What a pleasure to read a column by Mr. Brooks that doesn't throw shade on the politically incorrect - thanks so much! It's a great direction for you - one that could allow you to play the positive role that we all know you want to. I know it's not always easy to do this, but it will make your work more effective if you can try. TIA!
8
David Brooks works to distract us from the real problem, the Republican Party's destruction of the social safety net, by focusing on the good souls who provide bandaids to the problem. The problems are too big to leave government involvement out of the solution .
15
I guess I am disappointed by the tone of some of the readers comments. Name calling seems a part of the problem we have in society and in politics. Calling David Brooks "Lord Brooks"? How does that aid our discussion and your point? And sadly, that is just one of the examples. To me, there are many ways we can move the ball forward to a better world. Bringing up additional ways to move the ball is great, we need as many ways and ideas as we can, but I don't see how that negates other ideas like this one. Do I agree with everything Mr Brooks says or believes? No, and that is true of everyone I know, but I try to have a civil and thoughtful discussion with all but the most hateful.
20
I did get the message from Mr. Brooks that the story of Sarah was the answer to our problems of poverty and poor education but it certainly can be part of the solution if only to guide readers of what this type of community involvement can accomplish. someone beat me to the punch about "it takes a village."
5
I completely love this....this story is a blessing.
13
Thank you, as always, for your thoughtful contributions, Mr. Brooks. I look forward to learning more about Thread.
6
David, isn't it about time for you to stop rearranging the chairs on the deck, and start helping the rest of us keep the whole shebang from going down? The work you describe here and the principles behind it are undeniably admirable. In the long run such work is vital. Yes, I realize that you think they are solving the fundamental problem facing us of national distrust. All the same, these programs won't be able to fix the shipwreck that is happening right now. The white nationalist Mr. Trump is doing irreparable damage to our democracy and to the liberal world order which has so greatly benefitted Americans and folks around the world. This shipwreck is, as you will recall, partly of your own doing. The bottomless bad faith and immoral opportunism of your Republican friends in Congress and the White House did not show up overnight. Those people have no interest whatsoever in programs like Thread which are the opposite of their principles: racial resentment, anger, and lies. We're simply not going to get where you want to go unless we take emergency measures. I myself set up just such a program here in Seattle and the community loved it. We were in our 10th year when the disastrous 2016 presidential election intervened. I mothballed it in order to become involved in politics, something I have never done before. I was a precinct captain. I visited every home in the precinct and talked about what those folks were thinking about. Please help, David.
14
Most social problems decrease as poverty decreases.
We have the biggest, baddest military on the planet.
We have the highest incarceration rate in the world.
We get what we pay for.
Except for healthcare. There we pay $10,000 per capita and the rest of the first world countries pay $4,500 to $5,500 per capita.
They have universal coverage. We have parts of the US with infant mortality rates the same as Botswana.
17
This is not normal. This is Godly.
5
David where did you find this program and how come you did not write about it earlier to let us all to know love and learn? Thank You.
3
Social isolation is epidemic in our country and it is caused by a competitive capitalist economic system that values human beings according to their ability to produce wealth and obtain wealth.
14
your right on mr.brooks, it's where it all starts, reaching out and trying to build trust among people, especially our kids . we can't expect the cops to solve our problems on the streets, it's to late then. we really don't ask much of ourselves outside of paying taxes, not many of us serve the country, but many have college debt, maybe something could be worked out. we need to start at the bottom, the top,and middle to start a rebirth in this country, we need to realize who we. are and what we stand for , there's a lot more to America than owning a bunch of flashy stuff. look how Donald turned out, we gotta do better
4
What a wonderful program. But it also sounds risky. Organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters carry substantial liability insurance as well as heavy vetting requirements for volunteers to protect vulnerable children from abuse. What does Tapestry do to protect children from the possibility of being harmed by the volunteers?
4
My wife and I never had the emotional distance that it takes to bring into our family on by definition a temporary basis as a mentor and expose the child to all the benefits our children had and then return the child to the deprived existence that he or she came from.
We both worked in health care caring for children with what in those days was almost certainly fatal illnesses and were able to do that for years but there was a distance to those circumstances that would not exist in what is being described in this essay.
Helping and loving other people where you are is unambiguously good. I was delighted to see that the Thread is not going on the road to sell this as The Next Big Thing. If it does turn out to be The Next Big Thing, it will be because other people in other places will see the idea, here and in other similar reports, and figure out to do something like it that works where they are. Sure, good, well-funded, well-conceived government policies and programs are also good things. But the (local) good need not not be the enemy of the (general) best.
6
Mr. Brooks, there is an organization that has been around for ca. 100 years that does many of the same things. It is Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. I have been a Board Member of our local agency/chapter for over two (2) decades and I can vouch for the importance of such programs. We must give forward, especially to our most vulnerable.
3
Thank you for drawing our attention to this story. By shining your light upon the actors in this story, you deepen our connection to hopeful outcomes.
1
Some good new from Baltimore-thank you for telling the story.Those of us who lived there and raised our children there loved the city because of its proud ethnic neighborhoods and for the easy connection to people who called us "Hon".It was not pretentious and was proud of its multi-culturalim as a result of being the Free State.Religions flourished there which were frowned upon by the puritans.The racial divide has widened and it is good to know that a group is working on healing and connecting these special people.I love Baltimore!
5
I have wondered about Baltimore as I lived and worked there in my 30s. It was the peak of the city with a new harbor and vibrant business community. More recent news and a couple of visits has been shocking - particularly with both the University of Maryland professional schools and Johns Hopkins anchored there. This is a great movement. I hope it can go elsewhere - I live in Denver now and would volunteer tomorrow. It also demonstrates recent research about social connections (NOT social media but in person) being extremely important to ward off suicidal tendencies in youth. Makes sense that it is broader.
8
Noteworthy are: 1) this piece features a woman, or at least an organization started by a woman, and 2) the organization in question is all about relationship -- collaborative, cooperative relationship. Implicit in this piece is a critique of a strand of contemporary masculinity, a strand too prevalent in leading politicians. It's the strand that emphasizes dominance over cooperation, competition over community, winning over problem-solving. It's a strand that seeks power for power's sake, and sees relationship-building as either purely transactional or women's work. The good news is that, increasingly, we men see this strand as toxic. Increasingly, we see that it breeds alienation and isolation, not to mention behaviors that tend to kill what we really want, which is to do the right thing -- for our communities, for women and children, for the planet, and for each other.
9
David, Thank you for this column. I have been reading you columns for years, and I think this is the most important one you have ever written. I am going to get myself involved in this movement as soon as possible.
2
Thank you David. I appreciate this uplifting story in the sea of negativity that seems to be rising ever higher. Keep it up!
3
It takes a village...I wonder what sane, rational, qualified candidate for the US Presidency said this...
15
"When she was a girl, her father discovered that their pastor was dipping into church funds and reported it to the congregation. Instead of doing something about the pastor, the community shunned her family. Sarah and her siblings would sit at parties and neighborhood events and nobody would talk to them. She spent eight years of her childhood ostracized."
Just like our modern Republicans in Congress and the Kochtopus-and-other-billionaire-network-elevated local and state authorities.
The end does not justify the means.
7
There is a similarly structured organization in New York City, Lifeforce in Later Years, or LiLY, that supports elderly people in the community with a cadre of volunteers. These sorts of organizations and their work provide some optimism about the morality and dedication of some Americans in these dark times.
6
I was privileged to teach Sarah at Broad Ripple High School in Indianapolis. She was amazing then so this is not surprising. I also was privileged to teach with colleagues who often rallied around students like Ryan. It is gratifying to see how Sarah and Ryan have chosen lives of service when they could have chosen lives of luxury. Yet, they are the richest among us. Kudos to them and their inspirational students. Thanks for calling attention to this program, Mr. Brooks.
17
I grew up in a rural community and because I am an atheist I have been shunned all my life. The inculcation that most of you accept is the reason we have Trump. You all are incapable of rational thought and accept the myths you are taught. Your parents think you should join their cult. Those in power want to drive down those who threatened their positions of power with truth. We are living in a time of great scientific and technological advancement while still living with leadership whose style of leadership is more akin to religious cults. Renewal will only come with a new age of enlightenment which necessarily will challenge the religious beliefs of the cults. I personally think that is not a possibility until major suffering comes to the morons who vote against freedom in favor of industrial masters. There is no good in religion, only ignorance and capitulation to cruel overlords. I will and am enjoying the mental squirming of those who attempt to defend the status quo. We have defeated nature and are about to destroy it utterly. Your grandchildren will feel the heat that you knew was coming but where too weak to do anything about.
That said, there is no reason to think that humans are important at all. Indeed, they are no brighter than a bunch of microbes in a petri dish. They will bred until all resources are gone and then they will all die. And, so will go the humans because they are incapable of adapting to the fast changes brought on by technological advancement.
5
Many of the writers below have said it - it takes a village, but the village might be there locally if families and children had the ability to live in decent housing, with decent jobs and incomes. The breakdown of communities is largely due to this lack of resources, and our society doesn't seem to give a damn about this. It's well and good to have such wonderful people as Sarah and her fellow students becoming friends and mentors, but it is a small answer to a much larger problem that can mainly be solved through government programs - decent subsidized housing, a decent minimum wage, funds to support children when they are born, quality health care and education for all, including early childhood experiences, and so on. We as a society can afford to develop and fund these programs, if we had the will. Unfortunately, the political climate and culture, with its strong individualistic perspective and thinking, does not allow for a "rule of law" that supports collective resources for all.
And, by the way, why did her family stay with a church that ostracized them for eight years? Strange!
6
@ES
Yes, we need public services. But we need to recognize that most of the ones you're describing are remedial and managing the decline and destruction of the family unit.
The biggest resource a child needs isn't a village, but an intact, two parent family, preferably with a married mother and father.
In fact, much of the "village" kids grow up in seems to be designed to hurt children, i.e., the village of Facebook, porn, drugs, violent schools, a culture which makes a fetish out of wealth, power and celebrity, etc.
3
A nice example of people helping people. It saddens me that the regular commentators have to continually find fault and revert to attacking Republicans and Trump when Mr Brooks brings light to positive human acts of caring and kindness.
Maybe just maybe if more people could participate and bring programs like this to areas that need them we as citizens could help improve some lives.
The bitterness here around not being able to save everybody so save nobody, condemn acts of kindness and the angry finger pointing just adds to the divisiveness which is already troubling.
C'mon people this is a good thing highlighted here ! Embrace it.
7
I live on the island where the volcano is erupting. More than 700 homes have been destroyed thus far. Displaced families have left to live with friends and relatives, but many remain in public shelters. To help them, community members have teamed-up to build temporary housing units. Local hardware stores donate material, contractors provide labor, and drive-ins supply lunch.
A 46-year-old police officer was fatally shot during a traffic stop this month, leaving his wife and three young children. My island, the Big Island of Hawaii, is aptly named, and the relatively few police who patrol the largely rural area have a different relationship with the public than the troubled ones on the continent I often read about. A gofundme page was created with an initial goal of $1,000. In eight days, it has raised more than $50,000.
I feel fortunate to live in a place where people still see each other as people. I read the news and usually get upset. I think part of the problem is we’ve stopped seeing people and instead see categories, which is easy to do online. But hope is restored when I feel my neighbors’ pain, and we join together to ease the struggles, and find solace and decency in the doing.
6
American renewal begins by voting for Democrats who will save our democracy that Republicans are bend on destroying as they sit complicit in Congress while a foreign power continues to hack our senators, power grid, elections and much more.
4
Articles that continue to naively promote (culture/community) need only focus on basic necessities for legitimate, stable society, i.e., parents and their children. People need to understand the muddled, childish social construct of 'community' has never existed, will never exist. There are neighborhoods, desirable and undesirable, depending upon who lives there, but there is no (culture). Again, time to wake up, quit pretending. There are only parents and their children..
1
@Screenwritethis
How does that work?
3
Thank you for writing about this!
3
Yeah, as someone else wrote here today: speaking of modest, inexpensive programs happening despite Trump, how's that mulit-million dollar military parade shaping up, David?
In your three plus decades of voting GOP did you ever anticipate such a marvelous display of pageantry we get to pay for instead of food for starving children down the block?
8
Back to the Brooks writing I started subscribing to. Inspiring, where family is lacking and neighbors build. Neighborhoods where stories are left untold too often.
These principles of safe spaces prevent school shootings, and radicalization. They inspire where the healing starts, nurturing seeds of self-worth that grows initiative and long-range vision.
4
The limits of volunteerism are stated plainly in this piece - "Dozens of cities have asked Thread to come to their town. Hemminger has turned them down. Thread is about Baltimore." - It's not easily scalable or transferable. How many of the volunteers in Baltimore come from the Johns Hopkins community, and how many of those are working jobs to put themselves through college? How many places can you find dozens of volunteers to work without pay?
I worked with a guy from mainland China once. Volunteerism was big in communist China. He viewed it as a form of unpaid labor. In fact there are successful volunteer/local/homegrown movements all over the world. But without funding, there are limits to what it can do. Contrary to what conservatives would have you believe, Democrats are not opposed to small local initiatives - they just want to facilitate more of them with "transfers of wealth". Contrary to what David would have you believe, conservatives have not favored local programs that work if they were funded by the Federal gov't. Remember the opposition to funding Public Television? Remember how they mocked the "Poetry festival"?
Conservative politicians cite small local programs as long as they aren't on the taxpayers dime. Democrats don't reject volunteerism, they just know it's not adequate to address issues like healthcare, for example.
David supported those who opposed the ACA. What is his solution for the voters in Maine who lack healthcare. Volunteers?
11
Beautiful column. A few years ago, I was on our school PTO. The year before a young mom had committed suicide so we decided that we, the PTO members, would think of ourselves as "ambassadors" of sorts to all the other parents. That year--and the few that followed--we had record participation in the PTO. I think we often forget the importance of schools, community centers, churches etc in driving a sense of cohesion into American lives.
Having said all this, Brooks, an appeal to broaden your thinking. The reason so many of us are Democrats are because we get tired of seeing so many people not be included under the tents. Our transgender friends, our LGBT family members, our African American boys and girls, our Muslim friends, our Hispanic families newly arrived from Guatemala---they all need inclusion, too. Further, we all have this one thing in common--we value freedom. That emphasis on those values is a gel that can also adhere communities. That is why so many of us feel so rabidly that the American dream if for all, not just the fat cats on Wall Street.
On ramps to education and increased economic output can begin through community support the sort you describe--but it must extend to affordable college tuition, livable wages, affordable health care, and housing. A lack of ANY of those things can take all the good efforts you talk about and trash them for the next generation. A depressed, hopeless person cannot shepherd their young.
5
David Brooks writes that, "These days, I spend my mornings writing depressing columns about a political culture marred by distrust and my afternoons visiting places like Thread. There is no way to repair national distrust without repairing individual relationships one by one. This is where American renewal begins." Our dispiriting national politics has led many of us to turn our attention to caring for our local communities. Thread sounds like a wonderful program, and I hope it is widely emulated. While I agree that changing Americans' ethos is necessary in order to create a more just society, I do not think that even a Herculean amount of volunteerism can offset the enormous political and economic problems besetting our country. Washington is dysfunctional and just plain corrupt. The economy grows, yet becomes more unequal. David Brooks's faith in volunteerism reminds me too much of Herbert Hoover's and George Bush's (both 41 and 43). Volunteerism is a good thing, but our mammoth political and economic problems also require political and economic remedies.
10
WOW....there's a lot for other cities to learn here....quite
a column, Mr. Brooks.
3
Sounds like your afternoons are better spent than your mornings. Good column.
3
American renewal begins when special interest preferential treatment ends.
6
You unearthed a good story here for me Mr. Brooks. I hope that this program spreads like wildfire for the young. Who knows, they may even teach some of the stubborn adults to open up a bit themselves.
