This column reads like an effort to coin a cool new term for millennials. It is also identical to many college admissions blogs touting the diversity of freshman admits. The virtues Brooks writes of are obvious to readers. But if America is in the state it is in, perhaps this is the time for writers with a platform like the NYT to think more deeply and originally about these issues.
31
What Brooks describes is not really new. Though the categories change, there are always those who "don't fit." A century ago, the Italians and Jews didn't fit. In the Fifties Leftists didn't fit. A decade later beards didn't fit. Until recently gays, lesbians, and unwed mothers didn't fit. Depending on circumstance, Blacks largely have yet to fit. Yet, as Brooks notes, it is often those who don't fit who, in order to either fit or to carve out their own identity, consciously or unconsciously, become those who live on the edge, producing change for the better, whether cultural, scientific, commercial, or whatever.
The problem we have now, one Brooks seems aware of even if peripherally, is that as a society we do not have a sense of who we are, what it even means to fit in. We all in one way or another are hyphenated Americans, Black-Americans, 2nd Amendment-Americans, gay or lesbian-Americans, anti-Abortion-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, female-Americans, outsourced-Americans, whatever-Americans. Nonetheless, we may well be in a crisis where most people's primary identity is on the adjective before the hyphen, not on the collective noun, American.
Unlike Brooks, I am not confidant that millenials are particularly well-equipped to deal with the fracturing of our society, the multi-polar polarization that is on the increase. If anything, they have less of a sense of being American than previous generations, with less of an understanding of the difference between is and ought.
24
I can't find a single opinion to comment on homelessness.
What causes homelessness? More than any cause?
Debt.
Where's the column about upholding the rights of bankers, ir about interest rates, or about aggregate demand?
Debt forces people into the streets. Debt kills our good people.
2
Barack Obama was an "Amphibian" President as defined by Mr. Brooks. In fact, that was one of his most important traits and a source of his potential greatness (only to be definitively bestowed upon him by the judgment of history…). Currently, I think the animal metaphor is more towards the reptile family or perhaps more precisely, dinosaurs. With any luck, after several more last gasps, they'll all soon reach extinction and perhaps we can all benefit from an "Amphibian" once again.
12
I am a Gen Xer who grew up near San Francisco. I was exposed to all sorts of people with all sorts of behavior. I came to expect that from society, but as I move around the country, people from all generations show me how much hate and idiocy there is. It isn't necessarily generations that describe how people act.
6
Amphibians = Dreamers? Where do you come down on that?
2
To be honest, I am getting tired of this column making veiled apologies for the deplorable state of our democracy. It creates the false impression that even if we continue in the current path there is hope for actually the country we profess to be.
Unless we acknowledge that this path clearly leads us to national derailment, I see no hope here. Reading this column is beginning to feel like the wrong way to spend my time.
15
Will these millenials from other countries flock to the polls to oust Republicans who despise them? Will they oust spineless legislators who value guns over people? Without votes, all these words are meaningless to tone-deaf Americans.
10
I think you just explained why I hate my hometown.
A unifying narrative of this country has been tolerance, obviously in the light of the decimation of native cultures and slavery.
But even now tolerance sounds to many like letting other people have your stuff, enmeshed in anger and resentment.
I am also an amphibian, having lived in Europe for ten years, decades ago.
Immigration has kept this country alive, sane, prosperous; saved it from it worst tendencies.
The prevailing bunker mentality could well do us in.
5
Does Brooks understand that the GOP has nothing to offer these people and, indeed, is afraid of people who can think with critical skills and independence.
10
We don't need more "change" and "progress". Those buzz words have brought us to the brink of disintegration. We need stability, assimilation and unity, around the core principles of the country, which are the product of Western Civilization.
2
Nine years ago I took notice of 3 or 4 millennials that I met at a funeral of a dear friend. They were smart and clear headed and young in their early 20's. Several years later I had added three more and over the last 4 years we grew to 20 that I (now at 88 years of age) interact with and do some mentoring of them. They are aware of the need for objective observations and fully cognizant that their parents love them but they need and want objectivity. Here is what I have learned from them. They are smart and talented and confident. They have a greater humanitarian bent than any previous generation. They all will volunteer to help overseas. They know about power and extreme wealth and believe they should be used to help the poor and less fortunate more. Their careers read like a who's who in a number of fields, the arts, composers, top musicians, humanity/peace corps in Africa,healthcare, to name a few. I believe firmly that older people should share their life's experiences with millennials. They are all extremely talented. I refer to them now as the "thoughtful twenty,"
If there are enough millennials like these 20 out there, they can literally meet their goal of "changing the world." I won't see their many accomplishments but I guarantee you they can make this country and hopefully the world into a planet fit for all humanity. They range in age now from 21 to 37 and they all individually and collectively can lead, which is what the world needs.
44
Isn't the essence of the American experience that of people coming here from other countries and finding their way in the US; of people moving from the East to the West of the US to live and work; of people moving from agricultural communities to work in manufacturing plants; of people coming out of the military to settle in the last place they were posted; of people going from small towns to big colleges never to return to the small town? Yes, people carried some of their old ways and old prejudices with them. Many dropped those things though some did not. Some married people who have different ethnic, religious backgrounds. This isn't new to a recent generation of Americans. This has been happening since the beginning of this country. We can certainly learn from the young people of today, but don't think they are somehow completely unique.
5
One thing I've learned living in America for the last few decades is this: all that matters is money, having lots of it, using it to get noticed, being a good liar on the job, and knowing how to con people into believing that you're better than you are. Honesty, hard work, paying your bills-none of that matters in this America.
America is not a country that one can count on for anything but disappointment.
20
Certainly. I also did choose to come here vs. being born here. But in my opinion the ignoramus population is divide in two: those that don't see the disappointment, and those that don't care.
1
We've had these amphibians as you call them, Mr. Brooks, in our society forever. My parents, first generation Americans who didn't learn English until they started school, are good examples. They were able to function in both their parents' worlds and in the American mainstream.
Children like my siblings and me were also amphibians. We grew up in a minority religion so underrepresented in southern small towns that it took three towns to pull together one very small congregation of 20 or so families. We were the first in our family to attend college. I was the first to get a graduate degree. We could function as Southerners, Americans and religiously, each a separate world for us.
All that said, however, my grandsons have a new challenge: to deal with their pluralism. On my side of the family, they are third-generation Americans. But their mother is a naturalized American citizen. I speak English, but their other grandparents speak a different language at home. These young men are multicultural, biracial and raised in two very different religions, one of which is not Judeo-Christian.
However, I think their generation will do just fine. They are overall more accepting of people of color (including my grandsons), differences in traditions and lifeview and tend to judge others as they find them, not as they think they should be.
While Trump is trying to cut back on people of color emigrating to our country, once color divides us less, we will be more united.
13
I don't understand; please, be more specific beyond coded phrases.
3
Interesting stuff David. Worthy of Donald Trump running a good normal meeting about.
3
Only in America.
3
Amphibians? Yeah!..... no question about it.
Our species, not just a certain age bracket, resemble the boiling "amphibian" experiment. While distracted by these intellecto/disquisitive lucubrations, global warming and texting nonsensical banalities 24/7 on a black brick will combine efforts to end our existence in just a few years.
Some bipeds do so earlier using their stup-phone while driving a guzzler.
2
I agree. And I also agree with your observation that those of us who follow a "liberal/cosmopolitan" arc of life from progressive homes to liberal arts colleges to young white urban communities may also miss out on the tensions and paradoxes that lead to deep creativity.
But it's also true that we live in a country where "one side" opposes the existence of "amphibians" in principle. If Donald J. Trump has anything to say about it -- and he does -- it becomes impossible by definition to "grow up in war-torn Syria and [wind] up at a community college in Ohio." In Trump's America, your "magnetism" and "originality" are invisible or irrelevant: all that matters is their fear of you.
7
Brooks late to the game again (this time ~370 million years late)...
2
You know who is a prime example of as Amphibian as you describe them? Former President Barack Obama. His identity is a synthesis of disparate parts. His life's story speaks of a man never in the center of any one group, but rather skirting the edges of multiple groups, weaving in and out of them and cross-pollinating those cultural spheres.
And yet, Mr. Obama was and remains vilified by the Right as something other, something unpatriotic and un-American. This is not unlike the attitude the Right harbors towards Dreamers, towards those termed the "coastal elites,"
really towards anything other than a narrowly defined white, pseudo-Christian, anti-State, no-holds-barred Capitalist. How can we hope to tap these Amphibians as valuable agents of change when a vast swath of the population denies their validity and the possibilities they embody?
47
Patience is a virtue.
1
There is another name used disparagingly for many in this group that gives you hope, but sadly choose to rename Amphibians. They are called immigrants.
3
Here we are trying to call what you call amphibians , Canadians.
7
Did you take Cultural Anthropology in college, David? If you didn't, it's not too late. It might save you some time. Don't stop talking to wonderful young people, that's always useful.
3
Did you write this as a result of a bad dream, or more likely a nightmare?
1
Mr. Brooks, you have long contributed to a dominant GOP with no moral compass. It currently is laying waste to our government. The death toll is huge, with many of these "amphibians" and their more ordinary neighbors among the walking dead. I call on you to become less insipid, at least a bit moral, and a lot more outraged. For God's sake, man, if this column is not the very definition of "fiddling while Rome burns" then I'd like to see a better one. It disturbs me that a man of your perspicacity and position can simply turn away and pretend "who me?" Yes. You. Do something. You have the platform. Save a few of these "amphibians."
15
I damn myself to further purgatory, but why, oh why, must the workings of our universe be probed by Norman Rockwell asking Seattle hipsters if they've read “The Hidden Wealth of Nations”?
Once upon a time, someone suggested that I accompany and go to be dressed, say, "more contemporary". Exact words were "hipster" and I froze like a deer in the headlights of the possibilities of youth.
Next time, let's GO FOR IT and bring back something from Seattle better than their magic beans.
Or if we must use scientific reasoning from The Age of The Atomic Ant Invasion for our "new duds", WE CAN BLEND IN and walk amongst them. Then, the Toad People might not devour us.
1
David,
Your most trite piece in a long time.
13
I suppose I'm an "amphibian." In terms of my racial, cultural, economic, educational, and religious background - I've been on the periphery everywhere my whole life. My wife marvels at my ability to navigate the world, to relate to a wide range of people. I don't see the big deal until I realize its an ability others don't have. I've often wished I wasn't so mixed and exotic. I've often wished I could just have a simple narrative, could just fit in without everything being an existential question. Its exhausting. Its lonely. It really sucked having to deal with and figure all this out as a kid. I also don't think I'd have it any other way. I look at my kids who are having a much smoother time than I ever had and I think about ways I can throw some wrenches into their world and force them to deal with adversities and uncertainties.
1
What Brooks describes is not really new. Though the categories change, there are always those who "don't fit." A century ago, the Italians and Jews didn't fit. In the Fifties Leftists didn't fit. A decade later beards didn't fit. Until recently gays, lesbians, and unwed mothers didn't fit. Depending on circumstance, Blacks largely have yet to fit. Yet, as Brooks notes, it is often those who don't fit who, in order to either fit or to carve out their own identity, consciously or unconsciously, become those who live on the edge, producing change for the better, whether cultural, scientific, commercial, or whatever.
The problem we have now, one Brooks seems aware of even if peripherally, is that as a society we do not have a sense of who we are, what it even means to fit in. We all in one way or another are hyphenated Americans, Black-Americans, 2nd Amendment-Americans, gay or lesbian-Americans, anti-Abortion-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, female-Americans, outsourced-Americans, whatever-Americans. Nonetheless, we may well be in a crisis where most people's primary identity is on the adjective before the hyphen, not on the collective noun, American.
Unlike Brooks, I am not confidant that millenials are particularly well-equipped to deal with the fracturing of our society, the multi-polar polarization that is on the increase. If anything, they have less of a sense of being American than previous generations, with less of an understanding of the difference between is and ought.
7
Amphibians have few natural defenses. Mainly they are slippery and distasteful when preyed upon. They try to hie in plain sight.
They are hyper-sensitive and are seen as "ecological indicators".
Good news, they will not give you warts.
Bad news, amphibians as a class, are not too hearty: https://amphibiaweb.org/declines/declines.html
3
I'll give Brooks credit for not once insinuating that religiosity is part of the needed solutions. But then it might be too obvious that the cults are actually part of the tribalism and closed, walled off, nature of our society. He almost said that liberalism is good today. Baby steps.
4
Perfect! I am born to German parents in New York. My mom was from an old time communist family, my dad fought the last 3 years of WWII on the German side - his family was loyal to the old Kaiser but fought for the Nazis during WWII. Growing up, right and left wing extremes were a fact of life. In America, we were "the Germans". My family moved back to Germany when I was 7. Suddenly, in Germany, we were "the Americans". After school and college and some work in Germany, I moved back stateside. My ex is half Korean, half German. My son is quarter Korean, 3/4 German. My fiance is half Japanese, half African American. My soon to be brother in law married a blond, blue eyed Irish Catholic. Family reunions are always "colorful". I never knew what were were, or how we could make it work. Now I know. We are Amphibians.
1
I never thought of myself as an "amphibian," but by the definition of this column, I guess I am. From Iowa to the Ivy League to liberal Manhattan.
I could see outside the bubble that Goldwater wasn't a dangerous lunatic but a decent man, and time has largely proved that.
But on this, every liberal and conservative I know agrees. Steve King is a dangerous lunatic. My hometown is the largest in his district, and his anti-immigration ravings are the most extreme in Washington.
Let's hope the midterm wave is enough to sweep him out of office.
4
Thanks for reminding us of a core liberal value: diversity is a good thing. Tacking to port, Mr. Brooks?
1
Society is not a jungle; it is an edifice constructed by human beings that comprises many paths, many rooms. If you just hang out in one room, you won't ever see the possibilities and will die much as you were born: undeveloped. Unwoke in a multiplicity of ways.
It would seem that our most recent ex-President, Barrack Obama, would qualify as the epitome of an amphibian - half white, half black, mother and grandparents from the central plains, but growing up in Hawaii, as well as Indonesia, father from Africa, step-father from Indonesia - going on to navigate the ivied halls of Columbia and then Harvard Law, working in heartland Chicago as a community organizer.....
I believe in fact he fits Brooks definition perfectly, and I also believe he brought many of the strengths Brooks attributes to amphibians. But sadly it was just those features that made many Americans hate, fear and demonize him.
Ironically, real amphibians - frog and toads - are among some of the most endangered creatures on the planet, and in our current political climate social cultural amphibians may be the same.
We need to save both the natural environment and the social one and produce a world in which amphibians can truly flourish.
5
Dear David, Please stop any effort to name Millennials, Amphibians. What will the press start calling them, Amps, Phibs or Bians? It is a bad metaphor. If you want to anger an entire phylum of creatures, don't pick on frogs. I propose some sort of mammalian name, like humans. Clueless in Oregon. RAW
4
I got on the T last Monday and had a bunch of packages, there was one empty seat beside a Muslim woman. She being in her 20s and me in my 70s, but as I sat down we made eye contact, squeezing in I said quietly, 'thank you sister'. When her stop came she got up to leave and turned around and made eye contact again, but this time she made a slight bow. I took it as a Buddhist greeting or parting called, noah- must- stay [ forgive my spelling]. I smiled also inside knowing that both of us had acknowledged each other, in a quiet dignified manner. I say a prayer to God each morning; I ask that I might be of service in some way, around class, race,or just helping another. This day I was helped with an unexpected connection.
5
I am quite liberal minded in many respects but often often enjoy reading David Brooks column. What I would like to point out to Mr. Brooks is that if you happen to have immigrated or migrated to this country (as from Puerto Rico), you already have had to interweave into a new "culture." What made it easy for me was that America was a land of diverse people. Many of us had to learn to live with people with whom we had never made contact. I have been luckier than most because my family lived in ghettos that were never just one people. We adjusted to living in Afro-American communities as well as communities that included a bit of everyone: Jewish, Italian, Irish, Polish and a host of others. Yes. We always seemed to land in communities that were 'changing', which meant whites were moving out slowly to better neighborhoods, and that typically resulted in their living more segregated. But if you did not look at your neighborhood as the 'world' you traveled on train to different parts of the city and inevitably you came across the "greater America." that Millenials are now having to come across the greater America is a function of their leaving their safe suburban enclaves to live where diverse communities, ghettos in a sense, are now being converted to the very same diverse neighborhoods from where their parents escaped. America is not "white" culturally. It is a mix of cultures evident by the food and the diverse holidays we now celebrate.
2
Our national narrative is not a simple story. There is the story of the immigrants, as far back at the 17th century and up to the current day, who came seeking a better life. It also includes at least at two of the worst crimes against humanity ever perpetrated: genocide and slavery. Unless we can all embrace the whole story we will descend into tribes that promote that chapter that elevates us in our own minds. The stories and their details are less important than the belief that a society built by people from all over the world, all religions and no religion at all, and every imaginable difference you can name, can create a just and vibrant society. Chasing uniformity leads to conformity, fear of the "other", and ultimately stagnation and collapse.
6
What a great blueprint. Unfortunately too many can only see it through the prism of party politics.
1
That's my boy: a cosmopolitan with initiative, imagination and synthetic thinking.
Peaceful but angry on injustice. Problem solver, brainstormer and searcher for the fringe view. My own personal poem.
3
Thanks for yet another column that exhorts those who have been left behind by our political-economic elite's continuous enrichment of itself to simply accept the inequality and injustice in silence. Heaven forbid that anyone point out the corruption and inequality that diminishes our purported values.
We really need to hear you discuss the violence that goes on and on in our country because of the easy availability of assault weapons. How about some suggestions about positive and, hopefully, feasible actions that our Congress could try? PLEASE! Your credible and reasoned voice is so important here.
2
I am 76 of Indian English and Italian background having lived in all three of those countries and came to this country 52 years ago. I’ve been expressing exactly what Brooke’s talks about for decades calling myself a Universal and then an original globalist. Yes with a unique view of the world that a mix like that gives you. East and West. Now I have a new designation ...Amphibian. I like it!
4
Mr. Brooks blends an imperfect understanding of actual amphibians along with a terribly limited view of those he saddles with that term. Actual amphibians are fairly delicate creatures, living mostly at the margins of land and water. Those he's saddled with that term are better known as products of the American melting-pot. They are not new or strange or all under 30. And they (we) are definitely not delicate.
1
What Brooks describes is not really new. Though the categories change, there are always those who "don't fit." A century ago, the Italians and Jews didn't fit. In the Fifties Leftists didn't fit. A decade later beards didn't fit. Until recently gays and lesbians didn't fit. For the most part, depending on circumstance, Blacks have yet to fit. Yet, as Brooks notes, it is often those who don't fit who, in order to either fit or to carve out their own identity, consciously or unconsciously, become those who live on the edge, producing change for the better, whether cultural, scientific, commercial, or whatever.
The problem we have now, one Brooks seems aware of even if peripherally, is that as a society we do not have a sense of who we are, what it even means to fit in. We all in one way or another are hyphenated Americans, Black-Americans, Second Amendment-Americans, gay or lesbian-Americans, anti-Abortion-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, female-Americans, outsourced-Americans, whatever-Americans. Nonetheless, we may well be in a crisis where most people's primary identity is on the adjective before the hyphen, not on the collective noun, American.
Unlike Brooks, I am not confidant that millenials are particularly well-equipped to deal with the fracturing of our society, the multi-polar polarization that is on the increase. If anything, they have less of a sense of being American than previous generations, with less of an understanding of the difference between is and ought.
1
David, stop with the "we." We women have not created the wars, the divisiveness, the shootings, etc, etc. It's the humans with the Y chromosome who do that. Due to evolutionary biology, the Y's aren't very good at bridging and bonding and creating community and commonality. So please, move over and let those of us with the X chromosome, who are very good at those things, do the leading!
