I (a liberal) try to discuss issues with them. What worries me is how I feel dragged down into the mud pit of anger and I become so mad at the many outrageous things they say they believe. I undergo a daily struggle to not resort to anger and keep the goal that we can still recover from the damage this president and the republicans have caused. I wonder everyday
how I will ever survive to November 2020.
5
Nice piece! Mostly accurate. But the real threat in this country comes from the far right: they are the ones spewing hatred and shooting people.
As for this "character", one missing trait here is cowardice, not just physical (hiding behind one's keyboard, or dark web) but most important moral cowardice: it is just stunning to note how far these "fundamentalists" will go to pretend that evil does not exist...
1
In this article Brooks inhabited the mind of a hate-filled internet extremist and definitively tells us that their extremism is because they are unsuccessful, angry, frightened, despondent people. As an unsuccessful, despondent non-extremist suffering from depression, I resent the association.
Many successful people have extremist views and show contempt for those they consider inferior. Recent studies suggest that attractive, capable, talented professionals, even CEOs, can be sociopaths. Isn't it possible for an unsuccessful, socially maladroit, unattractive, unwanted, bitter and even mentally-ill person without becoming a hate-filled extremist with sociopathic tendencies?
Brooks is himself successful, grateful and generally happy without being a hate-filled extremist. However, I can think of many political commentators (not necessarily Brooks) who are very successful but are nonetheless hate-filled extremists.
In this article, I believe Brooks is correlating an individual's failure to thrive and advance in life with moral, ethical shortcomings, that lack of success in life and dangerous, hate-filled extremism naturally reinforce each other.
I resent Brooks' association of success with virtue and failure with vice. Plenty of successful people behave badly, hurt others and lack an ethical compass. Maybe it's because they have had so much success?
4
Brooks bores down to the essence of what's ailing us today. The empty person, raised without love, a firm sense of morality and personal/ cultural identity, who as an adult is unleashed into the politics of now. Multiply that ad nauseum, and we get a Sociopath voted into office as President. These hard times will not go away with the election of a saner, better person, as the multitudes of these empty Americans are still there, still feeding off the hate spewing from social media and other sources. Ultimately, is it them, and how they were raised, that are our problem.
1
Mr. Brooks tries to paint a demon, but the reality he cannot see is the banality of the people who are internet extremists. This column is the work of a would-be novelist; if he's going to write horror, he should get working on that novel.
Nor do I believe there is an alt-left of internet extremists. If he could but name one of them who also fits his character-notes, I might be more inclined to pay attention. As for the alt-right, I can put names in the hopper, but I am no way certain any of them fit the bill in whole or part. I'm not privy to their bios, unlike Brooks.
There's not just a handful of wired demons, if they are demons; there are millions of them. Every American family has such uncles and aunts, cousins, and pains-in-the-rear sending us garbage on a daily basis.
They're ordinary Americans who like easy answers and vote for Republicans like Trump. They don't vote for Democrats like Trump because there are nonesuch.
Brooks is a Conservative ideologue, and he's describing the kind of people who are attracted to ideology - people who crave the absolute certainties about good and evil that Brooks claims to "know."
But there are also millions of ordinary Americans who have overcome their environment, and have not become easy marks for Brooks to demonize.
I wish Brooks would not chirp so like a virtual Archangel about the evil OTHERS. I do not envy Brooks his righteousness. Something about it smells like paperback writing.
7
The trouble with Mr. Brooks and the right is that they continue to equate the truth with hate speech, whether willfully or genuinely ignorant of the difference.
Hence, to call out right's leader as a liar and dangerous major loon is "vicious", while it's just fine for him and his worshipers to launch vicious ad hominem attacks on people who are simply telling the truth about him and the right.
And it's just fine if the right-wing radical extremists beat or kill lefties and opposition demonstrators and people who are obviously not MAGA-ites.
When the emperor has no clothes, it behooves good citizens to say so, since it apparently is not obvious to his supporters that he is a bald-faced, buck naked liar not to be trusted with anything.
That's a fact and that's the truth, even in the "alternative facts" universe in which the right and its leader dwell so angrily and uncomfortably.
6
The equivalence here on the right and left does not exist. The violence and extremism exists on the right. Planet Ping Pong and Seth Rich simply does not exist on the left.
1
David, a stunningly provocative column: you are the new Dostoyevsky, it’s a pity so many folks want to turn it into a political treatise, favoring of course their side.
1
Sigh. Another "fine people on both sides' column from Mr. Brooks.
Never offered: any evidence to substantiate his argument that this type of moral rot has anything to do with his pet theory about societal decline. Nor is there any evidence to support his equivalence of left and right in regards to this crisis, even when support of a despicable president and rejection of an evidence based worldview is clearly clustered on the right.
Mr. Brooks does not argue or reason. He only assembles arguments, on the flimsiest foundations, that attempt to support his preexisting worldview. That is why he has fallen for the intellectual charlatans of climate change denial, voodoo economics, and lite-Trumpism.
3
You start out talking about a young internet addicted male, but this accurately describes my impression of the President. Did you intend for this to carry that ambiguity?
3
What is the "alt-left?" It's disingenuous to try and come up with a leftist equivalent to the alt-right because it simply doesn't exist. It's an excuse to punch left. Is there a reason why so many centrists can't unequivocally denounce fascism and the far-right without inventing strawmen to try and say the same thing about the left?
Anger at inequality, racism, sexism, etc. is NOT the same as wanting to entrench these things even more, as the alt-right wants to do. Those on the left want to dismantle hierarchies, while those on the far right want to preserve and strengthen them. They want to keep the poor poor, they want women to be breeders, and they want anyone who isn't white or Christian to "know their place." Taking a centrist" position on this unwittingly (or, possibly intentionally) helps the right.
1
This is beautifully written, which is so weird.
It is so facile and sloppy to blame the kind of extremism one finds on the fringes of the internet on secular modernism as David Brooks does here. To take one example, Adolf Hiter was not raised in such a society but he managed to find his way to his horrendous beliefs and the tragedies they spawned. As, indeed, did the countless generations of anti-Semites who preceded and inspired him. Brooks seems to long for some halcyon days when we were more certain in our faiths and, frankly, with our positions in an orderly society. But if those days every existed, they produced just as many fanatics as we have today, probably more if you consider the fact that there is actually less war and violence in the world today than, many think, ever in human history. Maybe we should give modern secularism a pat on the back for freeing us from the superstitions that once led us to slaughter each other in droves. We now are surprised when war breaks out over religious differences but once that was the norm.
2
I've read tens of thousands of comments over the years in various publications, including the NYT. There is no equivalence between the hatred spewed by the right and left and we need to stop pretending that there is in the interest of "fairness." The hatred from the right is like a nuclear bomb compared to a firecracker from the left.
Oddly, almost all of the hatred on the right is directed toward the left, but much of it on the left forms that proverbial circular firing squad. I offer as an example the crusade against Bernie Sanders who is routinely lambasted by the left when he ought to be respected, even revered for having the courage to raise progressivism from the dead.
I realize this is not the point of this column, but I often comment whenever I see the false equivalence between right and left raise its ugly head.
1
And now the "fanatic" feels (and is, evidently) even more deeply judged, cast farther from redemption. Mr. Brooks, it is not easy to see any clear point in this essay.
1
I have a couple of problems with this article - "coddled" and "gourmet coffee & yoga pants." Brooks generally seems to understand at least the basics of attachment theory, and how much social interaction is connected to our physical/mental well-being. Someone who is coddled probably has some executive functioning problems, but is unlikely to be one of these haters. Gourmet coffee & yoga are completely irrelevant and show nothing about parenting, other than the family is likely to be wealthier than average.
Brooks shows his own shadow when he throws in these kinds of masked disdain for liberals. Over any cause Brooks has thrown in here, screen addiction is a greater predictor of all of this hateful behavior because it predicates actual human interaction that supports secure attachment.
3
Argh. Another high minded beard stroking think piece full of subtle and not so subtle false equivalency. Even if I accepted this as written, I want to know "what then shall we do?" and not just read a lot of sighing and thoughtful consternation. And is it blindingly obvious, as many commentators have already said, that almost all the political violence in this country is coming from the right.
3
DAVID BROOKS Has penned a fascinating piece, giving voice to the mind of the fanatic. As a psychologist, I was pleasantly surprised to see David use the term, catastrophizing. And to end the piece in, I am alone. Catastrophizing is one of the cognitive distortions related to automatic thoughts that are symptoms of depressive thinking. The other two named by Aaron Beck, father of Cognitive Therapy, are Minimizing and Finalizing. To include all three usages in one sentence: Everything is terrible (Catastrophizing), nothing is any good (Minimizing) and nothing will ever get any better (Finalizing). Such thoughts have a powerful hold on persons suffering from depression, the signal symptoms of which is isolation. Hence: "I am alone." Another characteristic distortion David mentions if polarized thinking, in which things are either all good or all bad, alternatively referred to as "splitting." It could be argued that the three characteristics of depressive thinking are a model for Calvinism, where the beliefs are, loosely stated: People are born, live and die sinners. Nothing humans can do will ever save them from sin. Lots of people self-medicate for depression, often by using alcohol, which is a terrible anti-depressant. The first few minutes after consuming it there is elation--a lifting of the depression, which, when it wears off, results in the return of depression, most often intensified. But I'm not here to critize the demon rum! Antipressants work better!
4
David Brooks needs to add one more paragraph to this piece that says:
"I have a President, Donald Trump, and a political party in Congress, whose leader is Senator Mitch McConnell. They feed me a constant stream of racism and fear."
2
I travel mostly in lefty circles online and have seen a lot of strident, over-the-top, hateful statements by PC fundamentals and such but the trolls Brooks is talking about who bully, threaten, dox, etc are almost exclusively white men on the right. False equivalence is what brought us Trump and knee jerk distrust of the media, two things Brooks claims to be against. He should do his part to fight it.
3
It's a legitimate point that lack of community connections, shared morals, and guidance towards meaning have left our boys with major problems. They're not really fanatical so much as lonely and seeking something to grasp. A similar finding came out of studies of terrorists in the Middle East: instead of being highly religious, they were actually somewhat ignorant of Islam, and instead focused on their personal or family desperation. Extremism offered a way to regain control.
However, it's important to note that while the ideology itself isn't as important to desperate young men (almost always men), some ideological leaders are offering far more of a welcoming home for extremism and violence, echoing full-throated endorsements of violence, bullying, us vs. them tribalism, and wild conspiracy theories in a constant battle with the truth from the highest office. One need only look at the surging numbers of white supremacist gangs and far-right crimes to understand there's something more going on here that can't be laid at the feet of desperate, lonely young men alone and "both sides" alike.
2
Once again, an exercise in both-sides-ism from a man who cannot admit that his party, and only his party, has embraced tactics, the tenets, and the tone of the ultra-right-wing hate mongers he lampoons here. The Alt-right has its own propaganda arm, Fox News, dedicated to crushing liberals and their progressive ideas with fear and lies. No such thing exists on the left, no matter what lies the right spreads. Mr Brooks once again has proven himself irrelevant to the solution of this country's problems. Those solutions start with rendering Republican obstructionists, like McConnell, irrelevant as well.
3
Somehow I don’t think the man Mr. Brooks is describing would have read Dostoevsky.
3
"Women reject me," Mr. Brooks wrote, but a good deal of fanatic pathology is owned by women of both the censorious, corrective Left and the brutal, bilious Right.
It would be interesting to see if or how gender differences drive varying forms of political rage. I don't know, but I do know the stereotypical rage-soldier (white, male, careerless, dateless and isolated) does not explain it all, and Mr. Brooks should not imply it does.
I am a liberal and have been wondering for a long time about alt-left. I watch sometimes CNN and MSNBC, read Slate or Huffington Post occasionally, and spend some of my free time reading nYT or WP. Where is this alt-left?
David, give me some links so I can determine myself about its viciousness.
But I have no problem finding alt-right. Just need to tune to Trump’s tweets and there it is, right in the open. I hope you don’t suggest that just being critical of Trump qualifies for alt-left. It would be such a nonsense well beneath your intelligence, right? But I know many conservatives actually think that way about liberals.
5
Perhaps a more useful message from “Notes from the Underground” can be found in the author’s “two times two is four is no longer life, gentlemen, but the beginning of death.”
Life is complicated, people are complicated. Algorithmic knowledge matters but so does emotion.
According to Snopes:
"So what, exactly, is the alt-left? Unlike the term alt-right, which was created by members of an ideology by its supporters (in order to make more palatable to the mainstream what had previously been considered radical views), the term “alt-left” appears primarily in social media and news reports as a term leveled against an inconsistently defined group of people with liberal ideologies in an effort to imply a parallel of extremism on both sides. "
https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/08/17/is-the-alt-left-a-real-thing/
7
I don't think my earlier comment posted, so I'll try again: The plethora of thoughts posted here denying a problem with alt-left #cancelculture whiteness-bad-all-else-good is exactly what Brooks is talking about. As a moderate-conservative, I hate and loathe the alt-right. Why is so hard for the left to spurn its own fringe?
1
The extremist was studied closely just after WW2. The best I think was Eric Hoffer, The True Believer.
The extremist is seeking. He is defined by the seeking, not by what he finds. He can actually find and accept many things. The key is that it offers to fill the hole in himself.
Where does that hole come from? Brooks here suggests it is moral failure of permissiveness. If only we had an authority, all would be right.
No. Needing that authority is the problem.
Why do they need that? Because their lives are in ruins. Examples are Germany and Italy after WW1. People were in societies that failed, failed them, and failed more generally. There were no Nazis nor Fascists just a few years before, when WW1 started.
Authority did not fix that. Authority exploited that. The problem was not lack of authority, it was lack of a society that functioned for its people.
Now look at that aspect of America. Is it functioning for ordinary Americans? Some. Far from all. Very far from all in some places.
That isn't the moral failure of individuals, nor their parents. It is no jobs, no future, no way to make a life.
It is a society run by and for money, as defended by people like Brooks, as they approve of it and change the subject to blame the victims.
2
As Brooks alludes, the underlying cause of the national social disease we have contracted is unhealthy egos. It breeds self-righteousness and destroys humility, and not only in violent fanatics of the right and left. We could stand to redevelop our senses of humor. I don't mean snark, which we have more than enough of. Snark attacks others to elevate the self. Humor includes the self as the butt of the joke, the way New Yorker cartoons used to do. It reminds us that we aren't perfect and are occasionally foolish.
After enduring both Clinton and Obama missing no opportunity to adopt Republican ideas and water them down a little and then slap the "dirty hippies" in the face every chance they got, noting is quite so offensive as some bothsiderism on a Friday. I will admit to liking to read David's missives, however, no matter how insulting to the left. I've always been biased towards smart people, even those I disagree with.
And a rock feels no pain.
And an island never cries.
The main problem with the equality of your diatribe is that the far right is more developed, more armed, more angry, more everything.
That is disturbing that you make the two sides equivalent in this argument. In essence, you help Trump lower the bar to the awfulness of the rabid right.
3
There's nothing called the alt-left.
5
People will hate on this piece but only because it stings. The truth is a painful pill to swallow.
Interesting fiction, Mr Brooks. But it would be nice if you, as the purported conservative voice at the Times, would spend more time writing about the real world where parts of our once civilized cities are becoming third world tent encampments:Seattle, San Francisco, and even Austin. The alt right lives mostly in the mind of DC pundits and left leaning media outlets trying to hold on to its audience. But the deterioration of our cities is real—and even Dems and others on the left are starting to voice their disapproval for what you might call these alt left policies.
1
Bravo. I've always appreciated Mr Brooks fundamental decency and the lens through which he views the world - even though we may not always agree politically.
Appreciate his insights and this particularly acute description of the malignity that infects our politics, esp., Tell me what adulthood and manhood are supposed to look like! All you said was, “You can be anything you want to be!” How does that help?".
We've lost a generation of young men to that.
All that's missing is the strong leader to provide certainty and direction. Oh, that's right, he's sitting in the white house.
1
I am disappointed in your column Mr. Brooks. Almost all the evidence suggests the subject of your fictional synthesis hails from the right wing of the political spectrum, and forms a distressingly high percentage of the Trump coalition. I am a big supporter of yours, but this particular column is an exercise in false equivalency.
2
Once again, Brooks resorts to false equivalency to make conservatives look a little less awful. Fellow readers, we can’t let him get away with it!
I can guarantee that none of those angry men gunning down innocents in cold blood were “raised on gourmet coffee and yoga pants.”
2
What is more dangerous in our society; internet posters or extremist with guns?
2
INteresting, but it can be condensed to a few words: I'm a loser.
Ah, yes, truly, when I think about toxic incels who clearly yearn for a Jordan Peterson like figure in life, I think of the “alt left”. The intention to say “but the left have them too,” while not exactly wrong, is a bad faith attempt to equivocate the awful racism and toxicity of the right which is about 1,000 times worse than it is on the left. I also don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to think that this is in part aimed at the critics of David Brooks and his fellow columnist, Bret “the bedbug” Stephens
Hmm, he throws in some conservative junk along with things that could be legit. He is blaming yoga pants and gourment coffee for this kind of person. He should look to Alex Jones, Bannon and Stephen Miller and Trump. They weren't coddled as much as seemingly unloved (I only really know about Trump's family).
You equivocation the right and the left is somewhat concerning. Sure people on the left can get angry too. But they tend not to kill as many people in today's USA.
The core reason these people - right and left - are angry is that they live in a society where opportunity is lacking, the core education system is a mess, and incomes have been stagnant for 40 years all while the conspicuous consumption by the wealthy re-enforce their beliefs that they are losers.
What, pray tell, does this have to do with morality? Where is the morality of "conservatives" - both Republicans and Democrats - who have raped our society since the 1980's creating winners out of the elites and losers of the rest of us?
This is the society you get when you have "low taxes, limited gummint".
1
Reads Notes from Underground? An underground comic book maybe.
The fanatic you describe on the right is Trump himself and his twitter account.