2
David says: “There is no way to repair national distrust without repairing individual relationships one by one.”
This statement is completely off track. The origin of “national distrust” is wicked, selfish policies enacted by self-serving acolytes of a few deranged billionaires. The distrust it generates is distrust of Congress and the White House.
There is some animosity between individual Americans, but it would be much lessened and less important if Congress and Trump and the billionaire-funded propaganda machine were not deliberately fanning flames trying to burn the Country down while doing NOTHING about the Country’s problems.
15
David Brooks - a driving reason why I get the Times -- Thank you.
This article shows so many great things - people, commitment, program, results -- and it proves how important a network - especially a learning network -- is for students.
3
Thanks for sharing this story. With a little bit of local leadership, this kind of program can thrive anywhere. As my students can attest, I make references to "it takes a village" all the time -- and perhaps way too much. All the same -- this is a great roadmap for creating these villages that can change our communal lives. Thank you David Brooks!
2
This is a wonderful column about an inspiring effort. I am appalled by the negative comments on this column. Thank you for writing this, David. It gives me hope and inspires me. And keep up the excellent work, Sarah and Thread volunteers!
4
Renewal at grass roots spurred by failure at top. DC uses our taxes badly without any thoughtful plan for a healthy society so the good people go to work to help. Which is great; lets remember many of us in the trenches do so because as adults we will not to sit by watching kids struggle while elected leaders line their pockets, go onto lobbying gigs and take care of only themselves.
3
“There is no way to repair national distrust without repairing individual relationships one by one. This is where American renewal begins.”
But national trust wasn’t torn down one relationship at a time. It was torn down by laws that made union organizing next to impossible. By changes in tax policy that concentrated overwhelming wealth in the hands of a few. By demonizing the other through propaganda outlets and social media…
It didn’t happen one by one, and focusing solely on that aspect to repair it is simply myopic…
10
Trust requires commitment on a regular basis: you have to be there. One thing that can go wrong is when the kid you’re “mentoring” stops showing up, because he doesn’t see the value in continuing, for whatever reason; this is not unusual, almost to be expected. Find him; he’ll be surprised. And a few years on, he’ll still want to talk to you—be there.
2
At a time when Trump is about to spend $12 million on a self-aggrandizing “Trump Fest” parade - an obscene display of conservative gluttony - Brooks is touting conservative “solutions” to social problems but conveniently ignoring how conservatism, by definition, causes those problems.
“Social fragmentation and social isolation” are SYMPTOMS produced by larger systemic CAUSES. On a small, isolated level Thread may assuage the symptoms for a few, but it can’t address the fundamental causes that will continue to produce more symptoms, and many more candidates for the Thread program. It’s like trying to empty the ocean with a thimble.
Brooks ignores real causes of fragmentation and isolation that conservatism inflames like unbridled capitalism; divisive market-based education and healthcare systems; an unfair tax structure; persistent racism; and Brooks’ own Republican Party that is the antithesis of “unconditional love” with its nationalistic, militaristic, racist, religious-cult policies.
In his crusade to promote conservatism, Brooks favors efforts like Thread because they support small-government, self-reliance solutions – where individuals attempt to determine their fates on a local level. But it would take a million Thread-like organizations across the country to have a national impact.
Rather than abate social problems, conservative “solutions” exacerbate them because they insist on artificial distinctions between people, and a Darwinian view of humanity.
10
Thanks for this wonderful story. This is what makes me proud about our country. We can't rely only on a President or members of Congress to solve our problems and to make things better. We, the people, need to take control of our destiny at the individual/local level. This is the type of innovation that Congress is so inept at. This type of community action can be applied to so many issues. Come on people, lets get going and leave those that dwell in negativity and divisiveness behind !
1
@Run Wild
"let's get going and leave those that dwell in negativity and divisiveness behind !".
Yes. The bad actors and bigots of the political right will be left behind.
'Nuff said?
2
Subsidiarity in action---change starts locally and works it way up.
Sounds like it takes a village. Sigh. What could have been.
4
I respectfully disagree with Mr. Brooks' contention that organizations like Thread are the way out for America. Voting against the toxic Republican party is the way out. Period. They - and their ill-informed, mendacious supporters - are the source of every problem that plagues us today. Every. Single. Problem.
11
Do you think it would be too radical to expect their *families* to play the role of families? Or are we hoping that saving these kids with "artificial" family support will turn them into adults who will form stable and supportive families to surround their own future kids? If so, I'm all for it, but it will be a long, slow process. I'm hoping for the best.
@John
I feel that you and others, who state that the biological parents should be the ones to step up, are missing the point. If the biological parents are dysfunctional or are working multiple jobs to stay afloat, they might not have the resources and time to properly mentor their kids.
6
@Run Wild Unfortunately, some people think that's a good thing. Now that we have a winner-take-all/most society, families look at children of other families as 'the competition.' The desire to not provide help from the top down is all intentional.
1
I read all the NYT picks and was astounded. Was it really possible that 7-27-18 was the date when NYT readers would finally open-mindedly consider what David Brooks had actually written, rather than automatically attacking his every word because of their preconceived bias against him?! But alas, I then turned to the “Reader Picks”, which predictably was dominated by the “Yes, buts”.
The “Yes, buts” are the people who oh so reluctantly acknowledge the wisdom in what Brooks has written (i.e. the “Yes” part), but only when the merits are virtually undeniable, like today. Then, typically after no more than a single sentence or two of agreement, they revert back into attack mode, seemingly to rid themselves of the personal distaste of having had to be so objective and fair to Brooks (i.e. the “but” part). In reading the first few sentences of their replies you can almost feel the anguish they felt in having to write those words. It is as if they are about to explode.
Some of the “Yes, buts” barely make an attempt to conceal their contempt. Their replies are of the type “Yes, but Trump…”, as if their point was not a complete disconnect. For others, the “but” part is legitimate, pointing out that other factors (poverty, gangs, etc.) also have a significant impact upon these youths. But one cannot help notice how even they seem far more comfortable once they were able to write about things that didn’t require acknowledging the merit in what Brooks had written.
Sad, but typical
2
Ohh, another white female with long flowing locks in a sleeveless sheath (with a Tiffany box prominently displayed) bringing salvation. Thanks for the up-date. I'll mention this to the kids in "shelters" at the border.
1
Sarah and her volunteers, however imperfect they may be, are working hard to make their corner of the world a better place. I'll leave it at that.
4
What about the adults who need jobs, who are alienated from their communities, who are in despair because their lives aren't working? We help only those who appeal to us and let the rest fall into the cracks. What makes an 18 year old more worthy of help than the 45 year old who is looking for a job and can't find one? Or the mentally ill adult in need of shelter less worthy than the 16 year old who is also mentally ill? Do we or do we not value all lives in this country? Based upon my 60 years of life in America I'd say we only value the very, very rich like Donald Trump. And that's sad.
1
This is a great idea and a great program, especially as the federal government has shown a contempt and even a hostility to the needs of its citizens.
1
"I am constantly using this column to argue that social fragmentation and social isolation are the fundamental problems afflicting America today. Organizations like Thread are the best way to address them."
I'm sorry Mr. Brooks but Thread (a totally laudable and inspiring org.) is ONE way to address them. And, not really scalable, as you point out. Social fragmentation and isolation don't JUST HAPPEN. They are engineered by a society that does not prioritize those most vulnerable in our society (and, yes I'm sorry, but one cannot talk about the poor w/o talking about race; something you seem determined to ignore). As we funnel capital ever upward and away from those at risk we exacerbate isolation (which isolates the affluent as well as those left behind). When our schools fail children from low income families, when we cut their access to nutrition or ignore the violence in which they live, WE ARE DESIGNING the very ills you bemoan. Then, if we acknowledge these disparities, we are accused of fomenting "class warfare" and using "divisive identity politics". I know you'd like to pretend that these local small bore solutions offer some hope, but that is , IMO, just pseudo-compassionate neo-Randism naivety. These problems exist across the country, and not just in the "inner city", and, as stated elsewhere, require good governance.
The Titanic is sinking Mr. Brooks, and you just keep churning out out charming stories about the well intentioned shuffling of deck chairs.
.
15
Thanks for highlighting the incredible work of Thread David. I just wanted to share my experience as a volunteer with Thread which might help others understand the organization a little better (and the motivations of the volunteers).
I've lived in Baltimore for only about 3 years. Baltimore is a wonderful city, filled with people who care about improving their community. But it's also a city where communities are separated by invisible walls and real fear of the "other". I often felt frustrated by the isolation and ashamed of my fear. Thread was my way to try to connect to the rest of the community and maybe help the city in the long run. I believe that most of the volunteers who join Thread do it for a similar reason.
Me and the young person who is part of my Thread family has had a very different life paths. Trust is not something he gives easily. At times it is incredibly frustrating and upsetting. We often struggle to see things in the same light (or even in the same "language"). And yet... slowly I feel like I understand him better and can relate to him (and hopefully help) better. Slowly, he opens up and is willing to take chances... I have no idea what kind of path he will take in his life. But I know that a program like Thread gives him a far better shot at making the most of his potential and will transform me into a better person. <3 @ Thread.
4
Personally I would like to see us helping all children achieve by addressing income inequality, our broken justice system and our failing schools, rather than relying on small organizations like this who can only ever help a fraction of at risk children.
This is not, and should not be, how America renews itself.
12
This is a very inspiring piece of the American puzzle. I wish the non reflexive, apologetic Conservative card bearing Brooks would take his Pollyanna snapshot one step further and make a statement about how we got here. Had it not been for the 35+ plus years of ostracizing "welfare queens" by the Republican power elite, this situation would look a lot differently. When JFK was in office the right thing to do was to join organizations like the Peace Corp. This was and is a government program. Today the emphasis is on private corporations filling that void. The result has been the elimination of government sponsored social safety nets which has lead us to a degradation of our moral fiber as a society. It's time to shift the power dynamic to a class of people who envision a better culture. Reinstate decency, vote the party of corporate greed out.
4
Feel good story. Where is the data on evidence based methods, outcome and cost?
1
Great story and very inspiring! Thanks, David. I am bemused by many of the comments here going straight to political discourse. It's like we can't help it anymore, we just immediately put our political lenses on and go down these rabbit holes.
To me, David is so far away from all of that in this column. I don't detect any sort of political statement here. Let's try and keep our eye on the ball and discuss how to help each other at the individual level.
2
@Tom I want a government which emulates Thread objectives on a national scale. That is why I vote for Democrats in every election. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
brought us Social Security, the Works Progress Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps. All I hear from Trump and Republicans is silence.
4
This is fantastic... but I keep waiting for inspiration for those of us long isolated and lonely, older adults, what happens to us, the ones without the high IQs. I've realized with a high IQ you can save yourself, as did my father, who was in foster care most of his young life, joined the army, went to college on the GI bill, was depressed all his life, feeling unloved, but always could count on his intelligence and curiosity; he knew he could succeed at a job, support himself.
1
In the midst of our national public whiplash between economic prosperity, renewed class struggle, and political tribalism, David Brooks, James Fallows, and Tom Friedman always bring us true tales outside the spinning web of Washington.
The message is simple: Do something right, feel something real, and celebrate those who do. I don't always agree with Mr. Brooks, or any of them, but their faith in America, in the midst of their criticism of America, sets a light post for the rest of us.
Thank you,
3
What happen to David Brooks and where are you hiding him?
Seriously, his last two columns are magic, getting to the heart of attacking social ills at a micro, community level.
A much-appreciated change form prior years battling as an orthodox conservative enmeshed in the GOP.
Thank you, Mr. Brooks. Well done.
6
What?! It takes a community ("village")? Who knew?
3
It's clear that there are individuals that have taken up the task of making sure we start the process back down the road to success. Elitism, narcissism, bullying. None of those work to foster a sense of self worth in those that are disadvantaged to start with. There is no sense of hope for a lot of young people. Kudos to these wonderful people for going out there and stretching the boundaries of some of those that may have fallen by the wayside.
What a heart warming story! If only #45 and his minions, primarily the AG, were to read this; they might do some good for the country for a change, bring families together instead of tearing them up.
I'm envious. I had horrible family issues when I was in high school. I would have benefitted enormously from unconditional acceptance and love. My family is affluent. This is not just about social class.
What you describe is happening across the country. Please amplify these efforts as part of a regular column - we need to motivate and inspire others to join. And lets keep the politics that divide us as a nation out of it. This is about humanity, compassion, and justice.
2
The Thread program is effective because it is proxy for a normally functioning family. It illustrates the destructive impact of absentee dads and single mothers. Political correctness continually tries to bury this obvious truth.
An effort should be made to break the vicious circle of children born into poverty. In too many cases, the single “baby mama” with multiple children by different fathers has become an acceptable social norm. The result are generations of rudderless children who legitimately feel isolated from the mainstream.
The reproductive process is no longer a mystery. Birth control is cheap and readily available. These children are the victims of poor parental choices, not ignorance. Poverty is no excuse for stupid and cruel choices. It is a mystery why, when the damage caused is all around them, these poor choices continue to be made.
5
Mr. Brooks:
I take it that you have been inspired to start a similar program.
Your prestige would create interest and attract like minded souls. I look forward to hearing about your efforts.
3
@bemused And when he goes to Congress to pitch a similar program as federal policy, I'll pay for his train/plane. Seriously.
1
"I am constantly using this column to argue that social fragmentation and social isolation are the fundamental problems afflicting America today."
Finally, David reveals that he is a Marxist!
This sounds like a good program.
I remember a community activist who went on to become our President; Barack Obama!
2
I certainly think Sarah Hemminger is doing a great job with Thread. However Sarah’s commendable work only impacts a few dozen kids. The government should be involved in improving the socialization of the disgracefully large number of kids who live in poverty and dysfunctional families.
Thank you so much for sharing Thread. Something like this, a project that is real down to its core, is very rare right now. Or at least, it doesn't get into the MSM very often, if ever. There are people out there with ideas, intelligence, passion and leadership who are making a difference in the world. Becoming a solution instead of exacerbating a problem.
One will always find snark, mistrust and downright negativity in everything, as written in some comments. I am sorry for the writers' inability to see some positivity that still exists in our basically crappy country right now. Namaste.
Wow. I guess it really does take a village to raise children. David, wouldn't it be great if there was a politician that would someday run on the very elements in your column today? Oh, wait...
4
We all need an escape from the daily assault of really bad news.
David, your words here give me hope, dammit!
My other eye sees again "A Thousand Points of Light," the mind set by which good work gets
done by volunteers, for little or no pay. This
suits the Bush, and perhaps your patrician mentality. I am a moderate socialist. Your ideas
here suit the 1% perfectly.
I am not putting down these wonderful volunteers, but I don't want them suckered into good deeds. I hate to think or say this.
1
A rare David column sans cynicism, mean sarcasm about The Left.
Then, just as I thought we might make it, this: "The program rejects any distinction between haves and have-nots. The volunteers are not there to do social change."
On the one hand this could explain much David gets wrong about life below the top in the USA. Except so often he seems to want to get it wrong. Almost as if he likes it that way.
Anyhow, the problem here is unique in that he misses the point from two exactly opposite directions.
First, social change is not about the money, or only about the money. Except in the eyes of Brooksian Republicans, for whom everything is about, ultimately, the money.
But denying, or pretending to be unaware, of one's economic condition is like claiming to be race-blind, or blissfully gender free.
It doesn't happen. And even if it does, the person you're observing, relating to, trying to be there for, is certainly very much aware of their, and your, standing.
In this Republican age cash can't help but mean something. To hear our President, and his woeful excuse for a cabinet speak, it means damn near everything.
From a different angle, you can't do much in this country unless you heed the economic sign-posts. Its nice to have a network of friends to drive, to bring you lunch, to sit in the library and just pass the time.