1
David: You ended your essay with a paragraph containing the following line:
"When you talk to young adults you hear a lot of disillusion and disaffection."
But nowhere in your essay did you address this issue. You seem to have skipped right over it, even while acknowledging its significance. In this respect you represent your social group rather well, I think.
1
The blending of peoples and culture is what made us Americans. We are not beholden to some blood and soil mythology but to E Pluribus Unum and the Constitution. What we need to do to provide for the higher calling the Mr. Brooks is seeking is national service of some type. Service in World War II forced millions of young Americans to confront, accept, work with and succeed with other Americans. The volunteer armed services only provides this too a very small part of the country. Creating a national service tied to free or inexpensive higher education provides the synergy that Brooks calls for and opens up the country to greater unity and helps mitigate income inequality.
1
Nice column. Real fulfillment does come from reconciling differences within ourselves and with others. As many say here, Obama fits this description. What a rich experience he has had trying to pull together the different parts of himself and American society. And I say this even though I disagreed with a number of his policies. Retired, I am a moderate conservative newly moved to a liberal west coast town and have enjoyed finding common ground among us. At some level, I have probably channeled Obama’s example. I try to be patient, to recognize the merits of other viewpoints, to speak accurately and respectfully but also forthrightly. True, so much comes down to winning and losing—elections, legislative votes, judges decisions—but, as Brooks’ humanism keeps pointing out—true satisfaction comes from our embracing the best resources of our humanity.
1
As a retired high school English teacher, I believe in the power of public schools to be a powerful center in our communities. Many of us do serious talk and honest debate in our classrooms, many parents mix and meld as they see their kids through school, and all of our clubs are hot-houses of team-work, expression, ambition, and learning. Democracy begins in the public school.
5
Dear Believer in Public Schools: You comment has no relation to the article. Why did you make it?
Well I have nothing like the great stuff Mr. Brooks says, but I do have this observation of the young people today. Whenever I get depressed about the state of our nation, I look to the younger ones. And they care about their country, they care about each other and are activitely trying to help others out and demand fairness and kindness and opportunity and exciting art and business and vision and creativity - and all the other traits that made America the wonderful thing it has been. I can't tell you how comforting that is when I read the news and watch our (sigh) government in (in)action.
5
This is one of David's best columns of all time. Thank you, David. It's so very true. It's interesting to see that so many commenters herein are apparently not amphibians and therefore lack the experience to understand and appreciate the viewpoint that David has encountered and presented so well to us today. As an absolute amphibian myself, I find my life surrounded by the majority of humans who are not so fortunate as to have lived in multiple countries, attended multiple universities (or none at all, which can be a great approach to life also), worked in various fields of endeavor, etc. And yes, I think my life is broader and better for it. It strikes me that President John Kennedy may have had an amphibian moment when he formed the Peace Corps, offering participants a chance to become amphibians. Many more opportunities exist to develop and expand amphibianism across society and if we grasp these chances, our society will be better for it.
12
Interesting ideas. What about you, David Brooks? How did you get this way? Maybe in next week's column?
6
I think we have to be careful not to almost characterize those with interesting backgrounds as better than the rest; it plays into the intense feelings of inferiority and being left behind many conservatives feel. Let's just forget about backgrounds and appearances, and focus on our common humanity and the incredible differences among every one of us that make us unique and gifted.
5
DLP: Most of us tend to jump too quickly to evaluation: Is this good or is it evil? When we meet someone with an interesting background that's an opportunity to explore and grow.
We do want to be sensitive to them and avoid offending them, given how highly they prize that.
So Mr. Brooks, formerly a proud "conservative" who extolled the value of tradition cultural strictures, is suddenly enamored by "change agents?" He's suddenly discovered people with "interesting backgrounds" (e.g. lesbians and Costa Ricans)? Suddenly "weaving together different life commitments" (which most of us have been calling "multiculturalism" for decades) is to be celebrated rather than demonized?
How very chic and trendy of you, Mr. Brooks! But I hate to burst your bubble: This "new phenomenon" that you're suddenly discovering has been going on for many decades, and has been embraced by Liberals all along. You've been so busy disdaining us that you didn't open your eyes to see what's bveen happening in the world.
But I do have to chuckle at your residual naivete. "iIf you grew up in war-torn Syria and wound up at a community college in Ohio, you’re almost bound to be magnetic and original." Huh? "If you grew up in a Baptist home in Alabama and now are first-generation college at an Ivy League school, your life is propelled by an electric, crosscutting cultural dynamic." Um, no; not if you choose to wall off yourself from new cultural experiences. And you're wrong: Plenty of change agents grew up in progressive middle-class homes and went to liberal arts colleges (and then became Freedom Riders and marched in Selma).
Oh well; I'll put up with inane drivel like this from Brooks, if it means that he's finally joining us in the 21st century.
24
Mr. Brooks:
I know congress is filled with reptilians, but, aren't you taking this labeling thing a bit too far? Does everything and everyone have to fit in a pigeonhole before any of it makes any sense to you? Unless, you were thinking about climate change, this is really silly, if not stupid.
5
Where's Aquaman when we need him? Hanging out with the tadpoles and frogs.
2
It was difficult enough to read Brooks' defense of conservatives and conservative ideas when they were destroying the country; it's impossible to read his complaints now that the country is in pieces at his feet. And let's be honest: Reading his high-minded philosophy these days is a little like reading Archimedes on the tipping deck of the Titanic. Spend a minute reading this from Brooks today, or Stephens' whining about Venezuela yesterday, or anything by the Mental Astronaut Douthat, and you realize that the Times either needs to get better conservative writers, or stop wasting our time and admit that conservative thought is, and never has been, cogent or relevant.
11
I agree completely, but I'd add that the Times also needs to get better liberal writers, if they exist, and that the country needs to get better political thinkers and actors, genuinely civic-minded, non-partisan, patriotic thinkers who can begin to build a common civic culture. Of course, it would be necessary for people to listen to them if they were to have an impact. It's going to take a Burke or a Gladstone to navigate this mess and our culture, apparently, isn't capable of producing persons of such quality nor, perhaps more importantly, ordinary citizens who are capable of recognizing gifted individuals when they see them.
Wasn't the first amphibian Trump's buddy Newt?
9
Can nothing be done to stop Brooks? I've asked the question many times before, to no avail. The production of trite labels masking as insights into contemporary life goes on and on. Surely it would be more cost-effective for the Times to replace Brooks with an algorithm. He has probably already done this himself.
7
The current only NYT pick is saying he's describing them as cosmopolitan. It sounds more like that Brooks has gone over to the darkside of championing identity politics. I mean a syrian in ohio is "magnetic?" Why? Because they are unique? Average Americans born and raised here can be magnetic too. It's sad that he's going the way of championing some identities, and not others. This seems diametrically opposed to his original anti-identity politics stance.
6
Wasn't Barack Hussein Obama our first Amphibian president?
13
The juxtaposition of Paul Krugman's make-a-cogent-point pieces vs David Brooks'..I guess you call them: flights of fancy....well it makes me spill my coffee, twice a week. The old joke about the dog that moved from NYC to LA fits: Paul Krugman and the dog in NYC appropriately say: Bow wow, Bow wow, David and the dog that moved to LA....twice a week tell us at length: Oh wow, Oh wow...... (e.g. Amphibians make E. pluribus unum their life mission?....Honey, can you get me a towel!). Copping to Amphibians? Venezuela? only makes it more clear that Neo-Cons can't begin to deal with Ferguson MO, Parkland FL., Porter hypocrisy, Charlottesville VA etc. etc etc.
5
Lotsa luck, Amphbians. Everyone knows that America is run by Reptiles!
8
Well that told me nothing about getting on with my own development. Getting a bit tired of much of the NYT filler lately. Nothing new here, moving on.
2
I don't, understand how anyone can even read you.
3
Apparently you read it. What's your story?
2
What this asinine column fails to mention is that the dominant culture in much of America holds Brooks' so-called "Amphibians" in utter contempt and proclaims, loudly and often, that they are not "real" Americans.
David Brooks himself continues to offer his unwavering support to the political party which operates as the expression of that culture. He has written a column whose obviousness is surpassed only by its hypocrisy.
7
When you are faith-brainwashed, you ain't no amphibian. David has the luck of being in a Liberal city that attracts the best and brightest.
But that ain't America, David. Not at all. America is children mourning a mass shooting and never being able to do anything about it.
America is mediocre.
6
If you *haven’t* had the majority of your professors, doctors, politicians, bosses, judges, pastors, lenders (and so on) from your own race and gender, you are most likely a white male. The rest of us “amphibians” are not that impressed that you have only now “discovered” that we exist. But thanks for noticing.
4
These kids are the generation that is screaming "sexist!" and "racist!" at the drop of a hat. Yet there is one group who is bashed without any objection: white men. Apparently, everything is our fault. These kids will come bearing the truncheon of "diversity" much as they are already doing. Pardon me for not celebrating their arrival.
1
Hopefully these amphibians will do to conservatives what mammals did to the dinosaurs.
2
Obama the ultimate Amphibian--you forgot to mention him. Why?
7
Seems like our last President, Barack Obama, was the ultimate Amphibian! Use him as the prototype!
8
The Amphibians' "society is not a battlefield but a jungle," Mr Brooks? How higher-ground snobby of you! And before YOU say YOUR rise came on the Mayflower, consider ITS "historic generation-gap opening" as having been far greater a single-box intrusion on the shores of a new world far less in need of a "re-centering" based on a self-serving rejection of a narrative already anathema to coherence in the old world.
Mr Brooks’ origins were certainly not the Mayflower but more likely the Shtetles of Eastern Europe.
I blame any disallusionment on the GOP
More psychobabble from Brooks.
5
Nice word:amphibians... Can we leave L_O_V_E out of the discussion.... how about R-E-S-P-E-C-T -- IMO much to be preferred. (i hit him becuase I love him and I want him to change....give me a break.
What interets me much more will be how the MeToo# movement will affect mating. In my day we went to college in part intending to find a mate. Now they are all told they are too young for such an impt. decision... but in fact most of the time young is a better time to conceive..if one isn't consuming too much alcohol... I find them to be big drinkers.. to their own detriment and to that of some of their offspring. (Conception can occur unexpectedly...)
The species is ever interesting... the young uns adorable usually.
So David and his "research assistant" took a road trip on the Times' dime and came up with a bunch of unsupported hypotheses.
Ah, the rigors of journalism!
1
I am happy being who I am: A male, heterosexual, conservative believer in G-d and a proud American who has a good wife, healthy children and is able to earn a decent living. In my next life I am planning to come back exactly as I am now, but two inches taller.
In a perfect world. everyone would be happy with who and what they are now. But this never was and cannot be
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
2
Dear Mr. Brooks...what ever are you writing about these days?
I realize the cacophony of the GOP & White House mind numbing scandals, failures, national security issues (and security clearance concerns), Russian conspiracy problems, election hacking, gun violence epidemics (along with Flu; Opioid addiction deaths, and Healthcare access problems at crisis levels) are OVERWHELMING.
But your continued drivel each week shows your utter exhaustion on commenting about real, serious topics of the day. I expect better! You made it through years of "W"...you can make it through this too!
2
Mr. Brooks, an amphibian is a reptile that is can live on either land or in the water. The "rise of the amphibians" began on November 8, 2016. You know, the swamp?
1
Alas, real amphibians are faced with increasing environmental threats. What distinguishes amphibians is that whatever their ecological niche, they must return to a body of water, let's say swamp, to reproduce. The analogy, one hopes, is inapt.
1
You leave many of your white Christian conservatives wondering where their place is in this amphibian future, but they don't need to be left behind. They. only need to adjust and accept that their place is not the ONLY place for the American future. They are part of it, but only a part - not the whole and not the kings of the hill. There will be no single group that is king of the hill, and that is wonderful.
What is all this trashing of a Tribal identity?
What's wrong with making our Tribe the Human Tribe?
That is all of us everywhere, fellow members of the Human Tribe.
The Tribe would protect everyone, see that each tribal member is provided for- has basic housing, food, medical care and a chance to live a decent life.
As to our Amphibian nature, it is an interesting analogy for change and adaptation in our species.
But if we continue this mindless, greedy investment in things military, bombing, killing, destabilizing an already unstable world, modernizing and strengthening or nuclear arsenals as opposed to reducing or eliminating them, what will be the inevitable result?
The genuine Amphibians that seem to fascinate Mr. Brooks- like bull frogs- may very well get their chance to evolve into... into what?
...something hopefully unimaginable and totally different from homo sapiens, our binomial classification which looks more like an oxymoron every day.
These amphibians will have their day and help give a new vision to the US when a certain generation passes on, and perhaps it cannot come too soon.
Emotional maturity involves being able to hold totally contradictory ideas in your head without freaking out. The people Brooks describes here are probably pretty good at that. And then there are people who cannot view morality along a continuum. For them good and bad always involves a light switch kind of reasoning. (Just try discussing the abortion issue with a pro-life religious person and you’ll get the idea).
2
Our new generations are swimming in a sea defined by rapid and accelerating change... in pretty much everything. Yet the defining boundaries of this sluice are Congressmen pledged to Grover Norquist and/or funded by the NRA, a President beyond the pale and a "religious" culture swinging rapidly toward evangelical nuttiness. They had better be amphibious - just to stay afloat.
I thought I had seen everything weak that Brooks could do, but again he disappoints us with Amphibians. Underwhelming, to say the least. This is his version of Paul Ryan's comments of how he is with the Parkland community. Pathetic............
1
David, do you know you are describing Barack Obama? Do you now understand the opportunity your party squandered by doing everything it possibly could to block him, work against him and quash his presidency?
6
Poor analogy Mr. Brooks amphibians can put up with environmental change less than almost any living things on earth. Know a little zoology.
Yes, David, more insights like this please.
I teach at a very low-income San Jose Middle School. Students speak more clearly and courageously than our politicians - when and how to adults lose that? Thinking they would want to discuss the latest mass shooting, I asked for their thoughts. "Ms. Perkins, if you go to school, you can get shot" totally causal. Telling them it was not always like that, I realized it was ancient history like grandpa's recollection of walking two miles in the snow to reach school.
3
Recalculating to the frontal lobe. Houston we have a landing. Oh, please, stop with the dime store psychology ladled out on a plate of politics. Mr. Brooks needs to watch Pardon the Interuption on ESPN. Someone to bandy about such stuff. The other guy would be yelling at him right now. Get in the game brooksie!! Nikolas Cruz was the amphibian. He was the outsider. I hear talk of banning guns. Okay, but you have to ban Dr. Phil as well. To solve mass shootings we have to get away from Dr. Philsism which you unfortunatly conjure in this column. Someone told Nikolas Cruz he was special. How about Belichekism..."do your job". Tell us what you had for dinner last night and how you kicked back. Give the little people something to dream about. Not more pyschobabble. Dr. Phil is no better than Jerry Springer. Okay, someone can be an amphibian, but you still gotta go out and catch the pass. Do your job!!
Okay, back to Kansas. This country needs to do it's job. All i can say is it's one messed up country. Amphibians, seriously? Fine, Hillary and Trump were pet rocks.
David, there must be a Fruedian slip somewhere.
By definition, all immigrants are or become amphibians when they land on US soil. Presumably some turn into frogs and toads, and may be few become princes when their princesses fell in love with them. What will happen when the government try to return them back to the waters>
1
Bless you, David Brooks.
1
David, did you even leave NYC to write this? Out in the real world “amphibians” have existed for generations. It’s not a new phenomenon it’s the essence of our country’s success.
What’s changed is a predatory media like Fox News that sells a reality of a white America that never existed, and a gerrimandered electorate that is amphibious but is represented by land based dinosaurs, to stretch your dubious metaphor a bit.
Anyway, it’s probably a good thing that the failures of the dinosaurs are getting you to think outside your own circle, but just because you realize something doesn’t mean it is new or that you discovered it.
3
I'm at a loss. David Brooks, who writes often of his contempt for diversity and multi-culturalism, now writes in praise of pluralism. What does he imagine is the difference?
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
3
So, these dynamic young people are frogs and salamanders? Brooks and his sophomoric metaphors ...
1
Delete your account.
2
Interesting but my take away is 1 white elitist interviewing elitist millennials.
Not every millennial is going to an Ivy League school, live in expensive urban areas yet Brooks seems to be amazed at what he finds. Brooks needs to get out of the ivory tower, leave the Washington echo chamber, get out of his BMW, stay any place other than the Four Seasons, ride the bus or subway.....then come back and tell us what he’s found.
1
True. And the current, continually devolving situation in the US leads me to believe Brooks, along with too many others, is a Pollyanna. We see tolerance and accommodation as all or none; the none on the part of the “ists”, and the all on the part of the “can’t we all just get along-ers.” We have tolerated and accommodated the forces that will be our undoing. And we’ve been too comfortable, pacified. It will take leadership to galvanize a sustained, bigly, angry opposition to Trumpsky and his comrades. Unless we are willing to be uncomfortable, to take risk and make sacrifice, our keister is cooked. I hope I’m wrong.
2
Congratulations, you’ve just described Barack Obama.
3
How could this piece fail to even mention Barack and Michelle Obama?
5
Most people who comment here immediately discount or attack Brooks for no reason related to his article.
Great article.
3
And why do you think that is Rick? One cannot live their lives cocooned in the Republican, white, suburban world and then expected to be taken seriously when it comes to diverse backgrounds.
1
David you "see a lot of hope " in how they live their lives . You fail to say if they see hope in our country.
I might be considered one of the so-called amphibious millennials, but more based on my experiences than my genetics. As a (gasp) upper middle class white guy from a liberal family in the suburbs of Boston I left to go to a southern university, then moved to South Korea during the recession to find work, after which I proceeded to travel the world. I lived in Miami (which, for the record, is a very different place to live than to vacation) for medical school and now work for a public hospital in NYC, where I'm basically the only white person treating people from every corner of the globe. The biggest lesson I've learned is that people are basically the same in every country. All people love, hate, laugh, and yes...are super racist everywhere you go. Individuals differ widely, but stereotypes exist for a reason. All cultures are annoying in one way or another: for example, Americans complain ALL THE TIME, Koreans have a non-sexual fetish for white people/culture, and Bengalis believe Western medicine works like magic.
Basically, treat everyone like a person and you'll always find something to like...and dislike. That's humanity.
4
Obama was an amphibian and look who this country just elected: an awful man who turned Obama's multi-faceted background -- the color of his skin and his father's country -- into the birther movement which questioned Obama's American citizenship and legitimacy as President.
9
David, you have described Michelle and Barack Obama, in background, accomplishments, and, most strikingly, their vilification by the usual suspects.
5
Dear David,
I'm no millenial but according to your characterization I am very much an amphibian. But here's the thing: you think you are being very clever but what you are is really insulting to people whose backgrounds are not like yours. We are not some weird animals that people like you can analyze and prod and treat as admirable weirdos from your heights. Maybe it's time for you to read the stories of your own ancestors who were treated as less than because they had a different religion than the dominant class of their time. You may fit in now, but that's because your parents didn't want you to focus on difference and they forgot who they were when their parents or grandparents emigrated to the US. Surely you are clever enough to find a metaphor that doesn't involve lumping people with widely varying experiences and backgrounds into one simplistic analogy.
1
This article highlights one of the great problems we have in th United States. I would be willing to bet anuthing that if you ask a person on the the street who they are, they would tell you their genetric background, Irish,Italian,African American etc. We are stuck in our tribal ethnic boxes. That being said, we can not unify this country until the first thing that comes out of our mouths is that we are AMERICANS first.