1
Honestly, this column is offensive. It is the ultimate exercise in false equivalence. David Brooks has given a huge boost to people who traffic in bigotry, racism, and hate, by claiming that there are just as many people on the "other side."
3
‘Why are they recognized while I am not?’ That’s the simple key. Its all about rejection. Read The Shame Response to Rejection by Herbert Thomas MD! Almost every mass shooting can be linked to a recent form of rejection felt by the shooter. Sad.
There is no such thing as the alt-left.
1
What is the alt-left?
1
Two things:
First, I didn't realize Mr. Brooks knew my neighbors. And, my neighbors are quite capable of reading Dostoyevsky.
Second, to all those NYT commenters who hate it when Mr. Brooks dares to say that these destructive attitudes exist on both sides of the argument, and who use recent history to claim that the violence is really the tool of the extreme Right: I remind you to take a longer view of history. Violence becomes the tool of the extreme ideologists of any persuasion. Stalin and Mao were bred from Communism; Hitler and Mussolini bred from Nazi/Fascism. The Bastille was built by the monarchs; the guillotine most famously used by the revolutionists. Labor unions and corporate security both used violence in the early years, and neither was exclusively defending against the other.
David Brooks has been arguing for several years that we must each move toward creativity, tolerance and compassion to change the world. It is an opinion with which I concur. Unfortunately, it is an opinion that is all too easily shouted down or pushed out.
And some of us are getting pretty tired. Which is fine, I guess, because it seems like all the shouters, like those Mr. Brooks describes here, just want us lovey-dovey types to just go away anyway.
Jim Hightower used to say that moderates were irrelevant: "There's nothing in the middle of the road except a yellow line and dead armadillos." Cute line, but it is the peacemakers who keep things from blowing up.
Mr. Brooks has great difficulty in expressing himself in simple, straightforward language. I find his style to be somewhat on the tiresome side.
Brooks has to keep his air-quote Conscientious Conservative résumé ticked and updated. Thus a frankenstein portrait of all that's wrong with every faction out there. Sort of. He adds 'gourmet coffee' and 'yoga pants' to assure his conscientious conservative readers it's not about them. But at the end he adds that this sociopath he's been constructing has read Dostoevsky.
You'd have to concede that that fact alone leaves all the bizarre Trump nuts and even their complicit republican enablers--- in the clear. Reading? A pursuit of coastal elites and never a trait of real American Americans. Nice sideswipe, Dave.
1
How about: I am a bot programmed by someone who only cares about making a dime.
A fanatic as "self-described" would not be as coherent.
You lost me, Mr. Brooks, on Dostoyevsky. These guys don't read Dostoyevsky, if they read at all, and I don't consider online screeds to be reading. While it's true that the original concept of "left" and "right" took shape from the circular seating of the pre-revolutionary French Estates General, where the farther left or right you were from the top of the circle put you into increasingly opposing sides. And that opposition, carried to the extreme, saw the opposing sides converging at the bottom of the circle in a mass of intolerance and hate, you fail to properly assign importance to the SIZE of these disparate groups in today's America. Today's radical left, the Antifa, for example, are a tiny, insignificant group when compared to the neo-nazis, Proud Boys, and a myriad of other extreme rightist hate groups currently operating in the US. Revolutionary France was a tyranny of the left. Today's threat in this country comes from the right. That makes it a false equivalence to say that both groups are equally wrong, simply because of the severity of the threat posed by the respective factions. The current occupant of the White House has unleashed an orgy of intolerance and hate from the right, and failure to acknowledge that is a significant failure of this article.
Just listen to Steve Brannon for a while. Then read descriptions of Trump’s mentor, Roy Cohn. That explains much of what we are experiencing.
I wonder how many NYT readers will take this at face value and think that David is "coming out of the closet", as it were, finally giving voice to everything he's been keeping secret all this time.
1
Helping create the evil left bogey man is a real problem in the media. You sure seem to think there is a massive culture of “leftists” murdering people through out the country and call it equal.
How many mass murders have been committed by the political left on the last few years? How many shootings have the right ring tried to equivocate upon and call the left equal?
See a problem yet?
1
Going to be honest, I stopped reading at “Alt-Left.”
There have always been violent anarchist and communist agitators in the US who co-opt (and capitalize on) any anti-establishment movement. But applying the title “Alt-Left” to them is nothing more than a “both sides” rhetorical tactic to distract from the FACT that in Trump’s first press conference on Charlottesville, he refused to unambiguously condemn white nationalism. (For those who will pull out his eventual press conference condemnation, that came 3 days later at a press conference he reluctantly held only after members of his cabinet threatened to resign). This, after the death of Heather Heyer, and the injury of 28 others, in a terror attack against counter-protesters which left blood smeared over the crumpled front and rear ends of a weaponized sedan, and sunglasses and clothing scraps lodged in holes in the windshield.
The “Alt-Right” call themselves the “Alt-Right,” presumably because it’s more palatable a title than “loose-knit gangs of violent ethnonationalists and fascists.” “Alt-Left” is a distraction title made up by DJT and propagated by Fox News to distract from the leader of the GOP’s repeated tolerance of proponents of racist violence.
Shame on you, Mr. Brooks, for by using this Trumped up phrase, you are supporting the system which minimizes the crimes of racially motivated terrorists in favor of a false “both sides” view of political violence in the United States.
1
Dostoyevsky. What would he enjoy these days? A Springsteen concert. Hunting elk in Montana. Fishing for salmon in Alaska. Chick Corea. Definitely Aretha. He would drive a Tesla.
Ironically, David Brooks accomplishes in this piece precisely what he is seeking to critique - total shortsighted, naive, oversimplification of the roots and sustainers of alienation and despair. He paints with such a broad, loaded brush that any particularity, subtlety, nuance that might help to actually illuminate the causes of extremism and political hatreds are lost or rendered meaningless. Having lived with a brother growing into a man with such dark and hopeless views, I can attest that Brooks misses by light years identification, let alone understanding, of the kinds of forces that cause at least some of the great loss of human potential to the darkness of existential despair. They are things that Brooks has no reason to understand or capacity to explain.
This is a screed by a well-off, well-raised, well-educated white man who has only the vaguest inkling what he is talking about. He is applying a diagnosis rather than arriving at one by real investigation and analysis. It suits his own experience, and it may apply to some small fraction of the people he is seeking to talk about, but it is not helpful except as sop to those who want to be able to blame someone for the chaos they see around them and be relieved that they can assign equal blame on “both sides,” which is a very comforting idea to those who see the world only and always in terms of duality.
I’m sorry I wasted time reading this.
1
and here I thought this was going to be all about trump. brooks has got to let his 2 bit psychology go! or ny times needs to get someone who knows what they are talking about in this realm. without going thru it all, I can only say, anyone who REALLY understand what the masterpiece "Notes from the Underground" would not have used it in the way he did in this article
Mr. Brooks -
Please respond to the commenters here who question your lumping-in of the left and the right. They have your number. Defend yourself, if you can. If you can’t, some self-reflection is in order.
1
Can't get past the first paragraph. Brooks dares to equate "call-out culture" -- the practice of naming and shaming racist acts -- with literal Nazis on the alt-right.
Do conservatives have no shame? I'm the first to acknowledge that cancel culture often goes too far. And yet equating them to people on the Internet who advocate anti-semitic, misogynistic, racist, hateful and violent opinions and policies is a tremendous false equivalency.
1
Amazing column. Particularly since it gave me glimpses of the fanatic as one of my many selves.
That pretty much sums it up except it is not only fanatics. We are all pushed in that direction to one degree or another. It is scary and amazing how one man, the President, can bend the psyche of a nation and an individual. Trump is proving we will sacrifice all our morals and self-dignity for the safety of a group. Fish swim in schools to survive. It seems that habit has never left us.
3
How do I put this?
Most personal efforts to solve the big problems of our age are futile. Why? Solving the issues of poverty, the faults of corporatism, racism, generational imbalances, the threat of AI and global climate change by doing little acts by yourself is like trying to clean the Mississippi River with a colander from your kitchen.
In order to clean the mess, how about we DON'T MAKE A MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE? In other words, the bad systems that create these issues themselves need to be REFORMED. Making minor tweaks will accomplish absolutely nothing. The next wave of trash produced from the same bad actors will just sully what you just cleaned up.
Mr. Brooks hypothetical example is extreme but not that unusual. The world has become a very, very complex place with opaque science often the centerpiece of potentially disastrous consequences.
People are afraid. They don't believe elite experts, don't want to believe experts. Yet the consequences of believing or not believing are often existential.
Take global warming, easily the most important topic on Earth if the predicted consequences are to be believed. As a PhD physicist I struggled with a college level text book. Much of the basis for global warming theories can be explained and fully understood to a college science major. Many concepts are undeniable and definitive.
But what about the non professional, non scientists. This population is forced to take claims of global warming on faith, like a religion. People either "believe" or "don't believe", or are waiting until there is proof, like all the food runs out in India.
Macroeconomics in this global world is just as complex, and not solved by Trump's 6th grade civics class disruptions.
People very understandably do not like, and are terrified by, existential threats that they cannot understand. And they hate the idea of being trapped into making that choice.
The world is now like that. I believe that is what Mr. Brooks is characterizing. For some fraction of the population the fear is as great as described in this column.
2
'Name that sin,' has been the preoccupation of the elite pundit class; and that is why there is this drive to articulate those that are not just mistaken, but those whose fundamental nature is corrupt. To kill is wrong, but who decides what is a just war, or more likely, what is fixed in nature and will never change? These designated classes can then be de-humanized, and killed if necessary, or just excluded from basic civil rights. I have heard progressives say that given the abuses of the 'patriarchy,' so what if some innocent men are accused falsely, all men must pay the price. And the ability of the right wingers to name that sin is without question an unparalleled dynamic we constantly witness. But of course before we either kill them or simply exclude them, we are allowed to enslave them to do our dirty work. Where would the food service industry be without illegal immigration? I believe folks like David will shine a conservative light on the way forward, but conservatives must first own, that they let propaganda be laid down against liberals for what, an electoral advantage, (McCain showed us an example of not doing this when a rally attendee said Obama was a Muslim)? I know that progressives did these things too, but conservatives were rightly standing on character and that old fashion habit, of thinking that truth mattered, and that truth was not what someone said it was to serve their purposes. You can not kill an idea by killing or enslaving a body. Stop trying.
Thank you Mr.Brooks, this op-ed is fantastic and it is so true. These extreme right or left guys are clueless . They live in fantasy world. They are extremely unhappy and some of them are clinically depressed. They re obnoxious because of their frustration. The biggest problem with these people is that many of them participate in politics, elections ( specially primary). They are extremely polarized and destroying our democracy. Now United States is a divided nation. Why and how it happened? We should do root cause analysis. I find the toxic radio talk shows have done most harm and second cause is lack of education.
1
Nice column. The despondency Mr. Brooks describes is captured well by Eric Hoffer in True Believer. Mass movements and despots on both the left and right arise from these feelings.
4
This time Mr Brooks seems to have gone over everyone's head. The lesson here is to read Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground.
It is a very conservative piece of writing, but it is one of the most profound short novels ever written. People on the left (like me) need to think deeply about D's profound rethinking about our hopes for a better world. And people on the right need to think about that too.
4
"I am so convinced that I am the moral arbiter of the status quo that I will promote and amplify the idea that there is an Alt-Left, even though that is not a thing"
9
well put
I am an older white, wealthy (1%) man, a pillar of my gated community, married, religious and a contributor to the GoP. I worked long and hard for what I have. I believe America was created and developed by people like me. I believe immigration of non-whites is diluting the white race and contributing to crime and the welfare state. I know most of America's government is paid for by taxes on people like me and that the poor and middle classes contribute relatively little. Therefore it is more than reasonable to constrain immigration and legislate tax reforms that contribute to the welfare of people like me. I don't care what happens in Afghanistan, Africa, and the Middle East as long as American interests are protected. The economy should not be sacrificed to overblown Climate Change concerns.
I don't like Trump's crudeness but he's a winner and will preserve what people like me have worked so hard for --the rest is hardly relevant. My wife agrees with me ...we have little sympathy for charges of sexual improprieties, lies, real estate fraud, emoluments infractions, or Russia collusion or obstruction. Trump can win and will protect me and people like me that matter if the US is to continue to thrive.
I'm glad to see articles blaming internet extremists on both sides (!). It's irrelevant --a diversion. But the ends justify the means.
And this is why I read and appreciate David Brooks.
...I only wish I saw more of my adult children...
6
@Chris P - I, too, am an older, white, wealthy, productive, and successful man. I know that throughout my life the "pillars" of society have almost always looked like me, and I took it for granted that it was because they looked like me that they had the character and intelligence needed to become pillars. But in the face of all the "white privilege" talk I've been exposed to in recent years, along with a late-blooming interest in American history, I've come to realize that as groups, immigrants, minorities, and women work just as hard, if not harder, than I do, and are limited in the scope of their accomplishments by the social and economic disenfranchisement inflicted on them by the so-called "pillars."
3
@Chris P
Thank you for the honesty of your opinions, but you and those like you are not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
2
For some reason this article got me thinking about the Harry Potter world where most wizards live in a secret world without recognition and are perfectly content. Then along comes Lord Voldemort, and what he wants most is for all to recognize and praise him for his superiority.
1
I thought the spleen was central to this type, rather than the liver, and more at risk of infection.
1
I agree that the problem is not black and white and therein lies the wrong narrative about the disenfranchised white male, I was this weekend having lunch in an upscale restaurant in Burlington Vermont, with my wife's five aunts visiting from South America.
We are an immigrant family and my daughter is a first-generation American, having a lovely time speaking Spanish (They don't speak English as they do not live here) and across the table two middle-aged white couples having lunch as well, one of the men wearing fancy clothes an expensive watch and a don't thread on me baseball cap was intensely staring at us and nodding in disapproval throughout the meal.
So Mr. Brooks what really saddens me is how when those fringe right voices that now exist in the leadership of the US, mainly the president and his enablers, expose the real underbelly of the racist nature of this economically stable, nuanced individuals.
Let's stop selling the American public the story that the fringe, lonely and economically depressed young white male is the face of this narrative. Maybe you can't see it from your perspective but it is all around us and it is scary.
7
Great profile. I think you're 95% accurate in your profiling of such a young man. However, I believe people like him are not so much "oppressed," as they are being "used" by the elite--for their votes only. Otherwise, yes, Mitchell McConnell and Trump don't care about these men and will let the qualities you describe escalate until the problems these young men have actually has a direct impact on the lives of the leaders.
1
Well, I am willing to call out the mother blaming. "Gourmet coffee and yoga pants" ? Mr. Brooks, my sister and I between us raised seven youngsters, (children and step-children) amid such middle-class trappings. Each of them turned out caring, charitable and active. They include ; a teacher, a founder of an internationally acclaimed dance company, a librarian, a copy editor, a diplomatic aide and a staff Sargent in the air force, and one who aimed to be a musician but was killed in a car accident before he could see his dreams come true. Each of them anecdotes no doubt, but these are the millennials I see coming out of families like mine multiplied many thousand times times the length of this "left coast" at least. They are the hope, they are the future. And better they were brought up on coffee and yoga than soda and sloth.
10
There is no "alt-left" any more than there were "good people on both sides" in Charlotte. Good grief.
22
It took a century, but with the loss of traditional religions and the rise of the Humanist religion, we now see the results. Children are born with selfish desires that must be eliminated in order to live in a civilized society. Parents, churches, schools, all used to teach moral behavior, but when they became unable or unwilling to do that, we got the self-centered, self-pitying, adherents to the Internet who want to believe the Humanist ideal of individuality. I'm special and I deserve to be treated like the most intelligent, even if I'm not. My thoughts and my opinions are just as good as yours, and I have the right to express them, either with my mouth, my tweets, or my guns. That's where we are today. This is a plea for Reason, something that is lacking in government and in society. We revere nothing. We respect no one. We are individuals.
1
@Daphne -- Humanists? Like Benjamin Franklin and Voltaire? Descartes and Galileo? Or are you referring to Ayn Rand when referring to Individualism? A little mixed up it seems.
Evangelicals and corporatism, mixed with emboldened racism, are the real enemies. Certainly not Humanism, as the humanists took us out of medieval superstition centuries ago.
1
I doubt any of these extremists became such because they were "coddled" or got a participation trophy as children. More likely their inability to handle ambiguity or nuance is a personality trait that draws them to extreme or authoritarian positions. These people have always existed. The internet has just given them a forum and megaphone to amplify their toxic views.
18
NIce column David. Thanks for sticking to the middle and pointing out that both sides have their problems. Only one little difference; Dems don't use race to divide, they don't build walls, they work to include women and minorities and they look to a future where all Americans are welcome, not just the whites. The GOP has a problem with identity. Their methods are still trapped in the era prior to the Civil Rights Act.
27
Writing is a form of projection and imagination.
Sometimes people use online platforms to test ideas and personas because online exchanges generate feedback.
The internet is like a public square. But it also isn’t.
Relax.
3
Mr Brooks has compiled a rather complete list of all the psychological traits that lead to self-reliant, self-blinding social thinking. In the extreme it makes sense that it leads to extreme behaviors. But I would bet, for ALL those who are truly dispassionately reflective, they will see some elements of themselves and therefore glimpse the devils that haunt and divide us as a nation.
2
So much poison coming from indignation and contempt, which are seductive and addictive and serve to foment the anxiety all the more...Thank you Mr. Brooks for this very profound essay...We need to respect and value the otherness and the vulnerability in each other.
4
Say what you will (or what I WOULD have said a few years back) about David Brooks, but in my opinion he's writing some of the most thoughtful, clear-eyed, perceptive, and literate (remember that concept?) opinion pieces out there these days.
Every time I read one, I think, "Thank God someone with a voice is paying attention, and reassuring me that I'm not simply going mad in thinking that BOTH "sides" are behaving with a frightening zealotry and close-mindedness that can't possibly do us any good. My sympathies have always lain on the side of the liberal, but, once again (I'm sure I've quoted this Who lyric here before)--"Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss."
