"You feel voiceless tonight. These people have felt voiceless their whole lives. Just listen."
Powerful words.
32
I have always thought David Brooks was a good and fairly non-partisan writer. But, in this piece he interjects his religious beliefs to make his point. To me that is unacceptable argument for an educated intelligent writer to make. Not all of us believe in Christianity and the using his belief in souls disappoints me and changes my formerly positive opinion of him as an objective writer.
9
A Soul? It’s sad to see anyone hanging their hat on anything so poetic and ridiculous. We have learned that when the brain stops, the lights go out. No evidence for a soul has ever existed so basing a common humanity on that falsehood is a step in the wrong direction. What makes us all equal is death. Our common humanity is that we are all the same Genus and Species, and that we all share space on this tiny sphere hurtling through blackness. So skin color, language, or sexual orientation make no difference to that commonality. Bad ideas like soul, or deity, or racism, or voting for Trump, are just bad ideas that divide us from each other.
10
Racial hostility is so ingrained, often from childhood, that there is probably no way to moderate it. Segregation may be the only answer. Yes.
So funny everyone gives this author the benefit of the doubt when he is basically a Trump supporter. So hypocritical.
3
Wrong, David! The GOP, and you as member, pretend to care but you really want bodies to be unequal.
You and the GOP want limited contraception access, want to forbid abortion, and want to put those bodies they have abortions in prison.
You and they even want to investigate early miscarriages, via forced examination of those unequal folks' body cavities.
They even want those unequal bodies that are forcibly impregnated to have no recourse.
There's always enough money for a man who brags about sexual assault ( your president, David !) to take endless trips to Florida- but there's never enough money to examine the nations's estimated 100-200 K untested rape kits.
Yeah, it's about bodies, David.
2
Uh, no .....
All people are equal because ... all people are equal.
It's that simple. No souls involved or required.
8
it is Natural Law
1
And just where does this soul reside?
6
If believing in a soul is what it takes to make you a better person, then self-delusion is a small price to pay. But wouldn't a truly moral person make the right choices absent eternal heaven or hell hanging over their head?
5
No David, some among us are soulless with no hope of a common home among us. Mussolini, Hitler, our neighbor, Giuliani, the leader who killed Khashoggi, the journalist or Trump? Not in my common soulful home! Enough with the philosophizing availing us nothing.
4
Yes. Yes. Yes.
"It is the belief that our souls make us all radically equal. Our brains and bodies are not equal, but our souls are. It is the belief that the person who is infuriating you most right now still has a soul and so is still, deep down, beautiful and redeemable. It is the belief that when all is said and done all souls have a common home together, a final resting place as pieces of a larger unity.
When people hold fast to their awareness of souls, then they have a fixed center among the messiness of racial reconciliation and they give each other grace. If they lose the concept of the soul, they’ve lost everything."
4
All well and good. Except Brooks' Republicans, bless their hearts, cannot find it in themselves to agree.
As somebody else put it, they believe all animals are equal but some animals (the white ones) are more equal than others (the brown ones).
Moreover, the soul is a concept that not all religions or Americans endorse.
Happily, here in America anyway we are radically equal because of this humdinger, found in our very own Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, ..."
4
"It is the belief that the person who is infuriating you most right now still has a soul and so is still, deep down, beautiful and redeemable."
That is one of the most beautiful and true things I have read in a long time. Thank you for the reminder and call to grace.
3
It sounds like Brooks is just realizing that even people who haven't tasted or correctly pronounced everything an extensively stocked Italian deli has to offer might still have value.
It's not a "soul" that makes each person infinitely valuable. It's the more mundane belief that every single person has worth and dignity. The drug addict, the Wall Street trader, the redlining realtors -- all of these have innate value as much as Mother Teresa, a school teacher, a glittering artist.
When one is able to break away from the narrow, controlling dictates of a Judeo-Christian-Calvinist ethics and conceive of people apart from capitalism, it becomes clear that everyone truly does have worth. It may not translate into "great" accomplishment or flashy wealth (rarely the habitat of the well-adjusted). Valuable people are gadflies and loners, abstract thinkers and those who experience the world and ideas more concretely (what the alt-right derides as "low IQ"), early risers and those who loiter in bed -- all are worth our baseline acceptance and inclusion.
We might hope that destructive people like trump, giuliani, the bushes, Sirhan Sirhan are punished for behaving very badly. Even that does not erase their basic humanity. It's why so many of us are pained when the US rains down shock and awe on our "enemies" -- we distrust the government's assessment of how dangerous they are, and we want them treated humanely regardless of what they've done.
3
Beautifully said. The Divine Spark. So obviously present in every sentient being.
3
A heartening piece that should be widely read. I have, however, one smallish quibble. One of the definitions of "equal" is "like in quality, nature, or status." We'd probably agree that amongst humans there are variations in quality and status -- acknowledging, nevertheless, that these variations often are not fixed, and that they are based on judgment, and therefore subject to cognitive and emotional distortion. If it seems natural to "notice" that we are different in terms of quality and status, it might also seem (one hopes) natural to notice that we are all humans, members of the same species. I believe that it is in this membership, rather than the abstract (and controversial) notion of soul, that we might best locate our equality, and with it all of the rights and obligations that over time have become self-associated with our species. Locating equality at the species level also permits us to bypass the (non)question of whether other species' possess souls and therefore rights; we can more easily accept that by virtue of their existence, other species do have rights. Our choices of classification bear heavy burdens.
3
"The moral universe"? Which universe is that? The Judeo-Christian universe (with an update for women and gays)? The American universe (which is exceptionally far from universal). Did Saddam have a soul? I don't remember you pointing that out before the invasion. Does Assad have a soul, barrel bombs aside? Having a soul, according to Preacher Brooks guarantees radical equality, because, ostensibly, we've all got one. Let's forget for the moment the almost infinite variations on the "soul" or Dante's exploration, 750 years ago (which has not been improved upon) -- does this mean because we're all filled with chemical and electronic connections, that the nature of our perceptions leads us to construct, or interpret, reality in a generally common way, render us all radically equal? Great. Now I don't have to pay more tax to support the lazy welfare cheats.
Why is the work always to those oppressed, people of color. Why doesn't the Privileged including David Brooks realize that for the Generation that are currently rebelling see how their parents and grandparents have suffered countless ups and downs. To start over every generation is a luxury. Those who maintain their standing by generating hate and blame those who try their best to be fair. Obama's hope was to be a fair POTUS despite the indignities heaped upon him by Senators like McConnell and the GOP.
Trump has trampled that by saying we are not giving up our Privilege. Trump believew we had our chance, but now that they are in control, they will never give it up.
Rebellion in its current form is necessary because until this Generation of McConnells, Bidens and Trumps fade away, there will never be a fair and even understanding between the Privileged and the less fortunate.
2
Thank you, David Brooks. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have felt uplifted by your slicing through the outer layers and finding the kernel of truth that reminds us to keep moving forward, even in the the midst of a toxic atmosphere. Truth must always be found in our souls.
3
You can either choose to be love or not in every moment of living. Love is the great equalizer. It is utterly unreasonable, completely independent of mind. It is feeling beyond the distinction of "other". It is the most fundamental expression of living. It is what we all want to do. What makes us equal is that we can chose to love or not.
One of the most impressive things in Mr. Brooks’s article is his quoting Frederick Douglass:
“Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull and indifferent; but measuring him from the sentiment of his country … he was swift, zealous, radical and determined.”
If only today’s moralistic zealots could similarly eschew their stance of “one strike and you’re out; no redemption permitted”. Frederick Douglass is a shining moral example and inspiration.
62
This was a remarkable column, thank you for writing it. I thought it was beautiful and profoundly true, and honestly I don't usually care for your writings. The political slant here is still very subtly to the right, I think. The last sentence clearly demonstrates some understanding that people can in fact be alienated from their own souls or fail to empathize with the humanity of others. It shouldn't be incumbent upon the oppressed to acknowledge the humanity of their oppressors. The professional elite fully deserves its guilty conscience so long as they continue with the current hyper-exploitative imperialism, I'm afraid it's as simple as that.
2
(I got cut off -- to continue:) I don't disagree with Mr Brooks, but I wish he had explained how the soul concept might unite us in the future, when its record so far has been rather uneven.
2
I generally appreciate the work of the later, more philosophical David Brooks, but he does sometimes show the flaws of the (admittedly intelligent) amateur -- such as not thinking things through quite enough.
Contrary to what many think, religious war is not an historical constant , but a specialty of Christians and Muslims. Both groups preach the concept of the eternal soul, yet both groups, between themselves and among their respective sects, have consistently fought vicious wars, and committed terrible atrocities, to determine who understands the concept more correctly. I don't really disagree
1
As always, Mr. Brooks say a lot of lovely things about uniting people, and then divides us in this case, into believers(good) and nonbelievers(bad).
I have not "lost everything" because I don't share the religious beliefs fo David Brooks.
5
It's 2019 and Mr. Brooks is falling back on the idea of Natural Law?
The "moral universe" is not going to step in and wave a magic wand to banish racism (or any other injustice perpetrated by PEOPLE).
The concept of "equality" is a distraction. We waste time trying to "figure out" if people are "equal". How we treat people (whether we think they are equal or not) is the only measure one can take.
And, BTW, if we waited on "grass roots" awareness on the part of whites to kickstart the Civil Rights Movement, it never would have happened.
Vote! Put people in office that will create policies to back up and make real our profession that all Americans should have equal rights under the law.
I hasten to remind readers if we had not elected Dems in 2018, we would still be relying on the assurances of Mr. Brooks and the rest of the GOP that there is no governmental solution to perfidy...
3
Good grief, let's talk about the socio-economic abyss??? It is so easy to hypothesize about the equality of our souls when one is wealthy. Ah, Privilege. The great marginalizer. The great commodifier.
6
Wonderful sentiments Mr. Brooks. Here’s how I wish these ideas were expressed in the Supreme Court this week, (and anywhere people interact). Are these LGBT and Transgender people citizens of this country? Do they have to obey the same laws and do the laws apply equally to them. Do they have the same responsibilities, if they do then they must have the same rights. If the answers to those questions are yes, for any group,(racial, gender, sexual), then there shouldn’t be any discrimination, ever.
5
The infrastructure and foundation of this country is racism. We can have all the happy talk about understanding etc, not till we acknowledge the core of racism in this country will we ever be free.
Greed capitalism is the second greatest sin because we use money to keep other people down. All we have to do is look at the people who are involved in the great scandal currently playing out in DC, white privileged men with the leadership who is a bigot.
They have access to capital and no commitment to democracy because their mere whiteness gives them privileges that are unheard of to the regular person . most people just wants to walk down the street without being shot by the white police officer or a white person who believes in stand your ground.
Most of us will never experience justice in America so happy talk is not in our environment either. Glad for the people in Detroit , happy that some good has come out of the experience. However this country is very big and daily racism is very ingrained in our lives.
Trumps rally yesterday was very racist, the white people were like participants at a old time lynching, having a good time while watching their leader lie and be so white.
5
Very uplifting. Personally, I've experienced this love at Belmont Park. When I see an old White guy in a straw hat kibbitzing with a young Hispanic man, in a line, over a racing form, I see soul brothers. And hope.
3
Appreciate the article, David. I do think the word "soul" has some baggage and elicits different things across the spectrum. I think your worthy goal is to help get us to more harmonious and productive human interactions.
There is a practical way to help get us there: Empathy. With true empathy, which includes humility and listening, we don't need to seek to iron out our differences, which can be viewed like the different colors, sizes and scents of flowers in a meadow.
4
Sometimes, to be human, we have to take a side. David’s chosen party, and those voters who support the Trump/ GOP agenda and their priorities of more for those who already have enough and less help for those in need, the demonization of immigrants, the destruction of clean air and water for personal profit, the packing the court system with those who don’t believe in the Constitution, civil rights, women’s rights or voting rights for all citizens, or even that the Office of the President is not a monarchy have taken a side. It doesn’t make them less human but they are not our better angels that David implores us to be with every column.
Having compassion for those who will gladly do us harm is important. However, Wise Action suggests we do not contribute to their quest. That we even call out their injustices and hatefulness. We have to name the destructive forces and take action to reject those forces that prevent our including everyone as a part of humanity. That’s where I would like to see more of David’s energy. To simply point out the “good” over there, look away or stay silent is how we got to where we are now. The old “evil triumphs when good people do nothing.”
Respecting one another’s perspective is a wonderful start. So is asking, even persistently demanding, that the inherent worth of everyone, not just those supporting such a decisive agenda, is even more important.
2
Thank you David. I read Anne Snyder’s piece and am reminded just how messy, frustrating yet rewarding are these attempts to reach across race, SES, daily experiences to see the “soul” of Americans emerge as united, determined, unafraid, and passionate about the potentials inherent in our democracy.
3
People are not equal? How about similar? Starting we all reproduce the species the say way, have the same senses and a brain to interact with the world our minds create, suffer the same illness, grow old, born the same way, none escapes death, nor illness or heartbreaks, we all reject and accept, differently but inescapably. I could go own but my drift is there is way more that makes us equal or similar that our physical or mental attributes or lack thereof.
1
Yes, racial and social reconciliation and justice is difficult and complex. It would be less difficult and complex with a President who didn't passively support white nationalists and an administration that provided support and funding where it is desperately needed.
3
Equality is not a "soul", that is plain silly religious mumbo jumbo.
Equality as an idea amounts to absolutely nothing.
Equality without action is meaningless.
It must be fleshed out by well-founded ideals blind to meaningless differences (race, gender, creed, etc.), enriched by practical thoughts, and then driven by dedicated and altruistic actions founded on those thoughts.
Just talking about it is meaningless.
Just praying for it is a waste of precious O2.
2
Ok, David, I was moved today. You did well. And you're right -- however one defines "soul" or personal belief from when it comes, it's the one thing we all share.
3
I would respectfully ask David Brooks to speak with the several thousand people who came to Minneapolis last night to applaud the lying, cheating, racist, proudly ignorant failed businessman who they think / hope represents the future of our nation. They have no interest whatsoever in finding common ground with other Americans, particularly recent immigrants or those with brown skin----they simply want revenge and punishment for those they feel are taking their place in America.
As Brooks correctly said, "if they lose the concept of the soul, they've lost everything." From where I sit, these people have most assuredly lost their concept of their own soul or the souls of those recent immigrants. What do we do next?
4
The metaphor--that's all it is--of "soul" is fine as a spiritual teaching tool, as long as it's not taken literally. But it's also the perfect distraction for neoliberal propagandists like Brooks to provide for his rich, meritocratic Times readers, from the real problem in America: massive economic inequality in a world totally rigged against the masses for decades now by our elites. It's the economy, stupid, as always--but, finally, economic justice, not just the GDP. When either Bernie or Warren takes over, there will be a new sheriff in town, with a new Democratic Senate behind the POTUS, too.
1
Why on earth is David Brooks referring to people of different races? Certainly he knows by now that there is absolutely not one shred of scientific evidence that supports this view. We are all the same race - homo sapiens. We may have different color hair, skin, sizes, and shapes, but we are all one. The divisions are all created, learned, and perpetuated by men who want to control and manipulate and enslave others. That's the whole story, folks.
2
Beautiful Article!!
1
that great white hope, white outsider saviors are not the answer to black community problems. David will never learn that lesson, tied as he is to the mentorship of the racist wf buckley, and the defense of an honorable platform for the racism of the odious Charles Murray.
1
Amen.
1
We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Of course we are all equal and worthy of respect. Anachnu b‘tzelem elohim
David, you may be a Quaker without yet knowing it. Take a look at George Fox, John Woolman, and “the web.”
Meanwhile, we have an absolute tyrant bellowing lies on the White House driveway as his helicopter revs up. I’m supposed to look for his beautiful soul and love him? Pretty tall order.
Memento mori.
1
The Buddhist say that the soul has no objective existence. I tend to agree. It is not necessary to believe in soul to sustain good work. What drives my work in social justice is that my liberation is tied up with yours, and yours and yours. We are each others' liberators. That is the depth I plumb. Others' bodies are my body. My body belongs to you. Your story is mine and mine is yours. My challenge is to live from that reality. I can see and feel you. As you can me. That is the beginning and the end.
2
Brooks’s earnest reminder that we all have souls reminds me of what I think is a profounder take on the subject, from William Miller’s science fiction novel “A Canticle for Leibowitz.”
A right-minded atheist has come close to agreeing with a priest on a matter of practical morality.
“If I thought I had such a thing as a soul, and that there was an angry God in Heaven, I might agree with you.”
Abbot Zerchi smiled thinly. “You don’t /have/ a soul, Doctor. You /are/ a soul. You /have/ a body, temporarily.”
The visitor laughed politely. “A semantic confusion.”
“True [replies the Abbot]. But which of us is confused? …”
2
a very Christian idea,mr Brooks!
1
Four hundred years ago the black man appear on the shores of the new world in chains. After 250 yrs he was supposed to be free but Jim Crow, he couldn't just walk down the road and find freedom he was black and was easily spotted and returned to slavery under the guise of penalty. Today in White society he is called ugly names as a matter of course not because of what is known of he/she but the color of their skin nothing has changed except the physical chains being replaced by economic one
1
I think it’s a mistake to try to rest ethics on nonsense.
Brooks is right that it isn’t our bodies that make us equal, nor is it our minds. Some people are a lot stronger or more beautiful than others. Some people are a lot smarter, or more creative, than others.
But neither do our souls make us equal. Souls don’t exist, at least not in any literal sense.
So what makes people equal? Nothing. People aren’t equal.
List whatever qualities you think make a person a good person, or a happy person, or a successful person—some of us have them to a greater extent than others. People are not equal.
However we can make people MORE equal, to an extent. We can provide health care for poor people so their poverty is not fatal, in the event of serious illness. We can put in place laws to keep the smart, the rich, and the ruthless from pushing their economic advantages as far as they might wish.
What makes people equal? People CHOOSING to make people equal.
It’s as simple as that.
Lose the sentimentality and the outdated metaphysics.
And lose the commitment to a political party that is committed to making us even more unequal than we already are.
432
@Phil Camaro
Yes, there's this undying faith that if sentimentality is puffed up large enough, it will take on the appearance of substance, which means nobody has to do any of the enormously hard work that is needed.
44
@Eric, yes! As my Sunday School teacher said. "The Lord helps those who help themselves." I would add, "and others" to that. Too many people think they can sit back and not participate in trying to make the world better for everyone. We all need to contribute.
18
@Phil Cafaro
I have been waiting for someone to articulate this thought for a long time. Thank you. Stating the obvious -- that people are not equal -- offends our clinging traditions. It's you second point -- "People CHOOSING to make people equal" -- that presents the hope of fairness and progress. We are all part of a grand ecology which thrives best when its components are healthy and its members can reach their potential.
28
Answer for Americans...we are all slaves to the man you helped put into office and work to keep there.....our souls are reflected in him, he is the archetypal American, hope you are proud of yourself.
Wordsworth said it best: “.....as if, as toward the silent tomb we go, through love, through hope, with faith’s transcendent dour, We feel we’re more than we are”.
The emphasis should be on the word, feel”. Humans evolved a nervous system with a great capacity for a deep emotional life coupled with a cortex that produces these “feelings” that serves our survival but a side effect is this desire to be more than a physical body. We invented the word “soul” to represent this feeling. Get over it. There’s nothing there. It really is only synapses. Enjoy the other “feelings” of your short existence. If it makes you feel better to think there’s “more”, fine.
Mr. Brooks:
So, atheists are losers? Is the current news cycle going too fast for you? It seems to me there is a lot of soul-searching going on right now. Maybe you could comment on that next column.
I wonder what Darwin would have thought of the phrase...”divine nature of the universe”
Some very heady underlying assumptions about people’s “souls”
Balancing an ego or soul is very delicate and ever changing process...
Not sure how anybody can communicate, unless it is in some way relative to their individual
experience...which brings forward a bias that might be insurmountable
Not the strongest or smartest but quickest to adapt....
Not sure how divine “ fits” into that....
Sweet shmaltz for a jangly time. We CAN all get along !
huh?
Or are we to embrace that poor misunderstood white guy with good intentions and the privilege to develop a great space. He learned a lesson.