“I’ve begun to recognize a social type, the Amphibians — people who can thrive in radically different environments.”
Since Dave insists on labeling a generation, Amphibians” is an inappropriate choice. Salamanders, for example, will die if not in a moist environment. Time to enroll in Intro to Herpetology 101!
But I’d like to see a defense of this fad of labeling generations and ascribing characteristics to them when most of us would think that saying that females or Asian or gay people tend to have certain values and outlooks is sexist or racist. Why is generationalism OK?
3
Why must there be labels? Amphibians? You're joking right? Did Mr Brooks even look up the definition or is he trying to impose his own arrogant metaphor to fit his conservative world view? Is Mr Brooks trying to channel the Shape of Water?
4
Now in my 80's, I am old enough to remember the miscegination laws (laws against people of different races marrying) that prevailed in many states. Later, after Loving, when I began to see more interracial children, who were often very beautiful, I began to joke that we should have miscegenation laws again--making interracial marraiage mandatory! Maybe it was not such a rediculous notion!
7
I find David Brooks's interpretation of both millennials and pluralism in general condescending. Yes, clearly the middle-class, liberal arts, hipster is a bore. Throw in some youthful trauma and a Midwestern education and suddenly the individual is a jewel of multiculturalism. Are you serious? David needs to take a break from philosophy and study anthropology instead. The tone here is both patronizing and late to the game.
"Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it."
— Letter to Lord Chesterfield
1
Mr. Brooks has written another of his “there must be a pony around here somewhere” columns in which he turns away from the hellscape of our immediate political crisis and asks us to imagine a future of rainbows and lollipops. Those millennials will have a better chance if we leave them something more than the burned out rubble of a once vibrant democracy and the ruin of an economy that once offered real opportunity for all. Perhaps Mr. Brooks can provide some suggestions about how we deal with the present which is so grievously threatening his imagined future.
3
In the United States we have witnessed the rise of poisonous snakes. They are called the Republican Party. They are highly toxic and insidious and they are destroying everything this country has fought and died for since its founding.
5
Brooks has come up with a rather strange term, amphibian, for a social classification. In the age of Trump we might consider ourselves all amphibians - like the proverbial frog in the pot that is being slowly brought to boil, unaware of the growing peril that surrounds us.
4
The use of amphibians as a metaphor is good, except that real amphibians are dying out, while human amphibians may be struggling but likely will flourish in the end.
Sadly, the themes of this opinion struck me as typical Brooks moderate Conservative whitewash and fantasy. Every once in awhile, I get something real from reading a Brooks piece. But these days, they’re getting fewer and farther between. Wishful thinking is the more likely takeaway.
3
Good to see you're getting out more, David.... There's hope!!
2
This made me laugh. If David wants to know what millennials have faith in, why not ask his wife? She's 26.
2
I laughed at the title of this column and had to read it. It did not disappoint. Three hallmarks of his columns are on display here: the fascination with generational difference, the vague reference to whatever social science book was sent to him by a publisher, the invention of a term...
His basic observation is that a lot of people move between different “worlds,” that how we are viewed depends on who is doing the viewing and that we adjust our behavior to different environments and expectations. That does not make a person an “amphibian,” it makes a person a person. This is not new. Oh. And there’s the empty hat tip to capitalism — “bridging capital” — which means making and spending money in different ways and places. It’s like he just heard of the industrial revolution and that people sometimes travel outside the town of their birth.
What I love most is his love of stringing together demographic labels to define being “interesting.” It’s so easy. “A [gender, race, geographic location, religious affiliation” was a dog owner/sheep rancher/cupcake artist in ____ then moves to ____ and decides to drive an Uber/go to grad school/design an app/volunteer for Jesus.” You can do this with anyone, from any era and any generation. It’s all about what you emphasize. As an example, read any somewhat lengthy obituary from any decade after the invention of the steam engine and quite often you’ll find a person who sounds like an amphibian.
2
This is all great but the Sixties generation was supposed to change the world also and it did for awhile. Then they aged and became a horrible group of Trump voting close minded right wingers. Let’s hope aging doesn’t do the same to the Millennials. Let’s hope they stay Progressives. And I have little room for right wing Gays. Not one Republican Senator, Governor or President fought for gay rights or gay marriage. I should know I was there for the fight. This column is getting as bad as Ms Dowd’s column stuck in the mud somewhere and uselessly addressing issues with a old biases that stops one from actually truly addressing corrections needed by our Country. Republicans are a mess. Address that issue don’t give us right wing Lesbians.
1
As a sociology professor at University of Illinois at Chicago, I have a book just out based on interviews with Millennials. Please pay attention to the great divide between them on issues of gender, how they want to be perceived, and their politics. Sending you, David Brooks, a copy of my new book ... in the mail today (Oxford University Press).
2
E pluribus unum, one of my favorite notions. It is the central core of the best of what America could mean. My family has actually strongly benefited from a very close friendship with the late great Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold of Harvard Hillel. Ben-Zion was born in Poland where he received a deep, traditional Jewish education, survived the Holocaust, and came to America where he heartily embraced the promise and possibility of a free and just society. He and so many of his colleagues who fled the tyranny of 20th century Europe infused the United States with just the sort of intellectual, emotional, and cultural jolt that David Brooks so eloquently about.
I have no doubt that Trump, today's GOP, and the cruel third of the country who love this moment, had they lived and ruled in the mid-20th century, would have delighted in locking the doors to the US and dooming as many as possible to death in war torn Europe, just as they do now for the war torn Middle East. They would have kept our friend Rabbi Gold out of the US, and my and my families life, along with thousands others, would be impoverished for it.
One last point, although identity politics can be a problem, this is a temptation to deny oppression when it exists. As long as the color of your skin dictates whether your baby has double the chance of dying by age one, it's not identity politics, it is deadly and very real racism, a true form of oppression.
2
David, the “hyphen” problem/opportunity has been part of American discourse since Daniel Patrick Moynahan. Old wine, new bottle.
1
The most successful "amphibian" in America to-date is Barack Obama. He was, as David says, a natural "bridger" - at least at first. When he became POTUS, he appointed Republicans to his cabinet, and tried to work with Republicans on health care reform, and gun safety, and the economy.
Yet, as we now know, Political Conservatives saw him as a threat and did everything they could to stop America from seeing what a bridging amphibian could actually accomplish.
I guess we'll have to see if this next generation of amphibious bridgers have any better luck with their own singular-identity brethren.
5
Geez, and here I though the only amphibians were the French.
The thing is that all human beings are splendidly different from one another and very much the same, with similar desires and dreams, regardless of gender, ethnic, class, and national identities.
But why does David Brooks need to put people in labelled boxes? All the time?
Today, multi-racial, multi-cultural, sociological labels aren't good enough for David. He used a slimy, animal image to talk about complicated human beings.
Once he cooked up the oh, so clever "bobos in paradise"; then he speaks of class or tribe or borrows some other obscure sociologist's musing on cramming people into sets and subsets.
It's repulsive and it's wrong, but then “[t]o get the most attention, the essay should be wrong. Logical essays are read and understood. But an illogical or wrong essay will prompt dozens of other writers to rise and respond, thus giving the author mounds of publicity.” Brooks, Bobos in Paradise.
So he gets attention, so what?
1
This is Brooks’ second column on change-agents/social entrepreneurs in a short time period. In a comment on the first, I thanked him for the visibility for this concept which needs to be much better known. So doubly thanks for doing it again. This is also again, the better Brooks, so often superb when he leaves both politics and his conservative preference for conformist norms and gives us a surprise topic. My suggestions are the need for “Amphibians,” or whatever term arises, to be shown in other types of conformist/conservative places like job-hunting, including fairs, postings and college career office seminars. The latter, in particular, keep the individuality such as embodied by Amphibians bottled-up so as to strive for “marketability,” as if the market actually gets real change-agency. Why limit this only to young people? This is one of the innovation-crushers otherwise praiseworthy social entrepreneurial organizations like the one featured last time, Ashoka, miss. Why can’t an Amphibian be much older? Ironic given his suggested title, why can’t one of the “connections” Amphibians feel are to the critters we’re now wiping out in the 6th Extinction? Those “interesting backgrounds” he cites may not be so obvious. Pluralism and diversity may not fit their now-customarily-assigned boxes. Change-agent recognizers/facilitators, who may be as important as actual change-agents themselves, need to look beyond surface labels. What are we missing that has always been here?
David seems to want desperately to coin a phrase that gets picked up and will somehow catch on. "Amphibians" won't be it. His column today seems basically harmless and feel-good, but not especially enlightening. He doesn't say how he selected his interviewees, or how many there were. Is this supposed to tell us that this is somehow characteristic of millenials, or just that some of them have interesting stories and positive viewpoints? I don't think they have any lock on how best to approach the world, or anything that hasn't been thought of before.
1
Mr. Brooks could easily written the same column and simply substituted the word "immigrant" for the word "amphibian", and achieve the same conclusion.
1
I work in an ethnically diverse, multicultural middle school, in deeply red Norman, Oklahoma. I know kids of all colors, from all around the world and, everyone gets along great.
I had a chat with a very well poised 6th grade boy last spring. He told me he was from Yemen but had lived in Saudi Arabia most of his life. His family had been in Oklahoma for five months. I met his parents at a physics department event a few weeks later and learned his father had been science advisor the king of Yemen. They left the states for Canada a few months later- our loss.
A friend of mine used to say that in Oklahoma a Jew is just a guy who picks hid ham out of his beans. In my school a guy named Mohammed is just known as Mo. I love it. It is whdt America could be.
Seriously -- could Brooks find a *worse* name than "Amphibians"? His "Bobos" of a few years back -- Bourgeois Bohemians -- was similarly stupid / clever...but at least it didn't imply "cold-blooded" and "slimy." I love frogs and salamanders myself, but I doubt*anyone* in the class of people he seems to praise is going to self-identify as "Amphibian": it's as if Brooks is afraid to use the obvious descriptors, like "multicultural" or "diverse," for fear of upsetting his conservative readers.
Brooks is also more than a decade behind the times, since these cross-cultural, adaptive, convention-breaking people have been around for years, as anyone who's spent time in most any school system can testify. Brooks is well behind the curve on this one....
1
Well done, avoiding gun issues!
Thank you, Mr. Brooks for this OP-ED! This is exactly what I do. I collect data on AGENCY - person's ability to change, adapt and persevere. And as the founder of 4GGL.org, an organization and social change movement dedicated to empowering the next generation of women changemakers, my focus is Millennial Women and we conducted the first-ever women's empowerment global survey.
In fact, what you may not realize is the power of agency. It goes well beyond amphibianism. It's a super power. It's empowerment and from our global survey of Millennials we learned that empowerment is the CAN DO factor, going from "I cannot" to "I can."
And yes, you can use this super power to solve the three challenges you noted, as well as take down powerful patriarchy institutions as we're witnessing with #MeToo!
1
We can forget about the amphibians as long as we continue to elect invertibrates like Trump, Paul Ryan, McConnell and their ilk.
In regards to these millennials Mr. Brooks says when, “you look at their lives you see a lot of hope.” Yet after reading his descriptions of them I feel like that’s the kind of hope the republicans would like to snuff out....before it makes them irrelevant to the greater good.
David, what you describe is explained very eloquently and simply by Integral Metatheory, and the leading writer in that arena is Ken Wilber. (I suspect you already know this.) At any rate, a fun read that explains Integral theory in a very timely context is Wilber's recent work: "Trump and a Post-truth World". It's really enlightening. David, keep up the good work!
Interesting that David Brooks is undertaking this, but what it is? An Opinion, yes, but also - and perhaps most importantly - a window into David Brooks, who here casts himself as a outside and elevated-relative-to-subjects lab researcher, peering through the microscope's eyepiece, studying his samples that have been reduced to slides, yet masquerading to the world a journalist, reporting on the whole group, in situ, rather than samples - random and representative, or not - selected for dissection (autopsy?) in Mr. Brook's lab. What he describes, I relate to: the diversity, the hyphenation - real-world, or like mine, learned through 23 & Me, Helix, Ancestry.com, etc., because I had no idea, otherwise, from whence I issued (fascinating and wonderful results!). I relate to the disenchantment with the world of things. And, what to make to the term "Amphibian"? It sounds contrived and precious, and categorizing-as-means-to-limiting, but to me it makes great sense: it is we who must learn to live on this earth as amphibians, thanks to those who have, actively and passively-while-pontificating, melted it. There's only one wrinkle, Mr. Brooks: I am not their contemporary; rather, I am yours. Good luck getting this one labeled and to the taxidermist by your deadline.
Having grown up with social media, which interacts globally, it makes sense that millenials are very comfortable with local and global culture, but struggle with national identity. It's almost as if nations are becoming irrelevant - except that national governments control the militaries, which are hard to ignore when their bombs are raining down on you. And that is the way that die-hard nationalists will try to stay relevant in the new global society - by brute force.
Listen to others, be open minded, and stay true to your compass - could work.
Actually amphibians are an artifact of evolution and are an extremely endangered group of species due to pollution of our streams, river, and lakes. I am somewhat mystified as to Mr. Brook's ignorance in choosing them for analogy (or is it metaphor?, idk). Maybe its just the general myopia of conservative writers that produces such an odd rhetorical device.
2
President Obama was an amphibian, coming from multiple worlds, connecting and inspiring millions. One can hope that our next leader is one as well.
1
David Brooks does not know biology including the nature of DNA genetic evolutionary fit natural selection. The rise of amphibians was a brief freshwater interlude between the fish and the rise of the reptiles and the mammals. Being able to live on land and in water as amphibians do is a compromise that has competitive costs in contrast to life forms who are well-adapted to live in one or the other.
The surviving amphibians are fewer in species and diversity than the fish, reptiles and mammals. While seriously facing extinction from climate change and habitat destruction. Mr. Brooks backward looking conservative partisan political bias misleads him into making inaccurate comparisons in fields where his ignorance is boundless.
3
You know when David is feeling disaffected from his ideological brethren, when he can no longer defend or even explain their craven acts. He goes into psychology-mumbo-jumbo and writes a hopeful story about trends or shining exemplars that might somehow get us through this wholesale dismantling of our notional democracy by his peeps.
Ah David, you might want to look over to your fellow columnist Dr. Krugman for some refreshing inspiration. We liberals have been crying foul for years, but until all you reasonable conservatives (here I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt) join us in full-throated protest, I am afraid none of your brethren will listen. And writing about a new species of salamander that you've just discovered is tantamount to fiddling while Rome burns.
2
What David is talking about is diversity which of course is a great thing. Unfortunately the current GOP policies are anathema to diversity. Let's hope the GOP's let's make America white again strategy fails miserably thanks to the up and coming millennials, amphibians or whatever other moniker you give them.
1
We need you to keep this stuff coming, David. Great word, great concept, great narrative. Repeat it often. Make it both an inspiration and an aspiration.
Yes, but can amphibians thrive in the toxic environment the Republicans are creating for them?
2
I find it humorous that your theme of amphibians coincides with the movie 'Shape of Water' . What you describe in your article is nothing new ,but a look at what is coming and finding hope.In my careers, the most enlightening time was that of being a teacher, then finding that I was the one being taught. The flexibility of the mind to find flexible new ways to run a maze is astounding. A conservative lesbian, I believe that is an oxymoron. Mr. Brooks, you rely on an antiquated view of labeling things liberal versus conservative , when all beings are always both . I am over 60 and cannot wait till the reigns are handed over. My only concern with each generation is how much they & we tend to place all our eggs with one person ,when it is 'we' that truly counts. Just look at what we elected recently. We do not trust ourselves at one person ,one vote . So 'we' ,both liberal & conservatives are responsible for who is in the White House. I am so proud of the generation that is to come, so ashamed of the generation that is now . We could have done more ,we still need to do more. Just sayin.
David Brooks at his tone-deaf best again. "It’s possible to be an important change-agent if you stay in your lane: If you grow up in a progressive middle-class home, go to a liberal arts college and then move to a hipster neighborhood. But you really have to work at it. But if you grew up in war-torn Syria and wound up at a community college in Ohio, you’re almost bound to be magnetic and original." What exactly is he saying here? Civil war as a resumé booster? I'm sorry. Brooks is at it again with his typology and categorizing and declarations of who is fit to do what. And his total disconnection from Things As They Actually Are. Enough already.
1
But aren't the things you describe - individuality diverse individuals in a increasingly diverse world - also attacked as the left wing identity politics? To me, it's just the reality of our country and world today. Rejecting this reality may bring political advantage today, but great harm to those who buy into "Great Again" propaganda and are unable or refuse to adapt.
1
Sounds as if Brooks is describing President Obama to a T.
1
To sum up. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." That's all you, as a human being, need to know.
“One thing I’ve learned so far: When you talk to young adults you hear a lot of disillusion and disaffection.”
I believe you have buried the lead.
1
Insightful, terrific a Must Read.
I think, at 69, I remain an Amphibian. Lots of terrific life experiences, some more succesful than others but...
Thanks.
An encouraging argument, but what glue holds any three or more amphibians together? Historically, the serious basis of unity in the United States was white male supremacy, the explicit basis of national reunification after the Civil War. Twentieth century American culture was built upon and legitimized by white male supremacy. White male supremacy lost its legitimacy during and after World War II, and for the most part the role of white manhood has since been taken over by money.
In other words, Amphibians tend to lean Democratic.
3
Try explaining that to the many nativists who insist that there is only one way to be a real American.
1
You are clearly an erudite man, Mr. Brooks, but sometimes it seems that your erudition itself provides enough wind to lift you off the earth upon which REAL people walk. This column is a prime example. By conflating the utter despair of young people with hope is so egregiously naive that your vaunted intelligence seems trivial.
This is a culture that through naked greed and lust for power has come to abandon its children. Children are not only the smallest and weakest members of our community, the ones who desperately need our nurturing and protection, but they represent every single hope we have for the future. And yet, from the pathological liar presently demeaning the White House all the way down through the gilded sewage system that is Washington DC, Republican AND Democrat, we see again and again a callous willingness to sacrifice children in their shameless pursuit of power. All you have to do is "follow the money" to see where our priorities lie in this utterly disoriented nation. That is the problem. And no amount of sugar coating will make it taste any better.
1
"Hope" and "Change".
Those words send the right into fits of apoplectic rage.
Funny to read them in a Mr. Brooks article.
1
Is anyone else tired of the endless, rather silly, metaphors that Brooks keeps coming up with to describe what is going on in this country? This week it's "amphibians." Next week it will be something else. What's the point of his columns? To show how good he is at finding different metaphors to describe the same issues?
Unfortunately he is not so talented at finding solutions to the problems his metaphors describe. His Times colleague Paul Krugman this week (as on many other occasions) points out that the party to which Books has long been loyal is a party of bad faith, a party of fraud, a party that lies in order to disguise an agenda of benefiting the donor class that few voters really care about. What is Brooks going to do about that? Come up with some more metaphors?
2
Why Mr. Brooks, I hear a hint of the Democrat, yearning to break free. Or, maybe it's the wine. Cheers.
2
I'd rather hear what you think about your party's efforts to do something about the mass shootings in this country.
1
A very sad article that actually exposes a diminished humanity.
Now if we could just convince these amphibians to vote out the reptillians then you can’t talk. When will the youth of America realize the greed, hypocrisy and outright hostility of the 50’s generation can be defeated by voting. The old vote because they don’t want to share their piece of the pie. The amphibians don’t vote because they don’t think it matters. It’s your future kids, voting matters bigly.
David, next time you interview these "Amphibians" as you call them, please ask these two questions of them. Did you vote in the last election? And, are you going to vote in the upcoming November election?
For only then can their hope become a reality.