But if no-one in your world has a car, or sufficient food, or a library, and if those who do are afraid to come by, its not going to happen.
2
And maybe, just maybe, if we keep volunteering, we won't have to raise taxes to ensure that these youngsters have access to good health care and excellent schools (aside from the snark, however, this does seem like a great program).
2
Hemminger's Thread is exceptional in design. Mentoring with caring and compassion, giving and building trust are values that should be the base of any relationship. Congratulations!
Like it. Kind of a follow up to "Localism" column a while back.
Retirement, isolation, and transformation. I entered the workforce at age 14. Learned the value of networking. One job turned into another. 50 Years passed. I left the workforce. At first, the social isolation seemed enjoyable. After a few months, it became a dark place. I needed to transform my retirement to include friendship. Building my own little Thread type network based on friendship and need. Between you and me I think of my network as a group of angels.
Don't kid yourself. The Hemminger's of the world have become the new Nobel Laureates.
1
Social fragmentation and social isolation are the fundamental problems afflicting America today?
I would say the fundamental problem is no will to produce worthwhile people, to have actual individuals, not to mention aim for truly great people. A child growing up in America can expect to be smashed psychologically, to be broken to place say in the military, to be pressured to conform to religion, to be psychologically manipulated constantly to consume this or that product, to have choices in life quite narrowed to replicate the pattern.
There is constant envy, jealousy, crushing of people to equality, attempts on all sides to force an individual into this or that group, to force an individual to buy or sell this or that for a living, with the consequence we seem not to have any great individuals in any area really, except for society deemed safe areas such as sports and in the celebrity world where the primary task is to pretend to be somebody great rather than actually be somebody great.
Who would you call great in the public sphere? The idea of a great President is long gone--they can't even figure out how to write a speech. No great artists, painters or even musicians anymore. No prominent and great writers, intellectuals. Just crummy, clever, educated, standardized and committee agreed upon "safe" people. I want only great people to have a hand in molding my mind. To that end, solitude, great books, great music, etc. Evidence of actual greatness in life.
3
@Daniel12
I agree with you, in paraphrasing, that the influence of American culture is exacerbating our problems. It raises the question of how and if American culture has changed. I would say it has changed, from an wholesome influences to pernicious influences. I would say we went down a slippery slope, where we neglected to maintain our original values more stringently. We allowed big business to hold sway, and lost our protections of labor. We may soon loose many of our other protections as well
1
"There is no way to repair national distrust without repairing individual relationships one by one."
I think individuals trust each other, but whole groups don't trust the system. Low wages, expensive medical care, crumbling infrastructure, bad schools, expensive housing, shady banks -- it's the system that is not trusted. It's a mistake to hide the system's inequities by placing the blame on individual relationships, that somehow everything will be fair if people get along. It takes a village, yes, but the village economic system must be fair and affordable. I would rewrite the above sentence like this: There is no way to repair national distrust without repairing a corrupt economic system that cheats and exploits individuals one by one. More socialism, less capitalism. National trust repaired.
4
@PE
Agreed. Good works on a small scale, do not necessarily translate to good works on a large scale. For the large scale we need institutional/structural changes.
2
Such a good program, thanks for sharing it. Please come to LA and check out the amazing work being done at Homeboy. Taking gang members ready to change their lives Homeboy/Homegirls focus on jobs, education and reentering society. It uses a similar model to Threads with lots of support.
The Hawthorn (Observer) Effect shows that people do better when others pay attention to them. That is likely what is happening here. Still it is a wonderful program for those lucky enough to participate.
The problems of kids who attend Dunbar High are caused by poverty. Helping 400 some kids is laudable, but not scalable. For the right, helping a few hundred people with programs like Thread is so much more preferable than an economic system that empowers labor over capital which would help millions.
5
Oh my . . . there he goes again.
While David writes with tears in his eyes about yet another heartwarming example of a thousand points of life, Betsy DeVos and her perverse boss dismantle public education and put the social safety net in a blender.
Yes, "Thread" seems like a lovely way to help a few kids in an increasingly hostile country, but a few threads do not make a social fabric.
Brooks falls too easily for the sentimental anecdote rather than for movements seeking systemic justice.
He writes: "There is no way to repair national distrust without repairing individual relationships one by one. This is where American renewal begins."
No, David. These cathartic love stories fuel the narrative that sustains a brutal plutocracy. A few dew drops cannot heal the parched wasteland Republicans have created.
16
@Barking Doggerel Woof! Woof! Bravo to your overall sentiment and final sentence in particular.
2
So, Mr. Brooks, are you saying it 'takes a village'?
6
Sounds like a heroic effort by Ms. Hemminger. She and all her volunteers deserve praise. But a few omissions in the article stand out to me. What role do the children's parents and other family members play in the program and how do they react to strangers intervening in their children's lives so intimately? Do they feel judged for their parenting or economic failures? Is any material or emotional support provided to the parents? Conservatives are quick to condemn any government program that usurps the authority of parents or relieves them of responsibility for meeting their childrens' needs. Witness the conservative push to require parents to work outside the home to get Medicaid and food stamps for their children's healthcare and nutrition. Finally, I cannot forget or forgive how conservatives lambasted Hillary Clinton for her book, "It Takes a Village," to raise a child.
5
Very inspiring, but it may be hard to duplicate.
What about using web-based ideas to motivate all students?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
For example, there are organizations that focus on student motivation. One is Mindset Works: www.MindsetWorks.com
Another, focusing on resilience is: Why Try: www.WhyTry.org
The cost is low, and there are free motivational ideas on YouTube.
My own idea is to encourage students to help other students learn.
I call it the "Golden Rule for Schools" (teach to motivate learning).
www.SavingSchools.org
1
In my first comment, I quoted from the 7/25 front page of my Swedish newspaper, DN, noting that Brooks' column will soon appear in DN in Swedish. I note with Socrates that volunteer progra are simply no substitute for public policy.
To drive that point home, I reference a picture on the front page of DN (7/27) dealing with the story covered 7/20 in the Times, headline ‘I’m Doing It for the Babies’: Inside the Ground Game to Reverse Roe v. Wade”.
Under the NYT headline is a small picture with caption: “Sandy Burton knocked on the door of a home in suburban Indiana while canvassing for the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion political group.” On the back of Burton’s blue T shirt in print too small to read without magnification are the words “I’m pro life” meaning we want to end provision of reproduction information, birth control, and abortion in Indiana – and all America.
A far more effective picture would be the DN picture showing how serious the movement is. The DN picture is a close up of three young women in Indianapolis, marching toward us while holding high posters with these words: 1) Yo soy la GENERACION PRO-VIDA studentsforlife.org, 2) DEFUND PLANNED PARENTHOOD, 3) I AM THE PRO-LIFE GENERATION.
Against the power for change represented by these young women, the Republican Party, and the president, all the volunteer programs in America will be as nothing.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
Indeed, the destruction of trust in each other, and the trust in our democratic institutions, is the worst 'sin' that brutus ignoramus Trump is inflicting on us. But in a time of crisis of values and the trampling of the truth and it's beauty, a resurgence of hope may be in the works, where participation and contribution in a cooperative environment, as opposed to dumb competition, is afloat. It's about time.
This seems like a very sound program, building families out of loose and nearly helpless individuals.
Why would you call this "renewal," rather than "building"?Must you really push the Trump, anti-American, line that America has somhow been run into ruin just lately?
America was run off the road, but that was in 2008. That was not just lately. Renewal went on for the subsequent two Administrations, and this Thread effort seems to be contining that sound weave.
1
Can any of you nay sayers say something, anything positive? Like, thank you for helping a handful of outcast feel worthy.
1
Great article. I needed to read something positive today. Lately the news has been so depressing and dark. There are good people out there finding solutions to social problems. It’s inspiring. We need more goodness and light in this world. Thank you.
3
Very inspiring column. Hang in there, David!
4
The idea that America can be renewed by small programs full of humanity and love is a nice thought. But this ignores the facts.
The volunteers come to the program knowing that the kids they'll be helping are human beings and deserving of love and support to make their way through a challenging world.
These days sadly, far too many Americans (mostly identifying as Republicans or Conservatives Mr. Brooks, whether you admit this or not) would look at these kids and sneer in disgust, tell them they are irretrievably broken, worthless, undeserving of anything including basics like food and shelter and then further denigrate them by suggesting that America will only succeed without them.
In other words, this program will prove its worth to the people who already believe in the American New Deal of FDR and the social policies of LBJ and will forever be seen as welfare and waste to the deaf and blind MAGA foot soldiers.
5
Programs like thread show that there are still "good" Americans who care about their community and others. At a time when our president and so many in congress and our state houses seem to care only about themselves and their petty concerns, we need to be reminded that there is another America, where people honestly care about the welfare of others. Thank you Baltimore.
See: RevolutionOfReason.com
4
Mr. Brooks, thanks for reporting on something which highlights the best in our country. Balm for the soul!
2
To summarize: No health care, no savings, and working 3 part time jobs would all OK if we went to church more.
4
The focus on mutual distrust is misleading. Say a woman distrusts her husband because he constantly lies, while the husband distrusts his wife because his pals at work tell him she is not trustworthy (but their opinions have no basis in fact). So do we just say how sad it is they distrust each other? We have "a political culture marred by distrust," correct, but the most important thing about it is that one side's distrust is warranted and the other side's is not. The problem isn't distrust; the problem is ignorance and dishonesty. For example, people who distrust the NYT and trust the President are victims of their own ignorance and the dishonesty of those who malign the NYT.
2
This is powerful and a model worth replicating. Children from urban poverty stricken areas where crime, drugs and broken homes are the norm have as their first priority daily survival and little interest in education. Surrounding them with a caring support system such as "Thread" is a huge and needed investment.
1
David’s despair that government is broken beyond repair is leading him to search for meaningful action within the grasp of individuals, outside of government.
Perhaps a more fruitful approach would be to lay bare the treachery and venality of the GOP Congress people in factual terms that defy denial? Maybe Mitch and Paul are the easy targets, given to speeches mind boggling in their distortions and lying reconstructions, but there are dozens of others whose re-election could be jeopardized by a cogent Brooks analysis.
6
Oh Goody- a great program to help a few kids while the tax hating republicans let almost all school kids, and now increasingly university campuses starve for funds. Who will pay for fixing the infrastructure that ALL schoolkids around the country need to go to safe, clean, diseases free schools that will help them learn instead of being exposed to lead and asbestos. yet another column that allows Brooks to feel good while not acknowledging some of the serious political issues in this country. We are really a collective and the more we as a full society pull together the better for all, not individual groups with small reach.
5
What Thread is doing is commendable and appears to be getting positive results. As Hillary Clinton was fond of saying and frequently mocked for it "It takes a village to raise a child". Now if our government could see its way to that line of thinking we may just save our democracy.
7
May I suggest that after Mr. Brooks spends an afternoon visiting a place like Thread for his feel good fix, he plans to spend each following day visiting with a different member of the Freedom Caucus. There, after sharing a kumbaya Thread-type moment, perhaps he can delve into matters such as campaign finance reform, gerrymandering, voter suppression and the gun violence tearing at what passes for the fabric of inner cities like Baltimore and Chicago.
7
Sounds nice. Any evidence it actually works?
Truly, it takes a village. Bravo to Sarah and to so many others who work through organizations or on their own to support and build healthy communities. This is all about heart and the actions of the heart in the world.
2
Wow. Read all the posts. I guess it's just hard for most people to just be glad that this works and works well and is achieving results to boot. Think of the work and dedication it took for her to start this program. I'm glad they are helping Baltimore and staying there to continue this work instead of diluting it. Thanks David. We could use the good stories like this one.
3
"I am constantly using this column to argue that social fragmentation and social isolation are the fundamental problems afflicting America today. Organizations like Thread are the best way to address them."
Hmmm, usually it is that we have "lost" religion, and that loss is the root of our social and national problems.
In this case, religion appears to have been the problem and nowhere to be seen as the solution.
It is a multifactorial problem with a multitude of "solutions". In this particular situation, I agree that it is a good solution.
1
NIce piece David, and it is in line with your other pieces about community and personal connectedness. And it of course is a parable of sorts on the usefulness of NGO's which can only work better when they have the support of the government. Americorp is one such governmental organization that has helped many. And if you read its oath it reads a lot like what you are writing.
I will get things done for America - to make our people safer, smarter, and healthier.
I will bring Americans together to strengthen our communities.
Faced with apathy, I will take action.
Faced with conflict, I will seek common ground.
Faced with adversity, I will persevere.
I will carry this commitment with me this year and beyond.
I am an AmeriCorps member, and I will get things done.
Now if only if our elected representatives would take such an oath.
3
The neighborhood around Dunbar High School in Baltimore, Maryland may see "Thread" as a novel approach to educate the isolated child and address the fundamental problems of social fragmentation that afflict urban minorities. Recall the work of General Samuel C. Armstrong and Booker T. Washington, the founders, respectively, of Hampton Institute and Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. Booker T. Washington wrote, "The older I grow, the more I am convinced there is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women." Thread exists in this American tradition, just as, General S. C. Armstrong inspired and guided Booker T. Washington. But, there is a cautionary tale to this story. W. E. B. Du Bois promoted the "Talented Tenth", educating the best and brightest of the ex-slaves and their children only to be discouraged later in life that the majority of ex-slaves did not experience community improvements. He left America for Ghana. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cornel West, in their book, "The Future of the Race" , note the "Talented Tenth" even today tends generally to split in three ways, the conservatives joining the political right leaving the poor behind, the progressive men urging the poor to enter self help programs, and the women keep hope alive for inclusion into the national democracy. This is the challenge for "Thread", to include more than the "Talented Tenth".
Mr. Brooks,
You are not the first to speak about the benefits of inclusion and empowerment. Unfortunately, liberalism is an exclusive ideology that rests on an unjustified and empirically unsupported assumption of ontological priority of the individual. I also do not need to remind you that this elitist ideology was created by white Europeans. Unsurprisingly, this ideology underpins the elitist social practice that also excludes and disempowers even when it offers privileges to some selected categories of citizens: privileges empower only those who give them. Exclusion and domination are practiced widely in our society. Small groups like Thread can hardly change this practice when even the paper for which you write practices exclusion.
@Gennady
Huh? Trying to argue to not try at all. That's the ticket. By doing nothing you get nothing. By injecting sources (white), class conflicts, throw a few words in like elitist this & that ,you have entered the world of do nothing's & anarchists. Tear it all down & lets see if it gets better. Take a look around you,we all need each other's help. We are a global village. We are a planet full of characters,not some factory turning out Sony robots. We have so little time left with populations about to overwhelm us & the planets capability to sustain us.
2
What is so heartening about a program such as Thread is it's sense of the value of each child. It allows us to imagine what it would be like if our society was a net of such mutual concern extending beyond the bounds of ethnicity, race, and class. The painful thing is that you had to search for a program such as this, that it is so rare. In fact we look out at a nation where the boundaries of ethnicity, race and class are being re-enforced on a daily basis. Churches extend their concern primarily to those who hold their doctrines. Activist media, talk radio and the so-called "Intellectual Dark Web" press the idea that only those who see biological differences between persons are honest and edgy while the rest of us are "politically correct" subordinates. And over all of this we have a president whose brand is based on relentless cruelty. I wish the very best for Thread and hope programs such as this grow elsewhere but I fear that we read feel good stories just so we can ignore the fact that are very large portion of Americans make the dehumanization of an "other" a central part of their identity. With every column I await Mr. Brooks statement that the party of Lincoln and TR, a party that played a major role in regards to civil rights and the protection of our environment has been taking over by an apparatus of hate and that he has left it. Maybe one David Brooks making this statement wont save our society or are Republic but just like Threads, every step can help.