This is a familiar wishful effort to soften the reality of murderous rage, ruthless cruelties and racial hatred that is ever present.
Yeah yeah,,,we all have souls, breath O2, long for love.
But what about now ?
1
Well put, David!!
We all have souls....check!
Douglass was a true American, and a genius....check!!
So...now we raise taxes on the 1%; we invest our way to a clean energy future; and we ban assault weapons...right?
1
What if a cadre of cowards, like the GOP, sells their souls? They still have brains and bodies, though, and can do a great deal of damage to our country.
i think it's great that you support the Aspen Institute. Maybe a column on Bill Browder? Hedgefunding to Humanism. Gottaloveit!
Hey Mr Brooks, stop with the imaginary dialogues base your on books and articles you read.
Get real.
Go convince your Republican friends who are imprisoning children, betraying allies, and igniting hatred that everyone has a soul, and then write a column about your results!
Oh I remember this...it’s that ruse that has been used by powerful men since the beginning of time to subjugate weaker men, people of color, and pretty much all women, that is, “It’s ok to control your body, and even your mind, because that will save your soul.”
The goal of too many Democrats and progressives has been to portray black Americans as different and separate than all other Americans. This damages all Americans but especially black Americans.
The goal should be to view black Americans as Americans like all others.
1
You should be pitching your story to your fellow republicans in the House and Senate who are obviously devoid of a soul.
1
A lot of our disagreements about such things as the nature of the soul and spirituality are in our languaging which tends to label things and put them into little boxes. When we think of these things our culture visualizes the soul as a product of some external force which gives us dignity. But the sense of the dignity, the soul and inherent spirituality goes back to a time older than monotheism to a time when everything was seen as possessing an inherent animating force that resulted in order and did not depend on an external being. In the East its sometimes called Chi or atman where everything rocks, rivers and beings are not separate butt are one in essence which is more felt than rationalized. It is the thing we instinctively feel that gives us a sense of all existence as possessing inherent worth.
"Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed."
David Brooks means well. yet this is an unmistakably ridiculous and possibly racist article. the overriding message is Franklin Douglas had to be patient and recognize the compromises and it is the same today as it was for him. what an awful statement to be heard by an oppressed minority. Brooks is only half a step away from being an apologist for Trump.
2
Mr. Brooks speaks of individual souls. George Washington warned of the danger of political parties; a party does not have a soul. As Arthur Koestler notes in Darkness at Noon, party membership can make ideologues do what they abhor as individuals: including commit murder.
Granted, Trump’s firings and Barr’s Justice-Department-as-crusader-arm of the Republican Party fall short of Stalin’s purge trials. Trump doesn’t murder the ideologues who put him in power. But Trump said he could murder a nobody in the street and go free. That’s not party talking.
I’m not convinced that Trump ever had a soul. Maybe he shot it in the middle of the street one day, and nobody noticed. He may know where he buried it, like the prodigal serial killer who in the end just wants to tell his story.
Barr, Kavanaugh, Senator Graham and other Republicans arguably abandoned soul for the party struggle. Evidently the world must endure yet more injustice, race war, murder, rapine, and destruction of families fleeing injustice, war, etc., before Republicans experience a bright light on the road to Damascus.
Mr. Brooks notes that Frederick Douglas conceded that Lincoln was moral in the context of his time. Nobody can say Trump’s bag carriers are moral in any context.
The impeachment of Trump and indictment of his bag holders is “the American project” in action, as codified in The Constitution. It’s a call to individual conscience, a medicine for the soul; and it is not entered into lightly.
1
"Soul" is, unfortunately, a loaded word that many people associate more with organized religion and theology than psychology. But if you've ever observed a corpse it's obvious that it lacks some factor present in a living organism. Perhaps we could call it life or consciousness, a mysterious gift from some force that infuses the natural world. Recognizing that it's shared among all sentient beings is what connects us and makes kindness and love possible. The reduction of that consciousness, unique to humans, is what creates the ego, the mental department that (for all its usefulness) responds to the certainty of death with schemes that promote ego's private desires and interfere with what links us and makes us care for each other.
The political and social implications of this mode of linked awareness and its opposite are what Brooks' ego affiliations never take into account. Maybe some day...
There was a story a few days ago from Thailand about 5 elephants drowning while trying to save a 3 year old elephant that had fallen into a river just above a falls. According to Christian teaching though, as I understand it, elephants have no souls and hunting them for sport is perfectly moral. On the other hand my evangelical friends are always telling me that "life begins at conception" and when I ask "but when does ensoulment take place", they invariably have no answer and seem to me to have never though about it. Whether or not a zygote has a soul is irrelevant. It's all about biology and death is about biology and humans are gods favored species and therefore murder of a human is the ultimate sin. Souls have nothing to do with anything anymore.
1
I agree with the thrust of many of the commentators here - and would take it a step further ... belief in a "soul" is not only not necessary, it can also be quite counter-productive. Historically religion has quite often been the actual root cause of discord and wars (in fact, it still is today.)
To achieve community harmony, justice, and peace requires a single thing: For people to believe in harmony, justice and peace. And to desire them.
A person that desires that is a person that contributes towards bringing it about, regardless of whether they do or do not believe there is some invisible universal essence embedded in our entire species.
Thank You David...for reminding Us of Choice.
God is a beggar: powerless before human freedom. How we choose, micro and macro matter.
Creation is wild beauty. Time unveils the wonder of space and space time reveals the face of God, All. Space time's hidden relationship is consciousness: the whole process of evolution is an unfolding of consciousness, as matter becomes spirit. Matter is spirit. Spirit is matter.
Consciousness is the "withinness" and the "withoutness". The symmetry, light and consciousness evokes within/without. The mindfulness of the universe, quantum physics, what the Greeks called logos.
Silence, prayer, meditation, witness with devout attention ...Being (5) Believe (7) ...becoming living prayer is to enter a new place of refugee in (God, All, or Universe) ...is to enter a place of union in Love
1
One key step in bringing different "races" together is to consider what the science of DNA has proven - there are no races. Period. There are certainly cultural differences that must be bridged, but the continuing use of "race" implies an unsurmountable permanence, a difference of species.
Once I began to look at the variety of white people, like myself, I began to see and accept the variety of people with darker skin. Suddenly they didn't seem so far away.
1
In all of our mutuality as human beings has the world ever seen a balanced unbiased state. Manifestos of hope and equality wether religious or political have all been corrupted by human nature. If you trumpet the soul as a touchstone of commonality and goodness you put your faith in what has proven to be a false god. Goodness and empathy seem present only to taunt us as unreachable and fundamentally inconsistent with our exsistance.
1
Brooks is retreating farther and farther from serious discourse. Of course, this is a function of massive cognitive dissonance triggered by the descent of the right into madness.
2
We have no souls and we are not radically the same. We are, however, intrinsically all the same as we have all descended from a single woman, who lived in Africa some 70,000 years ago.
Mr. Brooks, consider Mr. Trump and his administration, who have demonized all Mexicans and Muslims, who have incarcerated children at our southern border after separating them from their parents, who have issued death sentences to innocent mortally ill children by silently taking action to deport them, who have abandoned allies who fought and died with our soldiers in the Middle East...would you say they have held fast to their awareness of souls?
Wow, thanks Mr Brooks. I'll tell my Buddhist cohorts, who don't believe in a soul, per se. They'll likely smile with your orientation, then wish for you inner and outer peace.
"It is the belief that the person who is infuriating you most right now still has a soul and so is still, deep down, beautiful and redeemable."
Agree wholeheartedly with this statement.
Now impeach and remove him.
3
Civilization and the cerebral cortex are thin veneers over our primate selves, barely (sometimes not at all) keeping us, this band of advanced apes, from totally primitive behavior. We have spent millennia dreaming up things (souls, et al) to convince ourselves we are homo superior, when we are just a bunch of sapiens.
However, David's hard pitch for souls is an appeal to our better angels, and who can argue with that?
2
I have a soul? One doesn’t need to drink religious Kool aid to recognize that we all share empathy for one another. It is hardwired into our brains. It’s evolutionary biology David, not an abstract religious construct.
The problem with claiming that what connects together is an abstraction like a “soul,” and a fantasy cosmic creator is that it surrenders our inherent human power to another entity. It relieves us of responsibility for our own fate. It’s a contrived metaphysical paradigm full of convenient loopholes that allowed the Founders to believe “that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights” and yet to own slaves at the same. Apparently some souls are worth more than others.
The unabashed audacity of Brooks’ claim is in that glaring irony. Brooks wraps his world-view in glowing, feel-good treacle oozing with compassion and gentleness. But the very people who buy into such fairy tales (or claim to) brought us Donald Trump, and believe that the “laws which govern the moral universe” are flexible.
Morality bows to tribal power. Conservatives like Brooks have stood by for years as their tribe allowed capitalism to reward the wealthy and to take from the middle class and poor – all the while going to church and joining polishing their “souls.”
Chris Lambert is helping people because he recognizes that communities have been destroyed in the name of “natural rights” by people who claim to have souls. It’s a material reality, not an abstraction.
3
@Michael Excellent analysis!
People are not equal, radically or otherwise. There are people I know who have less in common with me than I have with a stray cat. They have no intellectual curiosity, no desire to know new things, and no need to improve themselves. Do they have souls? A soul is a metaphor for the mind; it has no other existence than in our imagination. So as far as I am concerned- no, they don’t have souls. This has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. I met Cambodian peasants who were more intellectually engaged than suburban Americans. Equality is a legal fiction, not reality.
True, all people have souls, but some of these souls think the rest of us ought not to have the right to vote. One soul one vote, as the Constitution says
This is David Brooks' genuine voice at its best, and I welcome him (back). As reflected in comments, Mr Brooks is averse to dealing with what has become of the Republican Party since President Ford proposed a 77% income tax rate, & signed legislation protecting pensions (ERISA), admitting women to the military academies, and creating the Earned Income Tax Credit. Not every column needs to be self-flagellation.
Mr Brooks animates history and struggles thoughtfully in this column and in an informed way. He is not cherry picking some slight Senator Warren flaw or writing hogwash about his nationalist subscription or what the future looks like in 2050. His topical choice alone merits gratitude.
This column reflects good old fashioned "shoe leather" journalism. I come away cautiously optimistic. Mr Brooks' thoughts and reasoning encourage more thought and conversation. God bless him, and his soul.
It's not anything, in this country. There is hope, there's always hope, but today we are not all equal, radically or not. This is typical of a right-wing extremist, and truly white privileged identity, who doesn't have to be afraid all the time.
Perhaps Mr. Brooks is getting at the fact that society's collective hate birthed the Frankenstein monster that is Trump. If we can work together as a society and respect each other, maybe our politicians will be an outgrowth of that respect instead of the evil GOP Congressmen and Senators we have today that simply are greedy and hateful.
Kind of ironic coming from a guy that supports a party that pushes and exacerbates inequality.
1
I love this. Thank you, David Brooks.
David Brooks, one last comment in which I focus on an essential step that the US Government must take to make us radically equal, a step that I think that you should devote a column to.
Here first in a simple declarative sentence: The US Census Bureau must end use of its present system of assigning each of us to a race or ethnicity.
The system was established by using the fatal invention of a long line of racists, each of whom invented names for groups of human beings, each group a "race" so that these names could be employed in creating racial orders (See this book by former US Census Bureau Director, now Professor, Kenneth Prewitt: "What Is Your Race? The Census and Our Flawed Efforts to Classify Americans" for a full review of that history.
Anyone with even just elementary knowledge of that history knows which so-called race was placed at the top. Throughout our history, there it was, a racial order to drive home that we were never seen as equal.
In order to bring about this change, Americans will have to unlearn race - for starters.
David, four days from now you can get your very own copy of the second book written by your colleague, Thomas Chatterton Williams. Read it, and see if he can guide you to make a start on understanding how to make us RADICALLY EQUAL.
Title: Self-Portrait In Black and White - Unlearning Race
I look forward to reading your column on your progress to unlearning race.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
Oh Please! Just what we don't need right now. A Dewy eyed. bleeding heart conservative? Why can't we all just get along? Let me count the ways.
2
Quakers pose this simple instruction as foundational to their faith and practice: we are to answer to that of God in everyone.
34
@DRC
I'm an atheist but if my formulation is that we are to respond to everyone's innate worth, I think we end up in the same place.
7
I bought an “Equality” hat and started wearing it everywhere for the last six months. From people’s comments, nearly all favorable, and as a representative so to speak for Equality, I’ve asked myself the same question, “What about us is equal?” And since “equal” is concept in language, in abstraction, in math, we assume that we are equal in something, a value not zero. Maybe the answer lies in our ability to feel truth in certain abstractions. If we say that living itself, or being a merely human being makes us equal, that is illogical because my dog is very much alive and very expressive, but without language, he is without the power of abstract reasoning, though his intuitive reasoning is often enviable. Maybe “the soul” is a necessary concept to justify equality, since every real world manifestation of humans is quite distinct, so that we must resort to abstraction where soul and rights and fairness and equality can exist without actually existing in the observable universe.
Maybe the more interesting question is how these concepts feel right to most human beings. And how some other human beings feel nothing at all, or feel very selectively in their own or their group’s interests. Religious people and irreligious people find “truth” in different abstractions, but both serve as altruism which ennobles our experience of life. Equality makes plenty of sense to me with or without the concept of “soul.” You’re using one abstraction to justify another.
1
Here is the problem with hinging racial equality on the existence of a "soul": It assumes that metaphysical dualism, the philosophical theory that there is both a material world and an immaterial world, is true. Without going into all of the arguments against dualism, let it suffice to say that it has been soundly rejected by the vast majority of philosophers and scientists - the people who have thought about the problem the most. There is only one world, the material world. Souls and other immaterial things, such as gods or angles, have no place in that world.
This means that if the "soul" is what makes people of all races equal, racial equality rests on a myth. Right now, this myth is still believed by what is the vast majority of Americans (I just checked, over 80% of Americans believe in God and angels).
But, aside from the problem that David's soul argument has no pull on the other 20% of Americans, what will happen as the number of Americans subscribing to dualism shrinks? And it has been shrinking and will continue to shrink. Eventually, the US will reach the point where Scandinavian countries are right now. In Sweden, for example, up to 80% of people are atheists and only 15% of the Church of Sweden believe in Jesus.
When the US finally gets to that point, there will no longer be a basis for racial equality in the minds of most Americans. What do we do then?
The fact that I don't believe in a "common home together, a final resting place" means that each and every life is more precious. Like the beleaguered children separated from their parents at the border, the victims of crime in poor neighborhoods, the opiod addicted in middle america, the people who go to bed hungry at night, etc.
I believe these people are more important, more precious, and more deserving of compassion, not less, because there is no eternal peace. There might only be this one, shared, grueling, beautiful, existence. And we need to cherish every person in it, and every second we have. No matter what they believe, what color their skin, or hurts they're grappling with.
Find a common ground with everyone because they are here with you now, not because of where you believe you'll both end up after this life is over.
David, a long, long time ago humans observed that some sicknesses passed from person to person. But we struggled for millennia with why. Some believed we fell ill when we disappointed our gods, and it was divine punishment. Some saw witches in our midst spreading curses. At one point we believed that bad smells generated sickness (miasma). Hence the exaggerated, bird-like noses of plague doctors. All the better to stuff them full of sweet smelling things to counter miasma. But eventually we discovered germ theory and that was mostly that. It took tens of thousands of years to find the right answer, but that didn't invalidate the original observation. Sometimes it takes a while to correctly explain an observation.
At some point, humans also realized that (despite the self-serving lies created by aristocrats) there weren't different kinds of people and we all share a set of qualities that are worth recognizing and respecting. Maybe we don't have the final answer for why yet. But in the meantime, please stop asserting that the only way people can believe in the observation of human equality is by believing that we have invisible god dust in our lungs. A lot of us are quite okay seeing truth in the premise of human equality and dignity without that particular explanation, and it's quite insulting to so casually assert that we are lost without it. Maybe one day you'll see that we have not lost anything, let alone everything.
2
Those of us who live with the idea of progress and the effort to always do better, need not an ontological assertion of a non-temporal nature, but can in this absence, ask how we would function, given that a bare body and brain are surely not enough. We can live for a purpose that is larger than this little transaction acting self, bargaining for few scraps, when the whole of life can embrace us with the joy of truly caring for another. This is where the rubber meets the road. This is the test. And anyone, literally anyone, can understand this and act on it, if this be their choice. Young mothers and fathers do this everyday. Managers and employees do this everyday. Neighbors do this everyday. Sisters and brothers do this everyday. The time has come to upgrade our sense of 'enlightened self interest.' It can be no longer be just a choice of, 'a little for me and a little for you.' Now, 'we go together or not at all.'
1
Here’s how you start coming together David. You condemn-in no uncertain terms-the white nationalism and bigotry emanating from the leadership and members of the GOP and you keep doing it until it has a meaningful impact on them. That includes owning up to and being accountable for the “Southern strategy” and the fallout from that and the relentless efforts to gerrymander and overturn voting rights legislation. You might even consider looking into the police brutality that Colin Kaepernick was protesting and addressing those issues too.
3
It seems Mr. Brooks is using the debatable word "soul" to express something along the lines of inherent and absolute worth - in which case, what he writes is absolutely true, and entirely undebatable.
But people aren't the only thing with inherent and absolute worth. Our planet, a miracle unique and irreplaceable, is worthy beyond our comprehension.
So do the right thing, both for your own soul and the collective soul that is our home: Vote for candidates who believe the world must be accorded its due reverence.
1
"If they lose the concept of the soul, they’ve lost everything."
This statement pretty well sums up what Trump and the Republicans in the US have done, lost the concept of their souls.
Anyone who supports this party has also lost theirs.
2
All humans have emotions, ambition, a need for love, acceptance and security. We also have a sense of fairness and right and wrong as that feeds a sense of order and security.
But do we have souls? What is a soul? Religions tell us a soul survives the death of the body. Poets and artists tell us a soul is an undefinable sense of self that somehow makes us special.
To me, it’s just a nice word that means whatever you want it to mean. And it that sense, yes, we all have one.
"If they lose the concept of the soul, they’ve lost everything."
It seems to me that Trump has no soul. I can't see any evidence of one.
The common thought I hear from friends in other countries is that America has lost its collective soul. Thus the advent of someone like #45. Martin Buber talks about the "I-Thou" relationship between one person and another, which is a spiritual connection in itself. To go outside of oneself and to accept the stranger as Godlike, and this done on a grand scale, is absolutely necessary for the nation to reclaim its soul. All minorities in this country know this implicitly.
It is important to point out that not all of us believe in the soul as Mr. Brooks presents it here, but we still believe in the idea that people have inherent dignity and value. I don’t believe there is a soul in a supernatural sense nor is there a “divine natural order.” But there are human creations such as justice and respect that are essential for us to hang on to so that we may preserve our humanity. It’s fine to define that as “soul” but there are good people who strongly believe in these human values yet don’t believe in anything supernatural. What’s more, the future of humanity needn’t hinge on shared supernatural beliefs, as there is so much room with such beliefs for further division, rancor, and judgement. But it is important for us to promote these principles regardless of whether we agree on whether something supernatural underlies them.
1
Thank you, Mr. Brooks, for not connecting "soul" to religion, and treating it instead as "essence" or "humanity".
2
This is a solid tribute to our shared humanity, and a plea for setting aside prejudice and divisiveness in favor of understanding.
Also, I see Mr Brooks' essay with an underlying theme of the immense complexity of each human being and how that complexity is exponentially complicated when faced with change -- a mammoth issue we are faced with today, racially, politically, religiously, economically, and more. We know we are complex within ourselves, but we simplify the other person -- leading to conflict and a distorted view of those we disagree with.
It takes a lot of work to fulfill the meaning of the cliché of walking a mile in another person's shoes. Empathy requires digging very deep. And right now, most of us have dug down deep but in the mud, and we're stuck, however understandably, in rage and fruitless fury.
1
There is no perfection, except perhaps in nature. Man generally makes a hash of his/her fixes, especially if he/she goes it alone, and most especially with our attempts at social, cultural and political fixes!