“Amphibian”?! Ugh! As in “a lower form of life” on the evolutionary scale? Ok, ok - not Brooks’ intention. He’s no Charles Murray (although he does like to cite Murray). But...really? No other descriptor available?
I wonder if David Brooks found most of his study subjects for his unscientific anecdotal experience-driven classification system (with Brooks, always categorization!) on the campus of Yale or another Ivy or Ivy wannabe where the administration works overtime to find (mostly wealthy) “amphibians” to enroll in order to convince themselves and the world that they are a “diverse” community? Certainly, even if this was not the case, there appears to be just a tad of sample bias.
I look forward to a column in which Brooks reports on the thoughts of young adults in Paterson, Camden, North Philadelphia, Holyoke, or perhaps a few hundred yards from that campus in New Haven. Would he encourage them to live for a couple of years in his community? And his kids in theirs? Would that column be wrapped up with a bow of “hope”?
Proposals for practical solutions, Mr. Brooks. And perhaps just a bit more more focus on people who don’t have any say in how people in this country define them - despite several hundred years on this soil, and a heap of good intentions gone bad, or horrible intentions gone “well”.
Brexiters don't like cosmopolitans either - Prime Minister May calls us "citizens of nowhere" because in living our lives we constantly find ourselves crossing national boundaries we are able to pretend don't exist. On the contrary, we are citizens of everywhere, we pay our taxes according to the laws of the countries where we earn money and where we own property. We would love to help make America great again because we have noticed that it is not so great as it once was just now, but we want to help make France and Germany and Italy and Spain, the Netherlands and Scandinavia great too - and the UK too if PM May will let us. We happen to think that the European Union is the way to do all that. Amphibian? No, that's too limited - we know how to fly as well.
1
Good column.
And some outstanding comments.
How many people did he talk to and what was the setting.
Mr. Brooks,
For the longest time you've come up with philosophies shrouded in what is simply common knowledge, and attach to them your own unique identifiers.
Once again, you did not disappoint. What you describe as "amphibians" are,
to me, simply the "immigrants" that your party denies from entering, and thriving, in our country.
I would like to suggest that you substitute "immigrant" for "amphibian" in your article and you will have got it right.
3
It's a shame there's an entire political party dedicated to making those Amphibian's lives more difficult. You remember them Mr. Brooks, the ones you've supported for 30 years.
6
David Brooks is frightening. And he is frightened. What the GOP is doing to this country is recognized by long-term GOP apologists like Mr. Brooks who are now covering the path they tread that lead us all into this mess.
If you are not part of the solution Mr. Brooks you are part of the problem. Extolling the virtues of diversity while extolling the virtues of a Republican party which vilifies diversity makes you part of the problem and there is no amount of pitch-perfect prose that will relieve you of that responsibility.
7
The ''amphibians'' of today are not just young, old, black, white, female, male or anything in between all of the above. They are all or anyone that comes up against inequality and evolves, or changes to fit their environment to deal with the injustice.
That injustice may be being a Liberal in a deep red state. It may be that they are transforming in physical, emotional or spiritual ways, but live with all surrounding forces pressuring to conform to some standard. There might be zero if any career opportunities and the only jobs available are to work the entire day long for unfair wages and no benefits or future.
You can put a label on a person and their reflexive action is always going to be to go against the grain. It might come from society or it might come from close to home or from parents.
Threaten someone, and you are guaranteed they are going to do what it takes to survive. If that means rising up with a herculean effort then count it. If it means crossing imaginary lines on a map to find food, work or just to survive from strife or war, then count on it. If it means that the government is taking away their rights, then count on resistance to that too.
We are all amphibians. Imagine if there was no swamp though ...
1
The military draft was a great blender of castes and tribes.
I, a relatively privileged white guy, was compelled by circumstance to live with people from worlds I didn't often encounter in civilian life. Blacks; Latinos... I recall two soldiers telling me that they'd been offered a choice by a judge to either enlist or go to prison. That concept was slightly outside of my realm.
I would add that for the most part we got along. And would also mention that I had enormous confidence in them to save my hide if necessary.
Summary: bring back the draft.
1
Dig, deeper during your perambulations and ask your amphibians another question that would mar your optimism (really, another prop upon which to project some self-satisfying cheerleading). Ask them about their anxieties. You will find out that the twenty somethings are probably the most anxiety ridden cohort we have ever seen in recent times. And why is that? You end by mentioning "the disillusion and disaffection" they experience but you leave it at that. Never, mind, you see a lot of hope. Based on what pray do tell. But you end there. Had you probed deeper, you would have found out that in their hyperconnected world, the happy Instagram tropes are getting edgier. The wry sarcasm surfacing in their social media is the anguish of young people being marched toward the uncertain and probably bleak future that they are inheriting.
1
How ironic that the architect of our resentment politics is a Newt.
1
This piece is really about “projection”. David Brooks, as a life-long Republican, publicly espousing Republican Party “ideals” (remember that word) probably doesn’t like himself very much anymore. In fact, he has written extensively about what he sees as the radical transformation of the party of Lincoln into the party of Trump.
His generation, in his mind, has blown it. But it wasn’t their fault! That’s because they were not “amphibians”.
Well some of us of your generation never bought the ideals of your party. We didn’t have to be born in Syria to know that trickle down economics was a fraud, that black people deserved civil rights, and that immigration is the backbone of this country. We never went by the designation, “amphibians”. We were and are called “Democrats”. Moreover, our children may not be born lesbians in Peoria and attending Harvard, but I would wager that most of them, having grown up with Democratic (yes, capital “D”) ideals, are as interested and accepting of different backgrounds as the amphibians.
5
This article is another idealistic foray by Mr Brooks. So many people are working incredibly hard and long just to survive.
How about writing about reptiles like Trump, Pence, Kushner, Donny Jr, Kelly, Ryan, McConnell and many others. There doing there darndest to enrich the 1% while sticking it to good hardworking people.
2
I believe the hope is misplaced. The corruption and hatred is getting deeper every day. And the money lies in that zone.
3
While I understand your point, the metaphoric label of amphibians is ironically ill-conceived. Today, world-wide, because of environmental degradation, amphibians are most endangered or at risk of becoming so. Yes, they can adapt to wet/dry environs, but they breath through their skins and are extremely sensitive to environmental changes. They are our "canaries in the mine." Indeed, now that I think of it, maybe your metaphor is frighteningly apt.
Sounds good, at least as a starting hypothesis.
But how about some figures? Some examinations that will prove or disprove the thesis? Brooks especially needs to be sure his opinions are based on reality.
1
And we'll all live together in Lake Wobegone, where every child is an above average and an important, amphibious game-changer.
But seriously, Brooks does less harm with this dreamy social psychology stuff ("every new and different person you meet is first of all my brother, my sister") than he does as an apologist for Marco Rubio and Ronald Reagan.
Signed, A Geezer Amphibian (IMO it's more nature than nurture, by the way)
1
David, Thought provoking as usual. Not sure I would have chosen "Amphibians" for the descriptive term here given the somewhat negative connotative value of the word, but I do see your point in adopting it. If the Millennial generation can pull off "the Amphibian approach - that every new and different person you meet is first of all my brother, my sister" over the course of their collective lifetimes, they will have achieved something greater than either my own boomer "give Peace a chance" generation, or my parents "Greatest" generation. I have tried to live that way all my life, but now find myself being dragged into the sharp partisanship that the acidic Trump administration has brought boiling to the surface of American society. I'm fine with pluralism and cultural diversity, even with intelligent fact based debate between "liberal' vs. "conservative" viewpoints; but not with the GOPs obvious agenda of defending the rich at the expense of the poor, the strong against the weak, their bland dismissals of foreign nation's 'Social Engineering" attacks on our democratic institutions, and their supine enablement of Mr. Trump's toxic personality. If the Millennial Amphibians you describe can over come and heal these wounds to our society at large, I wish them Godspeed and the best of success.
My grandson is part Indian, part European and part African. He is the only child I know who has this triple background.
But I know plenty of people with dual backgrounds. A woman at T-Mobile who is half Indian and half Kenyan. A woman I met on Amtrak who is half Indian, half Italian.
These people could well be healers.
And note that Trump's grandchildren are half Jewish, half German. Do think about it once in a while before you throw yet another rock at their grandfather.
Again and again, Mr. Brooks talks with people, maybe in a small focus group, and creates new categories with catchy names, like amphibians. He then shoehorns or contorts persons with certain properties into these categories. Voila! We have a new type: Davos Man, Millenials, and now Amphibians.
This is pop sociology. Mr. Brooks's generalizations are based on unrepresentative samples. Instead of describing the lives of two or three members of the sample in some detail so that readers get a sense of their situations, he forces the entire sample into the category of Amphibians.
I understand that Mr. Brooks has to write two or three opinion pieces a week. But why aim for the fences with such broad generalizations. It took Albert Einstein over ten years of hard work to come up with his general theory of relativity.
I used to think that mixing races was the answer to racism. It’s not because it will take too many generations to achieve—if ever. Unfortunately government could have changed that (an example is Cuba in the 60’s when their government criminalized racism), but instead of advancement, our broken system of government, historically the Senate, but now Gerrymandering and corporate and individual money, along with a national news outlet that is nothing short of a propaganda that pits brother against brother and has made a sham of representation and the creation of equitable law. We have been riding the flume into the murky waters of oligarchy, and the republic is sinking. What a shame. It may even be possible that we may not even see a mid term election if certain events happen or are made to happen. Beware millenials, your future is being assaulted on every front, especially by the two greatest threats. Global warming and military adventurism with world changing weapons. Sorry, we need a major reboot.
1
I am a retired teacher. A few years ago I took a small group of high school girls on a trip to Spain. Here is the makeup of the group: me white, one African-American girl, two bi-racial girls, one adopted Indian girl, one hispanic girl from the Dominican Republic. What a grand time we all had together. They are my hope for the future. (And please don't call them amphibians, it's creepy.)
When I was growing up -- that was a while ago -- there was a consensus that speaking more than one language degraded your mastery of your "original" tongue. Today that belief has totally switched around -- today everybody agrees that speaking more than one language enhances your mastery of your birth language. You can see something like this going on in our attitudes towards our relation to cultures: one view is that it is better to stay in one culture; another is that it is better to understand and sympathize with more than one.
1
When I went back to college in 2010 to finally get my verdammt bachelors, I attended UMass Boston. People there had so many different backgrounds--the young activist, the married mother returning to school, the students from the Middle East, the war veterans with occasionally weary eyes. All of them worked and lived in the here and the now, and many of them were millennials. You would consider them Amphibians.
I did what I could to help my fellow students, though there was no way to do everything. Like you, David, I talked with a lot of them--I worked for the school newspaper and in student government, so I had a lot of chances. They were somewhat cynical about society as it is, but hopeful for their lives as they would grow.
You talked with other young people, and you have been learning about their lives. You write that when you look at their lives you see a lot of hope. So here is my question to you: what steps will you take to nurture that hope? And, as a followup, what would you do to reduce their disillusionment and disaffection?
1
So, women are really amphibians?
“They have that on the edge-of-inside mind-set. They are within the circle of the group, but at the edge, where they can most easily communicate with those on the outside. They are at the meeting-place of difference where creativity happens. They have that semi-outsider mentality that forces them to observe everything more close
1
The Amphibians are crucial in raising the level of general awareness and global understanding, particularly among those born and bred on Fox News.
There's been no shortage of change in recent society. The problem is that so much of it has been change for the worse. The idea that change or "shaking things up" is inherently good is dangerous. Change in complex systems often arises for reasons not fully understood, and deliberate efforts to change complicated structures, like mutations in a genome, are bad more often than good. The present administration in Washington is eloquent proof.
1
One of the fundamental teachings of the Baha'i Faith is the oneness of humankind. There are many Baha'is whose parents come from multiple cultures and countries. Their experience corroborates Mr Brook's premises of bridging capital, re-centering, and a culture of connection. These are skills we all need to learn, regardless of our generation. It is encouraging that so many young people are learning them at an earlier age. We are one humanity, and someday we will come to see ourselves as citizens of one planet, instead of tribal foes.
I totally identify with this column: my parents were from different countries and spoke different languages and their parents were in one case from yet again different countries speaking different languages and in the other case from different ethnic and religious backgrounds in another different country and circumstances forced them to move to new countries with new languages - twice, none of which I grew up in! And I myself am an immigrant to the US. Being not more than one quarter from any particular national background and speaking none of those languages and not having been raised in any of those religions means as far as identity politics go, I have no claim on anything according to the logic of self-assessed groups, but their truth is not mine anyway. And I've found my people here in SF, define by ways of thinking and love of novelty more than set-at-birth markers of belonging.
3
Both my millennial children are unified in a disdain for Trump. They are liberal arts majors Amphibians with advanced science degrees living and working in larger social networks unified by a disdain for anything Trump. Here's the catch. They are pro-government, anti-tax cut, invest in the future types.
14
I would add that some of what Mr. Brooks is seeing is the result of parents who had the resources to provide their children with a lot of cultural experiences far beyond anything my parents could provide. I didn't fly in an airplane until I was in my 20's, visited Europe in my late 20's, both my children and now their grandchildren have flown since they were babies and have been to Europe and South America. Having said that, I am still bothered my by recent reading of Charles Murray's book, Coming Apart: The state of White America, which, describes the lives of the super-elite in this country who rule our governmental and corporate institutions and who isolate themselves in super-zip code residences. I worry that this top strata of our society is missing the kinds of diverse experiences described in this article.
8
You're right, more and more the super-elite isolate themselves from us regular folks. But believe me, the super-elite get around and experience plenty. It's just that they don't care about anyone else but themselves. It's all about humility which the elite have little to none unfortunately.
I think what we are saying is that there are more amphibians than previously. My generation of the sixties was no so accepting but many of them were developing amphibian behaviors. Gradually, tolerance and concern about the functioning of groups and individuals has grown. I hope it will mean progress.
1
Spot on! You have described my family and most of my close friends (I'm 83!) From the deep south to cosmopolitan NYC to a midwestern school, I married another amphibian a Europen who went to the same Midwestern school. before beginning a career as a journalist on an english language newspaper in Thailand. Four offspring, born in different countries, have kept the line going. Eight year old grandson speaks three languages and moves easily between several cultures. Truth is, while we can all adjust to change, we are most comfortable with other amphibians from similar backgrounds. It's been a great life but one always feels like the "Other".
4
One important step toward reestablishing our motto of "one out of many" is to require two years of public service. A draft, but not for the military alone. A requirement that all young people serve their nation in some way. Peace Corps, Americorps, military, health service, National Parks, you name it--- and offer as many options as there are areas of service that the government provides. Serving others and our nation is an honorable vocation. It exposes one to the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious society in which we live.
12
Absoluty When we did away with the draft we left our 18 year olde to drift
This great idea has been kicked around for decades! Besides a great furthering of education, so much good would be accomplished.
1
This is a terrific column, imbued with hope at such a sad time. Can't help noting, however, that most of the "Amphibians" discussed here have one commonality--they attended, or are attending college. Higher education opens hearts and minds, at least most of the time, to a world outside oneself and one's own culture, if it does its job right. However, not everyone can, or wants to, attend college. What we need is a year of obligatory national service after high school or college. Not the draft--never again the draft--but a year in which young people are compelled to move outside their comfort zones. We all should move outside our comfort zones from time to time.
6
There are quite a few Baby Boomers who might be considered "amphibians"> We grew up in homes with racial bigotry and discovered during college or military service that we all are human beings with red blood. We associate with and enjoy the company of some people because of who they are and how they live their lives, not for their complexion, socioeconomic class, or church.
Amphibians are not limited to millennials or any other generation of the young. They likely were there when the Mayflower landed, the colonies united, a Civil War ended slavery, or enacted Civil Rights and voting laws. They will be the citizens who stand up to the worst among us in the future as well.
The human beings who fit Mr. Brooks hypothesis are limited to the young and optimistic (and American) only in his mind. Indeed, we have been here all along. The biggest difference I see is that there are many more of us now.
15
These were my first thoughts exactly. The differences through history are simply the speeds of political and social volatilities.
This reminds me how it felt as a undergrad at the University of Chicago in the late 1970s. First generation college, but no social/class constraints at the school that invisibly held you back. It did not matter what your father did for a living. Seems like I'm first generation amphibian too. I will reread this column daily for a while. I am not alone.
5
Everyone is “hyphenated,” the only difference is in our ability to recognize that we are. To do so admits “normal” is a myth and a construct. A more precise term than “interesting” is “self-aware.” It puts the emphasis on how we think about ourselves vs how we think we appear.
1
I watched my children grow up Amphibian. Despite being off spring of fishes: white, educated, liberal, suburban, wealthy. But they do not care about race, color, gender, income or station in life. These are who Brooks describes,with hope. They may not be enough.
Away from his perview are a large number young of a different kind. The young and rigid "Icthys" (appropriately enough the fish symbol of Christians). They are angry, and insular. Generally white and Christian, upset that the fishes are no longer top of the food chain. Trump is their pope.
6
It would seem that many or most lesbians, gay men, transgendered persons, bisexuals, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, living in the US where heterosexuals and Whites are the majority and hold a majority of the reigns of power, might also be considered amphibians. If we affirmed and celebrated these groups more, we would tap a rich vein of cultural resources Mr Brooks describes here.
5
The young have always been amphibians, Mr. Brooks. Sometimes underground, sometimes in full living color. Always in growth and turmoil. Always surrounded by allies and predators. The Holy Grail of society is, How do you prevent amphibians from devolving into lizards. What's a lizard? See Congress.
6
Perhaps there is hope with the young in this world in which everyone else seems intent on out-shouting those who disagree with them.
1
This op-ed and the comments are really thought provoking on complex and paradoxical things. Some want simple actions and no labels. Others agree with David’s core argument.
I saw President Obama as more of ‘a Bridger’ and see President Trump as more of ‘a Bonder’. I could say much more, but some would see the opposite. Indeed some said they would try to do whatever it took to see President Obama fail, probably as he was seen by them as the wrong kind of ‘Bonder’.
Personally I am confident that the deep partisan divide and the excess of negative energy and frustration will be transformed eventually by the American people. The Arch of the Moral Universe......... No country is more creative.
It's called intersectionality and these young adults are not the first to live this way. I'm a white woman who spent her weekends in the International District of Seattle with her father visiting his Chinese friends or attending Filipino parties. A young queer woman in the late 1970s and working with people living with HIV through the late 80s and into the 2000s where my job description was, literally, bridging communities. All of which prepared me for being the anthropologist I am now. Again, a career in which bridging is in the job description and training. A West coast transplant, living in the Midwest. My whole life has, it seems, been about bridging.
One of the most painful aspects of the last year is how many people, even friends, have given up any efforts to bridge and are even rigidly opposed to it. Intellectually, I understand it, but emotionally, it goes against everything I've known to work in making positive change happen and my inclination to reach out.
I'm glad there are young people taking up the challenge as it is so needed right now, but we have always been around, standing at various intersections of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, and a multitude of other lived experiences, whether you (general you) noticed or not. It would be more enlightening to tell the stories of these bridgers across generations than from only within one. And, perhaps introduce us all so we can do what we do best together and make real change happen.
5
The ''amphibians'' of today are not just young, old, black, white, female, male or anything in between all of the above. They are all or anyone that comes up against inequality and evolves, or changes to fit their environment to deal with the injustice.
That injustice may be being a Liberal in a deep red state. It may be that they are transforming in physical, emotional or spiritual ways, but live with all surrounding forces pressuring to conform to some standard. There might be zero if any career opportunities and the only jobs available are to work the entire day long for unfair wages and no benefits or future.
You can put a label on a person and their reflexive action is always going to be to go against the grain. It might come from society or it might come from close to home or from parents.