2
This program, like so many others, resulted from Individual initiative. These folks saw a problem and tried to correct it. Well done!
Unfortunately, many New York Times readers use the success of these individual initiatives, like Thread, as proof that we need more government programs. Good things can happen through individual initiative. We do not always need government bureaucracies. In fact, one could argue that bureaucracies stifle individual initiative, not help it.
I work in an inner-city school, where building trust is our first priority, being there for students and showing that persistence the David mentions. Thread is great, for Baltimore, no doubt. But if it can’t be exported to other cities, how can it be built elsewhere? It also illustrates the great divide in social welfare that centuries of hegemony has wrought, leading to stealing migrant children from their families. We need more programs like this, but there certainly isn’t the political nor grassroots will to care about making the changes necessary to bring them on.
2
I'm glad for Baltimore, but this city has plenty of human resources to energize the Thread effort. How can this model work in small communities, where a lot of people are out of work, under- or poorly educated, low income, possibly drug-addicted, especially when the communities are isolated by miles and time from any place that is substantially better off? To what charities and foundations, most of which have their eyes on urban problems, can these small communities appeal? Where are the financially/emotionally/educationally strong mentors who will save rural children from a life of underachievement? Congrats to Baltimore, but someone needs to be thinking about the people left behind.
5
A wonderful program. And Mr. Brooks is to be applauded for his endearing hope. However, when corporations don’t feel it is worthwhile to pay living wages, it is a real and concrete issue. (In fact, the lack of foresight is pretty unbelievable. They are taking away their own customers. Do you think the top 10% shop at Sears? Or JC Penney?)
And when we are ruled by a corrupt and criminal government that is intent on making sure the gap between the top 10% and the rest grows, it is a real and concrete issue.
But kudos to the program described. It will make a difference in the individual lives.
8
Sure, it's a great program and there are many more like this one out there doing good things.
But does this solve the permanent fiscal disaster caused by Reagan who ran up the deficit crowding out social spending on any large scale? When G.W. Bush announced his "thousand points of light" I'd bet he meant programs just like this. Programs that some will get to participate in, but not, God forbid, the huddling masses out there working for just over 7 bucks an hour and praying daily they make it through the day without a gunshot wound or another personal healthcare crisis.
Rome is sinking/collapsing/impaling and David Brooks pushed the lever every time to make it happen .
10
Excellent example of America's moral failure.
There is nothing surprising about Thread. We know that individuals need support - especially ones who are failing. Psychology, sociology, economics, and education research confirm that given daily support most people do well. Parents know this.
What we have in America is a lack of structural support. We don't adequately fund education, health care, counseling, community programs, job training, etc. What we DO fund is policing, courts, prisons, military, corporations, and rich people. And that doesn't help the people who need help.
America's support for it's own people constantly rank low in comparison to other industrialized countries. We simply refuse to help others who need it. Just look at our legislation, policies, and budgets.
David is good about calling our attention to morality. This is a great example. Until Americans change their values their people will suffer.
17
@cheddarcheese, nothing about these programs alters the fact that the US treats people as raw material to be exploited by corporations. Reality bites when their participants discover the real USA.
5
Any program which genuinely helps to improve the mental and/or social health of the community is something to highlight and celebrate. It sounds to me like Threads is another case of "the social cure" that Tina Rosenberg talks about in her book "Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World".
Yes, there is a question of how to scale it up, but just because it's being run on a small-scale now is no reason to dismiss it as irrelevant. Every successful new venture starts small, then expands when it has developed the expertise and knowledge about what works and what doesn't.
5
Beautiful article about how we should be, for and with each other.
5
It is wonderful that Thread is helping so many in Baltimore where family and schools are unable to help. But this brings me a bit off topic to a question I often think about: Why are American public schools primarily funded at the local level? Why not at the federal level so that every school can have the same amount of funding per student?
Local funding guarantees extremes of inequality in our schools: enclaves of excellent schools where there is concentrated wealth and poorly funded, failing schools for the poor. Why do we do this?
14
@jockofthesnowveld, every country that is serious about maintaining an educated public funds education with broad-based taxation and supervises the whole system nationally.
3
@jockofthesnowveld.... "Why are American public schools primarily funded at the local level? Why not at the federal level so that every school can have the same amount of funding per student?"....If you investigate I think you will find that many states do equalize funding for their various school districts. I would also add that equalization of funding should not be a goal in itself. In many cases for example inner city schools have students who are less well prepared to learn and therefore teaching them, for equal learning, requires greater funding than school districts with better prepared students.
2
Until I first read about Thread, my usual way of helping kids involved paying for my school-age relatives to visit an amusement park or writing a check to the YMCA. Thread inspired me to become intensely involved in the lives of my great nieces, nephews and cousins. I'm the "school parent" for whatever is needed--field trip chaperone, academic or disciplinary intervention, enhancement programs. Other family members pitch in when asked and now we've created our own family-styled "Thread." We experience stress and disappointment, but also success. David Brooks's article reminded me never to be discouraged. Helping kids is a long-haul proposition and I get as much love and growth from our relationships as they do.
7
@shelia.d.harvey, the payoff for programs like this is so far into the future that its discounted present value is too small to attract private investment. That is why these programs have to be funded by an entity that will be still around by the time those who have benefitted from them start to pay taxes.
2
What a wonderful example of altruism and service to one's community. And even more wonderful would be some public policy initiatives to go along with the private ones.
7
David Brooks thinks he has solved the hen-and-egg problem: “There is no way to repair national distrust without repairing individual relationships one by one.”
My understanding of Brook’s statement is that we must begin with individual repair, and national distrust will be cured in due course. Unfortunately, the national distrust born of insincere and even deliberately destructive policies does harm on a huge scale making “individual repair” a tiny step, almost Quixotic.
8
@John Brews ..✅✅
"we must begin with individual repair"
This is not either/or; It's both/and. Brooks does plenty of macro-analysis, but it's hard to do both at the same time.
Often when David Brooks talks about community it seems like nostalgia, but what Thread is doing is not really retro. I was the second of eight children in a rather poor family. First of all I want to say that my parents fought every day to keep our family's heads above water, and they succeeded. But people in my community also supported my family in ways that seemed casual but were anything but. Without the interest and enrichment that teachers and staff at my elementary school offered me I would never have been able to go to college. Churches also played a role in our family's success as did my fathers Union at GE. We are more isolated these days and some of that is because of technology, some from the demise of the importance of social institutions. Thread is not a group that arose out of those old institutions. It is a new thing. I love this story and hope to see this spread.
16
Young people find themselves isolated far more today then in previous generations. The digital world is a main player. Two working parents, or one parent families, long commutes all eat up valuable hours of communication with children. Perhaps it started with the frozen TV dinner, that put the television in the place of table conversation. My (apparent) mom at home, 1950s affluent life was anything but nurturing. Most of my friend's homes weren't televised family perfect either.
However we got here, we will not find our way to a (probably mythical) perfect, support your children lifestyle. It has always taken a village to raise the children of the village. It is the village that has disintegrated.
Thread is a template for that support. It works in Baltimore, but every "village" has its own structure. Every village has a Sarah Hemminger. We need to find them and support them and celebrate them and promote their works. For this, the digital world might actually prove to be helpful.
5
Thanks for the article, Mr. Brooks. The effort is motivational and the application is practical. The awareness that those providing the service are transformed...well...and glad that was included in the piece.
6
No one should criticize volunteer efforts -- particularly seemingly successful ones -- to improve the lives of children. The Baltimore volunteers deserve our praise. But I will sound a cautionary note.
Time and again we have seen the life performance of children born into poor circumstances improved through swaddling them in social services and external support. In this particular case, volunteers specifically seek to provide the support a child typically would receive from a well-functioning family. The policy trap is when politicians observe the success of these programs and then seek to scale them up into universal social programs, complete with paid employees and a government bureaucracy.
Can we truly thrive as a society when increasing numbers of our citizens abdicate the responsibilities of parenthood, fully expecting that government will pick up the slack? The answer -- after 50 years of the Great Society -- appears to be NO! The Great Society has not cured poverty; it simply manages it through government spending, while cultivating a culture of entitlement and dependency. This behavior is dividing us as a nation and sapping our economic vitality.
I would feel better about this program if it was encouraging and helping families to meet their obligations to the children they create rather than simply stepping in to fill the void.
4
@AR Clayboy Outstanding comment--with the added comment that the simple, "conservative" need for birth control (population control) would obviate many of these problems altogether.
1
@AR Clayboy
Why should a good and successful individual program be criticized for not achieving the ultimate perfect governmental policy? And why is the fact that they are concentrating on the victims of a broken home rather than the broken home an error in judgement? Isn't a good deed enough even if it does not solve all problems everywhere?They are setting a goal and working to achieve it. In my book that should be commendable in itself.
1
@AR Clayboy Yes that would be nice, but is a rather simplistic hope, no? Perhaps these volunteers will break the cycle of poor parenting under what are probably very difficult life circumstances. If efforts like these work, then hopefully these kids will have a better future than their own parents had and can raise their children differently. Breaking the chain is the key and it's awfully hard to do. I would love to see program like this replicated and that's what good government can do. The challenge is can the government do this with the bureaucracy and lack of funding it would contend with? Doubtful.
2
I live in the affluent North Baltimore white society where Thread has taken root. It’s the talk of the town. And it’s patently ridiculous.
Baltimore has problems—deep and wide. Our schools are failing, job prospects for the working population are dire, and addiction is rampant.
Baltimore has 80,592 kids attending public schools. Thread is trying to mentor these kids at a ratio of 2:1 to 4:1. The total city population is ~610,000. The obvious mathematical truth is that, as lovely as the Thread concept might feel, there is zero chance that it can scale to anything resembling a solution.
My quarter century in Baltimore has taught me that the city is broken. A century of racist housing and educational policy have ring-fenced Maryland’s most pressing problems into a powerless Baltimore, and left to rot. The solutions are going to have to come from Washington and Annapolis with large amounts of cash and commitment to justice.
Feel good volunteer solutions on a tiny scale cannot reverse enormous and historic societal failures.
16
@Forza Minardi How about birth control--the simplest, most effective, permanent solution to over-population, poverty, and irresponsible production of more humans into an already over-crowded, unsustainable city, state, nation and world? The opposite of what modern religions and the party in power promote.
1
Seems a valuable community organization. We await with bated breath its assault and destruction by the religious right.
6
Thread is a heart warming volunteer group that is a small scale utopian success. Government is a large scale effort for the real world. And we have failed at it miserably because we let the barbarians destroy it.
5
@Dissatisfied
Maybe the small, personal scale is the key to their success.
And maybe so many government programs disappoint or fail because that personal touch and commitment is impossible to replicate on a large or universal scale. Government programs are blunt instruments—which have their uses—but what Thread does is probably not one of them.
3
Great Story. It's time for people to reach out to one another and make a difference instead of speaking in rhetoric about problems that they are outraged about, yet do little to solve them. How many Climate Change screamers own an SUV ? How many income inequality campaigners own mansions way too big for their family ? The politics of today have become finger pointing exercises and little else. He said she said is good for CNN, FOX, and MSNBC the rest of us live in the real world. Lets keep it in mind.
2
There is a similar program in Austin called Breakthrough that is aimed at creating first generation college graduates and seeing them through the process from 7th grade through college graduation. http://breakthroughctx.org.
As it happens, volunteers will be doing practice college interviews with rising 12th graders this afternoon.
1
What happens when ICE agents come to the door to rip apart a family of one of the kids and the rest of the community out of love, concern and deep connection mobilzes and stands in front of the door. Where would David be? Now if they shouted Abolish Ice would he then think things have gotten out of hand.
3
If Brooks' Republican allies hadn't gutted social programs and given tax cuts to Brooks' favorite people, mostly thieves bilking the populace, Hemminger would be focused on neurobiology research.
8
Capitalism breeds social isolation, in that a vast majority of workers suddenly have to move to remain employed. This was known 100 years ago, yet Broke promotes the idea of community, while espousing raw capitalism at the same time, shredding the social safety net, against the ACA, Brooks is a poor advocate for practical remediation.
4
Excellent reporting, and even good sociology. Too bad it seems to be prompting a bunch of ideological reaction.
4
Great program. but a drop in the bucket.
Once gain, Mr Brooks wastes his column illustrating a shining example of what could be.............in Shangri La.
Get Real Mr Brooks. Those so well cared for 400 kids are way fewer than the kids still separated from their parents by Trumps attempts to repatriate immigrants by breaking apart their families.
Ask almost any church going Trump supporter and they will say "well they shouldn't come here, then" Religion in the USA remains the bastion of segregation. A citadel to racism.
Faith based initiatives are all about self help to the exclusion of others or an evangelical ploy to convert sinners for their tithes.
6
What conservatives leave out of this narrative are the capitalistic and political forces that have ripped communities apart. Decades worth of racists housing and employment practices along with economic policies that shifted wealth to the 1% have decimated the social fabrics of many urban communities. Yes, I absolutely applaud the volunteers described in this article, but, these efforts are a drop in a very large bucket that requires large scale governmental infusions of money and laws that will provide the capital to bring back the social capital in these communities.
1
@ACJ. Better to light one little candle than to curse the darkness.
1
One of the takeaways, don't live in Indiana.
1
It does take a healthy village to raise a healthy child. It takes a healthy leader to envision and support a healthy country. The U S has so much negativity and anger at this time, fueled by partisan politics, that it is hard to see anything clearly. Hopefully this cancer like disfunction will work its way toward clarity eventually. Media disinformation is feeding this disfunction and it is also hard to see where truth lies and what direction is up. It is important to realize that reality and truth are what keep us sane and help us to function normally, and for all to strive to keep heads above water in the deep morass of disinformation and avoid being sucked in. Learn how to think critically.
3
The world's greatest Friday opinion columnist delivers
another upbeat morsel to put us all in a good mood for the weekend!
Trump, Shmump, this is how you remake a nation! It's easy!
It sounds like Mr. Brooks might be looking to ditch his gig to become a community organizer and after that, who knows?
President Brooks, perhaps?
A country could do worse.
1
It must come from local communities. There is no doubt to me. As a naturalized US citizen originally from Asia, I could easily see the nakedness of liberalism. Most liberals are merely NIMBYISTS. Using affirmative action as an example, elite schools were so fake when they announced that they wanted to be more diversified for their student pools. In essence, they want to keep their legacy program but take in less Asian students. I have been calling this phenomenon the "zoo experience". Elites want more diversities to benefit their kids. They are not going to give up their seats. Their moral highground is built on others' dead bodies. BTW, of course segregation is happening in this country. It is by zip code now. I merely pointed out the fact. To make America great again, we must stop liberals' nonsense. We must go back to basics/communities. Job creation, community re-rebuildimg and social welfare will only work at the community level.
To me, so many things happening in this country make no sense. I suggested building community call centers, community farms, community daycares, etc. Government should subsidize all these but not giving money directly to individuals. To get government supports, people must be part of the community efforts. Finally, NYT is definitely not innocent. The NYT echo chamber must be transformed. NYT must take the lead role to make America great again. It's time to expose the nakedness of liberalism.
2
After all is said and done, Mr. Brooks is still a republican. Not un-American like Tea Party zealots, or whimpy cowardly, toady's like the rest of congress, but a republican nevertheless. I applaud this woman who is sacrificing to help those less fortunate make it through life, while the republican party is hell bent on helping only the wealthy and large corporations, along with themselves, destroying democracy in the process. Inspiring story's like this are a nice respite to the everyday idiocy and lies coming out of the white house and congress.