The only possibility for democratic forms are collective fixes; the invariably messy attempts at collaborative enterprise. Inefficient and often ineffective, difficult and fraught with divisive conflict, collaboration is the only democratic way forward out of present tribal “stuckness.”
Democracy is not for the faint of heart. It is helpful to believe in it!
Remember when Michelle Obama said that she was proud of her country for the first time? And all the conservatives castigated her for not being proud of America just for being America? It seems like that remark fits in with the ambilvalence you recognize in this column.
I don't remember you offering this counter-perspective at the time. Did you see her remarks in this light at the time? or have you come to realize this in the interim?
1
Why do you need a "soul" to accept that every human, just by virtue of being human, has an equal inherent worth? Tacking on the concept of a soul is both unnecessary and counterproductive, as not everybody has the same concept, or any such concept at all. You're going around in circles.
1
"I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.'
So wrote T.S. Eliot in one of his timeless Quartets.
6
The disruption of initial efforts characterized as hazing reminds me of a complaint about an aspect of religions; “My sufferings are valuable, they get me into heaven," so lets celebrate that every Sunday… Saturday… Friday, or when ever I can.
Meanwhile, the work of community development lags...
1
"It is the belief that our souls make us all radically equal."
Yes, our souls are equal, but this should statement should not be used by people in power to sugarcoat or excuse economic inequality in a corrupt system. It seems like an obvious thing to say, but the we are all equal, just get along, don't rock the boat, follow the (corrupt) laws, it will be alright argument/shaming is used by kings and oligarchs and well-off suburbanites the world over. Don't question our control because our souls are soooo equal. Sorry. No. Protest. Be civilly disobedient. We are clearly NOT equal.
1
I think a principled atheist might substitute "person-hood" or "full person-hood" for "soul". We are all people, and we all should be treated with a high default level of respect and dignity because we are people.
To borrow an excellent insight from the late Sir Terry Pratchett, evil is the consequence of treating people as if they were things.
1
David, I appreciate the overall sentiment of your writing, but your conclusion is absolutely wrong. A belief in a soul is not necessary to believe in "inalienable rights" and the equal value of all humans. I am certain of this because I do not believe in souls and yet I believe that we are all "radically equal." Mythology and religion are not necessary to see the value of a human life.
6
"Soul", "mind", "self", "essence", "ego", "id", and "superego", labels that attempt to identify the core of our common personhood. Some find these labels too religious, and others too vague. Nevertheless, David makes a good point. In our country in which our written ideals do not match our history beginning in 1492, how is reconciliation and grace to be realized? The first steps listed here are trust and listening. The second steps are only alluded to, working together shoulder to shoulder, solidarity. A new community arises from such basic steps. If affirming one another's sacred commonality seems too preachy, then perhaps Paul Tillich's grace note provides an alternative understanding. The one in whom we live, move, and have our being, the ground of being, accepts us and we are accepted, acceptable, and we can accept one another as we are accepted. We may wonder how this attitude helps in John Paul Sartre's "No Exit" room, but in our world this is a good place to start since too many people find unlike minded people unacceptable.
2
As an atheist and somebody who eschews the supernatural, that is the most cogent argument for the belief in the soul that I know. That without the belief in the soul the fundamental tenant of our constitution, that all men (and women) are created equal, has no basis in observable fact. Yet that belief which is essential for democracy. Without it, one person-one vote and universal franchise has little to recommend it. I think I will choose to believe that we all have souls, and that our souls have equal value.
4
The best description I have ever read of Donald Trump is from an article in the New Yorker. Donald Trump is unique in that he has achieved an existence unmolested by the rumblings of a soul.
2
I do not think that most of the people attacking religion in general or Christianity in particular in these comments have any idea what they are talking about. They hear the loud voices of the false prophets and close their minds to everyone else.
Here is what we say each Sunday at the Episcopal Church I attend twice weekly, led by clergy who are variously a married straight male, a married gay male, and a single woman, a demographic detail I add for those who do not understand that the faith is distinctly not about hating others.
(from the Book of Common Prayer, 1979)
Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.
Humility, self-awareness of our OWN shortcomings, kindness, dare I say love are at the heart of this prayer. Notice that it is not about other people's flaws, but our own. And it is our OWN behavior over which we have some control, and therefore THAT is where we can contribute to a better world.
I do wish you would stop sniping reflexively at David Brooks and Republicans and look within yourselves to understand better how to make this a fairer and more decent nation.
78
@D I Shaw
I attack any religion that doesn’t welcome self-criticism and analysis. For example, a Christian church that would respect a parishioner who stated clearly he/she believed in Jesus as a metaphorical, not literal, son of God is healthy. Any church who would disrespect that parishioner should be condemned in the strongest possible terms.
16
@D I Shaw
Don't be so presumptuous. Rest assured, I and many, many others understand quite well how to make this a fairer and more decent world. There's very little, if anything, that today's GOP and the Trump crime syndicate has to offer in this regard.
Your admonition rings both hollow, and pious.
17
@Cass -- I have promised to stop attacking religion when IT (and YOU) stop attacking ME and my fellow non-believers. Our way is just as legitimate as yours, maybe more so since we don't claim anything that has no evidence, and is just as constitutionally valid. WE also have "freedom of religion"--NONE.
12
Death is what makes us all inescapably equal.
4
@N
Or, the belief of death....
Mr. Brooks,
Let’s impeach Trump first and then we will think about hugging each other.
3
When people have too check a box of their nationality that starts the racial discrimnation of their soul.
We are not separate but we our totally equal, WE ARE HUMAN BEINGS......
Last week, on the online neighborhood site, Next Door, someone posted a link to a beautiful online article calling for all Americans to find common ground.
The first several responses were quite positive, then someone stated (incorrectly) that this posting violated Next Door rules regarding political posts.
The responses quickly escalated into political and religious hate comments. In the midst of this, I proposed getting together - online and in person - for some dialog to, in David Brooks' words, find "what makes us all radically equal."
It turns out Next Door does not have a function to allow private groups (a public group risks neighbors dropping by to leave hateful comments - we're going to have pro and anti-Trump folks as well as evangelicals and atheists, not to mention Buddhists and Wiccans; this is Asheville, after all).
So about 20 of us are going to decide this weekend whether to use a Google Group or a private Facebook group.
We also plan to meet once a month in person, and explore contemplative (non religious) dialog processes. To avoid the assumption this is just a lot of "kumbaya," we will also have occasional debates - passionate ones, I hope.
If it works out (it very well may not; I've been part of dialog attempts for years and they're VERY hard to make work), we'll try to encourage other neighborhoods to try it.
And if it works here in Asheville perhaps we'll get in touch with the folks in the Detroit area.
www.remember-to-breathe.org
1
We can disagree and still love each other... unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.
James Baldwin
168
Frederick Douglass made an exception in his judgment of well-meaning whites as hesitant and flawed in their struggling alongside Blacks.
That person was John Brown, whom Douglass considered the only white person he had ever met who was free of racial prejudice.
Two other giants of Black inspiration echoed Douglass.
Choosing, as you did, the soul as fundamental, W.E.B. Dubois said that John Brown was "the man who of all Americans has perhaps come nearest to touching the real souls of black folk.”
And, in the memory of older Americans, Malcom X said:
"If you are for me and my problems – when I say me, I mean us, our people – then you have to be willing to do as old John Brown did."
Slave state Virginia hanged him for treason.
39
@alyosha
Moral positions can be messy. It must be remembered that John Brown committed murders in the name of abolition. To try and argue absolutist positions is to leave open the possibility of confronting right against right.
1
@alyosha
Brown and his "family" dragged men from their beds in the night and murdered them for their pro-slavery lives. I understand the impulse. But I condemn the murders. I condemn Quantrill and Company their murders, too. I'm speaking as one born 90 years after the murders, who grew up in their neighborhood.
Murder ends a life that might have been redeemed in living. To kill a man, even an evil man, even in the name of freeing his slaves (which they did not do) kills God-with-us and is a stain on the soul.
Brown should not have been hanged. But as I say, I understand the impulse.
Yours is one of those positions I try to accept with serenity.
I can't share the view that "the person who is infuriating you most right now still has a soul and so is still, deep down, beautiful and redeemable." Especially because I recently had a shocking experience that showed me the opposite is true.
I've been reading lots of articles recently that say we Democrats need to try to understand our opposition, that conversation and communication without judgment is what's needed to improve our nation's civility. So, I've started to round out my reading by looking at Fox News every day to get an idea of what conservatives are reading and their understanding of events. Earlier this week, I branched out my reading and looked at a publication I had heard of called The Federalist, which I knew to be conservative. It had an article about Illinois schools and how students there now discuss homosexuality and transgenderism. I wrote a comment that said I didn't see anything wrong with kids learning to accept people's differences and they shouldn't be taught to hate and judge others.
My comment was answered with the most vile and disgusting responses I have ever seen. I was shocked. Clearly, The Federalist makes no attempt to monitor comments. The language and sentiments expressed by those readers was revolting.
I cannot agree that those people have a soul, let alone one that is "beautiful and redeemable." I have stopped my foray into conservative thought. That is a sewer I do not ever want to enter again.
114
@Ms. Pea
This is unfortunate that you feel you can't 'understand' conservatives.' I moved from very Left wing East Village to very right wing Greenville, SC back in 2002.
I learned:
(1) those that we on the Left label "deplorables' are - despite their continued support of Trump - shockingly, perhaps to the Times readership - human beings. In fact, I'll be willing to wager, if you went to Greenville and talked with any number of Trump supporters among a group of people whose political views you didn't know (in other words, you wouldn't know the people you're talking to support Trump) you would be shocked to find that they are in the majority, quite good, caring people.
(2) you can't judge conservatives by the horrific stuff you see online, which may be bots, or may be rather mentally unstable people. Even with regard to people in the Times comment section that tend to trigger some rather unpleasant reactivity in my own mind (i won't mention names but probably most of you know who they are - the ones who seemingly mindlessly parrot Fox talking points) - I'll bet, with most of them, if you happened to start up a conversation with one of them in a cafe and had no idea what their political orientation was, you'd find them to be intelligent, thoughtful people (they read the Times, after all!!:>)
We're embarking on a dialog project here in my Asheville neighborhood, welcoming people of all and no religions and all political perspectives.
I'll let you know if it works!
46
@Ms. Pea : You don't even have to visit an overtly right-wing website in order to have the experience that you had. The comment section in my local "news"paper is exactly the same. It's chock-full of ignorant, racist, misogynist hatred, lies, and paranoid conspiracy theories. And meanness, just pure meanness, directed toward anyone who dares to disagree with them. I agree that the angry white men writing these comments (because that is who they are -- their own comments make their race and gender quite easy to identify) are indeed without "souls," however you choose to define that.
7
@Don Salmon
Hmm, just got a NYT pick so perhaps more people will show up.
Here's a challenge for y'all (no, i didn't use that word when I lived in NY; the South does change one, I guess) if you want to respond.
From time to time, I'll write a comment similar to the one I just wrote. I do it partly for fun - I know I'm most likely going to be excoriated by the generally progressive commentariat (for good measure, I should say I'm WAY to the Left of Bernie; going back to the libertarian socialist/contemplatives of the 19th century).
So, here's the challenge:
1. Before you shoot off an angry comment telling me how insane/horrible/both-sides-ism/ etc I am, pause.
Wait.
Take a breath.
2. Then, conduct this thought experiment: You go to your favorite coffee shop in Manhattan, and take your food to the outdoor seating area. Some tourists strike up a conversation. Learned, articulate, thoughtful tourists, who happen to share some of your passions. You get into a fascinating conversation and at some point think to yourself, "I really like these people. We should exchange contact info and stay in touch."
Then, after an hour or so of excellent conversation, you happen to discover that all of them voted for, and still support, Trump.
What do you do?
3
Good to know that reading David Blight's biography on Frederick Douglass gave you better insight to the deeper challenges facing race reconciliation in our country today. It will be added to my "starter" list I believe every American should have read before any meaningful discussion can take place on race in 2019. And that would include (in this order)- Song of Solomon , Beloved, both by Toni Morrison, The Underground Railroad by Colson WhiteHead, The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. "Yes all men are created equal."
Mr. Brooks's column is about two things: race in America and the validation of religious belief. Big media thrives on the first but can't taken the second, and more serious subject, seriously.
Thanks to Mr. Brooks. Shows moxie, not to mention depth.
I think that the words "All men are created equal" are enough, but they have to be reaffirmed and fought for in each and every generation. (Yes, and have to be expanded to mean all people.)
The atavistic forces of racism, sexism, xenophobia, are very strong now - are there enough Fredrick Douglases to prevail?
I don't know how, I don't know why, but half the comments will find a way to criticize this as Republican propaganda. Thanks for the thoughtful piece - rare optimism on this subject.
3
And how does this 'equality of souls' manifest itself? What does it mean in practical term? The founding fathers agreed that we all equal in the eyes of God, But that didn't stop them from having slaves.
1
soul, sole, schmoul.
We are equal due to our shared humanity.
We have intrinsic value because we are sentient.
Thank you David.
Now let's all live this one day, one person at a time.
Strange it is, to find this sort of personal ramble here.
How many times have we heard these concepts debated?
With most of us, it goes back to an early childhood perception.
We ask, "Mom, does Ruby (the dog) have a soul too? Will Ruby go to heaven too, when she dies?"
And here on this taxed and traduced ball of minerals, all these billions of living creatures, all of us fellow indigenous species, living to live day to day, do so without a soul.
If Ruby does not have a soul, who wants one?
We have a great community here, all of us soul-less beasts that share this moment, this place.
The shame is that we refuse to recognize and share it and out of fear, fail to admit an understanding that could really change the world in a united positive way.
It's seems scary to be soul-less.
But if that dolphin, that elephant, that snake can do it.
So can we.
1
Thank You David . Regardless of how the pendulum of polarized though swings, the middle is where the essence of righteousness dwells.
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The GOP's version (David's party of choice) of this assertion is: "Yes, we all have souls...but some souls are better (more deserving) than others."
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In the context of racial reconciliation, your article makes some sense. In the reality of our day to day struggle on this planet, you’re pipe dreaming from a comfortable chair.
If there is a Soul theory “ all creatures great and small” should have one , not just the human species.
Yes! What you call soul, I call consciousness or awareness. That part that never dies. Thank you!
"It is the belief that our souls make us all radically equal. "
David, maybe you have rely on an unproven invention, "the soul", to convince yourself that we are all "equal".
However, if you just take a look at your DNA sequence next to any other human, you will see that the overall structure is identical.
There are some minor flucuations in some areas where very tiny, tiny mutations have occurred, like white skin (which is a recent mutation from the original human evolution outcome).
But, otherwise, you and I are identical.
We are equal: Whether or not anyone ever finds the existence of a "soul" and whether or not that currently unproven concept is "equal".
Goodness. That's what you have to do to create equality in your mind?
Now that is a sad statement.
2
Okay, good people trying to do good things because, mostly, they are good people. So, what do we do with all the people who have souls who are actively doing bad things? All the "oh, isn't that nice?" stories are not going to do anything about the bad people, elected or otherwise, who are not being called out specifically for the bad things they are doing. If you truly believe in souls, David Brooks, and I think you do, use your status to call out those who are staining theirs and trying to have everyone else believe those stains are okay or even admirable.
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In Roman law it was held that Persona est sui iuris; servus non est persona: "A person is self-governing; a slave is not a person." This is the essence of having a soul: it's being free to choose the purposes you serve. Actually, of course, it's only a capacity and seldom if ever fully realized. But in practice the soul is the capacity to choose our frameworks, our lifestyles, our budgets, the games we play; and a great many people around us do not want us to realize that capacity because if we control our budgets, for instance, we might not give them our money when they advertise for it. The soul is therefore a lethal threat to capitalism. Get it?
Perhaps David, and his think-tank colleagues, should take a little of Dwan Dandridge's advice. We look forward to them taking some responsibility for bringing this country, this world, to today's front page.
2
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all (people) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Mr. Brooks, you are willing to cite our magnificent Declaration of Independence, even emphasizing that racism is "just wrong". How do you rationalize your long-term support of the (R) party that has done everything they can think of to limit "unalienable Rights" to so many non-whites? Why are you still an (R) even though the (R)s have played the race card in every presidential election since Nixon?
2
“The doctrine of human equality is based entirely on the biblical doctrine that we are all Children of the same Father, all accountable to Him for our conduct to one another, equally bound to respect each other’s self-love.” McCullougn, John Adams, Simon & Shuster (2001) p 619.
I am a creature, nothing more, nothing less.
I don't like the use of "soul" here. Sounds supernatural.
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Not quite sure what Brooks thinks a soul is. Does it survive us when our body dies? Is one soul separate from another? How do we know what a soul is?
If we believe in the Creation story and Adam & Eve, doesn’t that make us all cousins?
Spare me the metaphysical speculation, yet I do not believe in souls, yet I do believe that all people are equal.
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"When people hold fast to their awareness of souls, then they have a fixed center among the messiness of racial reconciliation and they give each other grace." If Brooks wants to be a minister, he should go to Divinity School. If not, he should spare us the patronizing proselytizing and religious dogma.
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“He constantly returned to the core belief of America’s founding in 1776, that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. “
What??? Slavery was codified into our Constitution. Women of any race were denied most of the rights men enjoyed as ‘inalienable.’
The author’s of the Constitution had some good ideas but they were, above all else, politicians as susceptible to greed, corruption and prejudices as any other. They were NOT demi-gods.
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Souls. The original recruitment brochure in the first holy war and every holy war since.
Can't be seen, heard, touched, described, weighed, or otherwise documented, but pick up your sword son, and believe.
We're all human and that's what makes us equal. No matter what we are, criminals or not, part of the LGBTQ community, straight, white, black, yellow, red, and every color in between; we're all human beings. We're not equal in terms of intelligence, economic status, or luck. But all of us, no matter what our origins, deserve to have decent lives that are worth living. We're all deserving of courtesy, respect, and being treated with decency. And we should treat each other the same: with decency, kindness, compassion, and try to understand that everyone has burdens. The rest is commentary.
10/10/2019 11:19pm first submit
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While I applaud the content of this piece, I'm trying to figure out why David Brooks quotes from the title of W. E. B. Du Bois's classic 1903 work, The Souls of Black Folks, without mentioning its author. One cannot assume that every reader knows about this man and his work in founding the American civil rights movement at the beginning of the last century. The Souls of Black Folks, which ends with the plea, "Hear my cry, O God the Reader; vouchsafe that this my book fall not still-born into the world wilderness," is available for anyone to read here, online: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/408/408-h/408-h.htm#chap15
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I get very uncomfortable when people speak of “natural rights” and “the divine natural order of the universe.”
The concept of “natural law" has been used by religious zealots since the dawn of mankind to oppress certain groups of people. As such, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the Trump administration launched a human rights panel that stresses “natural law.”
There is no “moral universe.” Another term for “self-awareness” is “moral compass.” The opposite of self-awareness is self-righteousness.
In a study by Emile Bruneau, a cognitive neuroscientist at MIT, it was found that some terrorists possess higher than average levels of empathy, however, their empathy is limited to those who look, think and act like they do.
New research from Belgium found that people with lower emotional intelligence are more likely to hold right-wing views.
It bears mentioning that self-awareness is the foundation of emotional intelligence, an aspect of which is empathy toward others – those who look, think and act differently from yourself. When you lack empathy toward any person, group or entity, you are able to rationalize behavior that would otherwise be viewed as unethical and immoral. Such a lack of empathy is caused by bias, which is defined as “an unfair personal opinion that influences your judgment.”
When empathy is evenly distributed, justice and fairness follow. Empathy toward others is a precondition to a moral and ethical life.
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Omg, another affirmation from Brooks of a Hallmark Cards form of optimism and uplift good for people who also believe in fairy tales. Yes, we are all supposedly equal under the law, but some people are clearly more equal than others.
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When the Republican White House and Senate are behaving as cruelly and soullessly as they are now, a Republican opinion writer is here to remind us of how redeemable they are.
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I never find David Brooks to say anything particularly insightful, considering his position. Mostly here he is mouthing platitudes most of us with any common sense already know.