Practice compassion in tangible, non-online ways for your family, your neighbors, the homeless people on your streets, the person who you would ordinarily gleefully label as evil and Just Plain Wrong in the virtual "world" (of course there are some things for which there is no useful word other than "evil"). Let it flow outward from there. (I can't stand New Age gibberish, and I know that's how this all sounds, but I mean it in a literal, actionable sense.)
6
Ignoring this plea for recognition and understanding is done at our own peril We must listen and Hear the plea
2
@sidney halpern
No, it should be ignored.
So many comments focus on the supposedly false equivalence between left and right. It may be true that right wing extremism is worryingly worse than the left wing kind nowadays, but I remember the time when the red brigades, PLO, regional independence movements and Baader-Meinhof organizations were throwing bombs and sowing the same kind of fear in Europe in the seventies. They all called from the left. As far as examining the sources of extremism today, Mr. Brooks is spot-on, and I find the description of the spoiled child frustrated by reality, and lashing out, particularly perceptive.
9
Forty years ago, yes. But barring the Unabomber—25 years ago—the fact of the mstter is that when today’s mass murderers, bombers, torchers and so on have any discernable ideology, it’s always right-wing.
Current reality. It’s a whole thing.
@Line Roicy -- Left wing extremism was at least 40 years ago, so irrelevant.
1
Simplifying the current angst of human affairs to a bad parody of Dostoevsky is sad. Instead of talking down to people, how about actually trying to understand?
10
If this column appeared in a right-leaning paper, the responses would read: "the two sides are not equivalent, THEY, the left, are the ones who are derisive, think less of the opposition, live in a fantasy world, etc". In this readership, the responses generally read, "THEY, the right, are the bad ones who are inherently less civil".
4
Interesting that I had the same experiences as a child. I was bullied by my classmates, then by my parents. I am filled with rage all the time. I know I need psychiatric help, but I can’t afford it. My siblings are all multi millionaires. My retirement plan calculates that I may be able to afford to retire at 75.
Yet, I am still quite liberal. Hurting others would not help me in any way. I will never understand hatred of progression and improvement.
10
@L , if you really believe that you need psychiatric help, please look into free, low-cost/sliding-scale clinics in your area, or speak to your primary care physician (if you have one) about your feelings (they can often prescribe anti-depressants, etc., if that's what you need). No one deserves to feel like that. And I have found through my own experience (when I was on Medicaid, etc.) that many of the therapists at those kinds of clinics are much more attentive, thoughtful, knowledgable, and just plain sane (I'm not kidding) than expensive private psychiatrists, some of whom I've found to be people whom I would not trust to water my houseplants, much less my psyche (or that of my loved ones).
I wish you all the best.
7
I really enjoyed his point of view. Plus he’s a great writer and loved the way he characterized our culture. As a senior I feel utterly alone and put out to Pasteur but unfortunately I’m not a horse. Alienation is super hard to grasp and so I do get it and feel bad for all the lost souls our country ignores. Thanks for expressing what’s creating this terrible void in the lonely American.
4
Still concerned about false equivalence. Or at least it appears to me that one side has a far more severe case of unreason.
9
So say it’s false equivalence. So what? You’re missing his point. He’s not picking good guys and bad guys. He’s trying to explain the mindset of very destructive people and how they got that way. As for me, I don’t care if they’re left or right. They’re to be tuned out until they grow up.
Too trite. Lumps disparate ideas together. However, doesn't diminish the danger inherent in the collation of fears as basis for action.
3
I immediately recognized the reference to "Notes From Underground" in the first paragraph. I read it in my Ethical Philosophy class as a sophomore back in 1974, and I wrote a paper on it, "Egoism and the Underground Man". ( I had a great professor for that class: Dr. Glenn Graber.) Brooks' description of the extremist is brilliant. Thank you, Mr. Brooks.
6
Uh, Brooks once again excuses the ills of the right and alt-right by saying "both sides..."
No, it is not both sides. You accurately describe many of the alt-right and Trump followers. The left is far more diverse. If leftists think they are superior to the alt-right, it because they have better arguments and a better moral compass.
23
I thought I was reading a line from Dostoevsky. Still think I’m getting a line from one of Dostoevsky’s characters, and given the amount of Russian interference in our elections I could be right!
3
Kudos to David Brooks for writing such a creative, literary essay. I'm afraid that I would have to agree with other readers, though, that right wing fanaticism in the U.S., for now, overpowers left wing radicalism by far. Rather like comparing am atom bomb to pepper spray. Nevertheless, I understand the sentiments. For that reason I have left all social media forums that partake in call out culture, identity politics, and attempts to lump individuals in to categories in order to elicit opprobrium.
14
When I was an economist working overseas about the ways to reduce the threat of violence and criminal attacks from the underclass (underemployed, indifferent to the status quo) we always sought ways for the disaffected to find ways to be invested in the system (job training, subsidies to launch businesses, a minimum wage). This is what is needed for these isolated islands in our society. These young people have no investment in the system and see no opportunity for their lot to change, so they decide to take down as many others as they can as they self-destruct.
6
TLDR; Brooks is saying there are bad people on both sides, as if both sides are equally to blame for the rampant authoritarianism sweeping the country and the world.
29
I really dislike the monotony of having to point out the endless false equivalencies from the Right...but not nearly as much as having to endure all the false equivalencies from the Right.
Come on David, reach down deep and admit that the intersection of conservatism and social media has turned our daily lives into a divisive toxic stew and is really incomparable to anything you may find from the "alt-left".
28
@WS David, David, even when you look into your inner self you still see we progressives as equal to the at-right, come on, try to come clean.
David commits the same error of simplification he describes. That seems so obvious I'm surprised he didn't catch it. To say that fanaticism doesn't conform to sweeping generalizations is not to defend fanaticism. That also seems obvious, but in the current climate, I worry, it may still need to be stated.
5
If anything, Sanders' only real flaws are his age (I'm just this side of 88) and the fact that he's really independent. That last may make it difficult for him to get things done. So I lean more towards Warren this time around. But it rankles me to hear of Sanders' diehard backers referred to as the alt- left. I don't think they're anything like the alt-right and I find the comparison odious.
19
@James F Traynor
as to Sanders "not getting things done"
Sanders was a very effective three term mayor of Burlington "As Mayor, Bernie Sanders Was More Pragmatic Than Socialist",https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/26/us/politics/as-mayor-bernie-sanders-was-more-pragmatic-than-socialist.html.
Perhaps you have not noticed that Sanders' ideas dominate the Democratic discussion.
A fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage, healthcare as a human right and medicare for all are mainstream ideas, thanks to Sanders.
Bernie Sanders passed more roll call amendments in a Republican Congress than any other member.
from Politifact, "Lawmakers who belong to the party in control are five times more likely to have their bills go anywhere than minority party members, according to Volden. So Sanders’ legislative approach may seem like fixating on small potatoes, but for an independent who caucuses with the minority party, it’s a smart strategy.
"He could have either resigned himself to that fate, changed the nature of his legislation and coalition-building strategy, or offered amendments on the floor," Volden said. "He chose the third of these paths, making him more influential in shaping policy than if he had taken the first path.
You may not care about foreign policy, but Warren's foreign policy will likely be run by the Washington Foreign Policy Establishment and the Military Industrial Complex. She has little knowledge of world history and foreign policy, and is using Establishment advisors.
1
Gourmet coffee and yoga pants assigned to relativism and materialism? Oh my. How about guns and the internet assigned to propaganda and white nationalism.
25
You failed to mention Fox News
14
What exactly is the alt-left? We know the alt right is a euphemism for white supremacist and they coined the term and refer to themselves as alt right but the only people who use the term alt left are alt right people and those on the right trying to make a false equivalence. Alt right philosophy has entered the mainstream of conservative politics while for all the talk of a radical left the moderates and centrists still dominate the Democratic party.
23
@JK "Alt left" is simply a term manufactured by the rightists in order to claim a false equivalency. In Mr. Brooks case, it's simply a convenient crutch to disguise the fact that he actually has no clue as to what really is happening on the left. (Although I can partly forgive him, because many of us on the left are somewhat confused about this also).
3
The first time I read this, it was scary and made me very uncomfortable.
The second time I read this, I asked myself if I, at any point, could recognize my own behaviors and attitudes which Mr. Brooks has so eloquently written.
Anger at and inappropriate behaviors towards those who disagree with us isn't the sole ownership of the extremist.
9
Brooks just cannot help himself but say, "They did it too!" For most conservatives, even the supposedly thinking ones like Brooks, it is simply an unfathomable reality that the conservatives can be the main protagonists of bad deeds.
16
Well it seems to me that Brooks and many commentators here are skirting around the real problem and are unwilling to name it. What best describes the plight of this extremist is a stunted intellect, a failure throughout his personal development to engage in rigorous pursuits of the mind through the mistaken parental or societal value, that material comforts are sufficient. That personal engagement with, and guidance of a developing mind is not necessary provided enough food, warmth, internet entertainment, yoga pants and other necessities are provided. If this poor fool had only just read as widely, or at all, as many who are writing here today have done, if he was able to engage in this very discussion, perhaps his outcome would have been vastly different. But instead it appears he was raised without benefit of intellectual discourse, or much discourse of any sort.
6
There is no alt left. Please don't engage in silly "balance." As Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann said, "Let's just say it, the Republicans are the problem." Nothing much is going to improve until the nonlunatic Right accepts that view and starts to vote for Democrats until their party is purged of the problem. If Republicans were patriotic, they'd vote D.
28
Once again Mr. Brooks reveals what is wrong with his world view - false equivalence and both siderism. Republicans like him are simply desperate to make their party's hatred and violence a universal problem, when it really resides only on the right. Donald Trump is YOUR party's leader, Mr. Brooks!
25
But .. didn’t you just act like them?
As to Mark Andrew's perceptive remarks, consider this, ' It is conceivable a majority of the rabid comments and replies are written by the same person, and wouldn’t that be fun to watch from the safety of another country.' In a very frightening way those comments and replies might have been written by a bot designed to induce dissension, fear, and hatred. We have entered a world where we can so easily be jerked around by someone who merely wants to induce chaos in out world - in the service of their own interests. :(
1
So the solution would be to not allow ones self to be jarred from the center, from equilibrium. There are practices and methods to practice this that have been know for eons.
1
The individual at the helm of the country is constantly stirring that pot. We are all vulnerable to influence by a very unbalanced and unwell leader. Good leadership counts. Bad leadership has consequence.
7
Mr Brooks... it is a false equivalency to say that left and right wing extremists are involved. The number of right wing characters outnumbers the left by at least 100:1.
7
The fringes of the left and right have effectively reduced our online lives to a nihilistic computer game. The fringers lives follow a simple mantra- kill the "enemies" and score points to win the game. But these two fringes are not comparable sizes. The left and the Democrats are still an effective national party without antifa and its ilk. Pelosi and other Democrats will properly identify antifa and other fringe lefters as wrong. Trump followers and Republicans will never survive as a national party without the white nationalists and the "Send her back." crowd. So Moscow Mitch and the other Republican toadies refuses to forsake Trump because they know if they do they will lose their dwindling power. Both groups of fringers should be cast out but the Republicans will never cast their losers adrift.
OR how about no one is cast out and all invited to evolve ...... knowing there is no choice when it comes time to leave this world and we will ALL go at some point. Evolution happens ....
It reads like the author's interpretations of extremists of the "alt right" or the "alt left" (whichever) who "fill the air with hate". The extremist accused himself and the way he was brought up - the author is a committed both-sider as if left and right made no difference. What got the biggest laugh was "Somehow politics doesn't fill my soul, bring me peace, or end my existential anxiety."
Brooks left out the malice and cruelty that's damaging our country.
2
Turn off your computer and go outside.
If possible, take a hike where there are few people. Go at least 6 miles. Make sure you have water and know your way back.
Stop and sit occasionally. And listen to the world you are experiencing for perhaps the first time.
10
Sorry, David. You’ve described a person far more likely to be on the political right than on the political left. It’s unfair of you to have written this as though this is a pathology of both political extremes.
8
Hmmm, the persons the author is describing are alt-right, the liberal kids are out fighting gun control, sailing the Atlantic, cleaning up beaches, promoting petitions, you name it, if it is for the greater good, that is where you find them. They are joiners and doers not lonely failures blaming everyone but themselves.
So glad the GOP got custody of the alt-right loser kids, this will define them for many years to come as they grow into trump’s whining base.
9
More and more false equivalencies from Mr. Brooks.
The far right is violent. They killed in Charlottesville; they killed in Chrischurch; they killed in El Paso. They will continue killing. Meanwhile, their ring leader, the President of the United States, wants to name ANTIFA (people who are anti-fascism) a terrorist organisation. Real fascists, like Kim Jon-un and Putin are befriended and praised.
Many white people in America claim they are now the oppressed ones. 44 out of 45 Presidents have been white; nearly all of them Christian Whites. Congress, particularly the senate, is still nearly all white males. Whites still hold most of the political and financial power in the United States, yet Brooks equates whites who claim they are oppressed with blacks, hispanics, and others, who literally have histories of slavery, Jim Crow, and now live in impoverished and forgotten sectors of society.
His point that individuality matters more than groups when assessing others holds true, yet he does none of this himself in this article. A monologue of hate that he attributes to both sides is a narrative fable he employs to illustrate a point he doesn't even approximate in his thinking.
Sure whites have fallen on hard times, but to equate the fascist tendencies on the right - this blaming and scapegoating of immigrants and non-whites, as Trump has done - is nonsense. Minorities should advocate for themselves.
And Brooks should quote Hedges when referring to his book.
6
Bravo! Let this be a call to self-reflection and not more finger-pointing deflection.
3
Once again, David Brooks fixes everything: "If only everyone would be more like me".
7
Except for the part about reading, Mr Brooks has pretty much described Donald Trump.
3
I'm glad to see Brooks' mention of the 'alt left.' Brooks should prepare to be attacked by them as a result of this essay.
2
@Matthew Hall
Who are they? What is their platform? What have they done?
2
America is the nation that supposedly believes Divine Providence created it. Let’s not mince words. The passage of time as Evil and it’s consequences play out are what that boils down to. So being a proud man of the right I would think David would embrace the internet trolls aka Donald Trumps as advancing God’s Divine plan.
1
Ah, the rant of a theoretically over-educated Trumpster Republican. I get it. Sure, terms like "Manichaean binaries" are part of the parlance for the average Ohio non-college-educated-small business owner who believes, has the answers to--and opinions on-- everything, even though he knows just enough to be dangerous.
3
Sorry -- Brooks is no psychotherapist. He practically makes sick extremism a result of lack of conservative values -- being "coddled," not injected with true morality. These precepts have nothing to do with the kinds of damage, of neglect and abuse that fill a child with pain and rage that later get projected into the world.
4
This article is an excellent example of the false equivalents that is so often reported by the media. The white supremacists are not equal to the antifa.
White Supremacy is a remnant of the old south and is clearly a political force to be reckoned with.
The Antifa is formed as a reaction to that white supremacy and the fascists they represent. They are small in number and respond to the marches and events of those supremacists.
There is no equivalent here. The same as those who want us to believe there are scientists who believe in in climate change and those who don't. Therefore there must be a legitimate scientific debate.
No there doesn't. In either case.
4
Sneeringly,
Stephen Miller
White House
PS: The Russians had a lot to teach me too, even if I read Notes from Underground as fan fiction, not social critique.
2
The alt-left is small with little or no legislative or electoral power. The alt-right is a powerful force in the republican party and in the white house. The deep need to fill a psychological void is characteristic of both the alt-right and alt-left, the difference is that the Trump is president and his narcissistic needs drive policy in this country. The mote in the eye of the left should be ignored until Brooks deals with the lumber yard in the eye of republicans. i.e. the alt-right nitwit in the White House.
5
Well Done. Brilliant.
4
Pretty good description of Lenin and every other murderous ideologue of the 20th and 21st centuries. My guess is Lenin today could not rise to become the undisputed, and absolutely essential, master leader of the radical Left. Too many competing voices and blogs on the Internet. Today he would be an anti capitalist, an anti the whole rotten system, blogger known to his Internet niche as “Angry Ilich in Moscow.” Or perhaps Portland.
Human ugliness did not begin with the internet, and slime is a cowards game!
The person being slimed is sometimes the last to know, if they ever know what's being said about them behind their back. In the corporate world, calumny can beat meritocracy, if the prize is a promotion or just remaining on the job.
I must aver that I did not kill Christ and my father was not my boyfriend! Both laughers of course, and my accusers soon enough looked like fools. But, other less extreme lies affected my career.
Political tendencies can be shaped by a myriad of life experiences including enculturation, or certain personality disorders.
2
Mr. Brooks merely flicks at the troublesome truth that all of this is almost entirely a problem involving men.
2
Sorry, there is no “alt-left”. Calling out false equivalency.
6
Good Lord Mr. Brooks!
Come on out to SoCal, we'll go bike riding; have a Telegraph Blood orange White Ale; relax a bit, watch the sunrise...
1
an interesting comparison, but with two significant problems.
There’s no evidence that this state of mind is created by coffee and yoga pants. All the stories I’ve read have described people who grew up in conservative fundamentalist families, and either acted out the values they were raised in, or took them to further extremes.
Fanatics of this sort on the left make abusive self righteous posts directed at anyone who deviates from their view of true Wokeness. They are obnoxious, and have just the sort of simplistic worldview you describe so well here. Fanatics of this sort on the right have a similar simplistic and obnoxious worldview, but they also kill people. Very big difference.
3
This is a compelling argument for birth control and abortion. This is a person who was unwanted, unloved, unsupported (not coddled!). Women should choose to have children when they are ready, able and committed to raising them, ideally with a partner.
3
Yoga pants cause radicalization? That's a logical fallacy (and swipe at women?) that should be beneath a thoughtful social critique. Despite this one off note, though, thank you, Mr. Brooks, for crystalizing a troubling trend: the social media warrior. From the burn it down Trump extremists to the punch a Nazi radicals, their fragile dogmatism and demagoguery is scary, scary stuff. And I see seeds of it growing in several people in my life, and occasionally in myself. This is a good cautionary tale.