11
Remarkable. Uplifting. Beautiful. Thanks to all who weave whether through Thread of other organizations. Thanks to David Brooks for bringing it to our attention
4
What's notable about Thread is that it's a social service program that recreates relationships that should have been there to start, but aren't. It's not cheap or easy to run, and it takes enormous commitment from volunteers. I think it's excellent, of course. (And I'd add that almost all programs for young people are based in carefully considered, authentic relationships with youth and program workers, so the concept isn't new.) But the decimation through poverty, drugs and incarceration of the natural community and its families is obviously what we need to be addressing.
7
Not just drugs. The “War on Drugs.”
1
Yes, David, I know, we're all bowling alone, and that isn't good for anybody.
But it's much easier to fight isolation and engage in community building when the day to day aspects of survival are taken care of. Think of the Maslowian hierarchy of needs--our needs for affiliation and meaning and generativity come after our needs for food, shelter, safety, and health are met.
It's telling that a program such as Thread could only be started by those who had gotten to the point that most of those basic needs were no longer in question. People wondering where their next meal is coming from, ducking down from windows so they don't get hit by stray bullets, furtively avoiding any interaction with the local police because they fear violence from them as much as from the local gangs, are not likely to set up such programs.
I'm sure Thread is wonderful, but it can't do a tenth as much as a true new New Deal/War on Poverty/Civil Rights Act could.
12
Thread's work is inspiring and much needed. Thanks to David Brooks for bringing this program to everyone's attention. It is nice to read about a beacon of hope for once. No one is saying or believes that Thread's work is a panacea and the only path to renewal, and that is ok. We need a lot of different solutions in many different forms and this is one of them. What doesn't help renewal is when folks immediately try to read some sort of paranoia and implied politics into a very straightforward article like this.
3
Thank you, Mr. Brooks. It is very uplifting and refreshing to read a banner opinion of hope.
4
I’m not sure this will lead to broad American “renewal.” What it will do is build a sense of broad compassion in the families and communities touched by Thread. That is clearly remarkable.
5
Charm City, aka Baltimore, is an example of an incubator for good programs designed to lift people, esp kids, up from dead end lives. My son works for Digital Harbor Foundation, which teaches city kids tech skills and boosts confidence through maker challenges and opportunities. But the comments below pertaining to the gutting of public education funds because of political pandering to special interests— read religious and nationalistic interests—have it right. Private initiatives like Thread and Digital Harbor are bandaids for a hemorrhage of trust and commitment to our public institutions and government. More broadly speaking, we get what we pay for, and those who flex political power to enrich their own coffers at the expense of the greater good will find the foundations of our society crumbling beneath them. This is where revolutions are born.
12
"Unconditional love" is the founding principles of "family" and over the last 50 years due to social engineering we lost our "family" why? Time had come to look deep into the principles we followed to guide this country - principles that were based on wrong understanding of human race. Human is not a bundle of frontal cortex circuits that is trying to use reason to satisfy its "selfish genes", it is more than that. Emerson, Whitman and Throe told Americans that unrestricted materialism is not the path - a balance of reason, emotions and soul is the human life. Do not use American Exceptionalism to get mastery on only material - know your emotions and your spirit. We travelled long way on path of ""pure materialism" and "pure individualism" - our families are destroyed. Good sign is sensible educated class started realizing this damage and trying to correct the course in their life. Thread is the effort to extend that effort to the community,but it is not the solution. The social engineering policies have to change - social policies should be based on "family" as unit, not individual as unit. All federal programs to be changed for family - social security, healthcare, food stamp, housing. There must be visible effort that we adore our family not individual.
1
Social Work, as it used to be before it became a vehicle for gate keepers who with a multitude of forms to be completed allocate a shortage of benefits in health care and human services to desperate people, was a wonderful profession. Thread seems to have rediscovered its rewards.
While lonely, isolated children need a village of caring people, one must ask why their family and friends do not fill those roles. At least part of the answer to that painful question is a matter of public policy, from wages that make it impossible to support a young family, to family planning itself, to accessible health care and decent affordable housing to paid vacations and jobs with a future and to a fairer distribution of the wealth of a nation that has so much for so few.
There will always be a need for the kind of social work that Thread is performing. However, it will never be able to replace the need for social justice and a government determined to insure the welfare of all the people.
9
I really appreciate David Brooks' efforts to find and share these kinds of efforts. Despite being a lifelong news junkie, I've had to tune out lately and I'm much more conscious of how relentlessly negative news coverage is, even when reporting on non-political events. Our time and attention are the most valuable things each of us has, and we should allocate them carefully. This column has been helping me do that, for which I'm grateful.
12
Thank you, Mr Brooks, for this truly amazing reminder of the magical powers of unrequited love. This is a wonderful story of something wonderful That Works! It should remind us of that hidden Good Part of ourselves that’s as much a part of us as the Current Wave of the Bad Parts that are showing their vile-ness!
God Bless Thread!
11
So I guess i does take a village... who knew. Any I am sorrys to Hillary?
32
Good job, David Brooks! Tell us more.....
4
When my iPad’s keyboard came up “Trump” was the first suggested word. It is great the NYT conservative opinion columnist chose something less inflammatory and embarrassing to write about. When the disfunctional Republican Congress and erratic Republican president are dismantling the world order or at best avoiding dealing with the nation’s problems, it is comforting Mr. Brooks avoids these depressing issues. Thankfully Trump doesn’t read or he’d be after these people, too.
7
Gee, that sounds quite a lot like what I do for my high school students. Thread gets a column in the New York Times and I get my union taken away (because everyone resents that I live large on $42,000 a year).
If only someone would write puff pieces for union locals.
71
with any recent column i read of your's david i become more convinced that you are the social conscience of the times staff....thank you for your investigation....your digging....for your wonderful writing skills and for your empathy and concern for this country.....and even though you might have had republican leanings in the past, i now look at you as being a liberal in the best sense of the term and knowing how we must fight again trumpism and not allow our nation to be ripped apart by his ridiculous and harmful rhetoric and policies...thank you so much
4
Put them to all to work. Back breaking, callous causing, sweat inducing labor. And feed them three squares a day. That will get 'em right.
1
@Told you so should be happy to know that this strategy is rigorously approved and employed today - Witness the nation's prisons which boast the highest incarceration rates among first world nations. But as one alternative, why have not conservatives demanded bringing back (and massively funding) FDR's fabled CCC - the Civilian Conservation Corps?
It takes a village.
3
I can't help thinking about how so many on the right snickered or were outraged by Hillary's "It takes a village."
23
Wasn’t this the whole idea behind Hillary Clinton's "It Takes a Village"?
19
beautiful column, thanks
3
As with most, Brooks has become such an intellectual coward that, no matter what, he is going to find "American renewal". He knows the end before he begins.
Have some courage and recognize the hard fact that America is dead.
#calexit
4
We have to start somewhere. Is a Thread America in our future? Just having read about the Freedom Caucus (a group made up of elected officials) and a Republican Party hell bent of tearing apart Democracy, one realizes there is a long road ahead.
Let's start in November. It will be a difficult task to return enough Democrats to Congress to get back some control, but Americans can step up.
Then we can start thinking about Thread America.
4
You’re in quite a pickle, David; your erstwhile political allies have all lost their minds, but you can’t bring yourself to make common cause with Democrats. So now you pen column after column trying to convince us (and yourself?) that politics don’t matter and the path to a better life for all Americans is private charity. A thousand points of light...
Yeah, well, we’ve heard it all before. A thousand blasts of hot air. Private charity is all well and good, but a better way to guide the kids if inner Baltimore to a better future is to adequately fund the public schools that teach them, the medical care that keeps them out of hospital and assists them to reach adulthood free of hypertension, diabetes, HIV and early pregnancy and to reform the criminal justice system that locks up far to many of them for the crime of being born black. All of this requires politics. You can’t get away from it, D. Are you with us, or are you just sucking wind?
195
Please stop pretending like everything will be ok.
Conservatives have spent the last 40 years trying to drown our institutions in a bathtub.
Your Pollyanna columns are too little, too late.
The social fabric in this country has already unraveled. One feel-good story isn't going to change that.
34
These are the types of programs that DeVoss and Dept of Education should be promoting and expanding. Instead DeVoss is promoting charter schools, most of which are failures and waste public school finding, and private school vouchers to mostly white suburban schools. If there were no primary or secondary private schools think about how much better our underfunded public schools would be. That would be something in a real democracy. We can only hope.
3
I enjoy hearing about Mr. Brooks’ findings of programs and individuals who succeed in making a difference in their locality. And others are writing of similar efforts, and I am pleased to see it.
Locally, there are various individual and small group efforts to heal our community’s social and economic ills, and they are encouraging. Consistent leadership seems to be helping our city schools improve. Redeveloping old city buildings into attractive housing breeds economic growth into what. Has been for decades a decaying city. Small business is slowly returning to the area even a large manufacturers have left.
But I find myself envisioning this as a race between slowly growing local solutions and large, societally sized problems that continue to swallow up more and more. And I can’t tell which side is gaining ground.
And it troubles me - can we find enough impactful solutions that can overcome our problems before they overcome us?
One thing is for sure: we cannot, if all we are going to do is shoot the messengers of news, ideas and proposed solutions that do not align with our own narrow points of view. If all we can do is shout, we will forget how to listen, and we will miss real answers.
2
Not to detract from the work of genuine practioners of democracy, would that David Brooks provided a context for readers in which “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” is the norm. Imagine what we could accomplish if we shed our distrust and embraced faith in each other. Trump has provided a sample of what “strong man” orientation means: cruelty, neglect, resentment, fear, and greed. This column provides a model of what democracy can mean: trust in human potential, generosity toward “the least of our” citizens, recognition by those with resources and talent to use them to the benefit of the future. Difficult in a world that perceives government as the problem. Much easier in a nation where the people govern.
7
Fully agree minus the “least of” bit. I would argue the “least of us” allow the growing inequality which is causing poverty and misery across the globe, myself included.
Mr. Brooks column touches the mind and the heart!
There are three constants under-girding the probability of a person most likely (no assurances!) becoming a responsible individual: a high school diploma, a work ethic, and a socially supportive network.
Thread can certainly fit in.
2
I agree, Mr. Brooks’ columns have been depressing, hammering home the core problem of national distrust and looking for ways to allievate destructive forces. No one wants to take responsibility for being the problem, pertpetuating division, isolation. Negative propaganda, misinformation, disinformation are sources for political division that have historical remedies that, unfortunately, require realization the anger and hate generated, and acting upon these negative emotions, causes exponentially large human costs. Of course, society is impacted. There have always been isolated communities and communities that isolate. I only have personal, anecdotal experiences with both, not being a sociologist, and have found I am not good interacting with either. The former is quite limiting and boring if there was little diversity of people and thought and the latter can shun a child simply because of the different license plate on their parents’ car. It was my parents who provided the unconditional, and sometimes harsh reality, of love to “deal with it” because they could not change things. I had the good fortune of misery loving company with two brothers and a sister experiencing the same. We relied on one another. Americans may have to realize we are all brothers and sisters upon whom we rely.
David Brooks
These days, I spend my mornings writing depressing columns about a political culture marred by distrust and my afternoons visiting places like Thread. There is no way to repair national distrust without repairing individual relationships one by one.
JS
If our political culture went awry from a failure to maintain or repair individual relationships, it happened because lots of Republicans succumbed to greed and allowed their party to go completely off the rails. For example, if you did not forcefully and repeatedly call Republicans to task for believing Obama was not born in the US and for failing many other tests of character, then you failed as a person. You got your 30 pieces of silver but forswore your right to redeem yourself playing nice through individual relationships. harmed.
3
Yes, it must be depressing to spend your mornings writing about our political culture marred by distrust: we should be more trusting of Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Sean Hannity, Bill Shine, Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows, because they are patriots - who avoided military service like the plague - and truth tellers, from way back.
Meanwhile, back at the Thousand Points of Light, Mom's in her kitchen whipping up some apple pan dowdy, God's in his heaven, and all's right - really, everything is OK - with the world.
4
Thread sounds like a great group. That function is served by church and school here in northwest Kansas due to the smaller nature of the society. Unconditional love is critical.
Now to the real issue, families wouldn’t struggle so much if federal and state governments would work to overturn the decades of institutional racism and economic deregulation that have left millions in the dust. Let’s start with the GOP impeaching the immoral man in the White House. From there, let’s stop lying on Fox news about economic freedom when in reality the rich just want to pay the worker little and make more themselves. Next, socialize medicine so that no one is destroyed by medical bills.
When families are poor, divorces and abuse happen.
12
Thread is one of those quiet unsung heroes. It's nice of Mr. Brooks to bring them out of the shadows and laud their work.
Thread and others like it exist because of the failure of our institutions and the creation of new institutions like Citizens United, Tea Party, neo-conservatism, and a new Republican party that hates Thread and the people who support it.
Thread is a last resort because neo-conservatives have destroyed anything that gives hope to those who struggle.
9
One and one make a million.
And that is something David has spend his all adult life trying to prevent from happening.
2
I have an idea. I would like Sarah Hemminger to run the DNC so the party can be bought back from its ostracized loneliness and become successful once again.
1
Thank you, David. This is very inspiring. Having been saturated and repelled by the news since well before the 2016 election, I am beginning to look beyond our current situation to what comes next. An article in the Washington Post about John Fetterman brought bottom-up healing of the nation to my attention. It is, I believe, the only way forward.
3
This is a wonderful column about an inspiring program and the impact of a woman who turned her personal pain into a n action of love. The cynical comments, rather than illuminating anything about Mr. Brooks, display the sickness at the core of the left and why we continue to fail.
If this same column had been written by a liberal columnist, the comments would most likely be praising the strength and vision of this woman and thanking the columnist for shining a ray of hope in these dark times.
The close mindedness and negativity on the left squelches community, repels potential allies and is the antithesis of progress.
Thank you, Mr. Brooks, for writing about what a true progressive looks like, in contrast to those who merely hide behind the label while spewing hate.
6
@woodyrd Your lens is clouded by your rancor. The comments mostly expand the concept of Threads to public policy. No one excoriated her or her program.
They have simply pointed out that David Brooks usually writes about a society that doesn't exist now - has never existed if you weren't white, male, Protestant, Ango-Saxon - and they point out how public policy and a healthy social safety net would enhance programs like Threads
12
"Only connect."
Thread is providing the family foundation that is lacking in some impoverished individuals' lives, people who have learned that they cannot improve their lives with the built-in, usually racially motivated, impediments to success that pervade our country. THIS kind of program would change the complexion of our schools and businesses more than any "affirmative action" (which I favor as well, actually) possibly could, because it permits not only admission but retention. Kudos to Ms. Hemminger and her teams!
5
The underlying theme of both this column and Thread is that we are social beings and only by turning toward the other - not just those who are part of the "in" group, but truly the outsider - do we come to fulfill our human-ness.
This is a far cry from the zero-sum game of today's American capitalism and from the rigging of the whole social system to exclude any who are not exactly like "us". And it's a far cry from David Brooks' usual blatherings about a society that never was unless you were one of the (white, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon) elite.
And maybe that is a precursor to David Brooks realizing that, try as he might, he would not be one of the "annointed" and perhaps it's time to call out the greedy, selfish, destructive tendencies that define the US at this point in time.
Really, can anyone imagine the US setting up something like the Marshall Plan in today's society? https://www.marshallfoundation.org/marshall/the-marshall-plan/history-ma...
I'm giving a tentative shout out to David Brooks today. I hope I don't regret it.
7
Working with some of our most marginalized people--seriously mentally ill, addicted, imprisoned, homeless, abused, poor--makes crystal clear that it's about the relationship. Every source of funding to help those most needing it is tied to whatever evidence-based program is the flavor-of-the-month, with virtually no weight given to the desperate need for acceptance, understanding, unconditional love that can only come from another human. Yes, they need resources--financial assistance, help with housing, finding a job, access to health care--but no program ever "fixed"anyone, there's no silver bullet, without the care and commitment of another person.