He has given his cards aways since the 2016 election. He personally joined up with the Republicans back in the 1980s when they (including Reagan himself) began their systematic tearing down of American society in the name of private enterprise and property rights.
Brooks is a fraud.
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Beautiful. mr Brooks. So true
Great, a resurgence of that Christian movement of saving souls. We just got rid of our residential schools.
David, your story about doing good in an America with an Administration that is carrying out a “Plot Against America” is touching but no more than that.
Given what I have read in my Swedish newspaper DN about the recipient of the Nobel Prize for 2018, Olga Tokarczuk and about her in the Times article (see below), I suggest you read her and the book by your Times colleague I name below. Then report back.
I read in: “Olga Tokarczuk and Peter Handke Awarded Nobel Prizes in Literature” Olga Tokarczuk Olga Tokarczuk @ https://nyti.ms/2VyZPOK
“Her novel, “Flights,” (translated by Jennifer Croft), for which she was awarded the 2018 Man Booker International Prize…is…A series of 116 vignettes about characters who are in transit or displaced, the book was praised as a LITERARY ANTIDOTE to cultural isolationism, xenophobia and nationalism….’Fluidity, mobility, illusoriness — these are precisely the qualities that make us civilized,’ Ms. Tokarczuk writes. ‘Barbarians don’t travel. They simply go to destinations or conduct raids.’”
Remind you of any prominent American figure? We need a new American figure, a new president, who will begin the decades long task of rebuilding America, providing public health of all, and much more.
Please read this book also:
Thomas Chatterton Williams “Self Portrait In Black and White – Unlearning Race” (I add - In America), out October 15.
Then report back on making us "radically equal".
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
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Or we could call it “humanity”
I have a variety of privileged and disadvantaged identities. 2 are automatically perceivable in person and likely perceivable over the phone. Most of my disadvantaged identities are invisible less I do something to make them visible. I have studied and lived adv/dis identities my entire life. Being White normally trumps being female..
I would never want to be a Black male driving a car, wondering if the next traffic stop results in my death, nearly-certain that it will result in a moving violation costing thousands in increased insurance premiums.
I have never been issued a moving violation in my life and this is certainly the result of my White privilege, possibly being female as well...
Thus, I identify with the article, and empathize as much as I can with the experience of People of Color. We know Cognitive Biases exist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases through repeatable, rigorous, peer-reviewed studies. Racial, gender, sexual orientation biases have similarly been proven, Ad Nauseum.
Obama opened the floodgate of overt racists and racism to such an extreme that we now have the most racist President seen in modern times. The Rep’s racist policies and racist agenda have also been laid bare, complete with overt voter repression of People of Color.
So, while I apologize for my part and for White people in general, People of Color continue to be marginalized, abused and discriminated against.
Hard to start the healing when its still going on….
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"If they [the people] lose the concept of the soul, they’ve lost everything." - David Brooks
Regrettably, the soul is precisely what we've lost. And for those few looking these days, there are few places to find a lost soul. Like "love," we are looking in all the wrong places.
But if we are lucky enough to have kept our souls, and even more so for those who can find it again, there lies ahead the love for each other that blinds us to race. We can then give each other our grace. We've then found what we lost: Love.
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This is a fine article by David Brooks. The article could have been improved if he had also stated that humanity is in the infancy of its evolution, and that the vision he describes will take centuries, if not millenniums, of future evolution, and that the evolutionary process will not be pretty. But, it is the hope and belief in the wisdom that propels forward the evolution of humanity in the universe.
Humanity has evolved from the caveman with virtually equal brain power to today's modern human, to where we are today with today's complex, inventive, advanced civilization. It is an incredible miracle that has taken millennia of evolution, and sadly pain and suffering. Nonetheless, the same creative ingenuity that got humanity from caveman to where we are today will continue its evolutionary path, to eventually the world that David Brooks has tried to describe.
Looking at the world's problems as they are today, is not the way to look at Mr. Brook's article. He is absolutely correct in what he says about the essence of the human soul. It is evolving, and will continue to evolve. It is the compelling nature of humanity to reach for, and strive for, continuously improving and becoming better at becoming the destiny of fulfilling itself in the universe.
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You know, I almost thought this was the first Brooks piece I was going to finally agree with. Then we learn that religion is the only thing that makes us equal. Listen, Mr. Brooks: all humans suffer. We all want to live safe, happy, peaceful lives. We are all interconnected in the bonds of our shared existence. You don't have to believe in ghosts to recognize that all human beings are fundamentally equal.
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Buddhists call the soul our buddhanature. Essentially, we are our good hearts. Thank you for reweaving, as we all must, the bonds that unite us. We are all starved for each other and our own capacity to see beyond partisan politics. Peace to all beings.
Judging by what has been going on in just this country never mind the rest of the world it is extremely hard to believe that some people have souls, this includes the Trump Administration .
The inhumane way he leads and the Republicans who support him and his base as well are living proof that none among them have souls or hearts. The proof is there for all to see
When you are not willing to help your fellow men, women and children who are less fortunate, when you are willing to let people not vote by gerrymandering, when you are willing to allow weapons of mass destruction murder innocent people, you do not have an ounce of a soul or a heart.
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If you need to believe that a person possesses something -- like the soul -- to make them equal, O.K. But the Enlightenment philosophers did away with that need by inventing the idea of the social contract. By its definition we are all equal by virtue of being equal parties to it. From this construction, endless benefits follow.
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I kind of think your point undermines itself. Because what you're trying to say is that no matter how far apart we are politically and how much we disagree we can all come together and engage in the messy process of respectful discussion. But then you're saying "if you're religious and believe in a soul—atheists however, are just too far outside the pale to even have morals and therefore aren't worth having respectful discussions with." I think you have to extend your moral vision a little farther if you actually do want to engage with people with different views.
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What makes us all equal is the fact that we are all human beings. No matter where we come from, what color our skin is, if we're religious or not, if we're rich or not, if we're intelligent or not; all of us are human beings with very much the same needs, wishes, wants, desires, etc. That's why our Declaration of Independence can start with "All men are created equal..." and go on from there. It was a radical idea then and it looks as if it hasn't stopped being radical. It would be much better for all of us on the planet if it was accepted and we acted accordingly towards each other.
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What scientific evidence is there to support the idea of a creator, of a soul, and of a final resting place? These are all speculative ideas lacking evidence.
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I am a living creature. Respect all living things.
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@Arthur
This is the most profound statement I've ever made.
As I would expect, most the comments I read below immediately talk past the point of the article.
You don't need to 'believe' in the soul, just recognize its existence, which you have direct, immediate experience of.
Take it from a scientist (or don't) - The ultimate we could do to study your brain would be a sci-fi rendition of something like magnetic resonance imaging, collecting the location and activation of every synapse. That is technologically impossible now (maybe ever), but would literally be a video of your total brain activity down to the cellular level. And nowhere in that data would be the most elementary parts of your experience - what the color red looks like to you, what cold feels like, what it is to feel excited or depressed. None of your experience is material, none of it can be measured, none of it exists within the grasp of science and experiment - not now, and not ever.
That is the soul, and you don't need to study the Bible or Quran to know about it. There was a time, say 100 years ago, when scientists fully understand the impenetrable barrier between the 'objective' and 'subjective'. The discussion of the soul was understood to belong to theology and philosophy, but most people 'got' the basic idea, irrespective of their religion.
You can't destroy the soul, but our culture and discourse have deteriorated to the point that most people's brains are now pretty blunt instruments - there is a soul in there, but no way to talk about it.
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Dear David,
This is a nice, feel good story, but its premise is completely false. The goal of the long, historic struggle against racism isn't to "make anyone equal" to anyone else. It was to establish the principles of equality in the nation's legal, political, economic and cultural life.
It never sought to erase difference, but simply to remove the stigma that racism imposes on difference. There are endless stories of Black and white reconciliation. But the challenge facing us today is that racism has become baked into many of our social structures and institutions.
A painful example is the death of Freddy Grey who was killed by Baltimore police. Half those officers who had custody of him were Black, as was the Police Superintendent. Yet the culture of police abuse in Baltimore was so ingrained that brutality had become normalized.
There are countless examples of how systems in America operate almost unconsciously to subordinate people of color. HUD, whose Secretary is African American is about to eliminate rules designed to prevent housing discrimination.
These are the new battle lines. And yes, one need only remember the words of Dr. King to see the 'spiritual' side of the struggle for social justice.
Dr. King's creation of a 'beloved community' had to first face the evils of militarism, materialism and misogyny (my paraphrase of King's words).
There's much work to do, and plenty of stories to be told in its doing. Hopefully we will see some in future columns.
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It's always praiseworthy and redemptive to speak of Frederick Douglass--whom the current president had never heard of, but though was trending well. But how about a few words about Ukraine and the outsourcing of American foreign policy for financial and political profit? How about the Kurds dying so that Trump can expand building in Istanbul? Not to mention that Brooks' Republicans haven't done a thing for the population he notices here.
1
.
body & soul,
mind & heart,
self & others.
balance and wholeness
this is what poets and writers have been writing about
the multi-faceted human-being
who needs to "Know Thyself"
DB earnestly hopes for all getting along but from time immemorial we have been ceaselessly fighting one another, over often even insignificant differences.
An insightful BBC 60's film, If There Weren't Blacks, We'd Invent Them." Essentially, it contends humans prefer a hierarchy of beings. A pecking order, with some on the bottom.
This is species inherent flaw that is irredeemable. Laws feebly try to mitigate it.
The reference to “laws which govern the moral universe,” is as nebulous as the talk of souls.
The Declaration boasts "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." If they were self-evident why the endless contention, strife, lack of domestic tranquility?
As the southern planter, politician James Hammond exclaimed, Equality is a lie, underscores he and legion of others didn't and don't see equality as self-evident. And fight and continue to legislate against it, even in supposedly democratic society.
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Mr. Brooks uses the word souls, but does not bring up religion. If we are to speak across the usual battle lines, we must be accommodating in our vocabulary. Soul can resonate with certain religious audiences used to giving that name to that part of themselves that they consider above and beyond merely physical. The secular prefer terms like innate humanity; so be it. Let us all try to be flexible in our use of words to accommodate and find common ground; surely if we are to come together, we must first be capable of speaking to one another. If something as trivial as semantics stops us before we even start, we are not trying very hard. We do not have to agree to the definition of soul, or on our views on the supernatural, to talk about issues of our common humanity.
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@Tom Meadowcroft Bravo - well said. I find it ironic that people are getting hung up on the word “souls” and missing the message of the essay. Replace souls with essence or heart. If we can’t find a way to move beyond these small things, we will continue to tear our country apart.
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@Tom Meadowcroft et al.
True, the word “soul” bothers some people because of the religious connotation. “Soul” is a Germanic word. Anima (what animates us, physically and emotionally), or spirit (what inspires or respirates us) are Latin equivalents. Psyche (psychology) the Greek. Ruah (the breath of God into Adam, or the flaring breath of running horses) the Hebrew. Atman (the principle of the Universe, the reality of an individual) the Hindu equivalent.
Why does every culture have the same idea - but just a different word for the same truth? Clearly, Brooks touches on a universal truth. We’re getting hung up on the word “soul.”
I invite us to reread Brooks’s essay substituting whichever equivalent word/idea above works for you. Please. The idea is too important to dismiss because of semantics.
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I agree with the comments below that reject the use of "soul." The "soul" is invisible, indeterminate, immaterial -- and many people reject its existence. Instead, let's think about the human being in front of us: visible, definite, material, real. Belief in a "soul" is no guarantee that someone will treat others with respect: in1209 Arnaud Amalric, asked what to do with the heretical Cathars captured in a raid, replied, "Kill them all. The Lord knows his own." The notion that one has a "soul" has been used to justify all sorts of horrors exercised on the body, since the "soul" will survive. It's mystical hocus-pocus, David, that you advocate.
Very sad that Mr. Brooks requires the vague, problematic notion of 'soul' to argue for essential egalitarianism. The idea that all humans are of equal value should be self-evident for those who consider themselves Americans.
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Forget reconciliation. How about justice? A tremendous wrong was committed and there has never been a just and binding sentence for the perpetrators and their progeny. Justice leads to reconciliation, but it seems only the oppressed understand this.
No one’s “progeny” should be sentenced for what their ancestors did. The only appropriate justice is to be treated equally under the law.
Being treated equally means being held accountable for crimes that still continue to benefit you. In fact that’s the system your descendants designed. This country was built to benefit multiple generations of white people. There’s no question about guilt, the only question is what a suitable punishment would be.
This is beautiful. I guess some don't like the word 'soul' as it does carry baggage, but it points to the life force that animates each of us. Do we need a new word for this thing we cannot see, that drains away from us as we die? Not really. Words are messy because they were all invented by humans trying to reach out to other humans and express this force that pushes us toward each other in spite of our recalcitrant, limited minds and raging emotions. This force connects us to each other and all other living things. We feel its universality and infinity even as we experience the limitations of our bodies and minds. Mr. Brooks is correct. Experiencing and surrendering to this power is what we need right now!
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Unfortunately, the fact of evolution proves souls don't exist. Unless you assume all our ancestors right down to prokaryotes had souls, which makes the word pretty meaningless. The Norbert Elias/Steven Pinker assumption of a long-term civilizing process provides a more realistic basis for mutual respect.
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@Jeff White if you are uncomfortable with soul perhaps you can understand consciousness.
I’m with you 100% on this David. This simple acknowledgement of our spiritual essence, whatever you want to call it, allows us to look at each other as brothers and sisters, equal at the core of our being. I often say that we are all divine beings and we each deserve the respect due to a divine being, regardless of our imperfections of any magnitude. Thank you for having the courage to share your beliefs about this!
3
And yet native americans, first nations, and indigenous peoples continue to be the most marginalized population in this nation. The recent Times 1619 project spoke of how slavery is the supposed "original sin" of America (though slavery had come to the Americas 125 years earlier), but colonization resulted in this God-given divine right to co-opt land (which Europeans had no "right " to) and obliterate human populations considered savages, not even as people, for the sake of empire. So much of history we have still yet to reconcile and so much yet being discounted.
2
Why do people think they're being insulted when someone they are trying to better tries to remind them that they wouldn't be acting that way if they remembered that they were equal, not better, than the very ones they're trying to get over on?
My parents used to tell me that the bread lines during the 1930s in Brooklyn were places where people went for bread and to be reminded of being equal. Lambert wouldn't have encountered resistance if those who had had the advantage didn't take advantage of those who didn't. Being reminded of his equality was the most empathetic and charitable thing the underclass could have done and it's a good story because he accepted their gift. Only the poor understand that gift-giving is the only real luxury. Thank you Dwan Dandridge for recognizing the value of the gift the community was offering.
2
In my managerial career I was asked on a daily basis to solve problems--to engage in an effective problem solving process was an educative function---listening-->gathering data-->conversations-->experimentation...Yes, it was often messy, not a "two-step process" by any means, but most of time we solved the problem. At times the process would be derailed when an individual or group began airing a personal grievance and/or a political/ideological agenda. When a problem gets tangled up in emotions or abstractions the problem solving process becomes stuck. That is where we are today politically. We have more than enough problems out there from climate change to health care that our governing bodies should be working on solutions. But no, day after day Congress is either in recess or engaged in he said/she said political squabbles.
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I think the root of human disrespect and its derivatives is this notion of an ethereal, mystical soul instead of a self woven, hopefully, within a community of other human selves. Once you accept that there is a consciousness that survives the body, life is devalued as all things of infinite supply are. Yes, there is that resonant self within that connects with others and helps us thrive as humans, but a "superior' soul does little to expand the circle of equality.
The humanitarian impulse, or simply humanism, even if hidden under the cloak of religion, is what drives our compassion for and empathy with each other.
7
What matters is Spirit unfolding itself in history.
2
Dear David,
Please try this thought experiment. Imagine that scientists had just received the Nobel Prize for proving beyond doubt that there is no such thing as a soul. Now, how should we treat one another?
In my almost 70 years, I have learned that secular humanists are some of the very best "Christians" on this planet. They follow the lessons of the Gospels far better than most of my neighbors who loudly proclaim themselves to be Christians. It is not about what you believe about souls or God or any of that. It is about how you treat people and all of creation.
So, what do we do about those who, whether they profess to believe in souls or not, bear false witness, cheat, steal, exploit, pollute the environment, harm others and ignore suffering?
15
So the question seems apparent: are we merely successors to the physical acts of cell divisions over billions of years that have created our physical appearance or is their something within us that is extra-physical and more difficult to analyze, let alone to divine? I believe there is an extra-physical element to our make-up and that we are not radically equal because we all seem to possess it. Instead we are poles apart because of what we do with it, or not. Yes, it is not our brains and it is not our bodies and it is our souls and no, this does not make us radically equal; it sets us apart in ways that make billions of years of cell divisions seem almost irrelevant.
2
The Durfee Innovation Society sounds like something I once envisioned, where did Mr. Lambert get $5Million dollars?
It would be nice if our bodies and our brains, our tools for acquiring knowledge and performing actions, also got involved. Is Mr. Brooks suggesting that we could leave them behind? TG
We aren’t all radically equal, as I see things.
But to me the important question is how can we manage to deal better with each other, given the differences between us and the ease in which discord can be stirred up.
I believe that we can do “radically” better in our dealings with each other, but only if we make enough of an investment in research to better understand ourselves and how to apply this understanding to make our behavior better.
When I read the words "...the person who is infuriating you most right now still has a soul and so is still, deep down, beautiful and redeemable.", I thought of Donald Trump and laughed out loud. Thank you David Brooks for brightening my day.
7
Forget "souls" David. That brings too much religious baggage into the conversation. There is never going to be any agreement or reconciliation among radical believers in their own religion. We are at a crossroads and talking about souls does not help. You have a platform in the NYT. Write about our common humanity. Most of the 7 billion humans on this planet just want to live, raise their families and be treated with dignity no matter what jobs they work at, what god they worship or don't worship. We need to teach our children two ideas. In a simple nutshell they are: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and "The LOVE of money is the root of all evil".
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@Sandi: His "soul" is the same thing as "our common humanity," so you are talking about the same thing, really. It is true that the language he uses has religious overtones and can turn people off, but part of recognizing everyone's common humanity is delving beneath the language someone uses to appreciate the underlying message.
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@Sandi - Do onto others leaves too much to interpretation. If we live by the greatest command provided by Jesus - the entire reason he changed history - it is this:
This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. John 15:12
6
@Sandi The love of money is the root of all evil? Really? As Emile Zola put it, which has caused more murders? Money, or love? The world cannot live without either.
1
I get it - we all share a common humanity. Now, Mr. Brooks, what are we to do about those who resolutely refuse to accept that truth?
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Love them. They desperately need your love. Your love will redeem them.
8
@vcbowie
I echo your sentiments. Brooks is great at dishing out touchy-feely pablum (sometimes with a dollop of preachy condescension); but it usually strikes me as ersatz fluff.
He's spent his career viewing and commenting on the world from a sheltered, insular, and protected perch. He's never actually been down in the trenches, staring down adversity, and then actually doing any kind of meaningful work to make the world a better place. Yet, he seems to believe that he's somehow qualified to tell people (mostly liberals) what we've been doing wrong, and/or what things we "should" be doing.
So, vc, you're absolutely right to ask Mr. Brooks: Tell us precisely how a person of color can fight back when they're denied a mortgage because of racial discrimination? What help can you give a transgender teen who has been kicked out by their parents, and has to figure out a way to survive on the streets? What actual steps have you taken to combat the lies spewed by Fox News, and the hatred spewed by Mark Levin? What have you done for the migrant families stuck in detention to help them maintain the "concept of their soul," and to get Trump and his henchmen to "hold fast to their awareness of [those] souls?"
Mr. Brooks: Grab a hammer, and help Jimmy Carter build a house for Habitat for Humanity. Or go on Sean Hannity's show, and tell him and his viewers how much they've damaged our country. Either one would be a lot more impactful than cranking out contrived columns like this.
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@vcbowie
Let's be clear. Mr. Brooks did not say "common humanity", he said soul. I know the word might be controversial among segments of the NYT readership, but that's what he said and what you should understand if you write a reply.