1
You lost me at "alt-left".
7
"I was raised amid social fragmentation and division, the permanent flux of liquid modernity."
"Politics provides the Manichaean binaries"
"I am indignant. I am superior. I read Dostoyevsky’s “Notes From the Underground.” I am alone."
Your fanatic is also top-heavy on jargon Mr. Brooks (Manichaean binaries!). If he talks and thinks like you describe him (or her?) there is a good reason that this person is alone.
I would venture a many would not recognize "Dostoyevsky’s “Notes From the Underground.” if they tripped over the volume.
3
Another example of false equivalence from the conservative. There's no way the idiocies you see on the left can match the viciousness and hatred constantly seen on the right.
5
"I yearn for order," says Brook's internet extremist. Not always.
Two days ago a column in this paper by Thomas B. Edsall called attention to a research paper by Petersen, Osmundsen and Arceneaux, “A ‘Need for Chaos’ and the Sharing of Hostile Political Rumors in Advanced Democracies.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/opinion/trump-voters-chaos.html )
In Edsall's words, "The authors describe “chaos incitement” as a “strategy of last resort by marginalized status-seekers,” willing to adopt disruptive tactics." When they post or vote they seek to disrupt, not to inform or persuade. "For the core group, hostile political rumors are simply a tool to create havoc.”
Chaos seekers troll for the sake of trolling, on line or in the voting booth. Science is their enemy because it offers a means of testing assertions and establishing consensus. They differ from even the extreme right or left because ultimately they do not seek to elevate anything, but to undermine everything.
I think that Trump appeals to chaos seekers in that he is the epitome of chaos. He constructs nothing (except pieces of a wall) and destroys people, institutions. alliances, and trade relationships. The fact that he tells obvious lies and contradicts himself appeals to them, rather than repelling them.
Chaos seekers can be a tool for people with an agenda. For example, their mindless attacks on climate science have political utility. And I think they can be manipulated. But that's another topic.
What does the term elite mean? From this diatribe it is anyone either a meaningful relationship, a job, a home (even a modest one), a life outside of social media ... nothing to do with coasts, income, or education. The disaffected white male is an object of pity in need of basic social skills and outside interests. Try the gym, hiking, biking, volunteer- going the human race. Only Zuckerberg made money stalking his girlfriend!
1
Those of us on the left who challenge David brooks on Twitter do so because we think his columns and ideas are shallow, ill-informed, lazy, and trite, not because we believe he needs to be destroyed. Therein is the basic difference between contemporary right and left discourse. There is no equivalency, which brooks knows full well. Therefore we can add ones adjective to the list: disingenuous.
8
Nice to hear you confess to how you actually feel, David.
But the rot that's seeping through this country doesn't come from some faux intellectual abstractism, it comes from a hard desperation in which people feel as if they have nothing to lose combined with a rapidly changing cultural world that has left them unmoored from the past--no past, no future.
Into that has stepped opportunistic, self-serving "leaders" looking to make money and gain power. You are one of those who has enabled this situation through the years. An apologist for the rot that has settled at the core of your party, primarily. Enjoy reaping what you have so thoughtlessly sowed.
4
Brooks writes: "The existence of any hierarchy itself is prima facie proof of injustice."
More accurately, though, the existence of a hierarchy in which David Brooks secured and maintains a post at one of the premier national newspapers is prima facie proof of injustice.
2
Sorry, David, you lost me at the beginning with "fanatics on the alt-right and the alt-left". As long as you and your fellow conservative think-tank columnist continue to foist false equivalence you will be seen as living in denial. Before you can move forward you must acknowledge and deal with your part in bringing us to the Trumpian dystopia in which we find ourselves.
4
And of course one of the fanatics that Mr. Brooks is referring to is our Commander-in-Chief, the Leader of the Free World.
How low has America sunk? Aided and abetted by a group of fanatics, the Republican Party.
No mention of white male rage over the loss of their unearned privilege. They were raised to believe they are owed a lucrative job (even with minimal or no education) a subservient wife/maid (even with minimal grooming and effort to relate) and a guarantee that their rightful place is at the top of a hierarchy that is woven into a natural law. Feminism and multiculturalism undermine this supposed natural law and so they tell themselves they have every right to be angry and the solution is to limit “invaders” from stealing their birthright and a return to the subjugation of women who need to accept an innate gender based role as broodmares and mothers to preferably white children. So yes, they were told they could be anything they wanted to be,but never, ever expected to have to compete or work for it.
3
People do not go to social media hoping to learn things about the world. They go to social media hoping that attention will be paid to them. That’s what social media is: a sad, sprawling bazaar in which attention is exchanged and bartered. Social media is 'a means for seeking human connection, not communication, but communion, or at least a simulacrum of it.' The sense of belonging (even to an online mob) and the rush of rage are attractive to the mediocre, the miserable, the lonely, and the sexually frustrated.
... Of course, few want to admit to themselves that they are losers who like hurting and humiliating people, so they concoct justifications. Bullying becomes activism, and excuses are found for cruelty and intimidation in a good cause—and a good cause can always be invented when it is needed. Just look at ijiots who declare that the punishment of dissident bakers is necessary to prevent the return of Jim Crow! Just look at the pathological ressentment ('mankind's lowest form of social togetherness') brewing in weaponized social media applications!
Good job David - more of this please - good discussion and probing the depths of "root cause(s)"
4
If you remove the references to the alt-left this could be entitled "The Confession of Presidential Advisor Stephen Miller".
1
Yes, but it seems that only the alt-right are the ones with military style weapons, killing innocent men, women and children to satisfy their spite.
There is an Alt-Left my dear progressives. There were a small group of notorious and pernicious Bernibros who savaged Hillary Clinton in social media when she ran for president. It broke my heart to witness this annihilation of Hillary.
1
There you go again.
With the false equivalences of the left and right.
But you do have a way with authentic dialogue.
"Politics provides the Manichaean binaries I can’t find anywhere else,"
Wow that really is how real people talk.
In the universe of pat appositions and false equivalences you dwell in.
3
Understanding trolls is a worthwhile endeavor, if it leads to addressing their problems and a reduction in trolling.
Unfortunately, that's not what this column is. It's mostly a description of trolling, by someone who doesn't really have a clue as to how trolls think, who hasn't really studied how any of them actually think. Mixed in are a few of Brooks's favorite fallacies about about upbringing, unsupported by any actual evidence that they're the root of the problem.
Finally, David! I'm so happy for your realizations. Now you can start to heal
1
David, I read your article. There were some good points, but to suggest that the "alt-left" is equivalent to the "alt-right" stains credulity.
2
You lose me in the places where you claim equivalency between the alt right and the left. Progressive people don't crave binary categories, require black and white moral codes, or a harkening back to a past that never was. That's why they're called progressives. To despise bigotry and small mindedness is not a problem. There are intolerables in this world.
1
Hello David,
You are loosing it!
The alt right is fighting for their right to hate. They are advocating for themselves.
The alt left, while often misguided - read the lyrics to Revolution by the Beatles, is fighting for social justice, clean air and water, no more war. We would all be beneficiaries of their ideals.
1
I can make no useful sense of your ramblings, David.
Please define alt-left.
I wonder if to you I am alt-left. To me, Bernie Sanders anger resonates true north. I rage at the clueless, oligarchic Establishment and its media. My inner being is harmonious, and I was raised within a coherent moral framework which is why I am a proud, raging lefty.
But wait. Is David sexist? Can only males be alt-left?
Mostly, I have no clue what David is raging about.
Yes, Brooks continues to be an "equivalent" conservative disguised as a moderate. I do not see the vicious hate on the left. I read much childish commentary from the right. We all should. Please name a "left" Democrat candidate for US President that tags people and adversaries with silly put-down names. "Moscow Mitch" is about as harsh as it gets. There is a rationale there. He refuses to move legislation that makes it harder for Russia to do what they did in 2016. What matters is where truth resides.
3
The body of the essay was fantastic, but was frustrated by the purple prose in the last couple of sentences.
We have almost forgotten what civilization looks like.
2
What exactly is the "alt-left"?
Pardon my ignorance, but I've never heard of such a thing!
4
If patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, it is increasingly clear that false equivalence is the last refuge of the conservative. You are no exception, Mr. Brooks. Nice try.
4
Either Mr. Brooks got hold of Donald Trump's notebooks or a discarded early (very early) draft of Dostoyevsky's, "Notes From Underground", where in which the Russian crossed out such aristocratic phrases as "Manichaen binaries", got rid of the ferociously delivered, "If I attack faraway wrongdoers I don’t have to worry about tutoring a child", and blotted-out the Freudian penetration of, "Relationship is the thing that I long for the most and that I make impossible". He did, however, record a stubborn fondness for the truly effervescent, "Did you really think you could raise me on gourmet coffee and yoga pants..." It's on record that Dostoyevsky returned to this notebook many years after he began it, and tossed it in the fire while exclaiming, "Ah, Fyodor, now it's time to create a real human being, not just a lot of intellectual twaddle..."
Except, Mr. Brooks, it IS the bankers.
Famous last words:
Caesar: "Et tu, Brute?"
Oscar Wilde: “This wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. Either it goes or I do.”
John Adams: "Thomas Jefferson survives."
Goethe: "More light."
General John Sedgwick: "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance"
David Brooks: "Both sides do it."
2
David Brooks wrote: "Did you really think you could raise me on gourmet coffee and yoga pants and I wouldn’t find a way to rebel against your relativism and materialism?"
^ Yessss, Mr. Brooks, gourmet coffee and yoga pants are to blame for the moral relativism and materialism in America. Bravo for so clearly pin-pointing these problems.
Just think: For decades, we have been trying to ban assault weapons when our time would have been far better spent banning yoga pants and gourmet coffee.
In seriousness, I don't know anyone in the alt-left or the alt-right who has a problem with either gourmet coffee or yoga pants. However, I do know of a certain Baby Boomer columnist who seems to obsess over them: His name is David Brooks.
This entire op-ed is Brooks simply projecting his own complaints about America upon other people; in this instance, supposed "fanatics." The problem is this op-ed reveals more about the pet peeves of Brooks than it does about the actual peeves of the fanatics in online forums.
1
Make that alt right and mainstream left.
Why give these people so much attention? Why analyze? Why engage? We know what they are. Jerks (including our twitterer and chief). How many of these people our in our day to day real world? It's easy to avoid them. Much needs to be done to help this country and the world. How about we put down our phones and dig in.
@edv961 Maybe because these people are buying AR-15s and murdering innocent people almost every day in this country?
This column is about a group of people who may or may not be as described by David Brooks. None of what he writes about this group of people surprises me, and for me that's reason to be skeptical, since I don't actually, to my knowledge, know any "internet fanatics". In any case, almost no "internet fanatics" will read this column. The column is not addressed to them, but to people like myself, who like to think that we are superior to those "internet fanatics". Does the column have any purpose beyond stroking the feeling of our superiority to an imagined group of inferiors?
Gee, I guess all we read about the Great Recession must have been authored by a bunch of pimply malcontents living in their parents’ basements. So it wasn’t the bankers, after all. Gosh.
1
While we're comparing people to Dostoevsky characters, does anyone else think "Raskolnikov" every time they see Steve Bannon?
Food for thought.... for so long I’ve missed that “gourmet coffee and yoga pants” connection .
OK, now what do we do about this?
David Brooks has written a classic essay on the psychology of "the fanatic" political or otherwise. Congratulations!
2
Mr. Brooks, in your description of fanatics, tellingly, you left out a most significant attributes: misogeny, hatred of women, violence against women, and those "incel" grievances about being deprived of the sexual availability of women which leave aside all issues of consent.
Start addressing that subject, please. And I'll wait to hear the label you place upon the non-women-haters ... should be interesting!
3
A Trumpian soliloquy? A confession of our less than earnest president?
1
"I am one of those fanatics on the alt-right and the alt-left, the ones who make online forums so vicious, the ones who cancel and call out, the minority of online posters who fill the air with hate."
Sounds a lot like Trump's "both sides". Only problem for David is; there are aren't hate venues for David's "alt-left" hate mongers. David knows this but just can't help himself. This follows a constant pattern in David's writings. Where is the alt-left counterpart to Alex Jones or Stormfront, The Daily Stormer or AmRen?
1
Both sides! Both sides! Both sides!
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser men so full of doubts.” ― Bertrand Russell
2
Well. This is upsetting.
Too often I wonder if Brooks is describing myself.
(The Scream emoticon.)
I read the column all the way through and was expecting the punch line at the end "I am a mainstream Republican"
Right Dave, fine people on both sides.
1
It is not the fringe that poses a threat it is the mainstream and there is clear that the left that has become entranced by an inflexible ideology of zealotry, myopia, prejudice. and narrow mindedness. Those who hold different opinions are "evil" and must be demeaned and ostracized. They are on a holy quest. Hence the crude caricatures so popular in the pages and comments. You do not need to seek out an obscure message board. Listen to to Democratic debates or read the New York Times.
I haven't read Mr. Brooks for the better part of two years.
Has he been trending crazy train, or was this all of the sudden?
Do you "both-sides" everything as a reflex, or you you really think racism and *calling out* racism are both just people being mean and too political?
Raskolnikov clearly had too many video games. The corruption of Rome is the reason for the Jewish revolt. That tendency to fascism (feelings of natural superiority, command economy and everything else, assertiveness with property) is with human beings as old as time. Like our tendencies with religion and violence, it can be controlled and appreciated (think cathedrals and football.) But it must be recognized for how anti-social it is, which Brooks is attempting to do. But his understanding approached accommodating: it's society's fault! The irony here is a bit thick.
The desperation of false equivalency neglects to mention any kind of scale, so let's put this in perspective. Every single one of Trump's voters who plans to vote for him again, in spite of the hatred he fosters, the babies he cages, the conspiracy theorists he nourishes, and the air. land and water he poisons - vastly outnumber the few rabid lefties Mr Brooks has put up in lights in this piece.
Mathematically speaking: for shame. For shame.
1
“Alt-left?” Where do they have rallies?
What's an "alt-left"?
Another false-equivalence column from David Brooks about how the vitriol and violence afflicting our nation are coming equally from the right and left. Give me a break.
The “alt-left” is NOT a thing. Another attempt at misdirection and obfuscation, Mr Brooks. Not a good look.
I am a journalist who believes that my narrow-minded opinions are facts and my moral claims need not agree with my own lifestyle. I am rich. I am white. I am liberal. I am nothing like the evil white conservatives but I am exactly as I imagine them to be.
Mr Brooks, seriously, you have described someone with a Personality Disorder.
Personality Disorder is NOT restricted to the Right or the Left. I know because I meet a LOT of people on the Right who are raving disordered jerks. I was married to someone on the Left--at least, he played Left for me--who was a Covert Malignant Narcissist with a heaping helping of Anti-social and Borderline PD to boot.
They say that Donald Trump has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. You don't have to go very far to see that this person you are describing... that's Trump to the core!
Except Trump hasn't read Dostoyevsky’s “Notes From the Underground." Trump hasn't read anything.
1
It is not the fringe that poses a threat it is the mainstream and there is clear that the left that has become entranced by an inflexible ideology of zealotry, myopia, prejudice. and narrow mindedness. Those who hold different opinions are "evil" and must be demeaned and ostracized. They are on a holy quest. Hence the crude caricatures so popular in the pages and comments. You do not need to seek out an obscure message board. Listen to to Democratic debates or read the New York Times.
Wonderful writing David - wow. Notes From The Underground indeed.
The false equivalence poisons the article from the beginning. It is alt-rightists who are committing most crimes and mass shootings.
Oh, for crying out loud (as my late mother would have said. The very beginning - member of the alt-right or the alt-left - throws out Mr. Brooks' both sideism in an era where white nationalists are routinely gunning people down (and threatening to do so). He just can't quit his roots.
"I read Dostoyevsky’s “Notes From the Underground.”
Boy, that is a howler, David.
Dostoyevsky is rolling in his grave.
"Own the libs! Smash the racist right!"
See? Those don't equate. Smashing racism is...good? Owning a group of people for being liberally minded is...bad? I know Brooks has to treat them as equal since he too wants to own the libs, but I truly wish that type of false equivalency was only something one might find on Fox News or Twitter (if it has to exist at all).
NB, I wish David Brooks could see why separating 'adulthood' and 'manhood' might just be a bit confusing to a woman who is an adult. ("When I was younger my eyes pleaded: Tell me what adulthood and manhood are supposed to look like!")
1
As always, Mr. Brooks pretends that the party he has carried water for his whole career has not deliberately worked to create such attitudes. It was not, and could not have been, a liberal who said “Bipartisanship is date rape.” Someday perhaps Mr Brooks will look in a mirror and finally acknowledge his role in creating this fanatic.
Advancing (Brooks) and promoting (NYT) such myths and stereotypes about people, behaviour, and its causes obscures the true reasons for socially maladaptive behaviour and impedes our progress in addressing it.
1
When I was a middle school principal, in salving a bullied child’s wounds it often worked to have them see the maudlin acts of their tormentor as just pathetic cries for help from a pained and tortured heart. Now, this old school tactic doesn’t help me feel any better about the “turd in the punch bowl” we face today in public discourse set loose and facilitated by the greedy forces who have been unleashed in our midst. But I understand it better perhaps.
I’m often haunted by the memory of Lee Atwater’s death-bed apologia — when he expressed regret as he approached his untimely demise for the attack dog Reaganut, zero-sum miasma which he had helped to weave in the early 80s. Reflecting today on his awful genuflection back then — and on the callous backs his former colleagues turned on him once he broke script, it at least helps me to see clearly that despite the sturm und drang of politics and punditry in the public arena, in the life of any single soul — kindness and integrity always wins in the end.
I hope only that the legions of lonely and tortured souls (those shadows of the fringes whose basic profile Mr. Brooks has proposed in this piece) can be inspired to detach from the poisonous hookah of 24/7 digital political disharmony and instead seek small bits of progress through the positive purpose they make with others around them.