3
@wynterstail
As a worn record, the reason there are ghettos is because the racist government has created zip codes where people of color could live. Mayors cut school budgets in the cities in order to balance the budget. One only needs to look at the lawyer for Trump and see how year after year he cut the public education budget. One only needs to look at the Bloomberg and Klein budgets to see how they continued the process.
If this one off program was in Woodmere New York it would be hailed by the community because that zip codes gets every opportunity to be successfully. Mr. Brooks writes this story as if it is the second coming of education for poor children. How about fairness in budget distribution , housing internet access, an opportunities for all except for the usual chosen few. Another feel good story without doing any historical work. These stories are exhausting because nothing changes on a large scale for people of color.
1
"When she was a girl, her father discovered that their pastor was dipping into church funds and reported it to the congregation. Instead of doing something about the pastor, the community shunned her family." Just like today's Republican Congress and Faux News, ignoring Trump's lifelong enrichment of himself at the expense of others, while attacking those who believe:
"It takes a village." " We are Stronger Together.,,,,"
24
This statement was striking to me:
“I am constantly using this column to argue that social fragmentation and social isolation are the fundamental problems afflicting America today.”
I myself, am often wondering: what is the nature and root cause of American ills? There are lots of theories. I am inclined towards the Idea this that Ambition is the root cause. But then what is the root cause of this Ambition? Certainly, Ambition makes us increasingly competitive and leads to social isolation.
7
@Ron Bartlett
Allowing for the notion of more than one root, if one were looking for a tap root, it would be hard to exclude the long-term ramifications of the Atlantic Slave Trade on the fabric of the USA.
5
This is interesting stuff. The concept is unique because the founder Sarah, the genius behind it, is not seeking wealth (like the founder of Baby Einstein). In other words our competitive, self-interest driven market system would not make this system. Social services cannot make a program like this work nor can the market advocates. It is likely individual driven, so can it be replicated? Social Services will try and make it a sow's ear. We on the sidelines will argue about the value and budget that is now millions. None of us volunteered.
This raises the bigger issue of how do we make changes in people's lives for the positive? Lost jobs for average people is a big national problem. And yet those jobs may be gone forever. Trump wants to jawbone allies, Democrats emphasize education, shifting to other industries. Should it be policy decisions from government or should it be left to the market system. Planning for the future is essential. But, looking out for people as Sarah has done is not the purview of the markets and hard for government. So, who should be the advocate for people? Government? Industry?philosophers? professors?or philanthropists?
2
Sounds like an outstanding program. We need more of them.
4
How do the parent/s like this program?
Is any attempt made to help the parents accomplish the skills that are needed to help their children?
4
Democracy also starts within the individual, and that’s where we need to begin to repair ours.
6
It is nice to hear this story. Thread appears to depend on a stream of new faces on both ends of the process. It began in 2004, so it can still be considered to be in infancy.
Even if skeptical about the ability to make Thread work as a national model, it is an impressive effort. It could be a model (forget the idea of panaceas) for other blighted urban areas with surrounding academic structures that could provide the types of volunteer support required. More than one Sarah Hemminger will be required, people who know their cities and their supporting institutions.
1
It is hard to imagine that anyone would have a negative thing to say about an effort to help children needing a helping hand. Some of these comments go overboard in criticizing this program rather than try to understand why this program is needed and what gap it is filling in our frayed and dysfunctional society. I applaud this effort, but concede that it is not a panacea to what ails us.
3
''I am constantly using this column to argue that social fragmentation and social isolation are the fundamental problems afflicting America today.'' - fair enough and that is fine and good, but the underlining problems are always going to be money.
What that means is that the fracturing of families, is not necessarily because of social norms changing. (they are to a certain degree)
The real reason is that those parents are working harder, longer and for less just to subsist. They are are tired and do not have physically the time to be with their children, to add the support they need.
Most policies of government for the poor (being rolled back by this current republican administration) are not keeping up with all of the pressures of society. It is no longer that if you make more money, that you pay more taxes back into society for the infrastructure needed to help those less well off. People and corporations are paying less.
The disintegration will continue until the trend is reversed.
27
We cannot inculcate faith in each other without inculcating faith in our democratic government... a faith that was ultimately shredded by a President who ran on the notion that "Government is the problem and not the solution". We have now seemingly lost faith in our neighbors who serve on school boards, town councils, and state legislatures and prefer to believe that a CEO president is preferable to a "politician" who can broker agreements among disparate groups.
7
This is what churches -- including inner city black churches -- synagogues, and mosques have been doing since Jews met at the Tent of Meeting in the wilderness. The different is that they do it for a lifetime. Top-down support non-government volunteer support is nice, but until the Democratic secular left can create lifelong institutions that do what religious ones do as a matter of course, it's going to be one-off programs like this that are threads on a tattered quilt with a sell-by date. So far, those lifelong left-leaning secular institutions aren't there. Meetups and Facebook groups don't do the trick. I'll pray at my house of worship his weekend that they arise. The country will be better for them.
6
While I do not disagree with your argument, I would amend your opening sentence to read that “some” churches accomplish this kind of lifelong care. However, we must remember that Sarah Henninger, the subject of Mr. Brooks’ article, and her family, were ostracized from a church community for bucking the prevailing attitudes in the church, even while revealing an important problem in that community.
The American religious community suffers from much the same malaise as the society itself. It is split, in argument with itself, and losing social credibility as more and more people seek churches that agree with them as opposed to seeking enlightenment and wisdom from the institution. And of course, the problem of “groupthink” is rampant in religious communities.
So, while you are certainly correct that there are many religious communities providing nurture and support to its members and to surrounding communities, it is too much to ask the religious community as a whole to bear the burden of the society in its current state. Too many people of faith have their hands clenched in fists instead of reaching out to lift up another person.
This is a hard reply for me to write. But my wife and I have recently experienced what Ms. Henninger’s family experienced at the hands of a trusted church community. We must remember that, regardless of intent and calling, churches are made up of flawed human beings, capable of great good and great harm.
7
@Steve Feldmann, first, I'm sorry for what happened to you and your wife with your church, and to what happened at Ms. Henniger's church, if it can be substantiated. Just as Islam cannot be indicted as a faith even if 5-10% of its adherents say that suicide bombing is at least sometimes okay, churches, mosques, and synagogues as institutions should not be subject to the same kind of broad brush. I think you get that. Again, I'm appalled at what happened with your church community. I hope you find a better one. There are many.
My main point though is not that religious communities should bear the burden of the society. It is that *secular* institutions for the non-religious, atheist, and spiritual-but-not-religious (whatever that means), typically on the left, need to emerge to do what the best of the religious communities do, as communities, from cradle to grave (literally). I don't see them yet. will pray for that.
If I had Melania's coat I would wear it now.
1
"In short, the organization weaves an elaborate system of relationships, a cohesive village, around the task of helping kids. The social network is as much for the adults and the city as for the kids."
Gee, that sounds very similar to the African proverb "It trakes a village to raise a child." Mr. Brooks probably remembers that Hillary Rodham Clinton once wrote a book about it.
But does Mr. Brooks remember how his fellow Republicans and Conservatives excoriated Clinton for her book?
And does Brooks realize how downright Socialist the principles and strategies of Thread are? It's an ultimate "safe space" writ large; and we all know how Conservatives denigrate us Liberals and our safe spaces. An "ethos of vulnerability"; isn't that just being a sissy, contrary to the American ideal of self-reliance and rugged individualism? Luring them with free pizza: That sounds just like a free school lunch program (which is really just a glorified handout for welfare moochers, paid by my tax dollars)!
And what about all those unpaid volunteers which provide the critical services? They're all rich elite students at a private college in an unpatriotic coastal state; aren't they the cause of all of America's problems? And isn't their donation of volunteer time to help the poor just another form of redistribution of wealth?
Surely David Brooks can't be extolling the virtues of anything similar to things that Hillary Clinton and us evil Libruls have been promoting all along!?!?!
65
A nice, shiny teaspoon to bail out the ocean of right wing maleficence and destruction.
41
David, this is the same column you've been writing for your entire life. It's like you're oblivious to the passage of the world around you.
Meanwhile, I am struggling to try to convince conservatives that they should care about the children who were separated from their parents. They just respond, "they shouldn't have come here, then." The more closely they are affiliated with a Christian church, the less they care about the trauma of children.
It's like you're living in another dimension.
53
@Josh Yelon
Josh you re so correct. David brooks over the years has excoriated what he has called the Democrats the "elites." David Brooks did you not graduate from the University of Chicago? He has been as responsible as anyone to drive the Republicans denouncing the Democrats for ignoring the hard working class. Never mind that this is a perversion of FDR's party. So what does Brooks do now? In order to make up for his parties turning their backs on parents and children and locking up babies in cages he point to some good works by individuals,
3
American Renewal begins with the fear of God. Its that simple.
"Where American Renewal Begins"
With the destruction of the Republican Party.
33
Here's an idea: Brooks goes where things are awful, detention centers, homeless encampments, food banks, and educates himself.
11
“I spend my mornings writing depressing columns about a political culture marred by mistrust...”
Mr. Brooks, you didn’t feel this way when you extolled the separatist virtues of Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America,” a Republican country club where only the white, the wealthy and the well-connected gathered to sneer at how “government is the problem.” You remember those good old days, the ones that began in 1980 with your prince’s paean to states’ rights, practically on the graves of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman. Remember them? Martyrs for voting rights in a Mississippi that now, according to Chief Justice John Roberts, is “free of racism.” Oh, and this was prefaced by Ronnie’s “welfare queens” in 1976, neatly bookending with “strapping young bucks” in his White House run.
The Thread initiative in Baltimore should be an uplifting, resonant lightning strike of racial camaraderie, a glowing summons to community and hope. Adults and young people having each others’ backs. Why is this community reach-out not more widely known? Baltimore hasn’t given up on itself, not even after the insulting “what have you got to lose?” delivered in a snarlingly dismissive tone by your president two years ago.
This federal government has turned its back on urban America but has $12-billions for white farmers who stand to lose much because of his stupidity and ignorance.
Republicans only look out for “winners,” but how about Thread’s “so much winning?”
Mr. Brooks? Hmm?
45
@Soxared, '04, '07, '13: Great comment! As a minor correction, what Trump actually said was "what the hell have you got to lose?" Let's not forget that our "President" uses profanity in his speeches.
Thank you David. Thank you Sarah. This is a great column. It is true we need government programs, but they are not a panacea.
I ask myself every day “What is a good life? Am I leading a good life? These volunteers are living the answer to the question. Here people are making their community a better place by working to change young lives for the better. While private programs are not a panacea either, if every community had a program like Thread our country would be a better place. If all of us took responsibility for making a small part of our community better for those who live in it, our country would be in a better place. It would not replace the need for many government programs. It would never replace the need for food stamps or Medicare, but our communities might have less need for such programs.
2
Wow...
Yet what is celebrated here, and seemingly successfully, is the transfer of knowledge from those who are reasonably successful at finding fulfillment of what it means to be fully human within the mores of contemporary culture...which is enough in flux to threaten to make mockery of cross generational cultural wisdom. Ideally this sort of thing is passed on by parents: the transmission of mastery of current social constraints and opportunities, such that if local and contemporary enough, provides the sort of guidance that might provide a path through the nastiness of eroding notions of the good, diminishment of the commons, and the erosion of the trust that allows for deep empathy and bonding.
As this sort of mastery seems increasingly to be obscure, unavailable to most, and viewed suspiciously when evidenced, it now "takes a village" to describe what fewer families are able to provide.
If to be fully alive is to recognize, respect, and share with others, the sense of joy at being alive, the purpose of culture is perhaps to make that possibility available for most of us.
I like to see David believing in the possibility of that.
That notion, however, of what it means to be fully alive, seems something that Donald Trump will never understand, and against which he stands ashamed and jealous. Let us get rid of him, his toadies, and work toward a government that nurtures something like the greatest good for the many.
2
That's great.
It is a wonderful example of people helping each other.
But it is a better example of denial and fear.
Our political structure is not "marred by distrust".
It is broken by intentional lies and twisted by distortion.
It is squashed and splattered by simple greed.
We have no quiet mornings or easy afternoons.
It is black night now, all the time, unless the fire burns.
Renewal requires the fire, then growth from the ashes.
It is simple, but that is how it happens in the forest.
Please Mr. Brooks, use your talent and burn something.
6
In my view, American renewal will begin right after the mid term congressional elections if the GOP is kicked out of majority rule in the House & Senate.
Then our country can start to get back on the right track after taking a nasty detour with the very toxic leader Trump.
5
"a cohesive village, around the task of helping kids"
Sounds very much like a certain presidential candidate you and your conservative cabal tossed aside during the 2016 election cycle. Remember, HRC.
Think about how much further ahead we would be if you would have used some reasonable judgement then.
Better late than never, I guess. Welcome to the club David.
9
A touching story. But somehow I can't help but find Thread's Tapestry app more than a wee bit creepy: "It tracks every time a volunteer has a touchpoint with one of the students [....] Tapestry can track how often a student has touchpoints, who hasn’t had a touchpoint, how many touchpoints lead to what outcomes." Seems a Big Brother program with a data-mining vengeance.
1
Imagine the humiliation and conflict an intelligent and loving parent might feel when people from a more entitled world, come along to solve so many of their children's problems with a magic wand nobody offered to them.
The magic of leisure time, handy pocket money for treats, a car, to get to places fast.
This doesn't mean Thread is anything but good.
I was in the Big Brother program, my little brother had very little. His mother too. I know it hurt, when I'd pick him up to go play with my video camera, visit the art museum, the symphony, or movies.
None of these easy things, belonged to her, as they did to me.
We have sympathy for poor children, anger and contempt for adults.
I'd like to see a program as good as Thread, where a network of 10 volunteers circle a poor mother, drive her to work, make lunch when she can't cope, massage her feet, find her a clinic, insurance, mental or legal counseling, all as good as their own.
Give her our nice things.
Help stabilize life and remove anxiety. Connect her to a good job with career advancement. Bring by a housekeeper. Gets tickets to the pricey jazz concert and drop her off, with her children, at the museum, for a tour with the curator, so they can learn together. Just like Thread, help the mother take care of her kids with tutors, school placement, counseling and cultural events.
Does that sound so absurd?
Why are we afraid to share our world?
22
@Eric, you said much of what I wanted to say and you said it so much better than I would have.
What about the families these kids already have? Certainly they currently need support as these kids do, but let's be ever so careful not to feed the stereotypes about how they inevitably require rescue from well-meaning whites. Let's be ever so vigilant about our possible assumption that there's something about "them" that makes it necessary for outsiders to solve their problems. I'm not saying we shouldn't support each other, I'm simply saying we need to be well aware of the underlying and perhaps unexamined attitudes we bring along with the support.
I'm uncomfortable with much of the terminology of social justice work these days (not because it's wrong but because it becomes weaponized in our current political climate), but the question of the best way to do good when one is white and privileged matters. The dignity and power of each and every one of us must be affirmed. (Lord, I sound pompous; apologies!)
That sounds like a beautiful idea, Eric. Rather than lamenting that such a program doesn't exist, maybe we should take it upon ourselves to make it happen (isn't that the gist of Mr. Brooks column?).
It is so much easier for all of us to talk about social injustice while sipping wine at our book clubs. Real change doesn't come from smug condemnation of Trumpsters. Real change happens when we put down the wine glass and start helping.
@Eric
What a wonderful idea! I wish that enough people would get behind it to make it possible.
Thank you so much for sharing, this is so inspiring!!!
I have a personal loathing for this propagandistic technique -- it's "community" charity that we should admire, rejecting broader social policies.