I don't have a soul and I don't need a fictional all powerful patriarch to tell me what it's right or wrong. As for this project in Detroit, your feel good description beggars belief. It would be great if we heard from local community leaders about whether this war a good way to spend several million dollars
3
Hey David, hate to break it to you, there is no such thing as a “soul”, never was, never will be.
The soul is that story people make up to pretend we will exist even beyond death.
Perhaps the ability for each person ever born to understand the fact
their own inevitable mortality is what ties us all together as human and equal.
2
Yes, as a believer I can take faith on that route to forgiveness.
But even as a believer I refuse to base seeing another's humanity as based on anything but.....their humanity.
Defining human worth by the soul is a concept too easily highjacked by bad religion, and we have way to much of that fundamentalist pathology these days.
No, we must base our valuation of each other upon human rights.
In that way, non-believers are not excluded.
Fellow believers can easily adapt humanitarian values to faith if they are not working on an agenda of religious exclusion within secular society.
As is being done right now, using "religious rights to DESTROY human rights within every public venue possible.
(Are you naive, Brooks?)
If religionists who promote the concept of the soul cannot accept human rights, they are signaling that their "love" for their brethren (always less live for the sisters of course) is false and exclusive.
And it is utterly, utterly worthless to value the human soul while refusing to acknowledge the soul of all living things, even nature & the universe itself.
94
@Karyn Brooks isn’t naive, but he does have a Republican business oriented agenda and like them often uses the tropes of liberalism to sell his product.
3
@Karyn If everything has a good human soul, why is there religion in the first place, or law in the second place?
@Karyn Thank you for acknowledging the inherent value of all life forms, a constituency far too often ignore in civic discourse. Nature also binds us all, and brings us closer to our deepest humanity.
1
My soul is part of the Earth, not a human construct or a devotee of any organized religion. And my soul is weeping, because our Planet is dying and most people are too greedy, selfish or stupid to care. I’m very frightened for my Daughter and two Granddaughters. And I’m so very sorry.
122
@Phyliss Dalmatian Very perceptive. My soul is weeping too, but please keep in mind that at any one time, half the population is composed of young people and it can take a life time to learn wisdom.
I try to send my soul forward during meditation to spread love and wisdom.
We are all ignorant of something. It is best to enlighten people whenever we can.
6
@Phyliss Dalmatian
"Planet is dying and most people are too greedy, selfish or stupid to care. '
Reasonable people reasonably disagree about the effects and causes of climate change. To call one side greedy, selfish, or indifferent, is mean and dogmatic. That said, your apology was quick and I accept it.
@8i
"Reasonable people reasonably disagree about the effects and causes of climate change." That's patently untrue. This is not a "bring your own facts" forum. There are experts in the subject, and there are hucksters who try to undermine their credibility, and there are ignorant but also supremely confident lay people who think it's hilarious and somehow conclusive to say climate change can't be happening because it snowed at their house the other day.
5
“I am an American citizen. In birth, in sentiment, in ideas, in hopes, in aspirations and responsibilities.”“It is the belief that all people of all races have a piece of themselves that has no size, weight, color or shape, but which gives them infinite value and dignity.”
So, in other words, you're no longer a Republican. Great news.
6
What makes us radically equal is the Constitution of the United States.
Its guarantees have been systematically violated by Republicans for many decades and Mr. Brooks, despite his soulfulness, has been gently complicit.
2
Way to own Lincoln. Interview Ben Carson next please. I’d like the pivot.
1
Amen David. Beautifully put! Thank you!
1
A) I don’t like being lectured by conservatives about racial equality.
B) You know Republicans are worried when they talk about racial equality to distract us from what’s going on in the White House
2
The most difficult thing is to not to harden ourselves when subjected to gross injustice. Hardening is itself a corruption of the soul - you become like your perpetrator. This is incredibly difficult because you agree to remain vulnerable to the same forces that exploited you in the first place. You continue to place faith in the basic goodness of humanity in the face of all evidence to the contrary. It is this spiritual quality that separates the Men from the Boys. This is, in fact, what Gandhi was able to do, and why he is called the Mahatma (Great Soul) in India. Among his wonderful quotes, this one is closest to my heart: "You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."
1
The "soul," as David Brooks invokes it, is a lovely concept, but the Republican Party sold it's "soul" to Donald Trump, a man devoid of such a thing.
In its place, Mr. Trump has only an insatiable appetite for all the worst things.
5
Its not what you feel or think that matters to those who need you, or who need you to change or to stop oppressing them. That is of no interest to anyone but you. Its what you do.
The commonality of a soul, is of no matter. The way you posit reality doesn't pay yours, or anyone's rent. The way you share or require others to share, as a citizen, pays the rent.
In this horrid month its easy to say that there is nothing else but money, dollars, lira, rupees, drachma, only money, spinning the world around.
How does this common soul measure up, or weigh, when put up against that of money? Does the soul feed people or does cash? Cause and end wars or does cash?
The question shouldn't be treated with sentimental obfuscation. We are surrounded by corruption, wars, famines, incarceration.
Is the solution to human suffering an idea, like the imposition of the premise of a soul, or is it an activity?
I would say that it is in the sharing of the wealth, so that no minuscule dynasties, have the bulk of it, while 18 million in Yemen, starve.
How does the commonality of the soul of a plundering fat cat matter to those who are hungry or being bombed?
Mr. Brooks,
You nudged me to remember a long forgotten self, one who believed in souls and a collective energy, before a lifetime of experiences (some violent, some shattering, but mostly ordinary) created a hard shell of defensive callousness that seems necessary to survive. The constant stream of cruelties and corruption the current administration blatantly SELLS to the people who identify as Christians ( and they, in turn, greedily drink from that chalice) scares and infuriates me. I cannot profess I am evolved enough to accept the concept of grace for every soul, but I can reframe my view enough to believe the collective will deal with the concept of justice, especially if what we see on this earthly place falls woefully short. I do not care if anyone calls it magical thinking, in these dark days I look for any sign from the Universe. That was a lot of verbage to say, "thank you Mr. Brooks, for reminding us of our better angels..."
40
@LL
Not all Christians, most of us who follow in the steps of the Social Gospel movt. of more than a century ago. Unlike William F.. Buckley, we are liberal, progressive and socialist because we believe in God. If I was an atheist, I would be an Ayn Rand anarchist, which is much more realistic in regards to human nature and more fun.
What if what we think of as the individual soul has no intrinsic value? What if our value lies only on the whole that we are all a part of - the good and the bad? Maybe this is the only way for me to reconcile that there is equality in the soul of folks like Lambert and Dandridge and that of Trump. We are all one -- good and evil.
Its not what you feel or think that matters to those who need you, or who need you to change or to stop oppressing them. That is of no interest to anyone but you. Its what you do.
The commonality of a soul, is of no matter. The way you posit reality doesn't pay anyone's rent. The way you share or require others to share, as a citizen, pays the rent.
In this horrid month its easy to say that there is nothing else but money, dollars, lira, rupees, drachma, only money, spinning the world around.
How does this common soul measure up, or weigh, when put up against that of money? Does the soul feed people or does cash? Cause and end wars or does cash?
The question shouldn't be treated with sentimental obfuscation. We are surrounded by corruption, wars, famines, incarceration.
Is the solution to human suffering an idea, like the imposition of the premise of a soul, or is it an activity?
I would say that it is in the sharing of the wealth, so that no minuscule dynasties, have the bulk of it, while 18 million in Yemen, starve.
How does the commonality of the soul of a plundering fat cat matter to villagers who are being carpet bombed?
Evil lurks in the hearts of men. Along with fear, greed, and disdain. If there are souls they are generally bad. Only the British And American democracies have stood in the way. And now with evil so present in our leaders hope is withering away.
1
Conservatives like David Brooks always ask us to believe in dumb stuff, whether it’s in trickle down economics or in Trump’s genius. Driven primarily by fear, especially of death, they have an obsessive need for permanence, which makes them vulnerable to religious poppycock, the older, more graybeard the better. In this case it’s the superstitious idea of soul as an eternal inner self making us equal.
Believing dumb stuff is often useful; it helps bind a tribe together—it is a built-in test and assurance of commitment. But this concept of soul is a bad one because there’s no evidence it exists. Reasonable people, people who rightfully demand evidence for what they believe, can’t buy it. But there are better, more progressive, less scientifically vulnerable ways to conceive of soul,
My definition: a system of symbols, part personal, part shared, built up throughout our lives, helping us structure our dreams and order our experience. It is the poetry of our self-fashioning, and we all share the need for it. No one, not even Mark Zuckerberg, is soulless in this sense. We all share the deep human need for symbols, a need born of our most common experience: to make sense of a seemingly senseless world. THAT, the soul of being human, is what makes us equal, not some ghostly inner spirit.
1
Sometimes I think you're a sentimentalist, Mr. Brooks. Don't make the mistake of projecting your sentimentality upon Frederick Douglass.
I don't know that Douglass gave a hoot about "racial reconciliation" after the Civil War. His project was recognition--recognition that the native land of black Americans is the United States and that full recognition is the guarantee of unalienable rights. Its the law, not our souls, that make us radically equal.
“It is the belief that the person who is infuriating you most right now still has a soul and so is still, deep down, beautiful and redeemable.” Nope. The Republicans & Trump are tearing down every support system this country has & gloat when they don’t get what they want. They are not redeemable & do not possess souls.
Well, I agree that we all have souls. But some of us sell them, and then we don't have them anymore -- the devil has them. I think that Donald Trump and Steven Miller may have done this.
3
Mr. Brooks, give up your soul fantasies. This article describes perfectly true and wonderful interactions, but debases them with superstition.
Mutual respect is not based in mutual belief in a soul.
Reducing tension, racial and otherwise, is based on listening and caring and understanding, not belief in some religious fever dream.
Working together is not based in soul-or-not-soul.
Worldwide, virtually no one shares your idea of soul. Many of the places that most need democracy - China, India, Russia - don't share this "belief". Do we split the world into believers and non-believers?
You're wrong even from a religious perspective. Not one historical prophet talks about soul as you do, and many warn against this kind of thinking. The commandments prohibit false idols and taking the name of the Lord in vain, and the Buddhist precepts prohibit promoting the wine of delusion. The truly religious people defend against this kind of religion.
Don't dress up your personal beliefs as public policy. It's disgusting to see rational thought put in service of misleading people.
Nice piece Mr. Brooks. I wonder when the evangelicals are going to recognize that everyone has souls and that maybe our president does not.
2
In retreating from politics, David is denying, defying and decrying reality. Yes, this Detroit thing is nice, as are all attempts to connect with others and act on the belief that we’re all capable of goodness. But venture not ten miles from Detroit (and when I lived there, I tried not to) and you will find a vicious Appalachian culture that has poisoned the state since the northern migration begun in World War II. These people put Donald Trump in office. One well-intentioned community organizer and one basically decent community cannot turn the tide of racism and resentment that prevails in Republican America. We have to do something a little bolder than setting up a pizzeria and after-school activities. We have to remove the political deplorables who have given us the greatest inequality since Gilded Age. And we have to overwhelm the deplorables who, driven by hatred and fear, vote for them. Only then can David indulge in his dreamy, soul-satisfying pronouncements.
2
The white people who have moved into my neighborhood and destroyed it (with the approval of our black mayor) all consider themselves nice people. They go to church or synagogue, walk their children around in their strollers, preach to us about how green and progressive they are, while we are looking around to see where we can move to, but that of course is a longer commute, a strange neighborhood where we may also now be unwelcome, and it's getting just as expensive there. It would be great if all white guys were a nice and selfless as Mr. Lambert, but the truth is that they are usually preaching politics and morality at us, while they are simply looking out for themselves at everyone else's expense. The history of white America is for the most part taking from and displacing other people. Sorry, but I don't trust you and don't think that most of you have souls, only motivations. As the old saying goes, you put out your reason to justify your will.
2
Brooks is peddling the old religious lie that some people are put on this earth to suffer. By stating that we are not equal in mind or body, and then positing that we are rather all equal in soul, Brooks is trying to retread the Christian idea that suffering in this mortal plane is acceptable for some, because they will supposedly get a heavenly reward when they are a soul in the afterlife. This idea has been a favorite of wealth and hoarders for millenia--Brooks is just putting a little modern spin on it.
1
The piece recalls the main theme of George Saunders' brilliant 2017 novel "Lincoln in the Bardo"--mandatory reading for anyone interested in reconciling the races and "soul awareness" (to paraphrase Brooks).
1
An uplifting essay, in one way, but aren’t “souls” mainly a religious (Christian) idea? If so, at least to some extent, how does this message translate to many other peoples and cultures and religions?
I’d note, in passing, that apparently the current GOP apparently has, itself, no soul. So where do they fit in???
Unfortunately humans experience psychiatric maladies. They vary from psychosis to personality disorders and neuroses.
Too, humans experience issues with enculturation and personal tragedies that may effect their normal course of behavior.
Sometimes folks with antisocial or borderline personality disorders wind up in high level positions, where they can cause great harm to large populations.
Hesse maintained in the novel Demian, that every person's life is a journey unto themselves.
1
David, in my many encounters with Trump supporters, I have yet to emerge from any of them without feeling utterly soiled. Frankly, I see nothing to be gained from soul-searching with people who would deny the existence of the sun ... as they go blind staring at it.
2
The article was interesting but the 'soul' reference disappointing. Are you implying that humans have souls that exist before and/or after death? What about animals?
David Brooks should examine Buddhism: a religion of compassion. Its main thesis is "no-self" (about the same as "no soul").
While it didn't make the front page given the 7 Trump/Giuliani pieces, CNN interviewed Biden, Buttigieg,Warren and others last night regarding LGBT issues. Buttigieg made a strong case for instilling a sense of belonging for all Americans and embeds his argument it in the faith teachings of the major religions.
While a generation apart, he and David Brooks seem to be honing in on the same ideals. I'd welcome hearing more of that aspirational thinking.
1
I'm sorry, but I find Mr. Brooks is far more compelling when engaged in real-world political analysis rather than universalist mysticism.
Maybe this is an appropriate summation of how us humans should deal with each other:
Treat your neighbor as you treat yourself.
1
If you're lucky enough to have a Canadian, English or French soul, you're automatically bestowed the human dignities of voting rights and healthcare rights.
If you have an American soul, those dignities cost a bit extra...the poor, the unfortunate and disenfranchised still get to go to the back of the American bus.
That's what happens when your country's soul gets hijacked by the radical right and turns human souls into economic and political commodities for cheap billionaires.
America needs a lot of work on its soul.
American even has a soulless President who thinks “Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice.”
No sign of a soul there whatsoever.
Sad.
15
I wouldn’t be so quick to conclude we have no soul, that souls are unreal, that souls suffer from dualistic thinking; solid science —and our own eyes—show us that the whole planet is suffering and dying as a direct result of greed, ego, moral decay, that may be the final judgement against us. Is life, and earth’s destruction materialistic, real enough for you?
ah yes...the ultimate conservative obfuscation—equality of souls in the face of massive economic inequality in the real actual every day godaa pay the bills world.
1
This community center business is fine, but let's get down to the harsh reality of why Detroit's low income people's homes have been foreclosed for non-payment of illegal property taxes based on assessments many times over the over the legal limit of 50% of market value, while high value homes have lowered.
So you kick minority home owners out of their homes on foreclosure & the mayor says the empty houses attract crime (duh) & they're bulldozed; voila, property values climb.
Oh yeah, let's all eat pizza & celebrate the neighborhood.
3
Really, I found the column by Mr. Brooks fatuous and empty. All we can do in a multiracial society like ours is to insist that all individuals be treated fairly and then left to pursue their own dreams and aspirations. Whether whites or blacks choose to make a conscious effort to have friends across racial lines is as irrelevant, say, as whether a white person wishes to have a relationship with an asian. Believe me, I know this personally because I am a white person who has a beautiful black girlfriend and our relationship has nothing to do with racial issues. It's time, really, to get away from this obsession with race and simply view other persons as human beings. By the way, that's the way the great black abolitionist Frederick Douglas thought too.
an official apology from the us government for the crimes of slavery, and the establishment of a reparations fund, to be administered by descendants of slaves, as they see fit, is the only true way out of the abyss.
these other actions, while important, and also needed, will always fall short until we acknowledge the massive crime our nation is built upon, and until we allow the children and grandchildren of the victims to find their own way forward.
To overcome racism, you just do it. There is no "racial reconciliation" to be had, because race is a false construct to begin with. It's far easier to dispose of the concept than to try to overcome the problems its proponents want to produce. As the young neophyte in the Matrix put it, it is impossible to bend a spoon. Rather, try to understand the truth: There is no spoon. Really. No fooling. Truly: Race is nothing.
Chris Lambert seems very entrepreneurial and so heroically altruistic in his missionary project. Of curse, it couldn’t be a good column without allusions to 1776, Lincoln, Frederick Douglas and the Holy Spirit and, of course, more altruism. Such a contrast to Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman.
If we believe in souls and providence then there is also unredeemable evil. People without souls are evil. Such people exist and evil lives among us and thwarts justice wherever it can.
As for an awareness of souls... what is the difference anymore when someone soulless and without faith is hailed as a savior, his indecency as courage? Spare me the language of souls. There is not enough blood in the lamb for our day of judgment.
very thoughtful piece of journalism.
thank you
1
What about the calculated and cruel people in this administration? Did they ever have souls? Or were they dimmed?
1
Beautiful. Thank you.
While it's helpful and hopeful to remind Americans we all have common interests in hopes of lessening racial (and other) tensions needlessly inflamed...
Please express how all Americans are equal and no one should discriminate to:
* conservatives who rail against equal LGBTQ rights
* Trump and his MAGA cultists who falsely believe a white majority can experience reverse discrimination
* Republicans who assume brown folks are illegals
* Evangelicals who don't respect religious diversity
Rights others than life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable. Civil (human/humane) rights precluding any and all discrimination should be obvious as necessary to all Americans regardless of race, gender identity, creed, religion or other nonsensical category. Kindly pass that along to conservatives, MAGA, and all Republicans.
1
We are all radically equal — not because we have souls, but because we are souls.
1
Some souls aren’t very kind, and some souls, we look at and cry, for many can see what they cannot.
Beautiful, and a big trick
1
"It is the belief that our souls make us all radically equal." This is a Judeo-Christian concept that has no counterpart in Islam. See the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam if you doubt that. Men and women are not equal, nor are Muslims and Infidels. Western ethnocentrism is on display in this Opinion, as it is in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that Eleanor Roosevelt worked so hard to create. See the book "Inventing the Individual" by Larry Siedentop.
Mr. Brooks lectures us about the "soul" as if this has any significance to real life.
His party, the GOP, is knee deep in scandal and unimaginable sleaze so why not deflect?
I'm sorry, Mr. Brooks: soul is an habitual behavior, not a thing. "She's got soul" we say, meaning she displays a consistency of empathy. I know you can't change, situated as you are, deep in Cartesean dualism. But your children can improve, as the culture already has. Energy & matter: E = mc². The idealistic metaphors you personally favor are already set aside for a cleaner, clearer, more realistic view of how the world actually works.
To know we have a soul is an act of faith. Brooks rightly points out that it is our ability to believe in things intangible that bring us to our greatest heights. We are all equal in our ability to have faith though some rely on it and derive power from it more than others because they share their faith with others.
America is an act of faith. We empower the Constitution and the ideas contained within it. Our economy is founded on this shared belief that things have a definable value and peoples' labor can be monetized into hourly wages. This is all just faith.
Trump's power is almost all faith now. Despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, his followers still believe that he is doing great things. This of course is supported by networks of media, the Republican party, evangelical churches - all attempting to solidify this faith of their constituents so that they may continue to profit from him being in power.
Where Brooks fails miserably is understanding what it is to have a soul. It is fine that it makes us all equal in his eyes but is that its purpose? I don't care to look deep into the heart of those that are committing atrocities and see they have a soul - that is not an end, it is just the beginning. Brooks offers nothing but a potential feel good moment while letting those that could care less about anyone's soul further their agenda at the expense of our lives. Brooks is late to this party and really needs more reflection before spreading pablum.