Threaten someone, and you are guaranteed they are going to do what it takes to survive. If that means rising up with a herculean effort then count it. If it means crossing imaginary lines on a map to find food, work or just to survive from strife or war, then count on it. If it means that the government is taking away their rights, then count on resistance to that too.
We are all amphibians. Imagine if there was no swamp though ...
1
Thank you for a ray of sunshine! You perfectly described the college students I have the privilege of working with each week. They will be delighted with the “Amphibian” appellation.
David, please do not overlook the fact that Amphibians reside in all age groups. We who have chosen to live in other societies, both inside the USA and internationally, have learned the value of reaching out to others who are different from ourselves. Life in the comfort zone is boring!
1
There is, and will be, no unifying principle. The country is balkanized, gloriously populated by people with contrasting complexities, beautifully rendered across America.
The ''amphibians'' of today are not just young, old, black, white, female, male or anything in between all of the above. They are all or anyone that comes up against inequality and evolves, or changes to fit their environment to deal with the injustice.
That injustice may be being a Liberal in a deep red state. It may be that they are transforming in physical, emotional or spiritual ways, but live with all surrounding forces pressuring to conform to some standard. There might be zero if any career opportunities and the only jobs available are to work the entire day long for unfair wages and no benefits or future.
You can put a label on a person and their reflexive action is always going to be to go against the grain. It might come from society or it might come from close to home or from parents.
Threaten someone, and you are guaranteed they are going to do what it takes to survive. If that means rising up with a herculean effort then count it. If it means crossing imaginary lines on a map to find food, work or just to survive from strife or war, then count on it. If it means that the government is taking away their rights, then count on resistance to that too.
We are all amphibians. Imagine if there was no swamp though ...
1
When the GOP and Trump look at their lives they see hate and fear. If 'we' don't put them down and marginalize them, 'they' will take away our money and power.
1
BUT...
For every adventuresome and creative young person who would thrive by being swapped from Waco to Burlington or vice versa or whatever, I have to believe there would be dozens who would feel out of place and miserable.
The psychological urge of many/most folks to "fit in" is a real thing, and finding a few happy amphibious-minded types does not mean that great numbers of young people would benefit from immersion in other cultures.
To be a "misfit" all one's life can sometimes lead to creativity. It can also lead to feelings of isolation and suicidal depression. Living at the edge of groups, it makes a powerful difference if you are just inside or just outside that edge.
1
The ''amphibians'' of today are not just young, old, black, white, female, male or anything in between all of the above. They are all or anyone that comes up against inequality and evolves, or changes to fit their environment to deal with the injustice.
That injustice may be being a Liberal in a deep red state. It may be that they are transforming in physical, emotional or spiritual ways, but live with all surrounding forces pressuring to conform to some standard. There might be zero if any career opportunities and the only jobs available are to work the entire day long for unfair wages and no benefits or future.
You can put a label on a person and their reflexive action is always going to be to go against the grain. It might come from society or it might come from close to home or from parents.
Threaten someone, and you are guaranteed they are going to do what it takes to survive. If that means rising up with a herculean effort then count it. If it means crossing imaginary lines on a map to find food, work or just to survive from strife or war, then count on it. If it means that the government is taking away their rights, then count on resistance to that too.
We are all amphibians. Imagine if there was no swamp though ...
3
As usual well said and upplifting. I AM an Amphibian, French born (that's perfect, ribbit!) benefited from free education (EE, MSCS). Some were demonstrating against America every week when I was growing up. Then on Christmas eve 1968, three brave Americans made Jules Verne's "De la terre a la lune" a reality (along with thousands of fellow engineers). I fell in love with the United States. Indeed, as David stated, although white I always felt deep connections with my Asian and African American friends and colleagues. My business has brought me all over the world and I have LOVED it! Cultural differences fascinate me. Boy, do I pity those fish who will never know water. E pluribus planetum. Tikkun Olam! But I'm repeating myself.
5
David Brooks is right about the value of inhabiting different worlds--small town and urban, devout and secular, working-class and professional, etc. But "Amphibians"? This term is doomed not to catch on.
2
It seems to me that change is driven primarily by the new generation rather than by any government policy. It's slower than we would like, but is unstoppable. To our 16 year old and her friends, gender and race are simply nonexistent. They will lead the way.
4
Great article by Brooks.If like myself yu were say third generation American we got a pretty good look at how our European ancestors finally melted in. It was after all their kids who willingly went off to a war in Europe and another in the Pacific. As a nation of warriors today always involved in wars one wonders if soon the military won't be able to attract kids. Being so called Patriotic is struggling.
The ''amphibians'' of today are not just young, old, black, white, female, male or anything in between all of the above. They are all or anyone that comes up against inequality and evolves, or changes to fit their environment to deal with the injustice.
That injustice may be being a Liberal in a deep red state. It may be that they are transforming in physical, emotional or spiritual ways, but live with all surrounding forces pressuring to conform to some standard. There might be zero if any career opportunities and the only jobs available are to work the entire day long for unfair wages and no benefits or future.
You can put a label on a person and their reflexive action is always going to be to go against the grain. It might come from society or it might come from close to home or from parents.
Threaten someone, and you are guaranteed they are going to do what it takes to survive. If that means rising up with a herculean effort then count it. If it means crossing imaginary lines on a map to find food, work or just to survive from strife or war, then count on it. If it means that the government is taking away their rights, then count on resistance to that too.
We are all amphibians. Imagine if there was no swamp though ...
2
This sounds like an argument for national service and the moral equivalent of war.
Full disclosure: I came to this country from my native France as a student at Caltech in 1968 and fell in love with it. Those were days in which Mr. Brooks’s conservative friends still believed that immigration had been and still was one of the reasons for the greatness of the United States. How quaint to be conservexplained the benefits of diversity by a member of the Republican Party!
3
Amphibians will be among the first to go completely extinct because of the effects of climate change.
2
Yesterday it was the Homeland Security’s use of a fishing regulatory term of “catch and release” to infuse another dehumanizing image of children and adults as fish caught with a hook, bait, and a net.
Today it’s “amphibians” (all cold-blooded) to describe humans who have a non-tribal background and world wide experiences that contribute positively to american and global societies.
For over a year it’s the quote “fish rot from the head” to describe human beings who run our government, with the stink of corruption and lack of leadership, ethics or morals.
Aquatic labels enough.
2
I do not know if I fit the definition of an amphibian, perhaps an old blind one. I do know that the government has worked with many population especially the blind and disabled who sit on the edge of society and do their best to find a place in it. their lives are often filled with challenges and are misunderstood by those whose lives fit into the regular patterns of society. But their challenges give shape and substance to our world and contribute to us all.
These folks receive assistance from the Veterans Administration and programs that supply vital library services for the blind and disabled, most of which are about to be cut by Trump under programs like the endowment for the Arts. Most people do not understand the wide variety of services needed by our most challenged and that are met by so many umbrella government organizations. Are we about to throw amphibians under the bus of economy and the mindless slashing of these vitally needed programs? What will our country become without immigrants, anyone who is challenging their differences or the veterans who have given their lives and health to our nation? Do we care?
4
And so goes David Brooks ongoing struggle with our dysfunctional government and society. One thing I know about Amphibians is that they are often tolerant of others and have empathy for their fellow man. They also have the ability to adapt, broaden their perspectives and grow. How sad that we have a president who wants a monoculture of white people only with all others invisible in the background.
3
Another column. Another made up social distinction. Another opportunity for self reflection and to take responsibility for the destruction wrought by the author's political moment, lost.
1
Let's revive the idea of a mandatory national non-military service for all young people. Something like the Peace Corps, perhaps, but focused on the US rather than on foreign countries.
1
We need more of this mindset and less of the stalwart idealistic siloes that dominate the current cultural conversation. To fight absolutism we must understand each other and take risks of going to areas of the country where folks don't act the same way we do. It offends the sensibility but also leads to a greater understanding of lagoon of ideas in this country. The alt-liberal is no different then the alt-right, they both want to suppress conversation and ideas that run counter to their understanding of the known world. This is a very dangerous narrative. To suppress thought, to be unwilling to debate and hear a counter argument is to deny the very system that we supposedly live under. This type of narrative has spread like wildfire with the advent of social media and the quick untethered responses that it generates. The hysteria of the masses destroys thought and reason. The reason for such hysteria is because we don't understand each other and are quick to jump back into our tribal thought. Ironically, in the age of social media one would think there would be more understanding not less. But, social media really is a destroyer of ideas, because it inhibits new growth to occur. How can I learn from someone if I never meet them? If I don't see their humanity? If I'm cuddled up in my digital sphere I'm protected from the supposed ghoulishness of the other side, whichever they maybe. There really isn't much separating us from us we have commonality in needs and wants.
1
I've always tried in life to find these sorts of people and get to know them - I find it helps to see beyond your own sphere and learn and appreciate more than you could on your own or with your homogeneous group. Seems so obvious when typing that, yet we hear such horrible statements from Trump and minions (and this is not new) about fearing the Other. Generations are waves, no? Hopefully this generation will wash away the ugliness we live in right now.
Two things - first, I am a college professor at a college with small discussion-based classes and frequent professor-student interaction, so I know exactly what you are saying and am surprised this is a new discover for you. Second, the young people I know probably don't want to be called amphibians - your choice of word will be considered insulting and condescending. No surprise there - consistent with your other writing.
2
We used to have a system of producing "Amphibians" as Mr. Brooks calls it; this was the selective service system, better known at the draft. Draftees in military service got to know a variety of cultures, both at home and abroad. This learning diversity created much more democratic citizens, with a penchant for tolerance, empathy and mutual respect of difference.
But the GOP congress under Nixon got rid of that system, in order to prevent protests for future wars after Vietnam, with the results we see today in the USA of shootings, intolerance, racism, tribalism everywhere. It is simply too dangerous to the GOP and their masters to see Americans really get it together, and to try to live that message of the Christian Jesus of treating everyone as your brother and sister, or the Buddhist message of selfless giving to the universe, or the Judaic message of respecting knowledge and the rule of law.
Division and hatred and cultivated ignorance is the GOP program. No Amphibians, please, for them-- unless it is the GOP raptor congressmen, and their Tyrannosaurus Rex masters, calling the shots for who's next to become extinct.
How nice, but not everyone holds the intrigue of an amphibian, and all deserve our respect.
What a smart column.
I'm proud to have an amphibian daughter. She grew up in western Massachusetts, went to college in a Wisconsin mill town and is now a graduate student for social work in New York City doing an internship that takes her into the projects of Brooklyn and Queens. She finds excitement in the very different people she meets, enriching her life and fostering an optimistic and vibrant perspective.
We as a society need to cultivate difference. We need to explore what we do not know. We need to embrace people with foreign backgrounds. We can stew in the comfort of what we already know and gradually sink into a debilitating resentment, or we can do the hard work of embracing difference.
"Go West, Young Man" can still be the motto for our American future, the only difference being there doesn't have to be one geographic direction to go.
6
Thank you David Brooks, you wrote an uplifting column on a very sad day. I love your final statement that the Amphibians' lives "are examples of the power of love..." Love thy neighbor sounds so trite, but it is essential to building community which the world desperately needs but is also desperately struggling with. An adopted child whose mother just died and who was exhibiting anger issues all his life acts out in anger. People knew that but apparently didn't help (or know how to) and we all wonder why. Where was the love?
1
Every healthy ecosystem is porous at the edges, with swirling exchange going on with adjacent distinct ecosystems. This is where "bridging capital" works, but it needs healthy "bonded" cores to work well. This is where we are most in trouble: Traditional bonded communities that have been severely eroded by the callous dynamism of global capitalism know they are talking apart, and end up blaming "the other", as in immigrants and people of color. The resentment is fueled by the fact that their own children leave for bridging cities. Republicans encourage resentment but do nothing to address the erosion, and Democrats bemoan the situation but seem to offer only welfare and job training, with no good policies to redevelop communities as such with healthy forms of dignity-conferring work. Both sides think in individualistic terms, instead of looking at what makes for healthy communities with strong bonding at the center and porous bridging all around the edges.
9
There are a lot of analogies and metaphors that one could use to describe people who live in the cross-currents of cultures; I'm not sure 'amphibians' would be my first choice.
But to the greater point; I think Mr. Brooks is describing a personal adaptability that many people develop; and there are many paths to that adaptability.
Learning two languages as a child makes the one more mentally fluid and adaptable.
Growing up in two homes, with two heads-of-households and two sets of rules makes one more adaptable.
Traveling and living in different places can make one more adaptable.
What doesn't make one more adaptable is staying in one place all your life and never meeting people who are different, and who do things just because that's the way it's always been. Tradition and cultural habit are, in some ways, the antithesis of the Amphibians that Mr. Brooks so admires; particularly when bolstered by suspicion of things different instead of hospitality for all.
12
I continue to enjoy David Brooks's columns. Another class of amphibians is those in the military and their children. I am a retired Army Colonel. I grew up in a conservative lower-middle-class household in the Mid-West, went to West Point, traveled the world, commanded in combat, and then was a college professor, and later a dean. I married an Army daughter who lived all over the world. Our children have moved with us and have become cosmolitan, open to new ideas and cultures, and are true amphibians. David Brooks might consider those who have served in the military and their families.
13
"But if you grew up in war-torn Syria and wound up at a community college in Ohio, you’re almost bound to be magnetic and original."
Why do your columns seem totally disconnected from reality and from Republican/conservative policy and thought, Mr. Brooks?
President Trump and the rest of the Republicans could care less about a magnetic and original amphibian from war-torn Syria, or any other war-torn region region, and certainly have no desire for them to attend a community college in Ohio or anywhere else in America.
They have no desire to make an America that's vibrant and multi-cultural, and definitely have no desire to shape an America that's multi-ethnic.
Look at the vicious attacks on President Obama by the Republicans, led by President Trump. Obama was a man whose mother was from Kansas and was white, and a man who was raised by his grandparents, his grandfather a veteran. Here was a man who spent time in Indonesia as a child, and then grew up an amphibian in Hawaii.
It is a life I admired, a life shunned and attacked as unAmerican by Trump, Fox News and Republicans.
Maybe we could send President Trump to war-torn Syria or Indonesia for a semester abroad so he could see the world and get out of his bubble. I think it would do him a world of good.
97
Immigrants have always been amphibious. One foot in the old culture and the other foot trying to make in the new culture. The human desire to improve oneself is more powerful than republican or conservative talk radios attempts to put people in boxes.
1
V, you could never send Trump to any theatre of war, because he has a bone spur in his left foot -- or was it his right foot? -- that excludes him from entering any war zone. Naturally, it doesn't prevent him from sending others to their deaths. So, all in all, I don't believe he would accept your suggestion, as he is terrified at the prospect of having shoes thrown at him, and he prefers the comfort of familiar crowds in the U.S. heartland or, at worst, a humiliating but safe war dance with the Saudis: That's as close as he'll ever get to war.
And that is why it will be up to these millennials to lead us out of this darkness. (signed a baby boomer from a failed generation)
In my little town, we were required as a condition of graduation from high school to work in some form of social service. I and others were sent to a State home/hospital for severely disabled children, many of whom had been abandoned by their families. It was a deeply compelling and humbling experience. It stays with you.
Mr Brookes has opened a window on a demographic that deserves national attention. And if only they would vote
7
Though different, a similar process was fostered by the military draft. I believe the volunteer service has contributed to polarizing of society and politics. Nothing levels class and racial distinctions quite like facing a common mission, and death, together.
54
Agree. ---- We need a no excuses draft that puts all eligible citizens at risk. No excuses. Sort the call list by Adjusted Gross Income (AGI). Those with most to lose go first. And are given the privilege of defending their good fortune. A country that does not share the hardships of war is not worth defending. And soon uncouples.
Without a draft it's too easy to go to war. Especially since less than 1% of the country is affected, and we barrow the money from China to pay for it.
Ron, you didn't mean to imply that volunteer service itself contributes to polarization but rather that the lack of a period of compulsory national is at fault.
My wife and I worked overseas for the DOD for 20 years beginning in 1988. Our daughters went to DOD schools. We saw many examples of Amphibian behavior by military members and their children--people from different racial/ethnic, and economic backgrounds--displaying mutual respect and affection. You might see it when two military members of different racial/ethnic backgrounds who had served together elsewhere would run into each other outside of the Exchange for the first time at their new assignment. Their broad smiles, handshakes, pats on the back, and hugs showed their mutual respect and affection.
Our daughters attended DOD schools, and we them form friendships that went across the parents' ranks, and racial/ethnic differences.
Lets hear it for the US military for the cosmopolitan attitudes of it's service members and their children.
No, David D, I will not cheer, because military, whether serving or ex-military, reserve their cosmopolitanism only for their fellows. I have military in my family. It's a closed clubhouse.
These amphibians (better called hybrids?) create new options for jobs and lifestyles, provide new perspectives, enrich lives, help integrate communities and help society adapt to rapid change. Their intercultural, interdimensional diversity provides vitally needed bonds in a fracturing world and is one of America's under-appreciated strengths. Kudos to observer Brooks.
18
Agreed: "Kudos to observer Brooks"
The kind of insight I look forward to from him
(but some days are only run-of-the-mill. Not this one 8-)
Agree that Hybrids is better.
Amphibians are dying off at an alarming rate around the world.
I don't get out enough, but I had a feeling this is happening, and it is thrilling and hopeful to hear it. Thanks David for stepping aside from politics and taking us to a small space of hope. Your article regarding Ashoka made a huge difference to my perspective on life. Thanks.
11
As a chaplain and teacher at a large urban hospital, I want to develop ideas in this essay into a learning tool. Many thanks for the inspiration and, possibly, partnership?
11
This is merely an extension of the concept of Third Culture Kids developed by Dr Ruth Useem of Michigan State University in the 1970s. It is highly relevant today in our fractured world.
8
Sociologist Ruth Useem described this phenomenon at length in the 1950s and ‘60s. She called these youngsters “Third Culture Kids.” There is a fine discussion of her and the term, and the benefits and drawbacks of being a TCK, on Wikipedia.
9
This article strikes me as naive. Speaking as an “amphibian”, I find that most people in the US are good people. It’s the political system - overrun by money and special interests - that’s the problem. Hoping that “amphibian” millennials will pave the way to a new future simply isn’t going to work while the cogs and wheels of democracy remain gummed up.
143
If you have not travelled in the US...please do and then talk to me. The cultural tolerance in the south especially is something to be experienced and not to be just talked about. It has become a real problem politically on not just culture and immigration but on several other issue. It is the reason why Congress is so dysfunctional we have drifted apart so far that we don't even agree on the question let alone the answer.
1
The only way to fix it is to vote. Stop voting for an incumbent just because their name is familiar, I can think of many senators/congresspersons who are good people but they have stayed too long.
Second thought, vote your conscious. If the candidate does not match your moral values don’t give him your vote.
We can fix this problem if the voters of America stand up and vote.
You nailed it; naive, that's exactly right. And most people, where ever you find them, are 'good'. We are, after all, a social species.
Unfortunately, democracy is not natural to us. At least, and especially, in large groups that give rise to "It’s the political system - overrun by money and special interests - that’s the problem." Comments like yours are encouraging to this antediluvian.
This country has gone through many cultural transitions which were mostly nationality based. The great migrations of Germans, Jews, Irish, Italians, etc. were met with derision and suspicion of the outsider. However, all were eventually assimilated into American culture as time went on. Yes, most were caucasian and originating in Europe.
Now, we are going through transitions that are racial, gender and sexual in nature. My generation (boomer and before) appear to not want to accept the inevitable demographically. That America will be minority majority no matter what Trump and co. do scares many who will not admit to it. The gerrymandering, the voter suppression and the inaction on Russian meddling explains its. I am ashamed of those of my generation who don't want to accept it. These people feel they are losing control of their environment and the blame appears to be going to immigrants and people who look different.