What is needed is leadership more in tune with barn-raising than bomb-throwing. Neither Trumpism or indentity/blame politics will suffice.
3
This kinds of reads like the "precious bodily fluids" monologue in Dr. Strangelove?
In an attempt to portray anomie and alienation —and “cover both sides”— Brooks creates a curious mash-up — one in which three quarters of description (I’d venture) covers the type of right-wing evangelical for whom conversion therapy is not violence, but redemption; for whom natural disasters are god’s righteous response to, and collective punishment for, sinfulness; for whom trump’s authoritarianism and deification is the divine reckoning for “liberal” values; for whom the ultimate destruction of the world, the death of billions, is cause for joyous celebration:
“I yearn for order. Blunt simplicities. ..I crave the single narrative that will make everything clear ....Yes! I want fundamentalism. Please wrap me in that rigidity. ..Catastrophizing is pure: Society is totally corrupt. The “system” is totally rotten..I am terrified by ambiguity and ambivalence...I need leaders and spokesmen who will never show uncertainty. I want leaders who tell simple blame stories....My moral system is simple, too. Up is evil and down is good...my kind are oppressed. I am disdained.
I’ve lost faith in reason.”
For the most part, the people that Brooks describes here are not disaffected loners discovering agency online. They are members of organizations that are deliberate and systematic in their denial of reality, extremity, and exploitation.
Aside from the Brooksian false equivalence, this is an excellent description of the alt-RIGHT nutcase. Those poor devils write with a jaw clinching glee on the hard right sites. Breitbart's comments sometimes are like the soundtrack of a horror movie, screeches and curses from the dungeon against their torturers, those cruel lefties. The rages from the faithful on subReddits like r/thedonald are not even balanced by disagreement - any criticism of the Chosen One is pre-screened away. Even on the fringe lefty sites, there is no equivalence (though some try... they just don't have the juice).
Mixed in with the righties are the Russians, North Korean, Iranian and Chinese super-trolls, taking every outrage up a few notches and doubling down on every slander.
The poor devil David portrays is overwhelmingly a rightwing victim of his own incel rage.
1
A brilliant, pithy, Pulitzer Prize quality description of the world we seem condemned to live in.
If by lack of moral grounding you refer to the myriad alt- right folk who justify their bigotry and violence through the hateful Christian fundamentalist upbringing they received and the daily dose of fundamentalist nonsense they watch, read, and listen to, I can go along with you. Waiting for you though to identify who these alt- left folk are. They must be pretty crafty, because most of us have never encountered then. Or are you referring to Greta Thunberg? The right seems to find her pretty terrifying.
"Very bad people on both sides" this says. Let's see. On the right there's Senators who stop democracy in its tracks, a President who adores white supremacists, and some justices who never met a gun or a corporation they didn't like. On the left, a few congresswomen who make stupid statements about Israel, a clueless socialist Senator.
Oh I know, this is about online bachelors raging. But remember, the Russians didn't invent social media dissent, they exaggerated it. They saw where the red meat was, and most of it was on the right.
I'm a liberal, not a leftist, but if you can't see shades of gray because you want to make things black and white, you're not helping. The heavy shades fall on the right, at least in the USA. In Venezuela it's different. But don't pretend we're in Caracas.
1
The alt-right is well acknowledged and written about, has been for a few years now, in all types of publications.
But, tell us Mr. Brooks - or give us a reference - what exactly is the alt-left??
Bernie Bros?? The Marianne Williamson campaign? The movement to legalize (or at least decriminalize) cannabis?
I don't think so - more like some figment of faded 60s radicalism that exists... nowhere but in the mind of conservatives.
Or, to cut to the chase: Another Brooks column, another pile of steaming false equivalence.
1
Mr. Brooks,
You identify the problem but lack the proper remedy. Yes, there is a problem of disenfranchised, white, men joining alt-right group like the Proud Boys and reading Breitbart every day, but the solution to this problem is not to fabricate an equivalence between the "alt left" and "alt right." This genuinely does nothing but create moral equity between those who oppose Nazis and all the ugliness that comes with that ideology, and those who are genuinely opposed to and actively working against the alt right. This framework is lazy journalism at best and dangerous at worse. It's creating a moral equivalency between two inherently different groups.
If you actually read Dostoyevsky you wouldn’t be the person you describe.
Don’t forget these guys are also incels.
Sorry, this is not a satisfactory explanation to me. Some violent extremists are tortured loners, but others are not. The KKK and the Weather Underground -- to remind folks who insist political violence only occurs on one side -- were group activities. I gather that, far from being unhappy "incels," these folks had quite a bit of fun together doing their evil deeds, and that included having lots of sex.
Look on the bright side...if you know MIssissippi is not Alabama you are far better off than the staff at CNN. Kudos, Mr. Brooks, on a great piece!
1
There is no Alt-left save in the minds of pundits who feel a need to feign balanced writing. This is part of the problem.
touche.
GIven Mr. Brooks' oeuvre, I am genuinely unsure if this is parody or his manifesto.
1
If only people with all the charachteristics described in the article became online haters-extremists, the problem would be much more limited. Instead, I don't know about the U.S., but in Italy some people who wished rape or Death for the House Speaker were normal housewives
1
I like your writing in this article but honestly, comparing the alt-right to the (supposed/not racist/non-murderous/non-violent) alt-left is like comparing a canary to a cantaloupe.
Another stable genius at work. I wonder where Brooks fits-in on his self-made fanatical spectrum. Seeing that his love for wars like the Iraq War that he so feverishly propagandized, cheered for and lied about over and over again like no other fanatic of the alt-right could. Millions dead, wounded, displaced and impoverished by the hands of Brooks and his fanatical Neo-Cons brethren all in a vain pursuit of endless unlawful war. I’d say that puts Brooks at the top of his own rightwing fanatical spectrum chart. Sad thing is his “loneliness” is felt by so many conservatives, Neo-Cons, alt-right, White Nationalist,
republicans and fanatical Centrist to the detriment of everyone else especially the innocent.
Mr. Brooks:
The "alt-left extremists" were the people who battled the Nazis in WWII as the Underground in Europe. And are standing up to Nazis in the United States today.
Are these the people you're actually afraid of? Anti-Nazis? Please explain why anti-Nazis bother you as much as Nazis do? Speaking Jew to Jew, Mr. Brooks, Nazis are the people I grew up being taught to hate and fear. Did you have some upbringing different from me, and every other Jew I've ever met in the United States?
2
Please let us dispense with these false equivalents -- it's exactly this kind of nonsense that keeps people home on election daya.There is literally no comparison between the alt- right and the alt- left, starting wth the fact that there is no alt-left. The all right is an actuall movement made up of rightwing extremists, neo-Nazis. white nationalists and conspiracy theorists. Their violent toxic rhetoric is amplified on talk radio and Fox news, and echoed and retweeted by Republicans and our president (or should I say their president as he makes no effort to represent Democrats). Extremists on the left, who are rightfully concerned about the rising tide of rightwing hate, are pushing back by protesting and writing letters to the editor like this one. Not exactly the same thing.
There are few things as self-serving as our political beliefs -- no matter how hard we try to assign altruistic or principled motivations to them. Brooks hits the nail on that. But what's not called out as clearly is the resistance that entrenched interests have always had towards the newly enfranchised - and how that's tearing society apart. The white working class did not give two hoots about minorities for the longest time, and empowered minorities returned the favor when it was their turn. And now we are seeing the whole thing play out all over again with Trump and his emboldening of racists, xenophobes, and misogynists - across classes. This cycle has to be broken but that can only happen when people realize they are being taken for a ride by the likes of Trump and get tired of having to find a new enemy to hate every couple of years.
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@MD
"entrenched interests have always had towards the newly enfranchised - and how that's tearing society apart. The white working class did not give two hoots about minorities for the longest time..."
So the entrenched interests include the white working class?? Silly me, I would have thought entrenched interests were the tech billionaires, the .001%
10
@MD
Your fighting yesterday's battle. Read the essay again and imagine the guy is black.
4
@MD when were minorities empowered to persecute the white working class? I'd appreciate a concrete example.
17
This certainly illustrates why Trump has supporters, but why does he have so many supporters, and why are the other Republicans enabling him?
Are you saying 40% of the country is this messed up?
If you read this description you might find a resemblance to the symptoms for PTSD. In could be the case that ordinary, non-military Americans are simply suffering a version of PTSD brought on by the trauma of their upbringing and life in the good old US of A. In other words, we have created a culture where members must demonstrate the fact that they are alive, by taking the lives of others. It's downright Jungian and putting a political slant on this behavior completely misses the point. Unless we admit we have a serious problem we can never recover. We need an intervention from a sane place like Norway or Canada...oh, Canada, please help us.
A little too much here about blaming the parents. Why does one child grow up to be a fanatic, and another, a social worker or a gifted, thoughtful teacher? There's no formula here.
People who hate are disturbed. Nations that elect representatives who hate are disturbed. Countries that allow guns at the expense of public safety are disturbed.
Our nation has fostered a culture of hatred and violence. The 'fanatics' are the ones who, logically--to them--carry out the logical conclusions to that culture: terror, fear, and annihilation.
1
David, the false equivalency is now expected, and wrong, in almost all your columns. If you want to illustrate the general difference between the social commentary and the psychology of alt right vs. alt left, maybe a good comparison would be comparing the tweets of Donald Trump to, let’s say, AOC or Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.
Whom, among those names, do you fear is going off the rails? Who lies? Who threatens? Who cares about humanity? Your column suggests looking at social commentary as an indicator of potential danger or psychopathology. The tweets of our President are disturbing and even frightening—and they are the voice of today’s GOP.
You have become a never-Trumper, but somehow you refuse to make that connection with what the Republican Party has become.
5
A well observed summary Mr Brooks. I hope you will follow up with an article calling out those who explicitly pander to this mindset. If you need an example check out Dan Bishop's TV ads in the North Carolina 9th which claim his opponent a radical ally of AOC. This line is being used against any democrat, regardless of their record, by the North Carolina Republican Party.
1
I couldn't get past the first sentence. The casual equating of the real and terrifying alt-right with alt-left - a term that is new to me - is tremendously upsetting. Who does this alt-left threaten? What politician or political party does it feed the way the alt-right feeds Trump and the GOP? What media outlet churns out disinformation and support for cruel policies on the left the way Fox does often in lockstep with the alt-right?
We cannot address the threat to Democracy presented by the alt-right if people like Mr. Brooks engage in such unfounded both sides-isms.
5
Nice try.
Among the many trite tropes trafficked herein, Brooks offers this doozy: "I was raised in that coddling way that protects you from every risk except real life."
Brooks tends to trot out every conservative talking point dressed in pretty prose, but they are still just unsupported conventional nonsense.
In my example, for example, the odd young man Brooks attempts to channel is not the sort that was "raised in that coddling way that protects you from every risk except real life."
That's how conservatives like to describe bright, privileged, high achieving young women and men on college campuses who have the audacity to suggest that maybe Ann Coulter doesn't contribute anything to real intellectual discourse.
His hypothetical young man was far from "coddled." He was more likely to have been neglected or abused at home, marginalized or bullied at school, and found himself isolated by the social and cultural milieu that rewards certain kinds of appearance, interpersonal skill and cultural capital.
The alienated youth of America were not coddled. We would be a better country with more coddling.
7
I sometimes get to teach humanities courses and when I do, I am always confronted with the problem of whether or not to include _Notes from Underground_, which is a difficult text to be sure. I do always teach Ginsberg's _Howl_, and I use the occasion to talk to my students about more contemporary countercultural movements and "underground" trends/tendencies such as those raised by Dostoevski. The last time I taught Ginsberg, I asked my to tell me about their own counter-cultural movements, there was a long silence, and it became clear that they were struggling to find a contemporary cultural referent for counter-cultural movements of the past. Finally a student offered uncertainly, "terrorism?" It was chilling, but not entirely untrue from the student perspective. Brooks' concern in this opinion piece is that we don't have a compelling normative culture but mine is the opposite: we have no coherent, meaningful and sustained counterculture but violence.
2
@Jeremiah Crotser
Tom Frank wrote about this years ago in his essay, “Why Johnny Can't Dissent.”
1
This excellent column brings to mind that “mental health reform” has been repeated and batted around for so long without results that Americans are deaf to the words and their meaning. Our society offers little to no innovative concern for mental disorders. Our insurance companies still refuse to acknowledge mental health on par with physical diagnoses. Society at large still stigmatizes mental disease. The internet has offered a “home” for these lost souls, regardless of nationality, from fractured, morally bankrupt and confused families.
3
@Hortencia
It is a disaster, the whole thing has been dumped on the GPs who, I assume, relay mainly on the disgrace that is the DSM and then prescribe some sort of pill. There is a real possibility that Donald Trump is a product of this failure; untreated personality disorders from childhood, etc. Sad, tragic.
What kids on both right and left have grown up without is PARENTING. That lack drastically affects the ability of the child to interpenetrate with others; to embrace paradox; to sense "the other" as a possibly benign presence or even an ally.
1
From a different time and era in America, Frederick Douglas wrote a letter to Thomas Auld, his old master. "I shall make use of you as a means of exposing the character of the American church and clergy- and as a means of bringing this guilty nation, with yourself, to repentance. In doing this, I entertain no malice toward you personally. There is no roof under which you would be more safe than mine, and there is nothing in my house which you might need for your comfort, which I would not readily grant. Indeed, I should esteem it a privilege to set you an example how mankind ought to treat each other." This passage shares the spirit of President Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural Address, "with malice towards none, and charity for all. These men advocate for a life of grace; living a life of kindness and forgiveness. Our network evening news often ends with a "grace notes" story. Americans know how to extend grace to ne another, it just needs to appear on the internet and cable news more often.
2
Congratulations. Mr. Brooks, for this venture into creative writing one o one. You deserve a B plus for effort. Now just stop a moment to tell me: Who are the alt left? I know who the alt right are: they are identified for us every day in the news. But please identify the alt left--name them, for Goodness sake or stop pretending there is a left equivalent, in number or extremity of position to the bad guys on the right. Once you do identify some of these bad far lefties, make a list of their beliefs and then compare them to the far side of your side of the balance.
21
@August, you are spot on. The alt-right is easy to identify and is obviously filled with hate while the far left bathes in the righteousness of equality and brotherly love. What gets lost is that both are built on rigid ideologies that look to the boot of the state for legitimacy. The idea of equality of outcomes is great until you are on the wrong side of getting to define the rules of the game.
Fascism collapses when the fear and hate it is built on consumes its own adherents. Communism fails when the punishment of oppressors becomes the sole focus of society and the righteous justice warriors in charge run out of other peoples money to spend.
What we need is less ideology and more ideas, less sermonizing from rigid screeds and more genuine conversations, less virtue signaling and more actual virtue.
2
There is no alt-left. There are anarchists, socialists, etc but they’re not afraid to hide their beliefs. “Alt-right” clearly means racist fascism.
This would be more effective without the attempt to trace the roots of disaffection to bad parenting. And without the bothsiderism.
Extremists wrapped in their own internet cocoons are problematic, regardless of their political affiliation. Politically, perhaps you can talk about the extremists favoring authoritarian solutions as right wing and extremists favoring nihilistic solutions as left wing.
But, in the end, does it matter? Neither group wants solutions consistent with democratic values and both groups thrive on intolerance and hostility to society.
3
Kudos to Mr. Brooks, it’s a very interesting article.
Human behavior changed drastically due to invention in all fronts in particular Information Technology. Sky is the limit is our motto. We achieved a lot but lost peace of mind and created an individualist who is angry. Meditation/yoga may help to understand ourselves. Child is born without any prejudices, alt right, alt left and or alt truth is creation of adult human mind.
Last line of the article says it all. I read Dostoyevsky’s “Note From The Underground” I am alone
2
With certain substitutions in the realm of violence, do not women share the same existential angst and express it via analogous counter-productive and socially immature avenues?
This is not a mansplaining, diversionary question. But it is a topic I believe is rarely addressed: do women also suffer from some of the same social development issues than men clearly manifest?
2
Maybe. But they aren't driving the political conversation to the brink of madness.
1
@Ron Hellendall: I don't have an answer to your question, but I'm certain that women, and the way these persons perceive women, play some role in this game. Unwinding this nonsense will require understanding that role and doing something to correct it.
Young men are vulnerable to fundamentalism because unless they were gifted with attractiveness, they are at the bottom of the dating food chain, they know it, and some resent it. This resentment can and is used to recruit them into fundamentalist activities.
Then again, if you look at cults, they follow a similar dynamic, and they tend to include as many women as men.
That was a good question with no easy answers.
Brooks does a great job of identifying the problem. It rings true to me. The question is what to do about it? There are pretty clear policy choices with more or less predictable outcomes on the issue of gun control. I'm not sure what to do about alienated and isolated young men.
Simplicity is the essence of effective instructions. If you can reduce a process to a series of well-defined steps, anyone can follow it and reach the correct conclusion.
The world of humans, relations and politics isn't that simple, but if you can convince someone that it is, they will follow your instructions. And while it isn't quite step-by-step instructions, it follows the same logic. You can get many people on board by giving them a simple explanation of why they are unhappy.
There are sheep and shepherds in this ecosphere. The shepherds know how to get the sheep to do their bidding.
2
Thank you, David Brooks! You here reveal the most essential truth about hate: it emanates from crushed human beings, people who are all too familiar with rejection, opprobrium, lovelessness. Hate begets hate. Our defense can only be compassion, which can only come about from understanding. The courage to identify with a person whose life has been deformed and poisoned and has thus become deadly is so rare. It doesn’t mean condoning that behavior and mindset. It means simply being clear-eyed. You have dared to face the criticisms: “He’s soft on evil! He’s so fluffy, a bleeding heart!” I’m glad you know that love is no sentiment; it’s a kind of remorseless insight that requires enormous strength to maintain. People like Trump are very likely lost, but if we see his full humanity we don’t have to join him.
4
So much negativity yet peace, prosperity, and progress prevail. Wage growth remained solid, with average hourly earnings increasing by 0.4% for the month and 3.2% over the year; both numbers were one-tenth of a percentage point better than expected.