1
I could respond to a lot of the other commentators, but there is not enough space. My only objection to Brooks' is in use of the word "soul". For me, it has way to much religious baggage. And that can invite discord not relevant to the topic. I would suggest a less divisive concept as "humanness" or "consciousness" would be more appropriate, accurate, or instructive.
60
@PCGEEK48
Those words would allow for a more inclusive understanding but it wouldn't change the truth of the soul having been provided to each individual, divinely.
That said, it would be welcomed if everyone would drop all pretenses, selfishness, 'otherizing', etc. to get to this understanding but far too few would be willing to accept others as God's children and to act accordingly.
It's painful to see what's happening in our world. Understanding and valuing souls are not within reach for most so starting at humanness - even if that were just achieved - would be momentous for mankind.
6
@Brad G and David -- I'm closer to you 2 than I am to PCGeek48. The word "soul" is more than acceptable to most of us earth-dwellers. I would be fine with "consciousness that doesn't die with the body." One of my favorite monks said to me "there are big roles in life, but not big souls". So David's phrase of radical equality rings loud and true to me. And it's a great reminder at this time when "Christians" and "evangelicals" are not embracing what their Savior lived and taught. God save us from "churchianity" that masqueredes as Christianity. In conclusion: Go, David!
4
@PCGEEK48 Let me suggest that the hostility to religion in general expressed by a number of readers here has much in common with the hostility to atheism felt by many religious people. Dare I suggest that your souls have something in common?
5
I love the beautiful ideas behind this column, although I can't totally agree with them. I agree with Mr. Brooks that we are not all equal in mind and body and that we all have souls. Unfortunately, our souls are not equal, either. We all have some good and some evil in us; that is just the nature of mankind. Some of our souls are far more good than others, though, and some of our souls are far more evil than others. Or if you don't like the religious connotations of good and evil, you can call it moral and immoral instead--it's pretty much the same thing.
If humans loose the ability to reason, and reflect on their humanity then humans have lost everything. On the other hand not all souls (if souls exist) are required to be good. For example: "Proverbs 21:10 The soul of the wicked desires evil; his neighbor finds no mercy in his eyes."
2
Mr. Brooks, Thank you for writing about the soul today. The soul is what we seem to have forgotten we all have, or would prefer to pretend doesn't exist. But I know from personal experience that when I choose to act from the sizeless, weightless, ageless entity that is my soul, life tends to flow with ease. What's that about?
3
I am an atheist, but it seems to me that the belief in a soul has shaped some of the best things about the modern world, not the least of which is democracy itself - it's a short path from souls to finding it "self evident" we are all created equal or to believing in such a thing as human rights. In reality, there's nothing self evident about equality, nothing natural about human rights. These are stories we tell ourselves, much like the ancient Mesopotamians told the story of three discrete, unequal castes of people created by the gods (as historian Yuval Harari points out).
I like the equality story better though. In fact, I believe in it with as much faith and with as little evidence as many theists believe in souls. And I like to think I share some common ground here with Mr. Brooks, though I wonder (sincerely, not rhetorically) whether he would agree.
5
David the ancients always knew about the equality of our essence. Each of us is a manifestation of this essence which is the self awareness in us, all sentient beings. Do not underestimate a blade of grass, it too feels the sun shining on it, photosynthesis makes it fodder for other living things, so it is born to nourish nurture. All those silent leaves on those tall trees in our backyards, they breathe and give us the oxygen we need. Don’t underestimate these trees. This essence that we all have, has no ownership it does not belong to you or me, it is stainless, it is scar less. It does not even judge, it is pure witness. It is the I AM that all of us feel and refer to. We don’t need to go to a church temple synagogue mosque to find it. What we are looking for is itself which finds itself. It is self aware. In its knowing is the celebration the joy the discovery the enlightenment the lifting of the veil. We are all still looking for it, because humanity got distracted, those mystics messengers messiahs who were meant to guide us, left us in a holy mess because they cannot explain in words that which is felt by all, within.
5
Here's the thing: no one knows what's good for a soul, what improves one, or can prove that one exists. If one wishes to carry through with the sentiment expressed here, the only path forward is respect the personal decisions of those who are capable of understanding the consequences of those decisions and engage in fact-based discussions surrounding the decisions that affect all of us. How many times in our history have we tortured the flesh and the minds of other humans under the claim that we were doing what was needed to provide for the enlightenment of their souls? How many times have we waged war and wrought genocide to bring enlightenment of the soul? How many times have we "enlightened" conquered people by stripping away their heritage and freedom of individual choice?
This is not the path forward. The path forward is to embrace whole individuals and to respect them; mind, body, and, if you insist, soul.
5
Frederick Douglass had the gift of seeing and feeling the viewpoints of those at opposite poles. Brooks gives us his amazing quote: “Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull and indifferent; but measuring him from the sentiment of his country … he was swift, zealous, radical and determined.”
This precise split exists today. I just wish we had a Lincoln who could so thoroughly flummox the folks occupying both poles.
1
@Victor I think we have several of them running for President in 2020: Cory Booker and Pete Buttigieg immediately come to mind. And there are others all over the country and the world working toward radical reconciliation.
2
David Brooks is on point today with the reminder that we all carry within us a fundamental, intrinsic value that cannot be removed or taken, that binds us all. The religious term soul works, even if you are not religious.
A person has value because he or she has value. Not because they are rich, or have healthcare Not because they were born here. Not because they have education, or because they work hard or are the salt of the earth. Not because they are rugged individuals who look out for themselves. Or because they go to the right church, love the right people, dress the right way.
That means those children at the border have value. The Kurds we betrayed have value. Refugees have value. Kids in areas of urban blight have value, as do their parents.
Republican policy chooses who has economic value, and ignores the intrinsic value of the human soul. They have forgotten that we are all involved in mankind, and to never ask for whom the bell tolls.
4
Humans don’t have immaterial spirits, or souls; they gather together in groups and make social contracts with each other that either recognize our equal-ness, or capitalize on our differences. Our American social contract, the Constitution, for example, codified our differences. The three-fifths rule and the fugitive slave clause are prime examples, both were abominations that have scarred race relations since the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Souls were not evident in those founding deliberations.
8
@Bill Lapham
Liberty and rights were only for a few. But those early people and all the Americans that followed were tasked with forming a more perfect union. One step towards true equality is to acknowledge there is only one race - HUMAN. From there we can see all the facets that make us unique but equal individuals.
If using soul as a point where equality starts gets us in this path of real equality, I'll take it and use it.
1
I am pretty much with this argument, provided we maintain the interconnectedness of the traditional mind, body, and soul categories in our biped species. Obviously, as in the case of our most prominent specimen with ape-like behavior, a disruption in one of these three dimensions can have a profound effect in the others. So I hope You-know-who does not suffer cardiovascular effects of the obvious decay and diminution in the soul. The thought of a capable theocrat in the Oval Office is frightening.
4
It's dangerous to discount the body, because it is the body that experiences pain, and some people are forced to experience more pain than others because of their relative powerlessness. Hence inequality, with real consequences. Better that good man had opened a clinic staffed with elite medical personnel.
The only equality we need is equality under the law, provided that the law promotes equal access for all to life-sustaining food, shelter, and medical care. Laws are made, however, and/or flouted, by self-interested people, who often don't care what their ramifications are for some of the less "equal" segments of society. Let's keep the law focused on the betterment of bodies (brain included), and let notions of soul and God ease our way out when our bodies can no longer support life, which is why these concepts developed in the first place.
1
Serious engagement with human beings in pursuit of a mission larger than simple economics, that does not ignore economics; with a mission that the respects experience, gifts, and flaws of all; requires a kind faith. The "substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" as noted in one New Testament verse. That mission need not be overtly religious. But fidelity to that mission will require some kind of surrender. It will require resiliency, compassion, a touch of mercy; and a bit of humor.
2
You've got to sympathize with Mr. Brooks. For most of his life he has argued for the Republican Party. Now he has almost all that he has argued for -- state governments dominated by Republicans, federal executive and judicial branches dominated by Republicans, federal legislative branch half dominated by Republicans -- and the result is catastrophic mismanagement of government. He can't find anything positive to write about concerning his dream-come-true, so he writes about what happened in 1876.
8
It is hard to reconcile evil as existing in your family. That is Brooks's quandary.
I suppose I shouldn't be amazed that the majority of comments are hung up on Brooks' use of "Soul". If it causes you worry or a dismissal of of his argument you are missing the point. Think rather of "Soul" as a placeholder for moral beings. We are, each of us equal in that. We are able to act freely and as such are, all of us deserving of equal dignity equal respect and equal treatment form our fellow humans. "Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.'"- Immanuel Kant
5
There is no such thing as a soul in the real world. It exists only as a fantasy in your imagination, David. Maybe believing in it satisfies a need you feel, but it is nonetheless a fantasy.
The equality of all humans (leaving aside other animals for the moment) is grounded in the fact, not a fantasy, that we are all sentient beings, capable of suffering but also of feeling joy.
8
@Jeffrey Herrmann
What need are you satisfying in denying a soul?
'the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, regarded as immortal.
2.
emotional or intellectual energy or intensity, especially as revealed in a work of art or an artistic performance'.
I'm all for respecting sentience:
'Sentience is the capacity to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively. Eighteenth-century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think (reason) from the ability to feel (sentience)'.
The Charles Mingus piece is titled 'Better Get It In Your Soul'. I think that is useful advice.
I'm glad you and Brooks agree, even if you don't like his vocabulary.
What Brooks is describing is "universal salvation", the belief that all sinful and alienated human souls will be reconciled to God. It was the belief of several early Christian fathers, including Origen, who also believed in preexisting souls who were one with God but fell into sin and alienation from God when brought into the material world but will eventually be reconciled to God upon departure from the material world back to the spiritual world. In other words, "[i] is the belief that all humans have souls . . . it is the belief that our souls make us all radically equal . . . it is the belief that the person who is infuriating you most right now still has a soul and so is still, deep down, beautiful and redeemable. It is the belief that when all is said and done all souls have a common home together, a final resting place as pieces of a larger unity".
2
Respectfully, Mr. Brooks, I’m less interested in equality than in equity. Recognizing a soul/spirit/essence of humanity that is “the same” cannot be a solution for institutional, historic, systemic inequity. In fact, this inequity of privilege (white, male, connected) enables an outsider to come in, provide yoga and pizza, and be rewarded in the NYTimes for salvaging Detroit rather than addressing the fundamental racist and patriarchal structures that continue to ravage its communities.
3
@Kiki
Once someone admits that there is only one race of people and that alone sets everyone as equal at the core, the cornerstone will be set to build a society that has ended institutional discrimination, overcome human nature to classify and self segregate, and ensure that the justice systems treat everyone the same.
Economic privilege is what is real. Rather than add fuel to the fire that divides this country, why not call the those economically privileged in the "black" community for not doing more. Tyler Perry, Steve Harvey, and Magic Johnson cannot do it all. More to the point, empowerment starts with the person you see in the mirror. There are many people of color with projects and programs to help communities in Detroit and other places where economic inequality prevails.
Yes, there will always be hateful people just as there is likely to always be people who will hate based on the color of someone's skin. Is it really worth it to not take a hand up just because you don't like the skin color? And yes, I know what racism is, I lived segregation. I still experience the hate. I am also proud of the community center that bears my relatives last name and what it does for all of the community without regard to skin color.
@Kiki
Huh? If there is no equality, then equity just means that each person gets what he deserves: and if I am twice as good as you, I deserve twice as much as you. Without the idea of equality, then I can claim that I deserve my privilege, that it is just and fair that I have that privilege.
Equity means nothing without equality.
"Our brains and bodies are not equal, but our souls are."
This sentence could be interpreted in a variety of ways...some of them destructive. It strikes me as a bit problematic.
3
I have been, unfortunately, late in learning that simply being born white, without more, gave me unearned, unspoken privileges and advantages that are not owed to not owed to me just because of the color of my skin.
The anger encountered by this white philanthropist who acquired this building for one dollar, is easier for me to understand now. The roots and causes of poverty making such acts of philanthropy worthy, are never addressed, and the unearned unspoken privileges that the wealthy individual had, starting out in life, are things, at least for me, are sobering, and surely are worthy of discussion.
2
David,
The Constitution says "All men are created". What is "Man"? To whom does it refer? It was not and is not inclusive.
The current Dalai Lama says "The basic fact is that all sentient beings...want happiness and do not want pain and suffering. On those grounds, we have every right to be happy".
He goes on to detail all the pros and cons of different ways we might achieve happiness.
The reality is that we will lose everyone we love either through their death or our own. It can not be avoided. Since this is true, he goes on, it is best to develop "basic human good qualities" BHGQ. Among these he listed: affection, involvement, honesty, discipline, creativity, and intelligence". We have these capabilities from birth he argued.
But it isn't true. People suffer from birth from any number of mental short comings that make these attributes impossible. Including certain mental illnesses that impede empathy, limit intellect, cause violent impulse, or cause fear that results in greed or selfishness.
Our nation's suffering can not be over come with simplified platitudes of sameness.
Even if every person, with the capacity for BHGQ.
there would still be those who can't do what is needed. They are many, perhaps billions who do not have the capability for BHGQ in their lifetime.
That is why we need government to help control the negative outcome of those who can not or will not practice BHGQ.
Rate your own BHGQ today.
4
@Chat, none of us have a patent of truth, you say? I consider that a sign of, let's call it weakness, as it means that everything that people say can be left unanswered.
As an example, somebody here writes about 'trickle down', an idea that is loved by the rich, because it does not hinder them in getting richer. But the truth is that this idea is proven to be wrong. So in this case, as in many others, we (you too?) have a patent of truth. Stop being nice to these people, people who seem to have only their own interest in mind, or don't understand what they are doing.
3
It is difficult to make sense of the meanderings of Brooks observations of the world. They are often well written but just as often jejune.
The idea of equality is a counter factual, which accounts for the description of it as a belief. It is usually proffered as a religious/philosophical tenet or a political principled derived from that.
But reality shows us every day that we are not equal in any way - size, appearance, talent, etc...- except in the idea of our part in something larger than ourselves, such as the religious (universe) or our conception of the polity in which we participate.
Belief in equality becomes necessary for the circumspect intelligence aware of its own fallibility and imperfection. It is security for any who doubt their place in the Divine order, or as part of self preservation in the context of a political system people recognize they will not control.
Our equality before a larger organization of the world, or in a political system, is directly related - the “religious” impulse has political implications and vice versa. Equality in this conception is an inevitable conclusion of people aware of their own vulnerability. Equality allows for all in our failings to be seen by god. Equality of individuals in a polity is a necessity for long term security.
But equality is a counter factual belief in many real world contexts and so will remain a partially inaccessible concept for those who do hold well contradictory simultaneous thoughts to be true.
4
@Northman It is difficult to make sense of the meanderings of ... Brooks? Considering what following, that seems funny. If I understand you, your posting could be stating four words:
Equality is useful fiction.
"All human beings have a piece of themselves that has no size, weight, color or shape, but which gives them infinite value and dignity."
"Our souls make us all radically equal."
"If people lose the concept of the soul, they lose everything."
But -
Is any of this true?
Do you really believe any of it yourself, or do you think noble lies are ok, rather than dangerous irresponsibilities?
If you abandon scientific standards of evidence in this realm, what basis do you have for criticizing those who do so in the crucial realms of politics and society?
And do you think people who don't believe in the soul you describe are less capable of thinking and behaving in ways we consider ethical?
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@Ed Hemlock
I think a lot of less ethical people have no comparable concept of soul, and therefore they do not value life, specifically human life, as something sacred and highly valued. They cheapen life, and commercialize to the detriment of others. Unethical people need to be called out as a soulless man is a dangerous one, not caring how many others he takes out with his own actions.
David, your argument is foundational: we can't believe X (equality of all humans) unless it is founded on something else, Y (the existence of a soul). This style of argument is due to Descartes, who proposed as foundation for all beliefs the Cogito: I think, therefore I am.
The problem is that if a person doubts the foundation, then one's belief in all else is shaken.
There is an alternative: make human equality itself a foundational tenet. Then it depends on nothing else. Let all your other beliefs flow, or at least be consistent, with this tenet. This is a Kierkegaardian, rather Cartesian way of thinking. For Kierkegaard, meaning in life cannot come from outside sources, but from an existential commitment. (This was his approach to Christianity, too.)
Equality of all humans becomes then not a belief, but a commitment: an extensional assertion that comes from you, and can only ever be revoked by you.
This is the way I've come to regard it.
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@David Week - The equality of all of us perhaps does and does not lie in our genomes. We are 99%+ alike, so genome researchers tell me, but the small differences between you and me David Week very likely result in you doing one or more things we might name better than I can and vice versa.
Your comment is really good. My approach, employed by me in soon 19 years as volunteer at the Red Cross here in Linköping SE is to view every new arrival - asylum seeker - as a member of the only race, the human, who there at the Red Cross has the chance to reveal to me over time what is in and on her mind and to do so in an environment where she is free to express her thoughts but with one guiding principle - thou shall not speak ill of any other group possibly represented by other asylum seekers there on any given day.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
6
This piece brought me to tears (of joy, sorrow, hope) and then the comments brought me to tears (of sadness, hopelessness). I am a self-professed atheist, but that doesn't mean I don't know I have a "soul." Perhaps we're arguing over semantics? My friends who recently died still roam my thoughts and linger in my waking conscious (and often enter my dreams). Do I think they're ghosts wandering the earth? No! Of course not! But I do know these thoughts and feelings transcend just brain zaps. I can't explain it, but nor can I explain anything scientific, nor can I explain why words on a screen made me tear up...(though with careful analysis I suppose I could). Write on, David Brooks!
13
I fully agree with you Amber. The best evidence that we are actually all equals is a (BBC?) documentary about very young childrens' behaviors around the world (I don't remember the title right now unfortunately) : all (!) had the same attitudes and expressions. Uprising, education and local social norms distort the way people interact. And, about the "soul", I agree with you as well: no need to be religious to understand that it is the core of our true values, our deepest consciousness, some kind of higher dimension in us that we should consult much more often :)
5
@Amber Anderson I agree completely; this is a lovely little essay and I'm afraid some of these comments are by tortured souls putting too many layers on everything. Thank you David Brooks once again for a simple idea eloquently presented. It's a keeper.
5
David Brooks, what I don't like about this piece is the ending thought that one has lost everything if they've lost the awareness of "souls." It really is a persistent theme of yours that the non-religious cannot be decent, moral members of the community. That would banish almost every physicist that ever lived.
One can come to the "Golden Rule" as derivative from our nature as social beings, and our common interest in peace and and the dividends of community effort. It falls into our lap, so to speak, as we observe our experience in primary school. It is so common sense that close variations of the principle appear in almost every religion.
One of the norms that roles out of the Golden Rule is the necessity of respecting the dignity and self image of others. Violation of this is sure to cause hurt and conflict.
None of this requires belief in higher beings or souls or ghosts or judgment in the afterworld.
15
@cowboyabq I totally disagree, and I would place myself as a leader of the "non-religious." A soul isn't a religious concept. It is the unique traits that are woven together to make it impossible right now for me to know what it's like to be @cowboyabq. The soul is that private space that no one except you knows. I am an atheist, but I assure you I have a soul. And I believe you do, too.
6
@Amber Anderson
A better word would be spirit. We all have a spirit and spirituality. It is totally unrelated to a religious realm.
And I suspect the word (or concept) "spirit" is difficult if not impossible to adequately define because it is indeed unique for everyone.
If I were to try to describe spirituality I think it has to do with a sense of otherness, of peace, of self actualization none of which depends solely on a belief in a god.
Although I do not think for a moment that I have reached the state of self actualization, I do have an awareness of the other, be it people, the environment, etc. In fact being in nature helps me find peace and understanding of something much bigger than the "ME" concept.
3
@cowboyabq
Scientists have shown that when we die the energy in our body gets transferred to the surroundings. I have no definitive name for this and it really doesn't matter. This energy unites us as equal beings. Our DNA unites us.
It is sad that people will choose division over a word trying to represent a concept is unable to be contained in a single word. The energy is the core of our being. Some call that core a soul. I forget who said 'a rose by any other name will smell just as sweet' but the gist is applicable.