It ignores the fact that single communities are unlikely to be able to charitably finance the people hurt by federal policies like trade wars and immigration pogroms. It ignores the fact that the 1% , who have reaped the money from the tax cuts, do not step up to contribute their majestically excess cash to people who were left behind by Republican policies for decades. It ignores the fact that charity cannot finance medical bills and that even if it did, the evangelicals would make the process an even harsher punishment.
I seem to recall that Dante had a special circle for liars in the Inferno.
20
Nowhere does Brooks address the hostility and contempt that republicans and the Trump administration would have to a program of this nature. How can he reconcile the paradox of this program when it is compared to what is happening on our southern border? How can he talk about American renewal when Trump and republicans daily pick at the scab of racism and reopen the wounds of hate. Until Brooks addresses the role of his party and his own role in that party’s trajectory, his columns are going to be met with scorn by many of us.
21
There's the Rub... Another Republican, the elder George Bush, would have labeled Thread a "Point of Light"... a concept that Trump has mocked.
All that said, I have spend the past few weeks re-reading Robert Kennedy's speeches, and I must say that I concur with their direction rather more than I do with what Mr Brooks suggests. Government must do more than give Gold Stars or Points of Light when someone gets it right. Government must create and sustain the social conditions that allow community-based programs like Thread to become the rule rather than the exception.
For that to happen, our government must change, and that gets us back to the Ballot Box this November, doesn't it?
4
What is it about human nature that led to Sarah Hemminger and her family being ostracized by her community? Ostracized by her CHURCH community no less.
In the meantime, her pastor got a free ride.
4
Mr Brooks this is all lovely and effective for these kids but can't you comment and write a scathing column about the travesty of our lifetimes when the President of the United States publicly states that "don't pay any attention to the (nonfox) news because the things they are telling you are untrue."
You are like an ostrich with its head in the sand or someone strolling through a chaotic scene of his party's own making, eyes up to the sky, avoiding all thought and singing la lala lala.
5
Thank you so much for inspiration in such dismal times
3
It’s amazing how, even when people are put the worst of times, they still find a way to become successful in their own way, which is part of the reason why I was interested in this article. Especially in teenage years there is a lot to think about. I know for me it questions like, what do I want to do with my life? what college do I want to go to? How am I going to get scholarships for school? How will I even pay for school? and the most dreaded question of all, who am I and who do I want to be? Teenagers from all over have to deal with those questions and all the while still trying their hardest with school and extracurricular, along with their social like family and friends. It's a lot to take in, in just a few short years but what the really tricky part is, is trying not to get caught up in your own head. Once you conquer your own head you have the mindset to do whatever you want to do, just like what Sarah and Ryan did in this article.
"The program rejects any distinction between haves and have-nots."
Well, a good stopgap measure. But the distinction you speak of, which Threads has rejected, might be the reason they have to do what they are doing in the first place. We are in the process of voting in a Supreme Court justice who will cement the relationship Americans have with each other, that is, an America where unions have no power to create a middle class, where maybe forty percent of the populace will be stuck working as wage slaves. Just think what all this junk we have created in the last forty years--the huge mansions, the exclusive resorts, the mega yachts and business jets--could have been turned into--roads, schools, hospitals, solid houses for working people--if the Republicans (which you supported) had not taken over, and we had continued in the direction of F.D.R.'s four freedoms. Too bad Nixon made a U-turn. Where are all your articles on the deleterious effect this Supreme Court nomination will have on America? They should be coming out once a week.
8
Sarah Hemminger is an admirable woman who does great work. But an important lesson of her story is what happens when pastors and their slavish followers define social life in communities.
2
Sadly, Mr. Brooks has it backwards. The story of Sarah Hemminger and those like her is not where American renewal starts. Accomplishments like hers thrive when there is trust - trust in our neighbors, our government, and our collective mission - but as long as our cowardly leaders foment dishonesty and discord, putting party before country, American renewal is out of reach. Anything else is a distraction.
3
The truth of the matter is that many schools already implement these sorts of initiatives. It was certainly part and parcel
of every school I taught in for over thrirty years. The problems come through inadequate funding, lack of parental involvement, and increasing curriculum pressure from punitive mined lawmakers. These same lawmakers remove funding, punish teachers, impose unattainable standards for teachers and their students, after which they assign blame to the schools they have worked to undermine. It is exaccerbated by elimination of phys-ed and art programs through which many disaffected kids once found some grounding.
Brooks would like this problem to disappear through the hard work and dedication (and it is hard work), of community minded angels. If it were only so simple. Believe me there are thousands of these teachers and community leaders already sacrificing enormously to make a difference. Good intentions alone do not lift families out of poverty, nor solve every issue society faces. Sadly some respondents are quick to agree with the Reagan maxim that government is the problem not the solution. I suggest they spent time with these folks who are attempting to change things and walk in their shoes before making such statements.
9
Excellent! I grew up in the inner city where social workers came in from the various local universities to spend time with the community kids. My group of friends got a student from Harvard University whose name was Thor Thors. He took us all around Boston to various museums and other educational places. But, our favorite place was Harvard U. We had access to all the great facilities up there. We always loved the annual Harvard/Yale event where we watched sports competitions all throughout the University. The day finished up with a barbecue on the baseball field.
Thor just spent a lot of time with us and we had fun. But, he had major impact of all of our lives. Very few kids went to college from our neighborhood. But, I believe everyone in our group did attend and complete our college educations. These type of programs have more of an impact than one could ever imagine.
Thank you so very much, Thor.
27
Perfect story, @Sal Carcia! Isn't it amazing the difference one individual with the ability to share (great) resources can have? Thank you for sharing it and passing the torch to the next generation!
As a teacher in public education, most of it in Memphis, TN, arguably the epicenter of social/economic distress, I have spent half my life suffering under a busload of well-meaning programs, fronted by pithy slogans, led by blue ribbon panels , and funded by deep-pocketed philanthropists. All of them, without exception, ended up in being little more than a medoicre cookie cutter appeal for excellence featuring annual banquets where everyone involved backslaps each other while offering up anecdotal testimonials over a chicken dinner. Color me cynical.
There is no panacea. There is no silver bullet. What it takes are dedicated, persistent individuals willing to work and love unconditionally with willing clients who desire change. Nothing more, mothing less. Thread seems to understand this better than most.
18
I once ran a program similar to this in a public school middle school with about 50 kids. Instead of going home to an empty home and/or dysfunctional situation, the students stayed at school an additional 2.5 hours.
During that 2.5 hours we ate a healthy snack together. Then 8 adults made sure that homework was done, tests were studied for, etc.
Along the way, people from the community came in to share their expertise or perspective with kids. We worked on positive social interactions. If someone got into trouble and parents could or would not step up, we scheduled the conference with teachers, principals, and/or dealt with law enforcement.
In other words, "The Village" became the surrogate family, and It worked. We had hard data to show academic improvement, fewer got into trouble at school and with law enforcement.
Many of these students were in the school-to-prison pipeline. The change in those kids was unbelievable. They began to take pride in themselves. Entire demeanors and dispositions changed over time. Many of them have graduated from high school, some from college, joined the military, etc.
Unfortunately, this program no longer exists because the Great Recession dried up the funding for the buses that took the kids home each day. The key to it was a bus ride home.
Mr. Brooks has a very good point: these types of programs do work. But little that is worthwhile comes without a price. There has to be some funding.
106
@Wayne We have an after school program in every public library in the Columbus metro area with homework help, tutors, etc. These programs are available in many places.
1
It is depressing to me to read the criticism of David Brooks by the commentators. Government has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is incapable of solving the social problems of the downtrodden. Politicians try and try with "programs" that don't work - for the most part the Great Society of LBJ was a failure. For government to encourage programs like Thread would surely be encouraging. For companies to be encouraged to create job training programs would be encouraging. Those are the ways that something tangible might be created to help people who need help - rather that throwing money away on "programs." The last time I looked, education in this country is free and would be more effective if the Teachers Unions encouraged teaching rather than teachers protest movements.
2
@Ed
If the Great Society was a "failure" it was due to the Nixon and Ford administrations and Republican governors like Reagan undercutting the funding.
Actually, millions of Americans were saved from lives of poverty and given a step up by such measures as head start, the education act and school breakfast programs.
Simultaneously, America went through de-segregation and the Nixon era southern strategy, to try to pit the working class against the Democratic party.
Obviously, the propaganda lives on....
59
@Ed
This sad narrative that the government can’t do anything right just has to end. It’s false. We wouldn’t even be conversing here now, if it wasn’t for government research.
57
Government programs don't work. It's easy to sit there and spout that off. But food stamps, free meals for poverty stricken kids in schools, health care for the poor, social security to prevent the disabled from living in poverty or the elderly from being destitute. These and many other programs may not be "perfect",but they certainly aren't the waste of time you portray them to be. If these programs are so bad, then WHAT IS YOUR ALTERNATIVE? Let the private sector handle it? They are too busy maximizing profit and share price to be concerned with programs for poor folks. And ask yourself: would you or your family members be willing to accept a job as an aide in a nursing home or in home care or as a mental health counselor or as a community outreach worker? I already know the answer.. .it is NO. Because the pay is low and the work is hard. And where is all the money that could be used to make these programs better? Why it's all tied up in executive salaries and in stock, just where you want it to be. Doing as few people any good as possible. You know, making America great. Blah, blah. Blah.
8
Correct me if I am wrong here, but, I thought Ronald Reagan said he was going to "Make America Great Again?". What? Did that turn out not to be true and now we need Thread instead of Ronnie? This just cannot be true. Ronnie was the light and the life. Yes? Or, was Ronnie just the light and the life for rich corporations and individuals by performing massive wealth transfer upward with Republican policy?
18
Most exciting report read in months. In a quiet way, on par with cave rescue. The same kind of fierce, organized volunteer-fueled committed action. Thanks for this.
19
'Thread' is a breath of fresh air. But I strongly disagree with Brooks' conclusion ("This is where American renewal begins.").
American renewal begins with a national soul-searching initiated by patriotic politicians -- I mean truly patriotic politicians supporting the nation's interests rather than their own. For this to occur the U.S. urgently needs Campaign Finance Reform that would level the playing field for moneyless patriots.
Such an occurrence would lead to all the things most Americans truly want, such as gun control, universal healthcare, free education, a break-up of media 'trusts' and increasing global political awareness and, most urgently, investment in crumbling infrastructure rather than war.
Well meaning individuals and groups of individuals can jog a few consciences and help a few people, as in any other country. But the U.S. has a national problem that requires a national solution before its socio-economic decline triggers even more extreme political consequences.
97
This is a wonderful story but it is a drop in the bucket of what needs to be done. David evidently believes private charity can cure the largest problems: a nice and warming pipe dream.
Unfortunately, historically that does not happen. Does charity give people health care? Does charity really dent national poverty or raise the minimum wage?
I suggest David stop dreaming.
42
@cover-story. I take issue, not with your perspective that this is not going to reverse national policies. But I hold that it is conveniently isolating to simply do macro analyses about the "issues" and rely on government policy to make things better. It just isn't that simple. And the political landscape that will deliver the policies you seek is one where there is engagement with and between people that is mutually supportive and uplifting (which is much more than charity) not the tribal warfare that currently is being waged.
2
David, I look forward to seeing your American Renewal story in Swedish in Dagens Nyheter, DN, right beside me as I write this first submission. I have been a volunteer at the Red Cross working for the past 18 years in programs intended to help asylum seekers learn Swedish and do well enough in school to eventually be able to study, free, in college or medical school. I support volunteer programs.
But as Socrates, no. 1 R Pick writes: Community and volunteer programs are lovely...but are no substitute for humane policy and good government.
I translate from the front-page story in DN 7/25: "There are very few families with children (in Sweden) that suffer from serious poverty". Inside a graph shows that the percentage of children age 18 or younger who suffer from "material poverty" is the lowest in Sweden (0,7 %) of all18 EU countries studied.
Socrates reminds us that the USA, by contrast, has the highest rates of poverty in the developed world. USA would be off the chart in the graph I cite.
My admiration for Sarah Hemminger is unbounded. A congress with more women with her kinds of experience, empathy, and education would be a first step to setting a distant goal of making America humane again.
Vote in November.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
196
@Larry Lundgren
Excellent comment, Larry. The only way to shake up the status quo is through the ballot box. A Democratic tsunami in November would be just a first small step in dislodging vested interests that have the nation in their tentacles.
Individual acts of sacrifice, no matter how praise-worthy, will not alter the national narrative.
People ask me why my people tolerate a dictatorship, while the U.S. has created its own under no military threat from anyone. If the U.S. cleans up its own house it will encourage the rest of us to clean up ours.
18
@Hamid Varzi - Merci, Hamid. I just added at my blog an image of the front page of my morning newspaper, DN, showing an image of demonstrators in Indianopolis, that tells simple truths about America and views of a large fraction as concerns public policy that will surely make bad matters worse.
I present the image as being far more powerful than the image presented by the Times on 20 July about the same events.
You could write a whole book about your last paragraph, and I could write a small one.
As concerns America as dictatorship the Atlantic ran a story recently - I was led there by a DN columnist - about a survey of Trump supporters in which two professors asked if the supporters thought it would be good to cancel the 2020 election. Not a fully satisfactory survey of course but as given 52 percent said yes, lets do as done in other countries, put somebody in power and then change the laws to keep that person in power. Even in America.
Larry
1
@Larry Lundgren In a 2d submission I point to the most dramatic example of a public policy - Roe v Wade based policy - that if changed witll have catastrophic consequences. In that submission I refer to a photograph in my Swedish newspaper, DN, today, 7/27 that is far more powerful in getting that message across than the innocuous picture used by the Times in its 7/20 story on anti-abortion actions in Indiana.
I have posted that DN photograph at my blog under a copy of my 1st NYT comment, since American readers cannot see the front page of DN by going to dn.se. Only by having access to e-DN can I see and copy the front page.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
2
I was astounded to learn that this community program is going to solve all of Baltimore's problems. I look forward to seeing the education and standard of living statistics improve significantly in the near future. Because this program David somehow found is unique, right? It has never been tried before, and it is measurably solving significant societal problems right? Right?
Although dozens of cities have asked for Thread, I hope they accept one request: the White House desperately needs to learn how to repair individual relationships. If it has to be one by one, better get started. A couple hundred million to go.
Seriously, folks, come on. When I was in high school in the 1980's I was a proud member of the Key Club, a program designed to usefully occupy otherwise hapless and ineffectual teens, and simultaneously help the community. Our inspirational leader, Coach Parks, drove us hard and demanded the absolute best of us as we assisted local individuals and organizations. Oh but you know what? Our Key Club didn't solve the world's problems. We honestly didn't help even our little town very much.
Volunteer organizations are as old as humanity. They DO NOT solve systemic societal problems. They are a band-aid. Is Brooks unable to look at the long history of charities and volunteer organizations and understand that they don't repair the underlying problem? We don't live just in "cohesive villages" - which is why we need national governments and good national policies.
39
@Chip Leon Most of us will be writing similar comments, I already have one just above yours and pointing to Socrates whose statement will be number 1 all day long.
This column is part of David's latest Local Initiatives are Nice program introduced by a column a few days ago with Local in the headline.
You and I as volunteers know - and want to believe - that what we do does help but only a few individuals rather than a whole social class or subclass.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
I have a new post at the blog providing a photograph from my Swedish newspaper showing the anti-abortion movement at work in Indianapolis, determined to bring down all public policy that deals with rerproductive rights.
3
@Chip Leon, do you do much volunteering these days? I volunteer weekly at our local homeless shelter, and while you're correct that we're not solving the world's problems, I think we're making a significant impact in our resident's lives.
1
When I was reading your excellent article I was thinking. Yes, I am doing the same thing. I am disconnecting from Trump and only reading the headlines now, not even reading the actual tweet. One can figure out what the article says by the headline anyway. Trump is pretty predictable. Skimming, so far, is working.
It is hard to disconnect from our National nightmare, but well worth it.