Labor force participation also increased, rising to 63.2% and tying its highest level since August 2013. The total number of Americans considered employed surged by 590,000 to a record 157.9 million.
Congratulations Mr. President and congratulations to all enjoying these best of times.
2
@john
You apparently deliberately misread Mr. Brooks' column, or are unwilling or unable process the point he was trying to make. And things are not nearly as rosy as you are inclined to think, especially for the working poor, many of whom often work 60 hours a week at three jobs and still are not able to make the rent because of a critical lack of affordable housing. Mass shooting incidents are increasing, and there are warnings of a pending recession due to Trump's idiotic tariff policies. Perhaps the "yearning for order" and "blunt simplicities" Mr. Brooks' listed in his op-ed are symptoms or causes of this willful obtuseness.
You forgot to mention caged children.
1
The troubling issues facing many "fanatics" have been born out of a world that has confused, marginalized and oppressed many of them.
In parallel, there exists an entire class of people who don't seem to be affected by, or aware of, their plight.
@WalterZ
I disagree. These angry men killing innocents are not oppressed. They only believe themselves to be marginalized and oppressed since as the saying goes, “loss of privilege feels like oppression”.
2
Politics providing a simplified, binary view of every societal issue accounts for why rational decision-making frequently loses out to partisan tribalism. And, as for the GOP, it's moved from petty tribalism into cultism, pinned to the would-be oligarch Trump, whose mental illness and immorality require the GOP to repeatedly lower an already low bar for what's expected from the office of the presidency.
7
I congratulate Mr. Brooks on coming out with the truth about himself.
It's not often, in fact it's unheard of, for someone in the public eye to be so self-revealing.
Unless his intention is to be descriptive of others, which I doubt, him being a man very unlikely to pillory others, such an outpouring of self-loathing deserves the highest commendation.
6
Read Margaret Lyons' insightful takeaway from the documentary series "Couples Therapy": "Don’t argue with someone about their experience; they’re reporting the vicious facts of life as lived by them." We won't get anywhere by arguing with the kind of fanaticism that Brooks ventriloquizes here. (And, yes, his insistence on equivalating left- and right-wing behavior continues to dismay, but I suspect he does it mainly to keep conservative readers engaged, and to prod liberal readers into stepping outside our bubble.) We need to figure out how to reintegrate the alienated into society by creating more spaces and supports for healthy relationship-building. I hope Brooks will dedicate more columns to his ongoing efforts in that realm.
2
"I’ve lost faith in reason." says it all for us. Those who abandon reason to rely on faith and belief to explain their own circumstances and blame others are the problem.
5
@tom
Not all.
In fact, I can't think of a single friend or acquaintance who has lost faith in reason.
In fact, with the amazing access to information now available, the reliance and application of informed reasoning is the highest I've ever experienced.
Ignorance at the top is not reflective of a significantly raised baseline.
I'm 63. We've come a long, long way.
1
@Ron Hellendall Older than you, but where I live, calling facts fake news and belief rather than facts is commonplace. Critical thinking and questioning has left the building.
1
I am confused. Perhaps because I'm a lefty, I just don't run into these people online: having said that, where is the "alt-left"?
I encounter the alt-right with some frequency -- even the alt-incels-- but except for the Bernie-or-bust crowd, whose vitriol is alarming politically but never really nasty, my social media feeds are essentially innocent of hate from the left.
This absence of malice might be due to my research model, of course. But I suspect the root cause is the same peculiar bias that leads conservative to conflate people throwing milkshakes with mass murder.
24
@Bert Woodall
Well & succinctly put. :)
2
I agree with many comments that the alt right and left are not equal. However Mr. Brooks has done a remarkable job of pointing to our biggest problem, people do not have unique relationships with all kinds of people from which to draw their view of the world of people. On either side. The fact that family members and friends with opposite ideologies do not speak to each other has made this situation much worse. I know sisters who have shut each other out and cousins in my case. Also Brooks makes a good case for how children do not get what they need to navigate the world. Finding the creative solutions to one's challenges is impossible when fear takes over a young person's world.
5
My parents’ parents were able to work at a job that provided dignity, security, and comfort. Then the richest of the rich decided they deserved even more, and set about destroying the middle class that once made this country unique.
While other nations strengthened their societies, we careened backward, and the productive capacity of the nation was squeezed out and deliberately funneled into the pockets of a tiny, fantastically wealthy elite, who daily seek to further immiserate the nation to feed their endless greed.
16
Want to switch? I’ll come and live in Seattle and you can join the yellow vests and live in a country where a 30,000$ yearly salary puts you among the wealthy.
Actually, we, each of us, when considered in reductionist, mechanical terms, are “alone.” And, safe and basic as that may seem, this in itself does not make one, one, ie, whole. Love, for those willing to take a chance on love, become one, ie, whole, paradoxically by becoming “un-one.” Pity the individual too frightened or not guided early on in formative years about that. In that context, fanaticism in turning more and more inward may be understood as a disease of fundamental privation. The Internet for some or all so affected may be the means for release if not a strange call for help. Compassion is not a restricted condition.
As much as I love the internet, I have to think it's what's mostly to blame for the rise in hate and fanaticism. The insane, the marginalized, have and will always be with us, but the internet magnifies their hostility.
Fixing the societal problems will take decades, if ever. Fixing the internet seems doable in weeks, months, if our minds were put to it. No one thought Standard Oil or Bell could be dissolved. Why do we think "the internet" can't be improved?
11
Wow! Brilliant. Unfortunately our political machine has figured out how to weaponize the individuals which Brooks characterizes. And there seem to be a whole lot of them.
4
I've had enough experience with being in the military, being part of a sports team, and attending a school game and being part of a partisan crowd cheering our team and wondering what rock the other team crawled out from under. These things warp judgement.
I wish Mr. Brooks would spend more time wondering where the money comes from, who at the top is directing the agendas, and giving people on the bottom, who have never experienced what he calls "agency," a break or two.
It's not all about feelings when whole regions get decimated by economic collapse, war, killer storms, and environmental change.
21
Perhaps you could write your own article in which you expound on all that.
While I believe that this piece starts with a truth, it seems to then drift into an explanation of worldview fears of the author.
Sections such as the Up vs. Down feel more like and excuse in reverse for hierarchy status in humanity, rather than a mechanism of virtue. If only youth learned to respect the mechanisms of hierarchy today, they could move up to their proper station and improve it, this article implies. If only criteria of proper stations had been maintained to a level of decency by the existing elite, that might seem feasible. Instead, youth are left staring at mountains of debt and 70 hour work weeks just not to slip a peg or two.
Nonetheless, the primary issue here is what leaves our youth today detached, anxious, and seeking power through the thinnest of relationships. And I applaud addressing that issue.
4
i would have read the whole article if the false equivalence expressed by Mr. Brooks hadn't taken front stage. I do not recall any "alt-left" person running a car into a group of protesters, firing at black church goers, killing innocents in a mosque, or slaughtering immigrants in a Walmart to name just a few acts.
Extremism of any kind is to be rejected, but let's not normalize this behavior by implying the other side does it just as much.
51
Inserting the "alt left" in a commentary clearly meant to describe the viciousness of the "alt right" was sweet. It is something our mothers might have cautioned us to do--play fair; treat everyone the same, but the "alt left" and "alt right" are not the same, are they, Mr. Brooks? They're light-years apart. You're comparing apples and orangutans.
Perhaps you were trying to entice conservatives to read your commentary by putting an "alt right"/"alt left" face on it. Perhaps you were trying to equate right with left as equally vicious. It was a noble effort, but your entire premise is faulty. Your conservative fans will never read it. The one thing that struck me funny is the last line: "I read Dostoyevsky’s “Notes From the Underground.” I'm trying to imagine Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or, their demigod, Donald Trump, reading anything, let alone Dostoyevsky.
30
Why don’t you write about the people (like me) that didn’t participate in online comment until after Donald Trump was elected? Many of us were happy to passively engage with the news until we saw something extremely unacceptable happening in our politics. There is such a thing as righteous indignation.
Secondly, much of this is the reaping of the whirlwind Roger Ailes, Lee Atwater, Newt Gingrich and other **Republican** cynics put into motion decades ago. Maybe the next time you see Newt at a cocktail party you can give him a stern lecture?
35
@Dudesworth:
Bravo! And likewise to Al Mostonest for asking 'where does the money come from?'.
The sickness described has real and specific points of origin, and they are exactly as you name them (Ailes, Atwater, Gingrich), plus one has to add Rush Limbaugh and Wayne LaPierre.
A Pox on all their houses!
4
"It aint paranoia if they are really out to get ya." Do a fact check on Limbaugh vs Maddow. Union of Concerned Scientists vs Heartland Institute. Trump and his lackeys versus... well, almost anybody. Your subterfuge of balance is unbalanced. Call me a fanatic, but today, the problem is not polarized outrage on both sides. Rather it is complacency and a lack of outrage by those who see themselves as above the fray and call themselves independents. Failure to commit is not a virtue.
26
Mr. Brooks summary of a twisted mind, although accurate, gives too much organization and logic to a phenomena that is chaotic, and that thrives on pain and despair. The internet does not require much more than a smart phone and a desire to spread hate and chaos, to own the snowflakes, to slander anyone in the public eye. Whether the motive is self hate, vengeance or anger, the result is the same. That the president has some of those same qualitiies is the tragedy of our time.We all need to use that ignore function more often.
3
We see these folks around us, though we don't even know it - at the grocery store, in our neighborhood, at the Thanksgiving table.
And if one were only to look these people in the eyes and speak with them, they are seen, and the spell can be broken.
6
@We the People. I wish those of my friends who are intelligent, socially well-adjusted and quite un-fanatical, and who voted for Trump and want to do so again, had more fear of the domination of our politics by the owners of big capital than they have of democratic socialism. But despite my efforts to de-demonize my own democratic socialism, they seemed immovable, even in September, 2019.
How the current opioid epidemic happened, with a little help from the profit takers.
2
Well, a good diagnostic is a big step towards healing, and David's diagnostic is as good as they come.
4
Very well done for the most part, Mr. Brooks. Really well. Thanks.
But did you never watch Operation Infektion on your own site? For those who don't know, it's a 2018 Times documentary on efforts by hostile foreign states to do things to upset, divide, and weaken America, including things just like our Fanatic friend is talking about. By doing so, they also create new Fanatics---in effect native-born helpers, unpaid and effective. It's all called 'active measures'.
It's not all American decay, Mr. Brooks. Not all decay of American lineage, anyway.
Readers can click on the video button on this page. Operation Infektion is fascinating, surprising, and enjoyable. You'll learn some stunning things..
(P.S. on Dostoevsky: It's 'Notes from Underground'. No 'the'.)
4
This column shares a sensibility shown in a recent column by Mr. Douthat. Both men are conservatives who seek to ameliorate their politics, and those of their fellow travelers, with false equivalencies, sugared excuses, and frequent "not me"s. Mr. Brooks wants morality clarity, no relativism, but his column only serves to muddy the waters. He's standing on a raft, but he's still in the mud puddle.
11
"... epic wars for recognition..."
As others have said, recognition is exactly what Trump has offered, while delivering, in fact, an imitation of recognition. He has already disappointed some, and will disappoint more, leaving them in a metastable state.
2
Excuse me, but this moralizing sounds like the same but opposite that a person who has real mental health issues would write. Blaming our culture instead of seeking realistic solutions.
There are approximately 375M people in the US. If we assume that the number of severely mentally ill people people (those who might shoot others) is 0.0001% of the population (which might be high or low), then that population is 37,500 very high “risk individuals” in our population.
The internet, which certainly connects groups of like minded people is a problem, the real issue is mental health.
How does this op-ed move things forward?
The incidence of violence in the mentally ill population is lower than in the general population. Other countries’ incidence of mental illness is the same as the US, but somehow they don’t have this slaughter.
People love to say that someone who shoots up a school is “mentally ill” but most violent offenders are quite sane. They are just evil.
Focusing on mental illness rather than weapons of war is a canard, a way of distracting from the real problem: our society is awash with guns.
8
Maybe, but we need to worry that enough of those vicious voices are Russian plants who have become media influencers aimed at spreading discord and supporting that groundswell of the angry who believe they have been cheated out of their birthright by the immigrant or the college-educated: anyone who takes a job they eschew or has a job because they have the education for it.
3
Mr. Brooks, there is no such thing as the 'alt-left.' There are those on one side who are rightist provocateurs and outright fascists, and those on the other side who are against such despicable ideologies and comportment. If you cannot choose a side, then it is clear to many in the younger generation that you tacitly support the former.
8
Humans have never before had so much power at their fingertips as with social media. I've been online since 1994 and before social media there wasn't a large hive mind, there wasn't as much tribalism - in fact, trolls -- who are now the mainstream -- were mostly disregarded. Forums were a place you could CHOOSE to be. Then came the comments. Then came Twitter and Facebook and suddenly humans could turn into what they evolved to turn into when gathered in groups -- a hive mind. These isolated folks aren't dangerous until they find their tribes. Then those tribes become bullies.
10
@Sasha Stone
I remember those days before everything was outsourced to Facebook. Websites often hosted their own forums and trolling wasn't really a thing. The internet itself was often clunky and awkward to navigate, but for me, dealing with those difficulties was part of what kept it interesting. Everything is far easier now and maybe that's part of the problem too.
Brooks categorized here many “I”-s (not “we”) as internet loners to be analyzed as fanatics. Those many I-s, each of whom carries each paragraph in the column, will be collectively summarized as conveyers of self-imposed lamentation in search for their souls. SNS (Social Network System?) is just a massive platform consisting of multiple platforms. If one goes onto Twitter of Twitter, the phrase “Soul searching?” (which is meant to be “don’t expect such a thing on twitter) is found. Digital media unleashes extreme voices from which to confessional ones with confusion to mere contrived ones aiming at splash alike are also carried on. That is a nature of SNS. If rampant, signs for the cure as a hope will be there too, because those people are seeking the platform for their souls on the most unlikely place for the search, in order to share the non-lieu situation.
1
Extremists of the political left and right today in America?
There appears only political extremists to me in society, no viable political center, and the primary reason why is society appears to be centering, and answering to political problems, to human problems, in a bureaucratic, machine-like, technological manner, producing as the center of society such standardized, stamped, branded humans that they seem removed from the human, resembling off shelf products, like automobiles, causing a very human reaction in people who not only get explained away by the center as extremists but who don't even get to explain themselves, they are simply crushed as inferior design, not up to dominant and monopoly standards of the human.
Take George W. Bush with the glint in his eye: Typical piece of production jewelry. Take Obama: Yes! The luxury automobile does come in black! Less and less in society is a person allowed to be self made, but rather must be made like any product is made. And certainly not so well self made that the production line of humans is embarrassed, shown not to be the best that can be manufactured. The dominant paradigm today for producing a human everyone can more less agree upon is that of manufacturing such a human.
I guess racism, religion, nationalism, etc. must be played down, that humanity must become cars of many colors under single God self driving system on road, thought, movement, text, speech constantly worked on, improved, humanity design surpassed.
1
The conservatives, including Cathy Young who has ed ops in Newsday and David Brooks, always equate the alt right and the alt left as two extremes. The alt right is a domestic terrorist group who has participated in mass killings of Jews, blacks and immigrants. One can criticize the left for its progressive views or its fixation on race, gender and sexual orientation in politics. Blacks have rightfully criticized police violence against blacks. I have not read of the left advocating violence or have been involved in mass shootings. Trump and his supporters are the ones who are a threat to our democracy. The American conservative movement is a sham. Where is the criticism of Trump? The Republicans in Congress represent corporate America, the NRA and the wealthy elite. Other than tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, they have no policies. We have a government of tweets by a president who has serious mental issues.
12
@JAB
There is no such thing as "alt-left." It is something made up by conservatives in an attempt to counter the all-too-real "alt-right" that actually exists in conservative circles. In other words, it's a lie. As usual.
Yoga pants and coddling? That does not match the typical description of any fanatic I have read about. You take this supposed equivalency between issues in problematic child rearing a bit too far.
9
Well,well. It seems Holden Caulfield does have a computer after all.
2
My first takeaway from this piece is that the right wing dude has no reason to hope. The left wing guy (if he really exists) at least has some hope of getting his way. Progressives are not the fringe. We are the majority.
5
What a suffocating mishmash of insights, false equivalences, and confusing pleadings. Wish Brooks had worked on it a bit longer, because he's got some good lines, such as the second to last paragraph about vulnerability as a key condition for relationship. On the other hand, not sure where he gets the sense that there's some equal war online between "right" and "left." (Whatever Brooks might mean by those terms no one seems to define anymore, which increasingly appear to mean "threatened, paranoid white guys who overidentify with billionaires" and "everyone else.") For Brooks, it's permissiveness, yoga pants, etc. that create mass shootings? Sounds like it's all somehow Mom's fault?
8
This is a great article but it does leave that bigger question, where do these people belong? If there is no dignity in manual laboring jobs anymore (and no manual laboring jobs) then, in a way, why wouldn't they vent their rage?
I hate fascism and all that but the serious and troubling question about the lack of dignified social and civic pathways for everyone in the community remains...
1
Powerful piece. But serious question- are there alt-left hate sites? Is this really a both sides issue?
4
"No one knows what it's like to be the bad man, the sad man - behind blue eyes"
All this worried sophistry, to conceal his own responsibility for the Republican party.
How about exploring the mind of a never-Trumper who has yet to refuse his tax cuts, send back his dividend checks and decry global warming denial?
10
As an architect of today’s Republican Party, Mr. Brooks goes to absurd lengths pretending the left and the right are the same. This column might be the most absurd yet.
That the ungrounded, angry male he describes is the epitome of the Trump voter is apparent to everyone. In fact, Mr. Brooks might have been describing Dylan Roof or the shooter in El Paso.
A Hillary or Bernie voter? Come on!
Those of us waiting for Mr. Brooks to come to terms with the Frankenstein he helped create will have to wait a few more days, I guess.