As always, a cogent and thoughtful essay. Whether or not a person “believes” in a soul, he is getting at the idea that everyone should be accorded dignity and compassion. It doesn’t negate the reality that a person might be misguided.
7
It might be a convincing argument if there was actual historical evidence that people who believed everyone had souls treated people equally. I’m not aware of any such evidence. Slave owners believed humans had souls but didn’t deter the practice of slavery. Even St Paul saw no conflict between slavery and ensoulment.
25
"the core belief of America’s founding in 1776, that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights.". right are, of course, a myth. a useful myth when it serves to provide a foundation for a 'free' society, but nonetheless a myth.
4
I would give anything to be able to go back in time and turn the founders over to the British and have the lot of them hanged for treason. They were tax evaders and slaveholders, and they made this country a horrible place for over 200 years. It's time to show them up for the thieves they were, and move on to a different form of government.
Genesis 1:27 asserts that humankind has been created in God’s image. This doesn’t mean that we are all gray bearded old white men as depicted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Rather we are all created with the primary attribute of God, which is free will.
Whether we regard one another as having souls (it was long argued in the South that blacks did not have souls, thus making it easier to oppress them), or whether we recognize that there is that of God in all persons, we treat others with a different, deeper respect when we recognize the transcendent in our neighbor.
I share the ambivalence of Frederick Douglass when I read David Brooks’s columns. They are alternately infuriating in their conservative failure to recognize the complexity of modern society (he will always be riding on the campaign bus with John McCain) and also admirable in their attempt to invoke the transcendent.
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@Michael McLemore
Genesis is wrong. Genesis is a myth by which the ancients tried to explain their world. Man created the myth.
A better way of stating that concept would be Man created god in his (man's) own image.
Man made observations about himself (cruelty, think creation of the 10 commandments and mortality) and they wondered about the greatness of the world and then created god.
Oh, I forgot it was the serpent......
Beautifully written, I think nearly everyone would benefit from this distinction, that our inner selves, our souls, our humanity, if you please, are what make us all equal on one level, in my view the most important level. This reality is what the Declaration of Independence was spelling out for the world to consider at the very beginning of our American experiment. Fortunately, through many ups and downs, we remain committed to this endeavor of considering all people equal and endowed with inalienable rights.
5
Taking it a step further, all other humans are simply different forms of God. At any point in time, in some humans Divinity will be more completely and clearly manifested than in others. But Divinity is the inherent state of all of us, and we will each reach a full manifestation of it in some lifetime or another. And by extension, in serving other humans one actually offers service to God.
This is a message that was brought to America from India in 1893 by Swami Vivekananda when he addressed the Parliament of Religions attached to the world's fair in Chicago. The message made a great initial public impression but its impact has receded over time. Even so, it is still as valid as ever and, in our present fractious age, understanding it has probably become even more necessary.
12
Woofer, can you advise on where I can read more about the idea you shared?
@Tom
Swami Vivekananda began a network of Vedanta Societies to propagate his message. There area currently about 20 major centers in North America, including one in San Francisco that is now more than 100 years old. The Vedanta Society bookstore in San Francisco can help you out, as can the Vedanta Press website.
“It is the belief that the person who is infuriating you most right now still has a soul and so is still, deep down, beautiful and redeemable.”
So, Donald Trump is beautiful and redeemable?
I agree in the intrinsic dignity of all beings—and I also accept that often times they are dangerously deluded. What to do when a soul is so dark and tortured that it poses a threat to all the others?
It’s important to remember what essentially unites us; and to never forget that Beauty can also be quite a Beast.
Recognizing the realities of these shadows would be a good first step in figuring out what to do about it.
8
@Mark Holmes I think a lot of souls have been very darkened by psychological wounds (Trump's father was purported to be quite a bully).
In every religion there is a concept of the pure soul within. In Hebrew it is called Tselem Elohim, and it means the unique expression of G-d), Catholics call it Imago Dei. Buddhists Buddha Nature I believe Muslims call it Waja Allah.
By whatever name there is something sacred within. What do we do with those whose are not in touch w this place? We remove them from high office. We don't let them near levers of power. We provide them with therapy. And we create a society where much less damage happens to far fewer people. Yes?
41
@REK, yes, of course. I don't disagree with a word you've written; as I said, I recognize the fundamental purity of human spirit.
But I'm wondering if 'we don't let them near levers of power' is enough? Because have you noticed how seriously this isn't working?
Is pessimism always defeatism? I hope not, and I hope to be proved wrong. I just fear that kind words and understanding—no matter how deeply, intrinsically true—might not be enough when dealing with people who are hell-bent on acting in such bad faith.
Trump has a soul? Beg to differ. No evidence of that has come to light.
27
@Suzanne Wilmoth Suzanne see my comment to Mark Holmes above. Of course Trump has a soul. And a very sick mind. And needs to be removed from the levers of power. But we can still hold him in prayer, in light. We can be determined to thwart his actions without hating him. And we can impeach him. Hold him to account for the toxic choices his wounded self has made.We can not let him get away with acting from his worst impulses and thus actually support his true nature.
Common decency, and Medicare for all as a public good, and a livable wage for all, affordable education, and closing tax loopholes for the rich, and having the rich pay the same percentage on their income, and then raising their 'sit by the poolside and let money flow into my bank from investments money, be taxed the right way. No comment of the impeachability of Trump? Should we look into his soul? You are awfully full of political opinion when you have a Republican point to make, and 'cant we all just get along' opinion when you have no quarter. The Republicans keep wanting to get rid of SNAP. The Republicans and Trump, or Trumpublicans, have doomed farmer's export markets for a generation.
21
I suspect you’ve been meditating, Mr. Brooks! What you are describing is Advaita, a branch of Hindu philosophy. It advocates one to stop associating themselves with their bodies and intellects. This will help us de-personalize insults to bodies and egos. This is done through practice of meditation. And as a final step in that practice, one realizes that we all come from one universal consciousness. All of our souls belong to one - not just human, it includes animals as well!
7
I for one don't accept the reality of the soul, and even if I did I can't see how being equal in the sight of God has ever helped anyone on earth. It is no answer to the daily detractions large and small of racism. In fact if there is a soul, racism wears it away. For centuries Christians have been able to combine their faith with racism with no trouble. I don't see any hope for change. The hope for equality is constitutional equality under the law constantly protected by human institutions.
27
@Rebecca Hogan where do you think the impulse for the goodness you want to see comes from if not the soul? The founders of the US were deeply spiritual/religious/soulful even though they were limited products of their own time, too, as we all are. The laws and founding vision of this country is sourced in a spiritual vision that all humans are created equal, yes?
“That all men are created equal...
That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights...
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
That when any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it...”
Impeachment is part of the Constitution.
Impeachment is not “unconstitutional.”
The President does not have the right to alter the Government,
Only the People do.
11
As usual David starts strong and ends up in the realm of the nonsensical. Nothing about equality among people requires a supernatural "soul," or divine providence or anything beyond the physical, material realm. Talking about souls in this context is utterly superfluous.
31
@Roger Unless one struggles with the values of equality and wonders why equality is any better than greed/domination and power over others. It is from our Source that we derive this goodness yes, instilled in each of us in the form of something wiser, truer, deeper than our usual reactions and contractions into our small selfish selves?
So Mr. Brooks is going to be on the front lines this week and next month and in three years defending LGBTQ and transgender rights?! Gay marriage and the right to adopt? That socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals and the under represented are not disenfranchised?! To make sure there is one America for all Americans? Because if he truly believes that our souls are all equal then he should be loudly and proudly defending those who are most vulnerable in our society!
15
Those who are most vulnerable in this society are children and animals. It's because they will never be considered equal, that we should fight that much harder to defend them.
I am perfectly able to believe that all humans have infinite value and dignity by the nature of their simple existence without the need to justify this belief in any way or the use of any crutch such as the concept of a soul.
As for Mr. Brooks need for an external excuse to justify his personal decision to be decent, well, whatever get's you through the night.
10
@Steve Where do those values within you come from? And why do you think they are better than other values like domination and greed and murderous rage? I would postulate that there is something deeper and wiser and more pure within you, and within us all by whatever name we care to give it.
Most Americans continue to believe in an immortal soul, made of some nonphysical substance, which can part company with the body. But even those who do not avow that belief in so many words still imagine that somehow there must be more to us than electrical and chemical activity in the brain. Choice, dignity, and responsibility are gifts that set off human beings from everything else in the universe, and seem incompatible with the idea that we are mere collections of molecules. Attempts to explain behavior in mechanistic terms are commonly denounced as "reductionist" or "determinist."
5
What could be more deterministic or reductionist than a “soul”?
Once we truly accept that every human being — including ourselves — has an intrinsic dignity, everything changes.
3
When one cannot even see that there is only one "race" of humans, these words ring continually hollow. You make the other another race, different from you. Surely one can see ethnicities but this keeps spinning the same safe, yet callous observations. Them, they are a different race.
3
My word. Reading these comments is disturbing. Brooks is making a simple point of recognizing the depth that individuals can have, and the commenters have to attach their worldview to it: souls don’t exist, the evil rich that cause all problems in the world, etc.
I think focusing on the point of the story and stopping our own internal stories will do us all some good.
8
@Mike, I think many of us don't really believe Brooks is sincere. He's a typical "organizational man" who really believes we are all valuable only to the extent that we are economic beings, motivated by greed and exploitable by his wealthy benefactors. Community to him is "lending a helping hand," except he never asks those at the top to engage society in ways that would make real change. Charity, it seems, is merely marketing and good PR to his class. Truly, I find his philosophizing rather dull and predictable and, basically useless in addressing the deep problems we face today.
29
"It is the belief that all people of all races have a piece of themselves that has no size, weight, color or shape, but which gives them infinite value and dignity."
You invest so much in nothing David. What inspires my respect for all my fellow human beings is hardly more substantial, it being practically microscopic, inhabiting the nucleus of single cells, but at least its existence can be observed and confirmed. It's the 99.9% of genetic material we all have in common.
And thank goodness for that divergent 0.1%."Equality" is wildly over-rated as a concept. "Equal" means "the same". And any naturalist will tell that lack of genetic diversity endangers a species' existence. Some of the inherent difference between us is deleterious, some of it's advantageous, but most of it is benign. Too bad human beings seem to be universally innately inclined to disrespect it indiscriminately. Oh the irony. Fortunately wisdom can ask instinct to step outside, then pound it into submission.
Self-love, not love of others, seems to me to motivate belief in souls. I do not rule out that our acquired personhood somehow survives our human death, though if it does it involves some very exotic physics - and I do wonder why those who care so much in believing that they will exist after they die, care so little that they did not exist before they were born. "Soul" seems to me to be a product of a living, sentient, intelligent, linguistic but fallible creature. Just a whimsical, dubious imagining.
9
Social mood is a real thing. Those who try and understand it tend to benefit us all.
4
"When people hold fast to their awareness of souls, then they have a fixed center among the messiness of racial reconciliation and they give each other grace. If they lose the concept of the soul, they’ve lost everything."
Thanks for those words and the sentiments in this column. America needs to recognize this more than anything today because of where Trump and the GOP have elected to go and take the rest of the country. It is ironic that the "Christian" right would likely snarl at this because the concept of the human bond is now alien to them --- in some measure thanks to the Trumpian ethos which has so completely come to define what it means to be a GOP supporter or voter.
10
@Alfred Yul Yet that cool president bombed seven countries just in his last year in office. Even the current pres. hasn't done that much blood letting of innocents.
First of all, I'm glad there aren't any topical news stories concerning character in politics, your forte. For, when the big picture is stable, we can hone some finer points on our Grand Nation.
Secondly, I'm thankful that your essay wasn't titled "Captain Kangaroo Court", as per GOP talking points. I'm not sure if this is an ethical decision, or a preference for the "retro" GOP Frederick Douglass ventriloquism technique -- really effective, by the way, I can picture him agreeing with you, shaking hands in a slow-mo, soft-focus beer summit moment.
Last week I pondered, given the entirely fictional nature of your Barthelmesque "Flyover Man" dialogue, why you have a need to employ research assistants, as your product seems the result of an inner vision quest? This week, we have an answer as a primary source, so I appreciate your candor. You have based columns on the columns of many great writers, and I look forward to hearing more of Ms. Snyder's work.
Lambert's investment and Lincoln's war strategy were similarly looked at askance by contemporary African-Americans. Perhaps with your guidance (and Frederick's) they will, at long last, embrace the concept of noblesse oblige. We live in a terrible time when our white brethren are judged by the intention and action of their majority rather than the souls of their apologists, an almost unbearable interval.
8
Good start, David Brooks, on the way to squaring our contemporary reality in America with our ancient ideals. Now, why not move on to community building across lines of class, education and employment status.
Not that racial equality has been achieved yet but you seem to have a handle on how one neighborhood has approached some of the challenge. The key motif in your estimate of this experiment is that the white guy with capital was wiling to listen, as he was urged to do by his companion who knew the people as he did not.
Willing to listen: that attitude needs to be encouraged .... Thanks for starting.
6
Were Douglass with us today, he would long ago have been shouted out of the progressive Democratic clique right after Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy were dismissed.
Progressivism is focussed on emotional training, in making sure anyone over the age of ten years understands that the teachers' political enemies are the worst possible people on the planet and all that ever defined our country could safely be abandoned in the name of an ever-more-powerful, centrally planned state.
A NYC student ended up asking his parents when his teachers were going to ''talk about math and plants and stuff,'' as I understand.
The teachers, secure in their jobs as party supporters in a one-party environment, had left ''their jobs'' behind long ago.
2
Look around you, all you’ll see are sympathetic eyes.
I don’t agree that it is a religious belief - that we have souls - that lies at the heart of the American experiment. I am quite comfortable that the unequivocal equality of all humans is the essential ethical belief that gives us hope. But if belief in souls and the equality of souls is what some of us need to make our journey, so be it. It’s only important that we get there.
3
I don't think you need to believe in a soul to believe we are all equal when it comes to human rights and political freedoms.
Beyond any "natural order" arguments about equality, it's just good sense to ensure the rights of everyone are equal and protected, because when we protect the rights of others, we protect the rights of ourselves.
None of this "divine right of kings" nonsense or formally recognized hereditary privilege, not in my America.
We may not be (are not) equal in terms of ability or beliefs, but we are absolutely equal in terms of sharing the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and we all equally deserve the protection of those rights.
21
At least England only had the divine right of a king, one man. Scamerica believed in the divine right of white men, at the expense of everyone else. Ironically, I believe there was and is more equality and less racism in England.
@B. I'll be sure to remind Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh that his rights are equal to everyone elses', despite the fact that his were ripped from him in a kangaroo court defaming everyone who was involved.
The divine right of kings died before the founders of our country even began deliberating how our constitution wouild be set up.
(You might want to alert Rep. Schiff that his manner of conducting his position has been dead for centuries.)
@B. And . . . there is just one race of humans.
"You realize that coming together across race is not a neat two-step process: truth and reconciliation...This is the hard process of trying to see each other across centuries of wrong."
The love of truth and peace is a prophetic prescription for redemption, and still a valid one. Commenting on it, over 2,000 years ago Jewish sages stated said that it can only happen where people are willing to compromise.
Thank you for your expression of hope in these particularly challenged times.
13
We are still We.
The Declaration of Independence
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Note especially "among these" and therfore not an exhaustive list.
10
The Declaration of Independence was only for rich white men. I think it's time for a new declaration in this country.
Oh, yes, amen, of course--if you can for Mr. Brook's theologial assumptions. The ethical question of the moment--and this is findamentally this column is a claim about ethical life--is what are you doing to prevent the end of American political tradition? Mr. Brooks here, and for years, has done all he can--however unknowingly--to evade that very question, for it undermines the political career that's now morphing into a generic Western religionism.
12
Language / vocabulary can really get in the way. Employing the word "soul" disturbs some while it makes perfect sense to others. I believe we are all equal -- in spiritual sense. And I believe in God as Love, a Principle of infinite good and therefore perfection underlies everything and is all. Think of the sun reflecting rays of light and each ray has all the power and qualities of the sun. That is like God and man -- spiritual and eternal -- apart from anything material. The Soul of man is man's Principle, God, with all the qualities and power of God -- your soul. You can be totally free from the demands of a material viewpoint by considering the possibility that equality is in fact the fundamental reality of the spiritual universe. I love how David Brooks writes and hopes to see a good world right where. We have a good world if we will only strive to be good and know that good is the reality of all of us.
3
@Marian Then you probably consider there is only one race of humans. Not other "thems" the way DB insinuates "the other" a different race of human.
The trouble with premising your respect for people on the existence of souls is that they don't exist, which puts everything built on their sand at imminent risk of collapse. Human history shows just how easily souls can be denied to others when demagoguery or the like find that convenient: it is not difficult to deny what lacks any substance.
A sturdier foundation for respect might be personhood, which can be defined, albeit with argument about exactly what does and does not count, and better still, can be measured objectively. No one can say what colour, size, shape or other measurable quality a soul might have, but the qualities of being a person, such as self awareness, are clearly defined, meaningful and measurable: most humans have more self awareness than chimpanzees and pigs, who in turn have more than your average lizard, prawn or rose. Personhood is also defined by, for example, having interests, goals, and values, which are again real, measurable qualities: your average human over age two has desires, plans for the future, and moral notions of fairness, some of which are shared to varying degrees by other species to which we are related.
Reality is a much sounder foundation for building respect than something fake, however alluring the fakery might dress itself up. All persons have the same inalienable rights in virtue of being persons. Souls are not needed to quality.
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@Felix Qui
I should add that for each quality of personhood that bestows a right, you have it or you don't. If you have that quality, then the associated rights of being a person come with it absolutely.
4
@Felix Qui well said. thanks for sharing with the interwebs
1
@Felix Qui See Blind Willie Johnson’s ‘What Is the Soul of a Man?’ for a disarmingly direct interrogation of the vaporous and elusive concept, ‘soul.’ Tom Waits does a convincing cover. What adds poignance to Johnson’s frank lyrics is the fact that he grappled with the notion of an immaterial soul while maintaining a deep Christian faith. Even as a ‘believer,’ he was troubled by the idea.
David is back at it, looking for individuals of good beliefs that will save America. That takes his focus away from the disturbing actuality that America is being deliberately destroyed by a cabal of billionaires intent for decades upon undermining democracy.
David is unwilling to stare at today’s GOP and see with his own eyes that it is now an assembly of vassals struggling to keep on the good side of a hugely successful propaganda machine that controls almost all Republican voters. Run by bilious billionaires that now run not only this brainwashing media blitz, the GOP and 30 State Legislatures, but also the Trump Administration, the Senate, and half the Supreme Court.
Can this well oiled machine be stopped by a few well meaning souls throwing sand in the gears? David hopes that is all it takes. And most of us hope that 2020 is all that it takes.
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@John✅Brews I agree with you mostly, just would add that Brooks doesn't want the machine stopped, as he's been their enabling friend for years. He just wants the machine just slowed down short of collapsing the country economically, which is inevitable when the middle class ceases to exist.
17
I was raised as a Catholic with the idea that I and all other people have souls. I left Catholicism behind when I became an adult.
I continued to think that people are special somehow, different from other animals.
However, right now we are destroying many other animals at an alarming rate. We are ruining this planet, making it uninhabitable for future generations.
And so I wonder where all this belief in souls has gotten us? We, the special ones, the ones with souls, are destroying so many ecosystems. How could we be doing this? Why? If not for ego.
So now I have begun to believe that we are all - human and other mammals, plants fungi, fish, insects and birds - a part of a greater consciousness, part of this Mother Earth. My emerging belief puts aside the idea of special status for humans. We are all one, dependent upon each other, interconnected and sacred together.
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Thank you. This is one of the best credos I have seen.
16
@Kerry Girl Thank you for your comment. It reminds me of the path that I have taken over my lifetime. I have come to believe, like you, that we are all part of a greater consciousness. It's a pleasure to read that belief expressed so beautifully.
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@Kerry Girl Couldn’t agree more. Thank you for posting it.