We have always had a problem with race and how to deal with it. Obama was a step forward but we are not in a post racial America...far from it.
Trump stands for the angst and the anxiety we feel about who we are and were we are going, however, he is NOT the solution just the problem.
43
Exactly why Trump was elected, aside from the deep mis trust of the Clintons and their 1% supporters. A entire swath of America is scared and have they feel no one to turn to.
Excellent observations...the truth is just that...the truth.
1
Russia is definitely a white majority country. I wonder how many Americans who dislike people of color would want to live there?!
1
Very interesting!
This phenomenon of large numbers of people of mixed lineage is not new, it's happened many times throughout history, but now there's a new twist. The Big Data/demographic analysis that is so important to our political leaders and their advisers is completely dependent on splitting the population into discreet groupings. But more and more the "signal" is overwhelmed by the "noise" of people who don't fit into any particular category.
This could spell the end of demographic analysis. And not a moment too soon.
15
Amphibian human beings, those who can thrive in radically different environments, who possess an electric crosscutting cultural dynamic, and are able to weave together various influences and become some sort of third thing, and with a coherent personality?
This is essentially the artistic life, the life of high intellect. And like all life in transitory state, neither here nor there, it's a dangerous life. Naturalists in fact have informed us that actual amphibians in the wild are decreasing, are endangered. Average humans generally suspect people who are in some way neither this nor that culturally (through nurture, unusual environmental upbringing) not to mention do average people suspect the truly odd genetic specimen of humanity.
Usually people who find themselves in "amphibious state" collapse, fold into this group identity or that for safety--for example, if they are an immigrant they might become conservative in new society to fit in better or join in with all the "outside elements" in society to orient their course. Rare is the human, the amphibian, who refuses the obvious and persists in remaining a strange creature, not to mention is it rare to persist in growing into some third and strange and successful thing.
It takes a lot of will and creative talent to be a Walter Benjamin or a Richard Burton exploring the Middle East or a Jimi Hendrix. Perhaps when we really do embrace such people the actual amphibians in wild will get a new lease on life as well.
8
I would caution Mr. Brooks that the generation that he and I represent started out very idealistic. And while or time at the helm yielded some important changes in women's roles and, to a lesser extent, in race relations, by and large I would rate our performance generally as a D+.
It is wonderful that the "Amphibians" move easily between different cultural realms. I hope that from among them emerges a leadership cadre that can articulate principles more ennobling than accumulation of massive wealth as the defining measure of individual worth or the fracturing of society into countless interest groups defined by their differences rather than their much more important similarities and common bonds.
I ain't holding my breath.
14
Word!! When I was young, it was all, "sympathy and trust abounding, no more falsehood or derision, golden living dreams and vision," until it was "greed is good".
It's a sweet fiction to trust the young but living in an avaricious and corrupt society has its consequences.
Interesting metaphor, David, but surely you know that in nature most amphibians are prey, for fish when in the water and for snakes when on land. As you may or may not know, amphibian populations all over the world are in decline with extinction of species rates over 200 times background rates. Multiple causes are suspected, many of them man-made, including pollution, habitat loss and climate change. We humans are the most adaptable species the planet has ever had, capable of living anywhere from the Arctic to the Sahara desert to the Amazon jungle with aspirations of someday colonizing other planets. The "Amphibian approach" you posit "that every new and different person you meet is first of all my brother, my sister" is the definition of Humanism, perhaps best expressed by the first principle of Unitarian/Universalism: "We affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person."
17
Amphibians? This is the best label you could come up with for (arguably) some of the most highly evolved among us?
16
A remarkable read; I’m grateful for it. Not because it’s an optimistic take on the millennial situation. I believe I just read a conservative description of identity politics. And the amphibious nature of that is hopeful indeed.
Arguments about the wealth of perspective available to those “within the circle of the group, but at the edge,” have been around since W.E.B. DuBois’ “The Souls of Black Folk,” if not before. It would be interesting to hear arguments about who first noticed this type of vitality and creativity.
But first Mr. Brooks laments discomfort with identity politics: “So many voices tell oppressor/oppressed and elite/populist stories that put each person in a single box. . . .they cultivate mistrust, division and emotional frozenness.” When I read this I wondered if these feelings were Brooks’ own. I see messages about oppression offer (finally) more range of life experience and expression to the oppressed. But I do think that Brooks has put here the true fear and threat many feel from identity politics. And he’s done it in a readable essay, not an easy thing to do - and infinitely better than other ways of saying it.
He ends his argument with the conviction that lived lives have political message and purpose: “their lives demonstrate/teach.” It doesn’t matter that the author’s argument is old news. (He probably knows it. And he does offer something new in the quippy term “Amphibians.”) This is real news (able to dispel the fake kind) and conservative.
3
Obama was the ultimate amphibian. He was a mix race kid in Hawaii who was raised in part by his white midwestern grandparents. He lived and experienced life in a muslim country in Asia (Indonesia) where he learned to see the world through the eyes of the locals. He dated and married an African-American and experienced an America where one is instantly prejudged by their skin color. He had already seen so much from so many perspectives before entering the White House that he was ideally suited to interact with leaders from countries around the world. But in the US, he failed to bridge together the tribes the country had fractured into. He became the object of derision and scorn of the monocultural nationalists who put DJ Trump in power. What we learned from Obama is that the more the country changes the greater the resistance to that change. I pray that the amphibians can help our society transition to a new state of multicultural understanding, but we are kidding ourselves if we expect the process of that change to be easy.
60
Correct about Obma... The electoral college system made Trump president... but many people cannot stand the Clintons... and their desire for a taxpayer paid cushy life-style.. (Trump has cut his expenses for the next three years.)
But we really need to consider is how the amphibians will deal with the real problems -- overpopulation, climate change, possible terror attacks on the electric grid, economic displacement of people by machine, potentially thousands of refugees and problems of famine. Forget about background. And frankly neither they nor their elders are even thinking about it.
You're speaking about hybrid vigor, when different species, plant or animal, mix, creating not only a blending of characteristics but also a burst of energy, of life force. I've always felt that hybrid vigor is the gift that America had from the way it was created, something that in some ways mitigated the darkness of genocide and slavery that were also part of our roots. Our country IS mixing more and releasing this energy which scares the folks whose homogeneity is their source of identity and security. But the mixing is happening; there's no putting it back in the box. I agree; it gives me hope.
12
I have a lot of hope for Millennials and I am glad they will lead the I am old and frail.
1
There are good amphibians and bad amphibians. The former have walked through the Valley of the Shadow of Death becoming a better angel. The latter are contaminated by the radiation of seduction becoming a mutant brain devouring zombie. Take the House Speaker who claims to be a choir boy. How low he has gone. If there were indeed a God, he would have to face his judgment. In the mean time, see the damage he and his party have caused. Even his fellow (departing) Republicans are astounded (see the 60 Minutes on CBS this coming Sunday)
9
Bos- I don't believe in ryan's faux Christianity and his claim to be a Catholic. I was raised Catholic but am now agnostic bordering atheist but I remember the tenets of the Catholic faith. Our God was pretty judgmental- he didn't like the sinner who repented only to go forth and commit the same sins again. Jesus threw the money worshippers from the temple. The ten commandments are pretty explicit. ryan violates almost all of them. If ryan was a real Catholic he would be very fearful to meet his maker at Heaven's gate. He and his piety are as fraudulent as his fake footrace time and his fake picture of working in a soup kitchen. He is a fake and a fraud and far from being a Christian.
"We will work with each other, we will work side by side
And we'll guard each man's dignity and save each man's pride
And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love."
Actions speak far louder than easily mouthed platitudes. I know in the Christian faith no one is said to know the mind of God and we are not to judge but if I was ryan, who professes he lives by his Catholic faith, I would be very afraid of the coming judgement. Very afraid.
1
At an international speakers' workshop in New York open to the Public, you will find Africa, America, Asia and European representatives. Our President is from Japan, and enjoys an established understanding with Korea. In 2011 Japan is badly damaged by an Earthquake early in March. We unite to say prayers, regardless of our Religion.
Before returning to the Public Sector, this American works at a reputable international investment bank, which on occasion is known as 'Lizards' when teasing my younger colleague and friend, the latter, a hard-working Jamaican in possession of siblings, with families of their own. Make that One Family. She joins the Peace-Corps for a two-year assignment, and returns on a scholarship at Yale to become a Public Health Expert.
In 2008 and in the face of two inherited wars and a massive Recession, our Last President makes an announcement. It will require an American Peace-Corps mission to venture outside our Habitat and branch out. Branch out to understand and help our Country.
New Yorkers often ask where I am from. New York, I reply. When an introduction is required as a new member of our global workshop, known as an 'ice-breaker' with a 4-minute window, an explanation on my part is that I was born in New York, brought up in Europe, and fit nowhere and everywhere.
Listening to Millennials gives hope to Evan Connell's Mrs. Bridge' here; overprotected and insulated in Republican Country somewhere back in the 30s. Thanking Mr. Brooks.
2
Great column and we have seen it in action. The statement "They were considered liberals in their Midwestern high school but are considered conservatives in college." is very true. A moderate Republican from our area that moves to the coasts finds themselves uneasy with coastal Republicans. Many democrats from our area that moved to the coasts find themselves aligning with moderate Republicans on many issues. My own mixed race children (and their spouses are mixed race) are at ease with multiculturalism and multiple races. Their group of friends are like the UN with every group represented and most of them are third and 4th generation US citizens. The younger daughter now lives in Europe, speaks multiple languages and works in many different countries. We had much hope for the younger generation. However, that hope all came crashing down in November of 2017. My older daughter and her husband (also mixed race) live in a very white suburb of NYC. My 8 year old granddaughter who is 1/4 asian, 1/4 hispanic, 1/2 caucasian was told by an 8 year old caucasian boy the morning after the election that she was now going to be deported because Trump was elected. The same boy went up to everyone in their class who was not white the same thing. His parents, when called to school about the issue, claimed the school was trying to be politically correct and was censoring the free speech of their son and thought their son had done nothing wrong. So much for our hopes.
13
Did anyone sit the boy down and tell him what he was saying was imply wrong. (Age 8 might not "get" it.) My cousin by marriage with an MBA makes all kinds of assertions such as money should only be taxed once. which led one of her sons to make comments about the costs of takng care of old people.(Is it more than educating the young -- elementary and high school .. for 13 years?) After I had pointed out to him that taking care of old people is a good job-- beats coal mining... I pointed out that we could simply print more money to take care of it... Suppsed inflation?? haven't gotten there yet. Sure would like to see a hike in interest rates on savings...
No one sat the boy down because his parents thought what their son was saying was perfectly permissible.
We really need to stop all the labeling. No one can be adequately described by any set of labels. Labels are more divisive and limiting than enlightening and freeing.
8
Apparently Mr. Brooks has found his stride again, after a year of conservative confusion (I really think he didnt notice the GOP becoming libertarians). "Time to start labeling people in this brave new world." Hierarchy and category are what they feel is the natural order of things.
8
The rise of the amphibians is indeed encouraging, if it is actually happening.
Unfortunately, however, I fear that it is still quite limited to small pockets of this (Formerly) United States of America and to even smaller pockets in other parts of the world.
How much of this "rise" is wishful thinking?
I was born amphibian, 76 years ago, and am still trying to adjust to an environment that, each day, seems to be less and less hospitable to our specie, whilst tribalism grows more and more acceptable, vociferous and encouraged by so-called authorities.
12
@Gianni Lovato: You are so correct: in the context of "identity" the whole is now less than the sum of its parts. Part of this trend is due to politicians who attempt to isolate people into voting packets, but part is also due to people who find it more convenient to self-identify in terms of one attribute.
As a grandchild of immigrants, I grew up as a marginal amphibian which I embraced. It has opened me to all sorts of experiences--I now speak several languages, have lived in many places, and have raised my children to be full-blown amphibians. Living as an amphibian is like living in technicolor.
I sense resentment from many Americans. They think that amphibians game the system and receive all sorts of advantages that properly belong to "real" Americans. Yet, many Americans don't want to acquire the knowledge and skills that might make them amphibians, and they now resent immigrants.
In spite of all the problems (we have a ton of them!), we live in an extraordinarily nuanced and fascinating country--let's embrace it and the energy that it houses. Amphibianism offers one path forward
8
I think the word Mr. Brooks is searching for is "cosmopolitans," which describes persons who have left behind the parochialism of their place of origin and are at home in the wider world, accepting of difference, and open to new ideas and alternate points of view. Cosmopolitanism is an very old ethical idea with roots in classical antiquity. Its modern incarnation has been explored by philosophers like Martha Nussbaum and Kwame Anthony Appiah. And while Mr. Brooks passes over this fact in silence, it is an approach to ethical life more common among liberals than conservatives. Closing borders, building walls, and scapegoating immigrants, as Trump and the Republicans would have us do, amounts to a vehement rejection of cosmopolitanism. The "amphibians" Brooks speaks of do not appear spontaneously; they emerge from a liberal culture of tolerance and accommodation, which nurtures the cosmopolitan spirit.
368
The "amphibians" Brooks speaks of do not appear spontaneously; they emerge from a liberal culture of tolerance and accommodation, which nurtures the cosmopolitan spirit."
Beautifully said, Stephen.
However, this openness is not exclusive to liberals, nor always a characteristic of those who claim to be liberals. In Harpers a few years ago, I read an article wherein someone referred to a woman who was for the teaching of creationism in a New Hampshire school as having dental work that would "make an Appalachian proud." I see a lot of shaming and stereotyping of poor people among many of us, including liberals. But the biggest issue is a lack of imagination and compassion--even when we cannot agree. A rural southerner's caricature of New Yorker is not any less damaging than a self-righteous liberal's caricature of a bubba from the South. It's always easy to see the mote in the other's eye; so difficult to see the beam in our own.
3
Regarding antiquity, the first cosmopolitan was Socrates. The Socrates of Plato's dialogues was rightly fearful of democracy that embraces too much freedom at the expense of virtue. Liberalism and Conservatism are both horrible when embraced to excess. I do not think contemporary American liberalism is the source of cosmopolitism in its most sincere form. The liberal arts are the sources of cosmopolitism of the most genuine sort. Now, it may be that liberals tend to be more invested in the liberal arts, but I dare say that Mr. Brooks has read his Aristotle.
1
The way this article is written encapsulates the generation gap right now, and why they can barely culturally communicate. Older Americans are obsessed with identity. Who are you? Who are you going to be? What do you want to be known for and as?
And Millennials are so confused by this question. Not because we don't understand the question, but because the identity question will no longer be what defines us. We haven't turned the corner yet, but Millennials harbor a deep suspicion of culture built on identity. Most American cultural flashpoints turn on toxic identity arguments.
"How to be a man?""Is being transgendered real?""How long do I have to be here to be American?" "Why can't black lives matter? Why do we say all lives matter?" "#iftheygunnedmedown" "terrorists don't deserve rights" "Is it my fault I'm struggling to find love or a career?" "I'm a guns guy, so I can talk about gun control" "the poor are undeserving while the rich made the right choices and worked hard" "the poor are victims of an undeserving aristocracy"
When people talk about Millenials instinctive draw to authenticity, they are talking about our rejection of these statements of identity. What we crave is not just authenticity: it is authentic ACTION. We don't want to think of who we are as these inherited identities like the republican version of American exceptionalism. Instead, we want to be what we do. And we mostly haven't done it yet, so we end up unable to answer.
15
David, please look at the basic structure of your column. You create a more specific identity and then talk about how that identity will fix things. You started last year saying you were going to do soul searching about how Trump came about and where the people were going, and I really hope you take a moment to look at this fundamental issue. Using identity in the place of action is the fundamental trick Trump and the current GOP use to throw sand in the polity's eyes. Let go of identity and go back to looking at the actions people take in themselves: stripped of all identity what are people really doing? That will tell you way more than asking about identities, because people say they are all sorts of things with little connection to reality.
11
I disagree - identity is where we all start. Amphibious identities can become leaders and can offer the missing perspective we’re looking for. This doesn’t mean that non-Amphibious people don’t matter. It just means we are listening to more people than we used to. That’s got to be a good thing.
2
Why can’t it be both identity AND action?
David,
Nice. I recently retired from high school education and have now met two groups of college students, at Rutgers and Bergen Community College. These kids are very impressive. They work hard, respect one another and respect me. Many are amphibious in your terms. They give out positivity though, no disaffection. Their hopes, grit and willingness to integrate with each other are on their sleeves. They are ready and waiting for a great nation to support their energies. I think you may have opened your questioning with a reporter's objectivity. Open your own hopes for common feeling to them and your wonderful spirit will invite them to show you theirs.
2
Mr. Brooks, I very much appreciate your ongoing dialogue to help people bridge their divisions and tribal tendencies. May such thinking seep into our collective conscious.
5
All very clever and cute--- David's stereotyping that is--- building some kind of weird edgy thesis, pinning a name on a concoction of generalizations, spicing the mix with some strained but hopeful and familiar leavening, and viola we have a lyrically hopeful op ed for a grueling and thoroughly depressing week of Trump and Friends. So, here's my take: if David's magnetic and original Amphibians can be thusly characterized, does that make David and we ageing "boomers" primal ooze?
23
Yes, it does
1
Thank you David. Words well said said well. A contribution and a pleasure.
1
I have read through this twice, and agree with much of what Brooks is saying: we do need a common narrative; we do need people who help cohere their community and cohere us all together. We do need to see our commonalities and not our differences.
So why do I get a faint whiff of something musty, something off - slightly too old beans in the fridge - in it?
It might be that Brooks is using his Amphibians to describe what we need, and is condemning the generation we have simultaneously. If you are not a fish out of water, you are part of the problem. Don't grow up obvious, kids, don't be a hipster.
I've got two kids who are neither from war torn Syria or from Baptist southern households going to northern colleges, and I have a lot of hope for them. Not because they are going to be bridging capital, but because I see a mix of brains and conscience in both.
I don't think you need to be an amphibian. I think you need to have brains and use them; and have a conscience and heed it. A lot of self-awareness would help too, because that is the only way we can see our way around self-justification.
The capital we need comes from a center that puts self-interest just a little to the side.
38
To Cathy,
Thank you very much for your wise remarks. Underneath all the sociological and political issues, I agree that the basic concern is our character, which doesn't depend on where you live or how much you travel or differ from people around you. Pushing the problem onto the large arena may deflect us from the character building that takes place in our immediate environment, no matter where that is.
Our country was led for the last 8 years by what David Brooks describes as an "amphibian". If the years of Obama as President are any indication, Brooks has misplaced optimism for amphibians' ability to create change. People need to be willing to accept change...I did not see any such willingness by many Americans during that time, and I still do not see it now.
40
I hope that Obama was not our last chance, and that his time will be an inspiration.
Reading this i was reminded of this quote by Aldous Huxley. ""We are multiple amphibians living in many different – even in some senses incommensurable – universes at the same time, and ... our business in life is somehow to make the best of all the worlds we live in.".
1
I got on the T last Monday and had a bunch of packages, there was one empty seat beside a Muslim woman. She being in her 20s and me in my 70s, but as I sat down we made eye contact, squeezing in I said quietly, 'thank you sister'. When her stop came she got up to leave and turned around and made eye contact again, but this time she made a slight bow. I took it as a Buddhist greeting or parting called, noah- must- stay [ forgive my spelling]. I smiled also inside knowing that both of us had acknowledged each other, in a quiet dignified manner. I say a prayer to God each morning; I ask that I might be of service in some way, around class, race,or just helping another. This day I was helped with an unexpected connection.
6
Mr. Brooks, your columns, observations and comments are a seemingly diverse lot, but all lead to the same destination. The coming vote in November.