6
But are the members of the alt-right the product of childhood coddling, of being told they can do anything, be anything? Where does this picture come from?
Some children are coddled and over-protected. Some children are told (oh horror of horrors!) that they need not grow up to be a carbon copy of mom or dad. Some children didn't get the benefit of old-time religion.
Then some small subset of these children become internet extremists. Therefore, as you clearly imply, the above-mentioned "errors" of parenting are responsible.
This is the famous logical fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc.
(if B follows A then A caused B)
While I am loathe to say that that you have "lost faith in reason" , Mr. Brooks, you seem to find it reason rather inconvenient when it comes to pushing your view that everything would be so much better if we all behaved as if it were 1950 again.
1
Alt-left ? This is the first time I heard that term.
Is it the Alt-left that is doing its best to close down Planned parenthood?
Is it the Alt-Left that took us to war in the Middle East, not once but three times ?
Is it the Alt-Left that believes in tax cuts for the rich at the cost of the middle/lower income groups ?
Is it the Alt-Left that is in denial of climate change and global warming ?
I could go on, but I think you get my drift.
9
There is no alt-left. Brooks’ both sides analysis hits its zenith, or nadir, depending upon your perspective.
5
That's quite a story Mr. Brooks has concocted. It even includes the evils of yoga pants. So many people have come out of less than perfect circumstances and made productive and healthy lives for themselves. Those who need help should get it and we should give mental health issues the attention and funding they deserve. Mr. Brooks might benefit from a nice lie-down or maybe some meditation. He seems a bit distraught.
2
An adroit message that points to the reason why such minds always, in the end, eat their own. And quite frankly I'd be okay with this sort of ending - for whoever said that life is fair - excepting that in the process of self-immolation they take the innocent down with them.
John~
American Net'Zen
The effects and disaster of behaviorism in psychology . The ally in ideology to capitalism. The ultimate form of ignorance.
1
Mr. Brooks’ spins his explanation of a (male, I presume) individual’s descent into fanaticism as a failure of a complex society to provide “coherent moral frameworks.”
As a white, middle-aged, southern woman, I have a different point of view. I have witnessed firsthand the way society raises boys. It appears nearly identical to the way boys were raised fifty years ago. No, I think most young, white men have been taught a very simple, consistent message.
The message: “Son, this great nation belongs to you. It was designed for your benefit. You, by virtue of your anatomy and skin color, are allowed to participate in the race to pursue happiness, If you follow the path laid out by our founders, you can achieve the American Dream- financial success, ownership, and mastery over others. Of course, depending on your parents’ wealth and social standing, your starting position may be better or worse. Nonetheless, you’re in. Our moral code dictates you obey certain public rules. You’ll behave respectfully to powerful males, politely toward women, deferentially to the symbols of our culture. Privately, of course, you can do anything you want. Just be discreet. And always say, ‘sir, ma’am, please, and thank you.’”
The message that produces fanatics is that they alone are entitled to pursue the American Dream and no “others” should impede them. No surprise: they turn to internet echo chambers where the promise of privilege becomes a rallying cry of rage. The “rules” betrayed them.
13
Too simplistic if it weren't so tragic.
This isn't an editorial. It's a monologue written from the POV of the El Paso shooter, or the guy in Midland-Odessa, or Dayton, or at the garlic festival or Virginia Beach, or any other man who feels like the story he was told about making a beautiful life could be his but then was taken away, inch by inch, throughout his life. He may not have read Dostoyevsky, or use some of these words. But this is the story of how he flounders and flails. He doesn't need to use a gun. Just a convenient target to aim at, be it women or immigrants, or his boss. Any place to air his anger will do. Powder. Keg.
Wait, now. "Alt-left"? Is that even a thing? Or is it some false equivalence dreamed up by conservative fellow travelers?
8
Yup. Gotta watch out for those "alt left" hippies chaining themselves to trees. Can't have any of that. Does David Brooks really need to create an "alt left" in order to minimize the damage done by the alt right? Maybe it helps him rationalize his conservative beliefs to some degree.
8
David it's not that your list of grievances isn't present in today's alienated youth. But once again you equate what's happening among the political right with the left.
I don't recall reading where some left wing kid decided to shoot up his school after reading Mao's Little Red book?
The alt-right, or alternative right is a term made up by pundits to try a distinguish neofascists, who are trying to reproduce the beer hall putsch of 1925 here in America with their more respectable, but equally fascist leaning members of certain political parties.
There is no "alt-left" that I have ever heard of, except in your column.
While many of your characterizations are drawn from real events, you tend to see them has the trend of an entire culture. But they are not.
The internet is full of these screeds, but the vast majority of young people aren't hunkered down in front of their screen railing against the world.
They're too busy working two or three jobs, going to school or trying to, figuring out how to pay the car note and hoping that they can afford to go to a movie or a bar with their friends.
They have trusted their political leaders to "deal with the complexities of economics or foreign affairs" and have been sadly disappointed with the results.
They came of age with the same expectations that you and I did, and look at the mess we have left them.
They have a lot to learn, but so do we. We just might discover a better path together.
4
@Drspock Not defending Mr. Brooks's false equivalency, but there was a fringe of the 60s left (the Weather Underground) that did indeed carefully read Mao's Little Red Book.
Wait. Gourmet coffee is the real culprit here?
3
This is David Brooks's masterpiece of both sidesism. It obscures far more than it reveals.
4
It took right-leaning Brooks three lines to trot out 'whataboutism" with his "alt-left" comment vis a vis the "alt-right." From the evidence--yes, those darned facts again--I've seen the alt-left seeks to destroy the ugly vestiges of fascism, racism and white nationalism that the alt-right so lovingly embraces and encourages. Sometimes one has to fight the good fight, no? And that certainly does not make both sides the same or equally at fault.
2
David Brooks suggests that the "fanatics on the alt-right and the alt-left" are necessarily "unattractive men".
The male part I'm willing to accept ... but unattractive?
I've seen photos of the El Paso Walmart shooter -- not a model, but not unattractive.
The same holds for Timothy McVeigh.
I consider Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch mosque shooter, to be ruggedly handsome.
James Alex Fields, Jr., the Charlottesville car murderer, was and is a good-looking guy.
Mr. Brooks is feeding the dangerous stereotype that ugly thoughts correlate with an ugly face.
3
Those questioning Brooks's inclusion of the online cancel culture it's all about identity alt-left here are exactly what he is talking about.
David, brilliant and all encompassing. No further commentary needed.
1
Except for the "I read Dostoyevsky’s “Notes From the Underground,” -- it sounds just like Trump.
Conservatives have brought us to Trumpism, and David has enabled their slow, steady march for most of his career.
And now their Frankenstein monster is eating the country alive along with all the principles that America was holding sacred.
And now comes the “both sides have monsters” meme.
I don’t think David can accept responsibility for his part in all of this.
8
What value is this column? There is no evidence that any people actually are the way Mr. Brooks describes. Perhaps if Brooks is interested in understanding anything or sharing that understanding with his readers, he should actually do the work of meeting and analyzing the individuals he caricaturizes here. Brooks's descriptions say more about himself than anyone else.
1
Brooks employs the favorite rhetorical tool of the right (but not conservative) - the false equivalence.
The voice is that of "fanatics on the alt-right and alt-left", yet the examples intended to personalize it all are "gourmet coffee and yoga pants" and "Dostoyevsky" - not 'beer nuts and camo pants' or 'Ayn Rand'.
If Brooks actually took the time to look at facts rather than his expectations he would find a full-bodied alt-right and an eviscerated alt-left. He'd also point out that no mass-shooter has been motivated by the latter.
2
So? What are we supposed to do about you? Understanding you doesn't point the way for me. It sounds like it is too late to hope for better.
I'm sure that there are lots of people who think like this. But as usual, Mr. Brooks draws a false equivalence between left and right. (Bad people on both sides[!}) I have not heard of any young antifas going out and shooting up a mosque, a chain store or a garlic festival. Before Mr. Brooks creates a blanket statement, he needs to suggest why white supremacists are the ones who are actually killing for political reasons.
2
Another false equivalency between the alt-left and alt-right... A progressive, even a member of antifa, won't walk into a Walmart with an AR-15. Enough said..
4
This is pretty off-base. Sorry but hipster kids (i.e. those raised on yoga pants and organic coffee) may be annoying but they don't end up being the trolls described in this piece.
3
Trump exploits that pouncing on missteps that David Brooks speaks of.
By exaggerating, and lying, Trump fuels the enlightened ones, and makes him seem the victim of his own trappings.
The typical Republican argument of not taking ownership of their problem with extremism in their party. Brooks lost me right at the beginning of the second paragraph when he indicates that this “person” was “alt-right and the alt-left”. Yes, radicalization happens at both ends but conservatives favorite talking point of also leveling the left to the acts of the right is only a way to normalize it.
A remarkable piece of writing, sir.
2
This bifurcation of reality, this is developmentally regressive. Fundamentalism of all stripes is a developmental regression. Whether it is the jihadist or the onward Christian soldier, it is the same kind of thinking.
I’m not as worried about the individual regressive human that Brooks describes here as about the organized ones who do not feel alone but rather have a sense of community grievance and “moral” purpose to rid the world of certain kinds of people, who want total domination (currently only the right is displaying this kind of behavior). Of a government that seeks to destroy the immigrant or the transgender or the voter. Those who actually have power to put people in camps and murder their souls, as
much of a pressing current event as the lonely white boy and his guns and 8chan.
Of this kind I have a warning from the past.
“After murder of the moral person and the annihilation of the juridical person, the destruction of individuality is almost always successful...for to destroy individuality is to destroy spontaneity, a man’s power to begin something new out of his own resources, something that cannot be explained on the basis of reactions to environment and events” (Arendt 1976:455).
Don’t let them beat you down or make you weary with their lies and gaslighting. And of the folks Brooks describe here, we need a campaign that models a dialectical relationality, the ability to live politically between the two poles, individually and collectively.
The alt-left doesn’t exist. This “both sides” generalization normalizes the actions of bigots and creates a false equivalence.
3
At the very least , Eric Hoffer who wrote "The True Believer" should have an attribution after the last line.
1
He may have read “Notes from the Underground,” but he missed the lesson on irony.
"Smash the racist right!" So David what should we do when there are Republican Congress members that refuse to call Trump a racist and millions of Americans willing to put a racist president back into the White House? The problem on the right is they don't push back against a racist president.
Lets all just sit back and do nothing while hate crimes are on the rise, I'm sure that will really work out well. I'm sorry if confronting racism bothers you so much. I don't define fighting against racism as extremism.
3
False equivalency from Mr. Brooks, once again. Tell me, how many leftists have been shooting up innocent people lately? And how many leftists have been denying climate science? And how many leftists are white supremacists? And how many leftists are shouting "send her back" or "lock her up"? And how many leftists are enabling this vitriol to persist unchecked?
False equivalency is a BIG part of the problem right now, and this column proves it.
2
"Adults in my life have not been trustworthy. Friends have not been trustworthy. Women reject me. I passed through school unseen. You have no idea how ill equipped I am to deal with my pain. I was raised in that coddling way that protects you from every risk except real life."
Mr. Brooks: Can you support your assertions with citations from social science research, or is this piece based mostly on your personal observations and conjecture?
1
Well written piece, but are extremists that self-aware? I doubt it. Do they read literature?
Is there really an “alt-left”?
I mean really. Is there one that can seriously be compared to or held up as a “balance” to the alt right?
No doubt those who wish to combat age old oppression, exploitation, racism, and irresponsibly controlled concentrated wealth are just as subject to deforming maladies as those compelled to deny the validity of any impulse toward commonality and solidarity.
No doubt there have been and still are “underground men” who pulsate erratically to simplistic verities of watered down Marxism, liberation theology, the the stirring verses of IWW protest songs, and the roiling echos of a falling, Bastille, the Paris Commune, the Haymarket “Riot, and the Ludlow Massacre.
But today’s snap crackle pop agents of killing carnage are products of the right week echo chambers. Even the most deeply ensconced bedbugs must know that.
2
I went to this article fully expecting, based on the title, that Brooks would be trotting out the tired old "both sides" argument, that last resort of right wing columnists who can no longer mount a credible defense of their own broken ideology.
I didn't have to read very far either.
Face facts David. The Republican Party is a completely rotten organisation. It's no use pretending that being a "moderate Republican" is a respectable position.
4
Certainly there are people like Brooks describes but I don't think they are the majority. What I do find is that people who disagree with me try to lump me into that category. In fact maybe Brooks is trying to lump people who disagree with him into the category of extremism. I'm not sure. I do know, if you are a person who is trying to drive holes through the bottom of the life boat, you are an enemy of the inhabitants of the life boat. You might be a nice and wonderful person but if your policies will result in the sinking of the society, you are making yourself a problem.
Breathtakingly brilliant and insightful. Why David Brooks is, indeed, a national treasure. A voice of reason in a world hanging ever so precariously from its hinges.
2
Not that I have met anyone described in this article---avoid social media completely. But, I do question pundits---particularly conservatives---whose bent is to attribute certain negative qualities to upcoming generations---millennials for example---Is the profile in this piece representative of a character deficiency in a new generation or is it representative of profile that lives in every generation? As a boomer, I remember my Dad---a member of the greatest generation---telling me that the young people he was hiring just didn't have the same motivation and work habits of his generation---blaming the lack of drive and perseverance to his generation's experience with war and depression. And, to be honest, I fed that same line to my son...and so it goes.
"People are not defined by individual traits but by group ones."
Will Rogers said, "I never met a man I didn't like." I used to think of this quote as nonsensical until I realized he was not talking about groups. On a personal, individual level there is usually something to like about anyone. It is when we identify with a group that we choose a side and this is what divides us and the internet, particularly social media, rather than uniting us, is setting us at each others' throats.
I think we were too hasty in embracing the internet and should have given some thought to what the downside could be; but we all fell for the packaging on the new toy. I have friends who are better human beings in person than their likes, shares and comments on sociopolitical matters would suggest.
Your internet fanatic is a perfect portrait of a dehumanized internet troll for whom there is no 'social' in media. We are wanting in our humanity when we can only define ourselves by group identity. Perhaps he should walk away from the computer, put the smart phone down, and experience the reality of life with real people. He might actually find people he likes and be liked in return.
2
The technological age we live in dictates a lot of current behavior, IMO. We know too much too soon and can't absorb or adjust quickly enough. We have lost control of our situation, and cannot respond before change occurs, is announced and superseded by more change. We are at a loss and feel threatened. Hence, dictators seize the moment!
3
I am a 1968 draft resistor, a Canadian citizen of the past 50+ years.
The true believers in my former country are everywhere, certainly including the sad soul depicted by Mr. Brooks.
Let's also include those insisting, even yet, that they live in a country defined by 'exceptionalism', 'a beacon on a hill' to other nations, the sole and peerless creator and upholder of democracy, a nation singularly blessed by God and ordained to lead and police everyone else, whose history of invading other countries to acquire more land and treasure is still its 'manifest destiny'?
Please.
Fanatical thinking South of the 49th parallel comes in many stripes and colours, including that of America's attention-needy, Sharpie-wielding President, elected overwhelmingly by those who believe every single word of what I've written here.
3
The problem is not the guy making the stuff up on the internet, trolling people, and sowing discord. It is that others believe him. Though the nihilist described by Mr. Brooks is no doubt a threat, one almost unimaginable a decade ago, lunatics only become particularly dangerous when others, for whatever reason, take them seriously.
Whatever collective ability we had to evaluate arguments, the merits of others’ positions, has disappeared into a partisan world of make-believe, when we are always right, and the opposition is always wrong.
Disease, such as the nihilism described in this column, only strikes societies that are divided.
2
Thank you, David. This makes me think of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, from base to more complex, physiological (food, water, rest); safety; love and belonging; esteem; self-actualization. Now, in my uneducated arrogance, I have always thought that Maslow left out the most basic: existence. People at their core want to be acknowledged that they even exist, that they are here. I think David hints at this in this piece. I think that this most basic need, if thwarted, might explain a lot of extreme behavior, including mass murders. If I am not acknowledged, my needs and desires, then I will do progressively more extreme things until I am recognized and acknowledged. "If I don't exist, then you can't either." How can this most basic need be successfully met for more people, for those on the fringes who are failing? The usual answers: a family that works together, a school system that teaches real skills besides abstractions of topics like math, technology, and business; a society that actually cares - the scandinavian models are not perfect, but have a lot to teach us.
2
I am a columnist. I am a reasonable man. All too reasonable. I believe that the yin and yang in society are always in tension, equally and oppositely.
I project onto the left what I see in the right. Where there is an alt-right, there must be an alt-left. They are equal in strength and scope, and their pursued outcomes and methods are the same.
Early in my career, I was brought up in the company of those who quietly yet almost certainly held ideas that I claim to detest. And so I rationalize for them, believing in my core that, precisely because these ideas exist on the right, they must therefore exist on the left.
Nativism and racism are irrational and incompatible with our conventions and morals as a society. Yet so too is "Smash the racist right" incompatible with our conventions as a society. Can we as a society tolerate much longer young students shouting down speakers with whom they disagree? And what about Antifa?
For the love of God, I will continue to conflate these as equal and opposite—and never, ever, write a column explaining how these continue to be two sides of an unbiased coin. Because they must be equal.
Because only through false equivalence, softening the edges I know to be hard and hardening those I know to be soft, do I know how to live with myself and what I dutifully and cunningly helped, in my own very small way, create.
23
Thank you!
1
This is only one sample of societal measurement - take a deep breath, sky is not falling. American society is robust and resilient - there are many examples of healthy and purposeful minds amongst us. The question is, is this the canary in coal mines, is our society is going on a track that is different from the historical trend. My answer is possibly - inequality. Drug use, single mother family, gun violence - these are major social indicators that shows the trend. As a healthy society, we are not able to address the need of the society beyond “survival” needs and as a result in our “post-survival” society we are clueless about our”life”. We need focus on our needs for twenty first century life - it is not more cloths, bigger Hamburger, slick cell phones, and faster cars - it is healthy diets of mind, emotions and life and how to know that and get it cheaply. We lack those products - our corporations and intellectuals and politicians do not know about this challenge and does not care about it as long as their bank accounts are fattening. Time has come to look for simplicity, love, compassion, celebrations of nature, and oneness. Can we bring these simple thoughts to our individual life to change the trend of our society?