The founders had a better idea than this nonsense about souls, with its endorsement of the mind/body split first emphasized by Classical thinkers (my favorite is Plotinus) and then absorbed, sort of, by Christianity, with the notion of resurrection in the body, enshrined in the Nicene Creed, proving somewhat difficult.
The founders, grounded in a real world of moral struggle rather than fuzzy metaphysics that rejected the ultimate value of materiality, opted to emphasize the notion of universal rights, proclaiming the value of individuality as measured by the kind of respect that fellowship and society should accord every single person.
Those rights were unalienable--impossible to give away, reassign, or lose through fraud or violence.
The possession of rights--that's what makes us equal.
Not a concept, by the way, that has proven particularly attractive to conservatives, at least in recent times. The most important of the amendments to the Constitution is the one that specifies equality under the law, and it's been hated by conservatives since its post-Civil War ratification, most notably by Antonin Scalia--the scourge of social justice and freedom from religious prejudice. Read his dissent in Lawrence v. Texas if in doubt.
31
The founders refused to grant liberty and equality to women, or to people of native descent and African descent, so to me the founders were frauds. Even 18th century people made fun of their selective "equality" and Tom Paine begged them to abolish slavery. But they didn't. The British did that first. Wilberforce was a greater man than Jefferson. As for equality under the law, in the US you only have paper rights, because look at the unlawful things that are done to people of color every single day, and no one (white) gets punished for breaking those laws.
@Stephanie Wood
Well said, and many thanks for nuancing my comments. Of course I agree completely. What Jefferson has to say in the Declaration can most charitably be regarded as aspirational, and this is how many in our country have chosen to do so. Less charitably, we might think that his real intent in this passage is NOT to make a philosophical point in the spirit of what the French would later call "The Rights of Man and Citizen," but rather to justify the treason that he and the other signers were at that point committing. No matter, perhaps. The passage is what it is--and the fact is that it covers with an obfuscating generality its reprehensible exclusions means that it can be usefully co-opted for the better reading that your viewpoint might prompt.
As someone deeply rooted in the biblical tradition and well aware of the Hebrew and Greek - "soul" is more Platonic and philosophical and has a lot of negative historical baggage in terms of body/soul dualism. "That final resting place where we meet" cannot be in the old fundamentalist tradition "in the sky....," in a time when we are busy destroying the earth and social injustice runs rampant. Soul calls out for embodiment and creation. This is the caveat I raise. Soul without a humanity to be incarnate in - has no home. It is why I would much rather lift up writers like Richard Rohr who speak in terms Christ/Messiah/Spirit incarnate and connected to our ongoing humanity and creation. My point being - we must avoid the dualism that neglects life.
2
As long as some of us can skew resources/$ so they can write the rules and dominate the rest, we are not equal. Supposedly in our democracy we equally get one vote, but that has been trampled on primarily by the Republican Party which disenfranchises through gerrymandering and felon disenfranchisement and exact match checks or throwing people off of registration roles if they miss one election or moving polling places or having hackable voting machines!
Plus they have decided $ equals speech which mean the rich count more than the rest of us since they can buy votes through advertising. Equal? Not so much. A soul is not reality. Actions are what count.
Until everyone is registered and enfranchised we are not equal. It should be a sacrament to make sure everyone in your community gets the opportunity to vote. Why doesn’t Mitch McConnell bring the election rights and security bills for a vote in the Senate? Because the Republican Leader does not believe we are all equal.
19
Brooks asks us to consider the unity of our spirit with that of "the person who is infuriating you most right now". But what about the people who aren't merely making you feel angry? What about the people who are robbing you of health care, enriching themselves at your expense, and driving our society into collapse? What difference does it make how pretty their souls are if they're destroying my future?
21
I would love to praise this column, but as is almost always the case, when push comes to shove, Brooks reveals his narrowness of mind. Naturally, I'm talking about the word "soul," which is a specifically religious concept. Is he using it religiously? I can't read his mind--but to choose "soul" as our common element is inevitably exclusionary, since many see it as a religious term and will very seriously argue whether it exists. And Brooks knows very well that these days such arguments would have a political dimension well beyond the theological.
How easy it would have been to say that all living creatures deserve love, respect, and understanding, as far as we are able to give it to them. But that would require a much more generous mind, one seeking things that we indisputably have in common, and using words that unite rather than separate.
68
Soul can be a philosophical term too.
1
Beautiful piece, Mr. Brooks. Please keep them coming!
7
This sounds as if David is telling us if we would only let people vent (a "hazing" as it is put here), and take time to listen to that venting, we might be able to find common conversational and behavioral ground.
I admit I do not share that optimism, and not only because most of the world's history seems to argue against it; it seems to me the evidence is that much of humanity does not consider many other humans to be radically equal, to possess a soul (or whatever other concept, metaphysical or otherwise, that puts all people on even footing), or to be worthy of Golden Rule treatment.
It's a sad commentary, but we're still more tribal than enlightened, still more Not One of Us than All of We.
And I don't know if we can evolve quickly enough to prevent the collapse of civilization.
5
"When people hold fast to their awareness of souls, then they have a fixed center among the messiness of racial reconciliation and they give each other grace."
The project is positive and important and it is good that all now are in sync re the project.
However, "awareness of their souls" is the equalizing panacea? Who can even figure out what that means.
I was wondering about funding for the $5 million for remodeling and the $1-million operating expenses. Where does this support come from? This was not clear also from Ms. Snyder's article.
Do Mr. Brooks and Ms. Snyder see these types of initiatives as the solution to racial urban blight instead of of public initiatives through city, county, state and even federal government?
8
I'm a big fan of David's. In this hyper-partisan age, I have long respected his deeply thoughtful conservative voice. So refreshing. Too rare. (My friends say I'm a lefty; I think I'm solidly centrist, but the whole world has lurched so far to the right.)
That notwithstanding, David has gone out on a limb here, reaching for a golden apple. I admire that. Even more, I am impressed by the comments he has elicited. Thoughtful. Inspired. So different from the usual tolling, soul-killing tripe. David has struck a chord. Well done.
10
Souls may be intangible and you are welcome to believe we are all "radically equal" for that reason, but Brooks' argument flies in the face of the radical inequality that is the U.S. today. This column may be a feel good story but what does David Brooks recommend we do to make Americans live more equal lives? "Radical equality" but it won't pay the poor man's rent or the poor woman's doctor bill or diminish income polarization. Democratic socialism, not pie-in-the-sky "radical equality," is what is needed.
40
Thank you for interrupting the hopeless slog through a depressing news day to force a little introspection about humanity.
I think sometimes about how when casualties of war are reported, there is so much emphasis on the toll on American soldiers, it’s as if those that lose their lives from another continent are less than.
We bow our heads for moments of silence in honor of the few thousand American souls lost to combat “defending freedom” in Iraq, for example, when in truth these are a small fraction of the hundreds of thousands of human souls that are separated from their corporeal hosts as a result of megalomaniacs who drive these conflicts, valuing money and power more than human life.
It’s easy to become desensitized to the suffering of others, particularly when those others are truly seen as “other”. But if we make an effort to stop subconsciously thinking of everyone else’s life as having a value that is some fraction of a whole person from our “tribe”, and consider our shared humanity that is defined by that ethereal, inexplicable element we call “soul”, maybe, some healing can start to occur.
10
Maybe Mr. Brooks is using "soul" as another way to describe each of us's perception of a good greater than ourselves, how we define how much greater (individual, family, humans) and how much responsibility we feel to further it.
Here we can see why we shouldn't mistake ethics for religion; the former is individual, the latter is group.
2
No, no, and no again. We don’t attain racial reconciliation by looking THROUGH one another, to our eternal souls, a core of spirit that transcends our differences, guarantees our equality, and gives us a fixed center to hold on to in the messy process. We attain racial reconciliation by entering into the Other, into DIFFERENCE. We attain it by losing our hold on the myth of a fixed center, and wandering, lost in the other until we come out changed, remade, even if only a little, by the encounter. And we do it again and again—and we slowly grow. Then, and only then, can we genuinely, without erasing difference, enjoy the soul we have in common.
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@Kryztoffer well said. Not quite sure how to get “lost in the other”, but empathy must be part of that. Hopefully, remade in a more holistic view.
2
@Kryztoffer
I love the idea of the growth you are describing. Are you describing what some might say is selfless loving? If so, that could be what some say is acknowledging the uniqueness and "soul" of someone else? There doesn't have to a "fixed" center. Consider the center as boundless, infinite Being, which we each reflect.
3
@Kryzstoffer
Recognizing our racial and other human differences does not have to exclude what we also hold in common in our very real human DNA. We are also members of the Homo sapiens species. The human soul can be thought of as that part of us as humans that is eternal.
.
1
David, this is an inspirational and heartening respite from all the gloom and angst-producing news that bombards us daily, indeed hourly. Yes, in accordance with a divine and universal code we are created equally. Within the Brown and Black skinned, the immigrant and refugee, the gay and transgender, the woman, and the Muslim, atheist, or agnostic, we are one, sisters and brothers in our humanness. But sometimes souls go astray. Whether it be by nature or nurture, there are bad seeds. What I am saying is not all souls are equal. There are many who choose to live ethically and morally. But sadly, there are those who choose to embrace what we consider sin and evil. Look to some world leaders, including our own who opts to lead with infamy. We can only hope that good people like the one about whom you just wrote become the norm not an outlier.
6
David. You remind me of a philosophy professor that I had in University. He was a Catholic priest.
It's good to feel good. About humans. In general. But it's a lot harder to feel good about individuals, or their souls (if they have such).
We are all equal before the law. In theory. In reality, we get the justice we can assert and afford.
Equality is a nice concept, but we aren't all equal. There are good people, better people, and some bad people among us - their souls notwithstanding.
Instead of comforting ourselves with simplistic notions about ourselves and others, we should strive to be better persons. It may not work, but the effort is ennobling.
11
Douglass had no choice but to figure out a way to deal with and work with white people because he was in the minority. There are many white people, maybe most, who live their whole lives without ever interacting with African American men, women and children in any meaningful way. Douglass was not saintly, he was pragmatic.
11
Whether or not one believes in a soul, per se, there is an inherent humanity in everyone. To see it, we just need to do more listening and to hold off on assuming the worst about others.
8
A hopeful and inspiring article. For several years, I have served as the only white person on a community council working to improve outcomes for young Black men. It has been a difficult and transformative experience. I have learned a great deal about the meaning and depth of multigenerational inherited trauma, and how this explains so much that otherwise appears puzzling (and for which the Black community is often unfairly judged). I intentionally mute my own White male voice and listen carefully through meetings that are sometimes contentious and difficult. I have come to believe ever more deeply in the power and necessity of working humbly to be an ally with those seeking justice. I am sustained by my Jewish faith, built on the belief that David articulates so well - because all human beings have souls and are deserving of justice and care, our inherent destiny is to practice active compassion towards one another always.
23
Soul? We all have one? Pablum. Quasi-religious and empty. I get Brooks’s desire to applaud this person’s work and Fredric Douglass’s achievements but for every individual doing good in the community there is another out for him or herself. There is a better model: that we are defined not by soul but by our acts. We will never all get along, for selfishness prohibits it and not to acknowledge human nature is polyannish; but we can applaud good works and laud those who strive to do them. We can celebrate selflessness and condemn its opposite. My feeling is that Republicans tend more to selfishness and crow about individualism when it suits them to defeat the social and communal instinct, but I doubt Brooks will concede that.
85
"You realize that coming together across race is not a neat two-step process: truth and reconciliation. It’s an emotionally complex, thousand-step process, with moments of miscommunication, resentment and embrace."
Well duh.
14
@JBC
Sometimes, the “obvious” is not so obvious.
A great reminder. Thank you. And please don’t stop. I may not always agree with you, but you are one of the few columnists out there in a major publication consistently tackling big ideas like this about morality and what it means to be human in a shared society.
52
Belief in souls cannot be argued by logic. It is only through the experience of connecting to one’s soul that can make one a believer.
Nevertheless, Mr. Brooks is exactly on point explaining what our founders (including that incredibly eloquent and flawed human, Thomas Jefferson) meant when they said all men are created equal.
This is an extraordinary perspective in the history of humanity, and the founding principal of our constitutional republic.
11
@Jim Miller Only if you were white, protestant, and a landowner. Half the country (women) were never even considered or discussed for 150 years.
That's a selfish experiment.
David seems like a decent and good all around guy.
But I can’t shake the feeling that Republicans and their policies are the things that have brought America to the Trump regime.
Republicans seem to think that if they are doing all right, that’s all that matters.
The middle class is gone. A huge swath of the country couldn’t come up with $400 in an emergency.
Trickledown is firmly rooted, and there will be no discussion of what economic policies are best for the country as a whole.
The Republicans continue to support the rich and corporations as the main goal. They consider that “the way things ought to be”.
Again David seems well meaning.
He has no sense of how we got to where we are.
To the rest of us, it’s pretty clear.
383
Can this just for once not be about Republicans? Just be still and listen. What we are going through as a nation is just a symptom.
40
No. Trumpism is the visible symptom. The disease is deep inside the “base”. If the Senate had a Hippocratic oath, they would alleviate at least the symptoms. Do no harm....
Standing by while our nation’s character fades - harm by neglect.
30
@Cheryl "Hate the sin, not the sinner." David is doing an admirable job of advocating for the latter. I'm still waiting for him to articulate the former. Until then, his message lacks resonance.
31
I’m a proud Democratic HRC devotee, but I cherish Mr. Brooks as a fellow human and citizen doing the grueling work of trying to make sense of our society and our polity with compassion and thoughtfulness. When so many of my friends on the Left spit upon his every essay - regardless of content, and often based upon a single polarizing word (here it happens to be “soul”) - makes me ashamed and afraid for our cause. Certainly we can find room for civilized disagreement - few on the Right have tried so hard to understand and embrace ALL of America as Mr. Brooks. None of us have a patent on truth; let us listen to honest voices with humility and love. And let’s end our disagreements with a hug.
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@Chad Gracia Beautifully put. I agree wholeheartedly that David Brooks is trying as hard as he possibly can to find a way out of the darkness his party has led us into, and that he has distanced himself from it in ways both definable and indefinable. He is indeed "a fellow human and citizen doing the grueling work of trying to make sense of our society and our polity with compassion and thoughtfulness." It is considerations such as yours that give me hope.
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@Chad Gracia Thank you, agreed on all points . People like Brooks can be met with on common ground without either side sacrificing any principles. Such meeting are our only way up and forward here.
18
I read and listen respectfully to everything David Brooke says. I even attended his well received and crowded Washington Post annual books event last month. But David never acknowledges the role of his Republican Party in the slow but steady destruction of American democracy. He finds his anecdotes of hope, but never speaks to the systemic destruction that his party has wrought.
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Certain non-religious or non-believing people would disagree with you. I happen to agree with you. I don't care where the rights come from, though, in the end. I happen to believe in God, quite strongly, and the moral prohibitions and actions God calls for. What I care about is that those rights are protected, whether you believe in the soul or not.
3
@David Thank you from a non-religious person who believes that all people have equal rights.
I think David - who I always enjoy - needs to think a bit deeper about Douglass - as do so many commentators of all colors who claim this distinguished philosopher for their own.
Douglass would reject all politics of identity as ill-founded, irrational and ultimately bankrupt. Yes - we all have souls but even more basic than that metaphysical claim is the idea that we are all human.
And that the behavior of the neighborhood was egregious not the actions of Lambert. You don't a free pass because of the color of your skin, or your gender, or your whatever.
It is so easy to forget that Douglass' chosen motto for his weekly publication The North Star:
"Right is of no sex, Truth is of no color, God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren."
17
"....Our brains and bodies are not equal, but our souls are...."
Good one David. When in church (sanctuary) with others, we're all in there for similar reasons. A calm place for reflection, and a searching of our souls. It's a place where all there are equal. At least that's what I feel when I'm there.
6
@cherrylog754 the beauty is you don’t have to “go” someplace physically to feel the calm peace. The thing that feels, experiences the calm peace is the very same awareness that is a spark of the divine. It’s there with us everywhere we go, wherever we are. We can psyche ourselves into believing we feel this peace because we are sitting in a sanctuary a church a cathedral a temple a mosque a synagogue in the midst of other fellow calm peace experiencers. But the fact is “that” which experiences is with us at all times, whether we are awake or asleep. There is only one experiencer, the self aware “presence”. All of us access and download upload to that one experiencer. Who thrives in the multiplicity plurality of its glorious manifestations. Can you imagine how mind blogging it is, the enormity of this one self aware entity!
Do animals have souls? Do trees or the entire Earth have--maybe not a soul, but something spiritual, something that is beyond just materialism?
These questions are beyond the ability of science to answer. But I think if we believed that nature is not just a bunch of materials to use and discard for our pleasure, but something greater (whether Shinto-style animism, God's creation, or Gaia), our society would be in much better condition than it is right now, and our lives much more fulfilling.
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By "soul" do you mean some transcendent thing that exists after our bodies expire? What difference would that make if people want to behave abysmally toward other people? Or, are you using the term to say that we are all "human" and should respect one another's humanity? In that case, I must say, it sure took you a long time to reach that conclusion. And, yes: there are a lot of good people doing good things all over the world.
32
@bruce But what does "respect humanity" mean? Of course human beings are human--as opposed to giraffes. But why should we respect the humanity, per se, of human beings? (Why not respect their mammalianhood?) You can say, "Human beings have X, Y, and Z capacities"--but we don't, not all of us. For any capacity you can think of, some of us have it and some don't.
Therefore when people--even self-avowed atheists--speak of respecting the humanity of others, it seems as though they must have something spiritual in mind--something non-empirical that we all share, despite empirical diversity.
If you just pound your fist on the table and say, "But there is something ineffably special about the human"--that sounds pretty mystical to me.
1
@bess - There's nothing special about being human. We're just animals, like all the rest. We have this fantasy that we're different and superior, but that's just human arrogance (the same kind of arrogance that used to compel us to burn people at the stake for suggesting that the earth revolves around the sun, and not the other way around).
2
@bruce exactly...why the need to use the word "soul"?...certainly "human" would work just as well, and a term not off-putting to many people (humans)...
1
I most totally agree with David Brooks on the belief and hope that all beings share a common good and benevolence. I part ways only in the reasoning of the source of that belief. From my limited and unstudied perspective, most all mammals (at a minimum) seem to display affection, love of most others of their species, and care for the less fortunate, except than when they are threatened with aggression or starvation. Are we so different?
20
@Souls I’d like to point out that we and mammals pale in comparison to trees. Trees provide food, air, housing, peace of mind, etc. for all beings on this planet. They are probably the best looking species on this planet, as well.
All beings are a creative expression of the infinite consciousness or life.
1
"Our brains and bodies are not equal, but our souls are."
I wonder where David imagines himself on the "brains" chart?
"It is the belief that the person who is infuriating you most right now still has a soul and so is still, deep down, beautiful and redeemable."
I certainly think that is true of David.
10
@Robert Roth Yes, as a believer I can go that soul route to forgiveness.
But even as a believer I refuse to base seeing another's humanity as based on anything but.....their humanity.
Defining human worth by the soul is a concept too easily highjacked by bad religion, and we have way to much of that fundamentalist pathology these days.
No, we must base our valuation of each other upon human rights.
Fellow believers can easily adapt humanitarian values to faith.
If they cannot accept human rights, they are signaling that their "love" is false and exclusive.
7
@Robert Roth
I wish I could believe you. As my best mentor once observed, "when faced with the choice between incompetence and malevolence, go with incompetence until proven otherwise." That's a better way to look at it, because some people are actually malevolent. You can name yours and I can name mine, but they exist and have proven themselves beyond redemption.
2
We are only all equal because we all ARE. Our popular culture and some of our leaders try to convince us to believe otherwise, which makes living and seeing each other as equals even more radical.
17
Souls. Does that really explain anything. Maybe assuming everyone is equal is not only the simplest but also ultimately the only tenable principle for organizing self-government and serving as a guide to human interaction.
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@Victor I agree with you, Victor, that appealing to the soul does not by itself explain anything, but neither does suggesting that belief in it is crucial for self-governance--as if the importance of self-governance were indubitable. The global momentum of the last three years seems to move against self-governance. Let's think harder.
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