4
Your friend, Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, teaches "living on the edge of the inside." You can reach out to the world and not be engulfed by the limited-vision comfortable center. Both of you are alike Mr. Brooks, and I hope that a wider conversation can be held with you and Fr. Richard. I proposed that to you at a book signing event in Manhattan a few years ago. I know it can happen.
Within the amphibian class there is a group referred to as 'third culture kids.' People who grew up as oil brats, military brats or foreign service/UN brats, to name a few. They have seen different cultures, heard many languages, eaten things many Americans wouldn't recognize and been made to build an identity both separate from and joined together with whatever culture surrounds them. Some do better at it than others, but most of us are practically chameleonic in our capacity to blend in while keeping our own counsel. We certainly consider ourselves Exhibit A in the case against binary group identification.
5
As humans evolve, they begin as tribal and self-centered beings and through experience gained in many lives gradually become become Self-centered, that is, they come to see the big picture - how all things are part of a whole and how they are interconnected.
The reality we need to recognize is that there will always be two types of people, young souls, and old souls. In Ivolutionary terms, the inexperiened Ewarriors and the more experienced Iwarriors will always live with very different understanding of the world and how human being should act in order to find happiness in life.
1
"We lack a unifying narrative to explain how a pluralistic people live into a common national life."
We certainly had a previous President who tried many times for eight years to offer one such narrative (a pluralistic society will likely have pluralistic narratives, not one monolithic story) and to live it by example.
9
The world is a big and beautiful place. Why would not everyone want to experience that in as many forms as they could in a lifetime? Living in as many “radically different places” as possible is...a blessing. And it is most certainly is a spiritual thing. Spiritual growth is always simultaneous with opening your mind and your emotional life to that big and beautiful world.
2
"that every new and different person you meet is first of all my brother, my sister — then the concept of difference changes. The emotional atmosphere is transformed."
Brother and sister in a euphemistic way can be a kind of bonding, as many churches have known since great thinkers enlightened us a couple millennia ago.
I actually use it when speaking in average conversation sometimes.
In a literal way, a genealogy expert I heard recently said that by tracing human DNA back to the original two Homo Sapiens that began our linage, actually means we are all cousins.
How's that grab ya, cousin Dave? (smile)
You have described my wonderful, politically engaged, culture-crossing sons!
After a career as a highly educated middle class professional, for complicated reasons I've spent a couple of years as a homeless person in an inner city environment. I look forward to leaving this category, but it's sure been educational. Did you know that the homeless are probably the last minority that white middle class people can openly despise? Live and learn.
14
David, I was fortunate to have been at a place and in a time when the Peace Corps was formed. JFK inspired my generation to reach out and participate in making the world a better place.
I served with the Peace Corps in Colombia from 1964-1966. I trained for my service at Georgetown University for 3 months along with others who were to serve in Chile. We all had friends who had similar ideals. We learned the language of our host country. We learned its' history, its' culture. Among my friends were those who went to Ethiopia, Tanzania (then Tanganyika), Sierra Leone, and Niger.
There is no doubt in my mind that the cross cultural experience we had made for a more understanding and open mind set. Indeed, your idea of the Amphibian may well help us through these difficult times.
1
I grew up a child of an American military father. We traveled the planet as he was sent on TDY (Tours of Duty) to various regions. We moved, on average, every 4 years. The popular euphemism for such children was, and probably still is, "military brat." I took this as a badge of honor. Because almost uniformly all such children were of a mindset similar to that which David Brooks describes, "amphibians."
The nature of our lives required us to stay open to the experience of being plopped into the middle of other cultures, social mores, etc.. You learned to see and understand differences. You learned to "swim" in alien seas. I came to the viewpoint that human beings are remarkably diverse and inventive in the cultural systems, attitudes and beliefs we create. Yet, we are also all, still, human beings. All part of the same family, the same species, and we share in the same emotional sensibilities of love, fear, hatreds and indifferences.
Over time, especially in viewing some of the more tribal aspects of our species, I have come to understand that Insularity is deadly to the Amphibian mind. Insularity attenuates those with a tribal mindset, turns them inward and oft-times makes them rabid in rejection of the "other." This is what I see happening to us here in America. We need to stop this deterioration into a tribal subset of rabid monkeys, because if we don't our grand experiment in large scale Republic Democracy will not end well.
John~
American Net'Zen
4
"There you go again." said one of David's heroes many years ago, and I say it to David today.
He writes about how an individual has to adapt to the changing context and circumstances in order to survive and thrive, but does not address the morass and cesspool that is being created by our POTUS and his enablers in Congress. Even amphibians will choke and die in this quagmire.
So, my question to David: What is it that the system and pundits like you are doing to help the common folk, who are not amphibians, to survive and thrive?
7
Amphibians, I like the thought.
Our talented young northern Michiganders don't stick around and are scattered pretty much everywhere.
Most of them, I think, are Amphibians.
1
"if young adults from Waco were expected to spend a few years working in and exploring Burlington, and vice versa."
We used to have that. It was called the draft. It was called the Peace Corp. It was called service. They were killed by conservatives convinced Government was a Problem.
"It would be great if, having found a way to create a narrative and a cohering ideal to unify their personal internal diversity, they could do the same for the nation."
We used to have that. It's what happened when service members came home from their experiences, creating relationships with diversity, through diversity, that brought them back home from faraway places from their trials of survival.
"If you start with the Amphibian approach — that every new and different person you meet is first of all my brother, my sister — then the concept of difference changes.
We used to have that. Back when we were a can-do nation, putting men on the moon. Not a can't-do-it nation, hiding its priorities behind the rhetoric of victimhood and Ayn Rand fantasies of moral righteousness simply for standing in the way of change and progress. There was a time when America meant being greater than the sum of its parts. An America yet unafraid to appeal to the better natures in Men, in spite of ourselves, rather than the base appeal of 'get yours' (before someone else does), betraying a cynicism that reduces citizenship to being a poker chip instead of a participant in the great game of self-governance.
5
What Brooks describes is not really new. Though the categories change, there are always those who "don't fit." A century ago, the Italians and Jews didn't fit. In the Fifties Leftists didn't fit. A decade later beards didn't fit. Until recently gays and lesbians didn't fit. For the most part, depending on circumstance, Blacks have yet to fit. Yet, as Brooks notes, it is often those who don't fit who, in order to either fit or to carve out their own identity, consciously or unconsciously, become those who live on the edge, producing change for the better, whether cultural, scientific, commercial, or whatever.
The problem we have now, one Brooks seems aware of even if peripherally, is that as a society we do not have a sense of who we are, what it even means to fit in. We all in one way or another are hyphenated Americans, Black-Americans, Second Amendment-Americans, gay or lesbian-Americans, anti-Abortion-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, female-Americans, outsourced-Americans, whatever-Americans. Nonetheless, we may well be in a crisis where most people's primary identity is on the adjective before the hyphen, not on the collective noun, American.
Unlike Brooks, I am not confidant that millenials are particularly well-equipped to deal with the fracturing of our society, the multi-polar polarization that is on the increase. If anything, they have less of a sense of being American than previous generations, with less of an understanding of the difference between is and ought.
3
Humans are all innately adaptable and resilient – that's how we survive. But the odds are highest that we will do our best if we are placed in the most favorable conditions. A plant may survive in a harsh environment when given no care, but if watered and nourished, it will thrive.
Those in control of our government now, Republicans, are sending the vast majority of us into survival mode. Tax cuts for the wealthy are creating an artificial sugar high – a predictable and preventable crash with jobs and the economy looms on the horizon. Our environment is being poisoned through the evisceration of necessary regulations; climate change is being neglected and exacerbated; we are abdicating our responsibilities in not tending to our infrastructure needs; we are forsaking the Dreamers and other immigrants who look to us for the freedom and hope that America offers; we are actively working to destroy public education through the privatization of our schools, turning them into for-profit institutions; our gun laws are a joke; we have the highest incarceration rate in the world. We are proactively devastating the social safety net: Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, and Social Security.
Most of us will adapt and survive – but not all of us – and we will not thrive. And it will take a long time for our country to recover from this onslaught. Chronically pushing people to the breaking point is not a rational or responsible way to run or lead a country. And it could be our ruin.
5
Why are we getting another dose of pop sociology, Mr. Brooks? Our American house is on fire, and it would seem that your prime directive, and ours, should be to find and extinguish the flames. If we don't, the fire only builds to consume more of the values (equality, liberty, justice, truth) that we hold dear.
Stop the arsonists this November.
6
"It’s possible to be an important change-agent if you stay in your lane: If you grow up in a progressive middle-class home, go to a liberal arts college and then move to a hipster neighborhood. But you really have to work at it."
Such a nasty, dismissive description of an honest, hard-working swath of young people in our society (Democrats, naturally).
By contrast, Brooks notes that a student who "grew up in warn-torn Syria" is "almost bound to be magnetic and original" -- revealing, what?, that young suburban Democrats are un-magnetic and unoriginal and un-amphibious? Ugh.
I'm glad Brooks finds that a child's war-torn life has a magnetic silver lining, but that poor child probably wakes up screaming every night having watched friends and family members die in front of them. And for the record, those children are all too unoriginal back in Syria.
In any event, Brooks breaks his own rule as he tries to make his point. One of the ersatz morals of his story is that we should not "put each person in a single box." Unless, of course, you're a middle-class, college-educated Democrat trying to start a career in a city. THOSE people, well, it's okay to jam THOSE people into a box, stick some labels on the box ("progressive," "liberal arts," "hipster"), and flick aside their plain vanilla lives and potential contributions to society.
So nasty. So unnecessary. You can't illuminate us about love and compassion using bitterness and division.
4
When I saw the heading of this Op-Ed I thought it was going to be about the rising sea levels, extreme weather systems, melting ice caps and glaciers and flooding caused by the global warming so adamantly denied by Trump and the anti-science faction in this administration. I was expecting David Brooks to reference amphibians -like Kevin Costner in “Waterworld” or the new guy in “The Shape of Water” as our evolutionary future somewhere down the line. Maybe our future is not just the diverse adaptable “Amphibians” Brooks argues for here, but the literal ones as well.
2
Hopefully living in multiple worlds leads to empathy and the ability to compromise. Two things that many of our current political leaders lack.
Frogs and toads are amphibian animals that live mainly on land, but produce their eggs and develop into adult forms in water.
E Publius Unun, our national motto; Latin for "Out of many, one" originally meant US formed as a single nation as a result of the 13 smaller colonies joining together.
We the People have always had individual and interesting backgrounds from all over the world.
Trump is demonizing certain counties and certain people as less worthy than others to achieve the American dream.
Calling young adults frogs and toads would be something that Trump might say.
4
What Brooks describes is not really new. Though categories change, there are always those who "don't fit." A century ago, the Italians and Jews didn't fit. In the Fifties Leftists didn't fit. A decade later beards didn't fit. Until recently gays and lesbians didn't fit. For the most part, depending on circumstance, Blacks have yet to fit. But, as Brooks notes, it is often those who don't fit who, in order to either fit or to carve out their own identity, consciously or unconsciously become those who live on the edge, producing change for the better, whether cultural, scientific, commercial, or other.
The problem we have now, one Brooks seems peripherally aware of, is that as a society we do not have a sense of who we are, what it even means to fit. We all in one way or another are hyphenated Americans, Black-Americans, Second Amendment-Americans, gay or lesbian-Americans, anti-Abortion-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, female-Americans, outsourced-Americans, whatever-Americans. Nonetheless, we may well be in a crisis where most people's primary identity is on the adjective before the hyphen, not on the collective noun, American.
Unlike Brooks, I am not confidant that millenials are particularly well-equipped to deal with the fracturing of our society, the multi-polar polarization that is on the increase. If anything, they have less of a sense of being American than previous generations, with less of an understanding of the difference between is and ought. Hopefully I am wrong.
3
David, you seem to be acknowledging that change is good and that diversity is good. That America will be better off if led by people who embrace and shape change and who not only promote and thrive on diversity but embody diversity. Why are you then not a progressive?
1
What Brooks describes is something America and most western Democracies are struggling with, it is a form of multiculturalism . Right or wrong millions fear a lose of a culture. usually we didn't find a college applicant from say Mississippi or Texas to end up in a eastern US liberal college. Throw in millions of immigrant kids in todays environment and where they are going to take us is not clear. Our neighbor to our North is a first hand example. The young prime Minister of Canada is dependent on immigration to maintain their economy, the Canadians teach multiculturalism starting with grade school . He now remarks there is no particular Canadian culture just a land mass with hundreds of thousands of immigrants, and their culture dotted, across the country. and in their Universities.We haven't got there yet however globalist will get us there, especially our Tech giants. Small town US is already being wiped out as kids have to leave for fear they will end up like many of their parents.
This is a terrific article David, but what you are writing about is actually what social scientists call intersectionality - no need to describe them as “amphibians.” I also love the expression “third culture.”
1
What Brooks describes is not new. Though categories change, there are always those who "don't fit." A century ago, the Italians and Jews didn't fit. In the Fifties Leftists didn't fit. A decade later beards didn't fit. Until recently gays, lesbians, and unwed mothers didn't fit. Still, depending on circumstance, Blacks have yet to fit. But, as Brooks notes, it is often those who don't fit who, in order to either fit or to carve out their own identity, consciously or unconsciously become those who live on the edge, producing change for the better, whether cultural, scientific, commercial, or other.
The problem now, one Brooks seems peripherally aware of, is that as a society we do not have a sense of who we collectively are, what it even means to fit. We all in one way or another are hyphenated Americans, Black-Americans, 2nd Amendment-Americans, gay or lesbian-Americans, anti-abortion-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, female-Americans, outsourced-Americans, whatever-Americans. Nonetheless, we may well be in a crisis where most people's primary identity is on the adjective before the hyphen, not on the collective noun, American.
Unlike Brooks, I am not confidant that millenials are particularly well-equipped to deal with the fracturing of our society, the multi-polar polarization that is on the increase. If anything, they have less of a sense of being American than previous generations, with less of an understanding of the difference between is and ought. Hopefully I am wrong.
2
Great - another label. I would call the non-Amphibians the Stagnates. Any other division you can think of?
5
What an appropriate term “Amphibian” threatened all around the world by forces that are little understood with massive die offs caused by mans actions and incomplete understanding of the threats we make to their habitat. Too bad they are actually humans.
1
I believe what has been learned is that the Progressive promotion of identity politics has become an anachronism that Millennials do not relate to. There may be some groups who find it useful as a political sword, like the Al Sharpton set (also an anachronism), but it is not going to be a winning campaign strategy for Democrats. The Millennials have grown up in a multicultural society and are far more well traveled than past generations. Parochialism is gone due to social media making all of us inter-connected with the most urban and remote areas at the same moment. What is hopeful is a growing economy to give these Amphibians a chance to thrive.
1
The world was always glued together by amphibians as Mr. Brooks defines them. The history of art, science, technology, you name it, is a history of amphibian humans crossing borders, bonding to the the new and unknown, building bridges to the well-known, and finally contributing to society with new ideas. This is what we call creativity.
Good article.
26
If there is a lot of disillusion and disaffection that may exist among "Amphibians" it is because this country is still dominated by old white men with old attitudes, prejudices, and biases. Frankly, if your amphibians don't see the hope of change they won't bother to vote and the perpetuation of the decline of American "democracy" will continue.
16
Unfortunately, for myself and colleagues in the mental health profession, I witness the dark side of this phenomena: individuals who lack a deeply rooted identity, identity that was once fait accompli by birth, the identity based on village, profession, faith, ethnicity and so on. I am not necessarily endorsing a return to this tradition, as it can be stifling, etc. But for so many, who are faced with trying to search for, or create, a solid inner core, resilient and cohesive, and not based on label and fashion, the journey is often fraught with depression and anxiety, confusion and frustration, addiction and self-harm.
5
Just to clarify, being an amphibian is not easy work. Not quite fitting in can lead to a dynamic and productive life but some can get depressed in the process. Stay strong amphibians!
43
Brooks seems to disregard the fact that the 'hope' he sees in the lives of the young did not come about whilst GOP'ers were running the national agenda - not whilst Faux Noise Machina was providing POTUS's Morning Briefing.
What Brooks admires was produced under 8 years of exactly the opposite of what is now evinced from the White House and its Wrecking Crew Cabinet, being busily smashed by the Ayn Randers and their donors; the crowd that is Brooks's political tribe.
They call it 'politics as usual' or 'disruption', but it's not politics as usual when GOP'ers refuse to even consider letting a 2-term Dem POTUS fill an empty SCOTUS seat past the 85th month of his 96 months in office. It's plain and simple sedition that violates their Oaths, but because the seditionists wear suits and ties, it's given a pass.
Worse, the judges being nominated and policies being effected, are coming from a White House kakistocracy which shouldn't be there, since 130+ of its staff can't pass background checks:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/scores-top-white-house-offi...
The hopeful lives that Brooks celebrates can be easily derailed - along with this country - by kakistocracy policies from His Unhinged Unraveling Unfitness, enabled by Complicit GOP'ers constantly re-fighting/re-litigating issues from the past; issues they lost in the '60s.
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You mention the most upside-is-down phrase and bane to our contemporary moment of them all: disruption.
Philosophically there is nothing positive in this word. But it's used as positive value now for selfish destructive agendas, destroying existing systems by disguising one's own greed as revolutionary.
2
Some will simply be deported.
I am too old to be a millennial (my children are millennials). Nevertheless, I perfectly understand the "thrilling adventure" of entering a different culture. I was very fortunate to learn Arabic as a soldier in the US Army. I will never forget the first time I was fully immersed in an Arabic culture, as I navigated the streets of Alexandria, Egypt. I spoke the language with an American accent and very formally, but I could see a respect and appreciation in the eyes of every Egyptian I encountered. Here was an American who spoke their language--not just a few phrases--but in sentences and paragraphs. Here was an America who had shown their culture a level of interest and respect that was almost unheard of. I learned then and from then on that speaking the language immediately built rapport with Arabs I encountered. Later, I would be privileged to work with Iraqis and interview them about their lives every day for about a year. That was in some ways the most rewarding job I ever had. I remember being in a setting where no other American was present, and an elderly Iraqi man asked me in Arabic, "Are you an American?" I could see the amazement on his face. I smiled and said, Yes, I am an American. At that moment I learned something profound. What set me apart was not just learning the language. What set me apart was that I was not afraid of being in a new cultural setting--I was thrilled--and the Iraqis trusted me because I showed no fear of them or their culture.
307
Bravo. Focusing on language education would surely help. But, instead we have cuts to education funding.
5
I served for two years as an English teacher in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia from 1966 to '68. 350 of us underwent 3 months of intense language training (Amharic was their national language) at UCLA before going to Ethiopia. It was the belief of the Peace Corps that being able to speak their native language not only was our way of showing respect, it also introduced us to their culture and separated us from the rest of the foreign community there that spoke no Amharic. It was our language skills that built bridges of trust and respect for one another as diverse people.
The late Sen. Paul Tsongas from Mass. was among the first group of Peace Corps volunteers to serve in Ethiopia. At a reunion years later on the Mall in Washington D.C. he spoke of the time he took a group of students on a horse-pack trip out from the small rural village where he taught English deep in the bush. There he asked the chief of the village for permission to water their horses and was invited into the humble hut where the chief lived. He said on the wall were two photographs: one of Emperor Haile Selassie, the other of President Kennedy, something that speaks volumes even today.
7
I had a similar experience in Japan. I think people in most cultures around the world have the same astonishment when an American bothers to put in the effort to learn their language and understand their culture. They are usually quite welcoming and happy to teach us.