1
The irony of this column is that in critiquing a mindset that simplifies the world in order to render it coherent, Mr. Brooks simplifies the character traits of his hypothetical fanatic, but still paints an incoherent picture.
Which is it? Their parents were helicoptering coddlers, or absentee guardians who never taught them right from wrong?
Maybe what Mr. Brooks doesn't want to admit is that people are actually a lot more complicated than that, and that people with his ideal upbringing could also end up as nothing more than internet trolls. But admitting that would entail admitting that sometimes there really are forces outside of our control that are powerful enough to push us down paths we wouldn't choose if we knew at the outset where they would lead. Those forces can be overcome and those lives can be redirected, but it takes the whole community coming together to effect that change. Repeating some mantra you heard at a Jordan Peterson lecture won't cut it.
6
Hyperbolic exaggeration for literary effect notwithstanding, "The chaos at the core of my innermost being" partakes of the same sort of demonization that the writer usually -- and rightly -- laments. For a supposedly empathetic moralist tending to rationalist, humanist sensibilities (so long as they can be comfortably called "conservative"), this is quite a revealing departure. He defines the "fanatic" and, if implicitly, wants us to, yes, hate it (as described). Just exactly as his targets do to others.
"People are not defined by individual traits but by group ones. Individual persons are too complicated, but groups are abstract and easy to stereotype. Every human being gets reduced to some category..." often seems to be this writer's only template, the only tool available, wielded even here (as perhaps projection requires).
Consistent with the sorting of humanity into binary categories usually indulged, can we see next a column on the inner monologue of a fanatic centrist? The material may be closer at hand (and would, of course, be painted in rosier colors).
1
Perhaps what we need is humility? Being humble and accepting our own human nature may pave the way forward. There’s so much ego, so much “I” in the current narratives, right to the point that it’s always an individual failure, that someone’s core is rotten. Perhaps it’s the whole basket that needs some work, some undestanding, some humility?
4
Seems like our Mr. Brooks never will tire , albeit ever so eloquently , and perhaps subtly, of trying to equate the alts right and left. He never tires of trying to have readers "see both sides" of the wrongs being committed when any rational person can objectively detect that the essence of the violence and civil, social problems in the Divided States originates from the conservative republicans, be they evangelicals, any number of alt right groups, a republican Senate which fails to act to curb the violence, but who serve at the behest of President Trump's effort to create and maintain the ensuing chaos in the country and gradually the rest of the world. Our Mr. Brooks has assumed the role, apparently as his life's mission, to justify it all, always by trying to create any number of false equivalences between the right and left. I would like to believe he pushes these articles to simply attain the response level he gets from his readers, but I believe our Mr. Brooks is really Right there. It's not just one side promoting violence, for him, it always takes two to tango. Ultimately, he is part of the problem, not the solution. Even if he clocks it all in his veneer of fine writing.
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I think he’s saying that the isolation and resulting partially self-perpetuating loneliness that are at the root of the lunacy of online extremism are not restricted to right or left. Having said that, I do tend to think that one extreme feeds off the other, so one or the other side would be, at the least, less “in your face” without its opposite number.
1
Before the internet this kind of existential delimna was private and largeley unexpressed. It was hidden, covert, and surpressed.
There was no outlet; no mask to hide behind and reach out to others of like mind.
Let's face it, by it's very nature the internet enables the formentation of hate and dark forces of violence.
On line these bad actors can pump one another up, Then they get ready to come out in person and physically join their mob of preference. They thus acquire an identity and potency they did not enjoy before. If they really want to be dangerous, they have company.
After all is said and done, it will be upon the social media guys like FB that the burden will fall to police this traffic. The 1st Amendment people will have to stand aside in favor of the greater public good which is security, peace, and civil rights.
5
David Brooks wants us to believe that those who have no other goal than getting richer and those who want a more equal distribution of health are equivalent. No way.
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@Roland Berger
No, what he hopes we realize is that not all of any subset can be specifically or strictly defined as either or.
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@Roland Berger
I think you’re making his point. Seeing the rich as a group of evil one-dimensional beings absorbing all things while denying benefits to the rest of us is cut from the same cloth.
There are no shortage of wealthy people that start and operate businesses that employ people in a very healthy way. To do that, they take on a lot of personal risk, stress and responsibilities. People don’t actually see the other side and just feed their own ideas.
1
@Mike Cos
As there are saints in any religion, which is far from to be saint.
Putting aside the attempt at equivalence, which seems to be a systemic disease whereby which multiple outrages by one side are entirely excused by a single misstep by the other, what's the solution here? Kindness, decency, civility, working together for something larger, a devotion to higher principles even when there are differences....have been completely discredited by ambitious people who want more. As has Brooks' own communitarian conservatism. The more leadership shows it cares only for spoils and punishment, the more the alienated person in the basement finds a cause. To repeat what I said before: What's the solution, beyond handwringing?
2
It is all about labeling, categorizing and appointing one to a specifically defined subset of character flaws. Some fall comfortably into that subset simply because it is easy, it does not require any thought beyond what is placed directly in front of them. In this modern age we all tend to get caught up in it but careful thoughtful responsible types realize that none of it is strictly or precisely definitive.
4
There is a larger struggle going on here. David omits the most obvious descriptor, males who were brought up in the religious confines of the patriarchy. Every woman can cite examples of men who feel entitled because they were born male. How they deal with that feeling of entitlement is a function of their personality or personality disorder. And in this time in history, that mind set has become a personality disorder.
13
Why do you always try to implicate the left as much as the right? It’s simply not true. Nobody denies the existence of extremists on both sides but there is no equivalency. The left does not have a standard bearing political party that codifies the messages of bigotry and demonization. The left has not tried to chip away and diminish democratic principles.
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But, the alt-left leaders speak of no compromise just like the right. Same over identification with a belief. It’s not like left leaning governments haven’t ever gone astray.
@Mike
Because David Brooks is a lifelong Conservative Movement supporter. They believe the left is ALWAYS worse than the right. It is a life long anchor that Brooks clings to.
4
@Mike Cos
However as Mike NY pointed out, it's a question not of degree, but *amount*. Simple common sense tells us that 50,000 troublemakers are vastly more dangerous than 50, assuming an equal degree of each individual's vituperation. If we pretend anything else, it's less than honest.
1
Thank you for this spot-on perspective of how it may feel to be a young man in these days.
I am an old woman, but I have been aided over the past 25 years with a theory I heard at a medical ethics conference. I can see the face of the speaker but cannot recall his name. He said that even in what seem like complex moral dilemmas, if we take a minute and think, we can usually recognize what is the right thing to do, from wrong choice(s). I have found that to be so, and have made decisions using that method over and over ( I have been a medical professional since 1984). I wish the driver who killed Heather Heyer had stopped for just 2 minutes to consider his choices before he acted in anger and hate.
I encourage others to "give it a try." But I will also warn that what is clearly " right" is often more difficult than the other choice(s.)
5
So! glad you mentioned Notes from Underground at the end. I was thinking that all the was through. Great piece.
2
Dostoevsky resolved the problem in his final novel:
“Love one another, Fathers,” said Father Zossima, as far as Alyosha could remember afterwards. “Love God's people. Because we have come here and shut ourselves within these walls, we are no holier than those that are outside, but on the contrary, from the very fact of coming here, each of us has confessed to himself that he is worse than others, than all men on earth.... And the longer the monk lives in his seclusion, the more keenly he must recognize that. Else he would have had no reason to come here. When he realizes that he is not only worse than others, but that he is responsible to all men for all and everything, for all human sins, national and individual, only then the aim of our seclusion is attained. For know, dear ones, that every one of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men and everything on earth, not merely through the general sinfulness of creation, but each one personally for all mankind and every individual man. This knowledge is the crown of life for the monk and for every man.
15
The New York Times has published two excellent opinion pieces in as many days. Thomas Edsall's opinion column about 'The Need for Chaos' published on the 4th was deep and thought provoking. Now David Brooks ads his voice about internet extremists. Both efforts describe ancient human weaknesses, enabled and amplified by the new technologies at our disposal. Will our culture and institutions prove capable of managing the small voices that seek their destruction?
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Incredible and haunting article, thank you for this, an importance piece discussing both the far left AND the far right
5
So great article. This is a must read for all. It is true there are extremes on both sides, it is also true that people who try to defend alternative facts are they themselves alternative. They try to stir the pot, no doubt. What puzzles me is why the masses want to believe them. I can't understand what motivates an individual to believe alternative facts. Just yesterday a person told me that China and Russia are trying to buy Greenland. Really!! He was trying to defend trump. When I told him that Denmark did not have that authority, he just shrugged his shoulders. He did not know that we have a military base on that island already. I can't believe to the extent that trumplicans will go to believe him. The weather map showing him being correct in his assessment that Alabama was in the cone of the path Dorian is so blatently false that I thought I was watching the Three Stogies. I mean really, what kind of humane being does that and what kind of human being is allowing themselves to believe it. That is the question that needs to be answered, that is what is being put forward in this article.
8
This is one of the most powerful pieces of writing I have read. How do people become so disaffected? It has always been a mystery to me. How much is their responsibility? How much blame belongs elsewhere? I still don't know the answer but this column has got me thinking.
5
There are many children, especially, but not limited to African Americans that have been raised in the conditions you cite.
Most of them, thank God, do not turn into alt right or alt left, in fact most of them are angry young white men.
I do agree that there is something wrong with a society that allows children to live in the conditions you have described, but it is the Republican party (your party) (and has been since the beginning of the party) that discourages any type of aid (health care, education, food, housing). Of course, it has gotten worse, much worse under the person that occupies the white house. However, I don't see Mitch or his senator leaders doing much about it.
You cannot blame the children for the conditions many of them live in.
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@esp
Why not look to the institutions, whether schools or daycare where the children spend the majority of their waking hours. No one is home to coddle or ignore, and the poor teachers and daycare providers have to be overwhelmed and exhausted.
2
Mr. Brooks' description would be a very pure strain of dissatisfaction and distrust. I don't think it takes that to be a genuine malcontent. I have observed some of these characteristics in people who are quietly or outspokenly unhappy and there appear to be millions of them.
3
The alt-right consists of people who self-identify under that label. But what exactly is the alt-left? Is there actually such a thing, a label that people self-identify under? I'm thinking not.
15
@Michael Ando Good question. I don't know the answer, but personally I consider the Bernie or Bust crew similar to the far right--those who refused to vote for Hillary Clinton and either wrote in Sanders or Stein or the approximately 12% who voted for Trump instead (I believe it's higher). Just my personal perspective, though.
1
The more extreme end of the BernieBros is a good example.
I am a developmental psychologist. I study parenting and culture and how it affects kids. This is simply factually wrong. Coddling can create fragility. Chaos can create a desire for order. But it’s emotional neglect or the intrusive unwillingness to see the child for who they are or outright abuse that creates hate. We aren’t loving and indulging kids too much. We are pushing them and ignoring them and not letting them be kids.
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I agree with you. I think it's much less about parenting than it is about the peer group. And social media gives ample opportunity for young and especially middle aged malcontents searching for ways to feel powerful and recognized to find peer support for the worst aspects of their personalities. None of us are immune, either. I see it in my friends and occasionally glimmers of it in myself. It's tempting to do things that make you feel you're striking blows for good by demeaning others, especially from the remove of FB or Reddit. I agree that in this piece Brooks has fallen into a couple of logical fallacies. He is implying cause and effect where there isn't any evidence for it. He, like all of us searches for a master narrative that knits together all our pet philosophies. In his case, he wants to link his views on a lack of concrete morality instruction in modern parenting and the negative consequences of materialism over values with the frightening radicalization spurring on the worst aspects of the political left and right. But I do think he has given us an insight into the development of a social media extremist.
1
I'm not sure that was his point, though. I see this "coddling" as a very poor substitute for actual parenting. Any reasonable parenting style, in my opinion, is likely to produce a healthy child if it's core is actual commitment to loving and guiding a child. This "coddling" that we have seen all around us, "you can do anything," this self esteem nonsense is really just lazy parents not actually parenting, but thinking they are while they play with their phone. Kids have a need for love and an innate ability to smoke out real love from the fake. Kids and adults need to be"seen," but a kid who is seen by his parents will usually be just fine, and maybe even stronger, even if he or she is not seen by his or her peers. All it takes is actually caring and putting the time in, not just giving it lip service.
2
That’s what he said...we refuse to see the child for who (s)he is. We think we are playing with dolls and we tire of them when they become real work.
I am David Brooks. I can't tolerate what has happened to conservatism and am dismayed at the wreckage caused by my party. So I retreat from the difficult complexities of politics and write flat psychological profiles I can apply to both left and right.
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@Nancy B
Thing is, I believe the right and the left have totally different basic mindsets. And Brooks, as most Conservatives, think the left think exactly like the right, but on the other side. Simple observation shows how false that is. Their basic behaviors are totally different.
8
Hmmm, an expected response to any David Brooks piece. And yet the persons he describes are quite real for all to see.
@Nancy B And I focus on the mote in the eye of those who have disrupted my existence while ignoring the beam in my eye that enabled me to cast aside my wife for an intern.
4
This article captures the reasons that causes people to go to the fringes of the political spectrum when there is no shining light leading the human herd to the center.
3
Brooks offers a hypothetical example of the alt-left. The first thing to note is that the term alt-left was invented by Fox news and Trump as a term to smear all progressives. A group calling itself the alt-left does not exist.
Another problem is the circularity of Brooks' argument. It seems his hypothetical member of the alt-left is pathological in a variety of ways. Why is this? Brooks says his parents raised him without backbone or moral principle. But then he says the problem is really social, social fragmentation and fluid modernity. A pathological society produces pathological individuals; pathological individuals constitute a pathological society.
So is the problem that society is pathological? If so, then the solution to extreme thinking must be social change. But Brooks does not propose it. Like a preacher, he assumes that if we all were to heed his word, a better world will spontaneously emerge.
This mentalist solution would be extraordinarily naive, but Brooks also offers a materialist explanation of the core problem: "the flux of liquid modernity". The term modernity refers to the social conditions associated with capitalism. So despite himself, Brooks is arguing that the cure for the pathological individual is structural change, a change in capitalist relations of production
16
I am a conservative opinion-writer trying to spread blame for the anti-social behavior of conservatives across the political spectrum. I feel so alone.
83
This article displays David's Achilles heel. That error can be described, briefly, as "false equivalence". He seems to need identical villains on the left and the right to harmonize his worldview. The facts are different. The "right" and "left" are not equivalent and labels ("alt-left"; "alt-right") are not helpful to understand this point. The fundamental characteristic of the right is anti-democratic. The left is, fundamentally, democratic. Yes, there are some nut jobs in any group, including the left, but the GOP-your party David-refused to bring a vote for a Supreme Court nominee. It refuses to bring a vote on gun control (unless nut job #1 agrees with it). There is not space here to detail all of the anti-democratic actions of the right. Reader: don't be fooled by this false equivalence. It is the standard line that has been fed to the public since the days of Woodrow Wilson's witch hunts.
50
Many comments dislike David’s identification of loneliness and extremism on both the right and left. They are wrong to deny the existence of a “political bell curve” that has two tails, very small in numbers but made to appear much more significant though amplification provided my various internet media platforms. It’s about statistics, and to deny the existence of an extreme and troubled left is to deny math and statistics. Brooks is dead on with this piece. Luckily, for all of us, the normal distribution still holds, and the great majority of Americans are not in the thin tails of extremism. But availability bias can sometimes mislead one into thinking the extremes are more significant than they are.
13
@Bill Bluefish yes, two statistical tails.
Left extremism: healthcare for all, measures to address climate change, regulations on capitalism to prevent greed, income inequality addressed with sane tax policy.
Right extremism: cage those brown people, restrict women's reproductive choice, rig the system so the rich get richer, deregulate environmental protections, more and more fossil fuel use.
Yeah, statistically equivalent.
36
@Leslie
That is not right extremism.
That is GOP 2019 policy.
@Leslie
As you write, you only confirm his observations.
This column offers a depth of intellectualism and thought that transcends much of the dialogue that a fractured world daily foists upon us.
Brooks' column is not alone about fanaticism. It is about the increasingly prevalent mainstreaming of biases, along with philosophical and policy circles that simply do not overlap. It describes so many of us, whether we wish to acknowledge it or not, and regardless of whether we are on the right or left.
In short, it is a self-portrait in a world where everything is zero-sum, and where what might be viewed as aberrational personality disorders have seemingly become the norm.
It may be an extreme view, but in an era where positional intractability on both sides increasingly prevents accommodation by either, what Brooks' refers to as fanaticism has become anything but. It is, sadly, the new normal.
4
Mr Brooks,
Imagine, if you will, that this lost soul with the damaged mind, has been elected President of the United States.
Imagine that an entire political party has stood in his defense, defending this man as he ignores common manners, breaks norms, and even laws. Repeatedly.
Imagine this President calling women and men and children fleeing violence an “invasion”, an “infestation” and taking children away from their parents only to keep them cruelly in cages. But only one person in his party will speak out, and no one listens to him.
Imagine that same political party still supporting that President as he grows increasingly mad, and as he tears at the very structure of the country, as he breaks trusted alliances, and strategically reworks the national defense budget in such a way as to benefit this country’s most dangerous enemy.
Imagine the leadership of this party willfully, and proudly participating in the destruction of our very country.
But this isn’t something we’re imagining, is it Mr Brooks?
70
I think Mr. Brooks would agree with you.
David,
The rich are funding think tanks, donating to super pacs and investing in media empires. They hire people to show up at demonstrations and town meetings. They pour in money to oppose candidates they don't like.
Donald Trump is president, Fox News is his propaganda channel and the entire Republican party is turning a blind eye to his corruption.
And you don't think we have a problem with the greed and outsized influence of the wealthy?
33