1
I hear snippets about the millennials in our son's social circle from my wife, since I do not travel with the Facebook crowd. They are wonderful young people who care for each other in important ways. Also, they are an interesting group of people who traverse religious, economic, and ethnic boundaries in ways that former generations did not (or in some regions of this country, could not, without incurring various levels of social isolation and racism).
But Brooks rests his pen on the word "hope", and ignores the tangible connections to what is becoming of them as adults in the current American society. After several years of watching my son's group in their 20's, I feel that their collective prospects are much worse than those available to me and my peers 40 some years ago. Significant student debt, college educations which have them underemployed and underpaid, and economic futures that are suspect are the norm. They pay exorbitant rents which prevent them from saving for the future, and even the ones who are above the norm financially cannot afford a house purchase or even dream of starting a family. Most don't have parents who can either allay the student debt or provide a house down payment of the size needed. They pay too much tax, because they have no write-offs. They are treading water, in large part due to the government.
Hope is a key element, but a constant diet of debt due to the economic realities of culture is a Sisyphean task for millennials.
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Yes, you have hit it exactly. The economic prospects for young people today are sobering, even the college graduates who should be in good shape. The fact that pensions have essentially disappeared adds one more huge layer of risk to their futures. Our leaders seem unable to grapple effectively with any of the many problems facing our nation, but their abandonment of the next generation has especially troubling and dangerous implications for the future of our democracy.
6
No one has mentioned that the young indebt people have been kept there by the old school 1% who pushed out unions and the government that has not been able to serve the workers of America. Our hard working and law abiding citizens are held in contempt by the haves because they were unfortunate ly born to the wrong class.
9
roadlesstraveled-"Brooks...ignores the tangible connections to what is becoming of them as adults in the current American society. After several years of watching my son's group in their 20's, I feel that their collective prospects are much worse than those available to me and my peers 40 some years ago. Significant student debt, college educations which have them underemployed and underpaid, and economic futures that are suspect are the norm."
Plus diminished pays that haven't kept pace with inflation, many now requiring a college degree. And let's not overlook the GIG economy. There is no commitment to the employed any more. How do you plan for a future, committing to long term debt like a mortgage, marriage or children, when you don't even know whether you'll be working 20 hours or 40? This was unheard of when my husband entered the work force in the mid 1970's. Even the trades, once considered a good paying, secure job, are doing this. No work today? Go home. Maybe we'll see you tomorrow, maybe not. But don't commit to a second job to augment your first. We might need you tomorrow. How can one plan for anything when the employers have such a cavalier and dismissive attitude toward their workers? Short answer- you can't.
3
I once had a student in a community college who was a product of a Native American marrying someone who was hispanic and an African American who married a German. Asked what she labeled herself, her reply was interesting: I think about what has the most advantages at the time. For 15 years I was the coordinator for a cultural exchange. I gave a talk at a conference about how the most value of such exchanges came from confronting a different culture. I was involved with an exchange program with China. It was immersion where you lived in the culture. It was reflective with journal writing and research focused. The greatest culture shock was coming home having discovered something far different than you were use to at home. Both of these are places where young adults confronted themselves and what made them what they were.
I live in a world now where most everyone seems to conform in appearance. There is a young lady who works at Lowes who tints her hair pink and purple. She stands out as individualistic. One day I told her I liked her hair and we chatted briefly. I commented that I tended to find my former students who were expressing things like hair color to be very creative with their reflective ideas. They needed little pushing to be creative and I thought that was important in this day and age where you have to learn how to learn and learn constantly.
7
Sounds like Mr. Brooks is making a case for Dreamers to have a path toward citizenship--as they are the embodiment of the "Amphibians" as he defines them. I'm also of fan of schools teaching kids empathy and how to make connections like they do in Canada with Seeds of Empathy and Roots of Empathy programs taught in the schools. We would all benefits from stretching outside of our comfort zones to get to know each other better; especially those we differ with.
96
The best education young adults or any adults can get is to travel and get to know others who are different from you. The concept of Amphibian is really about one immersing themselves into something new. Something different. Keeping an open mind, and learning. Young people are best suited for these experiences. However, I truely believe that anyone can be Amphibian if they're willing to learn and grow - regardless of age or background.
Thank you, David, for all your work.
25
KS:
Travel is expensive. And you think many of the millenniums can afford to travel?
And for adapting which is what I think this article is about: The DACA kids seem to feel that they would be unable to adapt to life in their country of origin. Having said that, I do believe that something should be done so they can live in this country.
Furthermore, I believe most young people, past and present are optimistic and plan to change the world.
5
I’ve gotten the same question from youngsters, as well: “Who AM I with this unwieldy hyphenate?” My response always has been that “You’re an American – be a trifle less Asian in your reverence for genealogy, don’t bother with these absurd and wholly irrelevant genetic analyses to determine what tribal entities contributed to your genome millennia in the past, and focus more on what you can accomplish YOURSELF in the years that you remain vertical. What do YOU believe that makes you who you are?”
Hmmm. How many Alabamian Baptists (foot-washing, one presumes) find themselves at über-liberal Ivy League colleges? Five?
To the extent that varied backgrounds indeed DO help us develop “bridging capital” (which I actually believe is a characteristic not of background but of oddities of psyche, and can be found in ANY cohort), then they serve an important purpose. To the extent that such people are increasing in number, for ANY reason, they can put their capacities on a socially paying basis.
But yet again I come up against a fundamental difference between how David thinks and I think. It’s fine to exalt those relatively few among the young who are able to see multiple realities and interact healthily with them – even serve as useful bridges between and among the realities that claim the millions; but it remains necessary if your purpose is to build “community” to provide the fence posts within which the vast majority of less-flexible people can build attachments to a community.
3
I’m not at all sure that such exaltation is pertinent. It’s true that while healthy, viable societies are built of healthy, viable communities sufficiently tolerant of one another to keep from genocide, and that those who facilitate the tolerance through better understanding are to be valued, it’s just as true that what really matters are the different natures of the fence posts that demarcate the various communities. In order for a society to be healthy, we need the fence posts that keep the vast majority of human beings from bringing out the war-axes and simply slinging women over their backs, and we have an obligation to create them to be healthy limits; but to an extent they are not community-defining limits unless they’re exclusionary at SOME level. My emphasis tends to be more on the actual fence posts than on the means of bridging them.
If your interest is in the few with extraordinary capacities, then you agree with David. However, if your interest is in building healthy communities and effectively knitting them into a nation, then your focus is on the multitudes, not the few, and you more likely agree with me.
1
And your ideas of building healthy communities is a total reliance on individualism, where each member achieves success on their own without any support from the community. How can you express completely opposing philosophical opinions and not feel embarrassed by your mental contortions? The root cause of our current society's malaise is unbridled commercialism. Our lives are permeated by commercial advertising, in all it's visible and invisible forms. We have come to be a people who define ourselves by what we own, not by who we are and what we do. And it is this pervasive conceptual ism that infects all groups, whether classified by economic status, religious status, ethnic background, or any other group identity. Our institutional leaders are the most infected by it. The greater success they achieve in their chosen occupation the greater the need to show others their material success, and to be a part of the economic elite class with all of the associated perks. Why is it that a relatively materially poor, morally and intellectually superior individual is looked upon as a failure in life and unworthy of a position of leadership? This, of course, is not always the case, but it's occurrence is so rare it seems to not exist. Animals adorn themselves with bold physical traits to attract sexual mates, this does not improve the species viability. Viability depends upon being able to exist within the environment in which you live, not at the expense of that environment.
9
Your case for helping those whom you call "less-flexible" people to be in communities with "fence posts" seems like thinly veiled case for putting small minded people in communities where they can discriminate against whoever's different.
Even if we get past the moral issues with that approach, and take a purely pragmatic view, the problem with your proposal is two-fold: (1) with the speed of communication and a global economy, the world is now an interconnected place where people will be constantly exposed (even if just virtually) to people and views very different to theirs, and creating communities with "fence posts" is just a bury-your-head-in-the-sand fantasy. (2) our society is heavily reliant on innovation and managing complexity, and creating the next life saving drug or managing an efficient global supply chain requires those whom you call people with "extraordinary capacities", more so than those whom you call the "less flexible". People with extraordinary capacities tend to be stifled in communities with your beloved "fence posts".
Given (1) and (2) above, why would we want to coddle those "less flexible" in communities that artificially isolate them from the global community? How about we help them be, well, more flexible?
7
As a late Boomer, and as my time winds down, your words describe the many dualities of my life experience perfectly. I always thought I was expert at two things - my profession and moving through the world, on any and all levels.
I think you are right, as I see it masses of Amphibians in San Francisco, a 21st century melting pot of innovation and change. It gives me hope...
...and brings a tear to my eye.
Thank you, David
13
As a bi-racial child of the 50's, I guess I qualify as an amphibian. There is a lot of understanding that comes with that status--not just knowing and living with people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, but having those people be the people you love most in life.
But it wasn't all beer and skittles. There was plenty of searching for identity, of not choosing either group over the other because to do so would be to diminish ones self. A lot of distrust and rejection by both groups.
I cannot, from my perspective, adequately express my disappointment and fear of the ultra nationalism arising here and around the globe--India, Europe, and elsewhere. The world seems to place great value on not understanding one another.
And, to be completely frank about it, 100% of the blame for that falls on conservative political movements.
385
In my view conservatives fear Amphibians. The political leaders on the conservative side use that fear to make their followers more afraid as that is a cheap way to achieve power. It doesn't have to be that way. In the best of all worlds true conservatives could be taught to value all people as part of our capital and capital is always a benefit for society and conserving and benefitting from capital should be a conservative value. The current occupant of the White House fans every fear of his base (I hesitate to call them conservative) into flames....examples: Hillary Clinton will take your guns away, rapists are pouring into our country from Mexico, other countries send their worst to this country and not their best, Muslims are terrorists and must be kept out of the country, etc. Not all conservative politicians fan so many of a conservative's fears. George Bush tried to mitigate fears of Muslims for example and did not fan the flames of racial intolerance as far as I remember.
"It would be excellent for America if that kind of leap became a rite of passage for young Americans — if young adults from Waco were expected to spend a few years working in and exploring Burlington, and vice versa."
So Brooks wants everyone to do what the Mormons do, sending kids on "a mission" elsewhere for a year of personal growth after high school.
Then again, the Germans called their draft the "school of the nation" for pulling this age group out of their comfort zones and sending them into something entirely new.
Then again, WW2 did that to the whole of the Greatest Generation in a huge way.
This is what the Gap Year idea in Europe is supposed to do, though I don't think most actually use it that way.
This idea has so many examples, I am tempted to say our own current sheltered lives without it are the exception. It does not help that the college experience is so often sheltered by helicopter parenting and trips home.
People do need to grow up.
61
Mormon kids on "Mission" are not sent out for "personal growth." They live with other Mormons and are sent out to try and convert people to Mormonism. Unfortunately they are having success n the wrong places. When I visited many Pacific islands two years ago there were Mormon churches everywhere-- nice brick buildings surrounded by villages where the people too often still lived in shacks and their littlest children ran around naked in the mud around the family compound.
3
When we lived in Spain almost 30 years ago, we were told that one of the main purposes of their obligatory military service was to introduce young people to service members from other parts of Spain to broaden their perspective beyond their region. Sounded like a good idea to me.
2
Why is this administration so against providing the amphibian experience to our millennials. The President's budget proposes to drown potential Amphibians while they are still tadpoles by defunding programs that provide such experiences as Vista (Volunteers in Service to America), Peace Corps, legal aid, etc .to young adults coming from middle/upper backgrounds . There is more than one way to serve our country than to volunteer in the armed services. The community service programs which are on the chopping block provide a moral basis for our country and can provide an amphibious bridge. Brooks is right that we need such Amphibians and we should encourage more amphibians by either providing college assistance, etc. to those in need and also providing opportunities to those not in financial need.
46
Sefo- "(trump's) budget proposes to drown potential Amphibians...defunding programs that provide such experiences as Vista, Peace Corps, legal aid, etc. to young adults coming from middle/upper backgrounds . There is more than one way to serve our country than to volunteer in the armed services."
VISTA was started in 1964!!! Now it is on the chopping block.
trump and republicans worship war. Serving your fellow man means nothing to them. If we need any proof we need go no further than sarah palin's disgusting attacks on President Obama's community organizer service. They see no value in helping the downtrodden, the disabled, the elderly, disadvantaged children. The only service that has any merit, any value, is to their god; the god of war and the military industrial complex. Teaching an illiterate to read, teaching a young mother how to care for her child and provide proper nourishment, visiting a shut-in elder, providing meals for them, has no worth. Medicaid funds many services for the elderly and the disabled, including meals on wheels, which in many states is run by volunteers, elder care services like home-making and visiting CNA's. The republicans are gutting that program while they give ever more obscene amounts of money to our bloated military. Serve your country in a peaceful way? Can't fund that. They have wars to fight. Foreigners to slaughter. Destructive toys to build. There's no money to waste on something, in their eyes, of no value! We have weapons to build.
3
So...what? Millenials, all of them, are miserable, but have nice lives if you look at them through a Kaleidoscope and say, “How pretty” ? Those of us who have one background are boring, and should be thrown in another culture so we can be miserable and pretty, too? And this will do what to stop guns, inequality, and poverty? Not to say the mental health issues. I know lots of people with cool backgrounds who are poor and miserable. And young, if you want that, too. They can’t afford college or healthcare or a trip to a cool culture where they can build a bridge out of their capital.
56
And they don't vote.
Of my three "millennial" children, two did not bother to vote. Oh, they complain plenty and they mouth desires that are clearly not on the agenda of the Republicans, but they did not vote for a Democrat. They are contemptuous of both political parties. They refuse to participate.
What is needed is a new political class. Made up of the types Brooks extols in his article. A third party to replace the decrepit and useless Democrats and Republicans. A third party that might be able to govern and put into place the policies the majority of the Country desires. A third party that, perhaps, doesn't cow tow to lobbyists or the donor class. A political revolution is necessary.
4
M. Callahan,
A Canadian reporter once wrote 'there is no unequal life', later followed by an elderly stranger, an American with a love for her family and strict Lutheran. She was to visit for ten days, and I learned a few essentials. 'We All Have a Story', nodding her head, was a current refrain on her part, with an attempt to make this American see the light.
You might want to join the family for some Bible-reading, she ventured at one point. In return, I told her of young school days in France with Catholic nuns where there was plenty of food for the soul, and little food to grow tall. She turned slightly pale.
'Olive Kitteridge', an American novel of a teacher in Maine, sounded boring to her. Little did she know that I was addressing Mrs. Kitteridge, who is anything but boring.
We need teachers in America. Teachers with higher salaries. This is not going to happen with this Presidency and Governance. But We The People can make certain adjustments to the above. We can vote with a wish to do better for our Children and Future Generation.
4
wfisher-pity for you. We have five adult children. All have voted since turning 18. Their spouses vote as well. My grandson turned 18 in March of 2016 and asked how to register to vote. We are not rich, we are not even educated beyond high school degrees but all are aware of the disastrous direction our country is headed.
Just last night my son called excited about a job opportunity in South Carolina. We discussed the gun culture there-the state has five times the gun death rate of Massachusetts even though our population is almost double that of SC. They are anti-alternative energy, going so far as to have a punitive fee assessed to those who own electric vehicles. They offer very little for health care and less in early intervention programs. His newborn baby was born with a heart defect that may need correcting. This company offers no health insurance. In MA our son has access to Commonwealth Connector which will not be affected no matter what trump tries to do with the ACA. His 4 year old has been diagnosed with autism. No help there. His wife has heart problems. No help there. So my son is now voting with his wallet. Being politically savvy and culturally aware he will stay in MA.
Will the latest children of the FL school slaughter (not tragedy) vote? I think they will. The interview with survivor David Hogg showed that these kids are fired up and fed up. Many will be 18, potential voters. I believe many will vote. And I believe that they will not be voting republican.
5
Thank you, Mr. Brooks, for presenting a positive, interesting perspective. I really needed that today.
26
Well, good luck to the lesbians and the mixed-race folks and the foreign-born. They may be amphibians, but they’re swimming in a stagnant pool of racial division, sneering conservative xenophobes and evangelical gay bashers. It’s not the job of the amphibians to change the rest of the world. It’s the world’s obligation to adapt to a diverse reality.
Good luck with that. The entire 20th century was an exercise in breaking down racial barriers, protecting the poor, empowering women and finally accepting our LGBT citizens. But now we’re slamming on the brakes.
Our country is being run by people who want to restrict immigration, pass laws banning the transgendered from restrooms and try to keep people with brown skin from voting. The diverse people who are supposed to heal the divides are being disparaged, demeaned and suppressed.
No one can thrive in an environment like this. Even the deplorables who voted for our idiot president are being crushed under his heel, although they don’t appear to realize it. But he has as much in common with the common folk as a Lamborghini has with a roller skate.
Mr. Brooks can speak glowingly of pluralism and tolerance and can’t we all just get along? But the reality is that Republicans are having none of it. They’re blowing up the economy so that Medicare and Social Security can be throttled. They’re making “immigrant” a curse word. They’re rolling up the welcome mat and shutting the doors.
Unless we stop them in November.
575
Reply to Gemli,
If you want people to come out in November, you have to offer them hope, not just hate.
145
Well said, I think... ...
but I also think you stop far too short about the Medicare and Social Security "being throttled".
Not throttled: finances are being transformed into sky-rocketing stock prices and tax cuts, all of it for the rich to capitalize on, claim for their own, and further feel extra good in comparison to the rest of us.
They are THIEVES enabled by Republican legislators, engaging in additional domination, control, and transformed rules to enhance THEIR laws.
Vote them out; they seek to annihilate anyone different from them.
19
Gemli, I hear you. But Trump is the last speed bump on a road that curves upward. To mix metaphors, just out of sight, over the horizon, there is a great demographic tidal wave coming that will overwhelm your "stagnant pool." At 74, I may not live to see it, but you will.
10
We used to have a way of bringing young people of diverse backgrounds together, reducing them all to the same basic level of privilege and inculcating values of shared sacrifice. It was called "The Draft". Universal Public Service would be an excellent substitute but with Generalissimo Bone Spur as our model, it aint gonna happen.
225
An additional benefit: the many wars of choice that our 'leaders' (ha!) get us into will decline. I personally know some belligerent nationalists (conservatives all) whose own draft-age children they would not permit to enlist. If their kids were subject to draft, they'd demand less military intervention.
2
Yes Stan, the draft did bring us all together as Americans, not members of some often transient political sect or another. I'll add that the draft was called an "obligation" . . . an obligation to our country and to each other as Americans. Not so oddly, those of us who were compelled to serve could not unusually be heard in unison shouting out "I hate the Army" . . . . out of earshot of a drill instructor, of course. But, deep within us we loved the toughness that it built and the sense of mutual citizenship we much more deeply learned. We had each other's backs.
Sadly, the loss of that unifying citizenship came from utterly failed national leadership that led us into Viet Nam. As a launch to much of today's delegitimization of good citizenship, national leadership, rather than extricate us from that strategic horror, one of Nixon's moves to save his Watergate-infected skin was to attack the symptom of the massive war-generated discontent rather than the cause and to end the draft. Our steady political decay into competing enemy political camps can be seen growing from that time and that act.
3
Mr Continople advocated "Universal Public Service"
I completely agree. Give young people the obligation to payback a little of the great gift they have been given and the opportunity to invest in our nation. They will get outside their comfort zones, work with Americans they would never otherwise meet and learn something they cannot learn in school.
For the same reason I am very much against "free college" advocated by Senator Sanders. One year of Service should equal one year of state college paid. Any "C student" in our nation would be able to go to four years of college and graduate debt free, IF they pony up their time and spirit to make our corporate enterprise a better place to live and work.
Thank you, Mr Continople.
1