I liked a lot about what you described. People helping each other. Also being deliberately open. Everyone realizing that the love they are sharing is needed by the helpers as much as the helped. No one person is doing it all. Each student is being supported by so many people! No one is overwhelmed.
I am helping my elderly mother right now. I am lucky to have a big family and lots of support. I am also delighted by the outside caregivers I have hired (lots of them are relatively new immigrants—skilled, patient and kind). In the center is my mother who somehow is surprised by the care she is getting. What did she think we were going to do? We love her, she is our mother.
I don’t pretend that the time I spend with my mother is going to save me or the world. Politics and economics can leap over those private boundaries. But it feels like real life.
6
@Katie: *Skilled, patient, and kind*. Three essential attributes for working with the less fortunate, the vulnerable, the hurting. Amazing that these words so eloquently describe relatively recent arrived immigrants who are assisting your family to care for your mother.
How are we, landed gentry of America, doing with that 'skilled, patient, and kind' behavior to our newly arrived families seeking asylum?
What an inspiring column in a world that is so badly broken today. What an incredible program, what a great model in fact of how we should all live. Great reporting, Mr. Brooks.
6
Nice thought. Family values once instilled, are very difficult to rewrite. Individuals can change their behaviors but for family values to improve, the whole of society has to change and you you need things like Uncle Towns Cabin.
1
Good column. Good way to balance the negatives.
Religion matters to lots of people. No way round it. Spirituality can be a force for good or evil. On the coasts we need to give mid America the benefit of the doubt about it.
Democrats will go farther this way. The irony is that mid American so-called conservatives don't reject science, if it concerns ag or biomed. So emphasize that they are both spiritual and scientific, even if they dispute evolution and climate change. Remember, they're less likely to doubt vaccination than many coastals.
Democrats don't have to be obsequious. No need to deny that abortion is about female vs. male control over reproduction, or that global warming is killing insects, birds, and other basic things. Just acknowledge that mid Americans understand chemistry as well as the rest of us, and are plenty interested in nature.
1
I'm of the opinion that D. Brooks is spot on..."social fragmentation and social isolation are the fundamental problems afflicting America today." Anything that we can do to support the likes of Ms. Hemmingers of America is a life well spent. Rebuilding America is not only possible, but, for all we know it might be our last chance.
10
In the early - mid sixties in Italy , while studying for my college degree , some of us students were involved in helping young middle schoolers from poor families improving their skills in various subjects they were faltering.
This was all on a voluntary basis and the local government gave us the space to use for this purpose .
The children were from relatively poor but dignified families .
At the end of the school year we “ teachers “ were invited by our students family to a small “ thank you “ party in their home.
It still gives me pride and satisfaction that I was able to help a few students achieve their life dream of getting an education.
The “ local college students organization “ was able to get this program up and running , I doubt it still exists .
1
It would be nice, as most commenters on this article suggest, if government always took the lead in bringing about social services and community involvement that we need. Sometimes it does not and private group initiative has to lead the way. I learned this somewhat by surprise when my wife and I first moved to an ex-urban community on the fringes of Greater Philadelphia in our late 20s. That area, now grown more suburban, now has excellent hospitals, an excellent library system, a well-staffed medical clinic for those without health insurance, first class fire protection with paramedic service and schools that rank highly nationally. It also has excellent services for collecting and providing food and clothing for the needy, club houses for the elderly and a quite remarkable system of green-space parkland. It leads the nation in volunteer help and counseling to those trying to start small businesses. None of this was initiated or brought about by government and politicians. All was spearheaded by citizen groups who simply began on their own to solicit funds — without government support. Government support did follow, in a bipartisan way, once these private initiatives had proven their merit. These folks shamed them into it. Not for everywhere, I guess, but it worked here, as I bear witness.
2
I think the Thread story is remarkable, and uplifting.
I also think Sarah Hemminger's tale of rising from the enforced ostracization of her theocratic community is singular and remarkable, and a cautionary tale for Brooks' passion for the power of churches as agents of change. What a dark side - ostracizing a young girl because her dad did the right thing. It illustrates why many of us are suspicious about trust in "communities of faith."
23
We need a Thread program at the workplace, for the parents of these kids and the places where they work and where the kids will work unless they take their skills and leave to seek their fortunes.
If everybody makes it, then the jobs that people get who are not making it (but just surviving from paycheck to paycheck) will be unfilled and our current economic structure (of which these jobs are an integral part) will morph into something else. Those who are doing well under our current economic structure will keep this from happening. They like a situation where everybody is working hard trying to make it and some fail. If there are enough seats for all on the train, passengers will not try as hard as they can to get one, calculating where the doors will be when the train stops, and pushing and shoving.
2
What a brilliant structure for the work they are intending.
2
An exception program, very intelligently built, and wholesome.
Brooks would transform himself into a responsible writer if he suggested how this might happen on a meaningful scale.
Many do challenging volunteer work. I go to a prison, a system that is a perfect example with which to make my point.
My work reaches about 40 people. It doesn't create justice or equity. It doesn't change cruel sentences, cruel conditions. Doesn't eradicate the massive suffering caused by the War on Drugs. Medieval practices in the face of rampant recidivism, remain.
Republican insist that the founders intended machine guns to be on the street with vehemence.
But don't care that the jury system which is much more a cornerstone of the system the founders designed, would be unrecognizable to them. 95% of defendants, threatened with exorbitant penalties, terrified, settle. 5% of defendants see a trial.
Brooks tells us about good programs or good thinkers. He could write about my work. If that were all he did, I guess I'd shrug and wonder why such writing merits column space in NYT.
Question: Why does he pretend his discoveries are an answer to many, many, millions of people who suffer in poverty, hunger, illiteracy, addiction, homelessness and the rest of the long list?
Answer 1: Hubris.
and when I couple that with the type of government that he supports, it's nonsensical, and I have to use a word he love to hate:
Answer 2: He is privileged, beyond coherence.
114
Until we live in a perfect world Thread works for me.
Please, for those of you who want more from government or wherever, Thread is working and let's give credit where credit is due.
6
@merc
You say "Thread is working." Really? How do you define working? Is it helping the 10s of millions of people around the country who live in poverty? Is it giving them health care or higher education levels? Is it reducing the nationwide crime rate? Is it even doing any of these things in Baltimore?
You know what does work? Humane government policy. Many of us don't have the luxury of living in Fantasyland. We live in a nation of laws and policies that we set ourselves. We agree to pay a certain fee in exchange for services - police, fire, education, health care, social insurance. But the rich among us have decided to game the system to their own benefit and stop helping the less fortunate, even though the less fortunate still pay more than their per-capita share of the fee.
6
When I used to traverse downtown Baltimore during the rush hour I would see the scores of black kids trying to make a buck selling bottled water or washing windshields. There they were surrounded by incalculable corporate wealth, and the denizens of those corporate castles and no one can offer them a job. The difference between life in my corporate tower and the life on the street used to jar me. We even had our own little security army in my tower so the street life could never intrude. Well meaning programs acting in loco parentis won't fix this until we all realize we have a responsibility to each other.
Looking at Trump world I am not sanguine.
40
Thank you David. Great work. Well-worth doing, done well. Inspiring news from Baltimore. A very well-written and consoling report.
Well done Thread!
Sarah Hemminger for first US PM. :)
Thanks again David.
5
@GRW Love the idea of a US Prime Minister! Double that with your suggestion it be Sarah Hemminger!!
1
David Brooks,
This is one of your deepest and most insightful columns I’ve read. And I’ve been impressed with many and disagreed with some. You are on a significant quest for what generates meaning and social trust. I urge you to continue, and am grateful to you for what you are sharing, both about you and what you are discovering and revealing about the generative spirit that underlies a healthy, living world.
Bob Mang
9
The "rants and raves" on Craigslist was interesting to read during the Baltimore riots. Very little empathy and sympathy online back then. Many bootstrapped themselves out of town by joining the armed forces, and most had to turn their backs on the city to "move on." Awareness about self and social structure occurs wherever it is allowed to occur. It is an inspiring story. There probably is journaling software out there for adults facing life changing events. Ira Progoff wrote books in the late 1960's and 1970's about self, environment, and people that come and go through one's life. The significance is very illusive.
2
This is wonderful. People helping people, creating families and communities. But, if that IS the way has to revive, we are in for a big shock. Besides not being scalable, their very presence is a silent testimony to how our government has failed us. I mean collectively. Obviously our government has been helping some segments of society;predominantly the uber wealthy top 1% by giving them all the tax cuts while starving the lower strata who are forced to depend on such programs.
Don't get me wrong. These programs are good. But they are symptoms of a larger malaise rather than a solution to our national problem.
45
I remember a Democrat who once said "it takes a village" and was mocked, abusively mocked, by her Republican detractors for it. Thread seems like an empowering and meaningful organization, but it is NOT where American renewal begins. American renewal begins when the Republican party, and particularly it's leadership, begins to respect the country, it's citizens, our diversity, the rule of law, the Constitution and our once-shared values. Until then, every organization like Thread will remain a too-rare anomaly in the fabric of a tattered country.
377
A self-portrait of a French artist, Marcel Duchamp, entitled 'Sad Young Man on a Train' (1911) came to view, after reading Where American Renewal Begins.
In France during the rebellious years at school, we were given Sartre in his 'No Exit', Camus in his 'Outsider', and as the only American in a classroom of 44 uninformed minds, I was feeling guilty about being lonely. Balzac came to the rescue and was my first literary love, followed by the friendship of a popular school mate who took me out of my shell.
David Brooks addresses the growing mistrust among Americans in our political divide. Our country is known for our team spirit, our community activities and holidays. If word gets out that you are spending Thanksgiving alone, there is a sense that you might get arrested by the police squad and hauled off to a movable feast of strangers.
Some of the loneliness people met during a long life are surrounded by a court of admirers, and have a constant need to be entertained. It can be exhausting and require stamina to keep them company, and above all, they appear to get easily bored.
A friend in Baltimore has been helping the children of the world and is a mentor to many young souls, but she once wrote 'you never can be lonely if you have dogs'. Whatever makes you happy, writes an acquaintance in possession of a large family, going back and forth to the Sudan.
If Thread envelops one kid only in a Tapestry of Care, this is all to the good. Thank you, Mr. Brooks.
9
@Miss Ley
Thanks for your beautiful and eloquent reply.
3
This is a lovely story you tell, Mr. Brooks, about Sarah Hemminger.
But, our world is on fire.
You are putting a small bandaid on a hemorrhaging wound.
Do you not see what's happening, Mr. Brooks?
Do you not see the assault on our Department of Justice, the assault on our Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein?
Do you not see the daily assaults on Bob Mueller?
Do you not see the assault on civil servants, such as Ambassador McFaul -- are you really okay with Trump contemplating allowing Putin's henchmen to question him?
Do you not see how Trump lays down next to Putin when they are on stage together?
Do you not see how Trump insults our allies and embraces our enemies?
Do you not see how Trump undermines NATO?
Do you not see how Trump is enriching himself?
Do you not read The New York Times?
Do you not want to see what's happening right in front of you?
Do you just want to keep writing these small-bore columns, again and again and again, about the Sarah Hemmingers of the world, as Rome burns around you?
426
It's a hurting world out there...and the issues and conflicts you describe are real and important. Nonetheless sometimes a band aid is a good start, especially if your the one hemorrhaging.
14
@V It would be all too easy to click on "recommend" for this excellent comment. But I can't bring myself to do it. All the things you say about Trump and what is happening right in front of and all around all of us are true, and you say them eloquently.
But it is those Threads, carefully and beautifully woven by the Sarah Hemmingers of the world, that make up the fabric of our society. Yes, it is necessary to put out the fire of lies and lawlessness and triviality that rages around us.... and at the same time, to work on building the fabric of our society. Both are necessary and important.... and we need to be reminded of the threads that tie us together, even as it feels like our society is unraveling.
Mr. Mueller, we're depending on you.
9
@V
We may be on the same political side but I find it sad that you bring it all back to politics. Sorry, social issues do not all depend on the political situation of the moment.
Do you want us all to stop working, living, loving, supporting, fostering in order to protest the current President??
Are you sure you're not obsessing against David Brooks ?
Thank you David Brooks for this inspiration. After much anguishing, my personal response to the mind-numbing challenges in the U.S. today has come to this: look for the places where ordinary people can make a difference. And encourage everyone, millions of us, to do just that. This story, and what it demonstrates, is indeed where where American renewal begins.
19
If individuals in other cities were inspired to such efforts, and if they all succeeded at their objectives, then the nucleus of a new society could emerge. But to work on a more universal basis than a few cities we would need to transform all of society, where those with the capacity to make a difference – and the leisure to do so – co-opted millions of others into their communities to be its arms and legs. That would be a consuming endeavor, and not one that generates immediate emotional rewards – but could generate a lot of short-term pain.
How many are capable of this? How many would even be interested?
If such a new society were to emerge, I suspect that it would do so from the ashes of the immensely larger failed society around them. Indeed, the inevitable comparison between the two realities might hasten the end of that larger society. Those sensing their own eventual marginalization and destruction could isolate and shun the Hemmingerites to a far greater extent than she was shunned as a child.
I’m not sure I’m okay with that, or that there aren’t other means to explore that allow more incremental strengthening of community that risks less destruction of those who either can’t or won’t be “saved”; or from the lack of enough committed participants to make it work other than anecdotally.
It’s not a trivial commitment to make: it’s one that could consume a life. And in the end the “saved” could awake within the ruins of a blasted society around them.
2
So, you’re suggesting that a number of Thread-like organizations might grow in a few cities and cause the collapse of the larger culture around them? But you’re not really predicting that it WILL happen, just helpfully pointing out that it COULD?
I’m glad you mentioned that you’re unsure of how you’d feel about that one thing, and that there were other possible scenarios.
5
@Richard Luettgen
Actually, David's column reminds me of how people in the rural community I grew up in treated each other. There weren't huge disparities of wealth among us, and since nobody had wealth to wallow in, we had to seek strength in other ways. I don't mean to idealize it, but I am infinitely grateful to have experienced it. That doesn't mean there wasn't pettiness and unkindness and all the faults we're humanly heir to. But you tried to catch people if they were falling, and it was a grave failure to leave someone feeling alone, truly alone, unless they chose solitude as a mode of life, as a few rare souls did.
People who have lived by upper-middle-class preoccupations with careerism and materialism may find it unimaginable—indeed, a society run by other measures may strike Richard or others as catastrophic for reasons I'm unable to comprehend. (Seriously, I would fail a reading comprehension quiz on this comment. Helping kids not your own by "driving them to school, bringing them lunch, driving them back to school when they skipped out, doing homework with them, taking them camping" would result living among the ruins of a blasted society?)
20
@Richard Luettgen
It's hard to see how people helping one another would bring down a larger society. In the context of our zeitgeist, the larger society is failing those who have little or no access to that society.
In 1968, Pierre Trudeau envisioned "A Just Society" in which he stated, "The Just Society will be a united Canada, united because all of its citizens will be actively involved in the development of a country where equality of opportunity is ensured and individuals are permitted to fulfill themselves in the fashion they judge best."
While we haven't completely lived up to the promise of all his noble ideas, we haven't stopped trying. The larger society's responsibility to care for those handicapped by circumstance is as necessary as the family, however we define that, to build that just society.
The part I liked about Trudeau's vision, was the bit about individuals being "permitted to fulfill themselves in the fashion they judge best." I was always a loner kid. Germans weren't that popular in rural Alberta when I was growing up. I didn't need that group hug because I knew I lived in a larger society that made it possible for me to fulfill my dreams.
The American Renewal, when it comes, must come from the top down as well as the bottom up. Neither one can be sacrificed to the other.
12
"There is no way to repair national distrust..."
Sure there is. Have leaders, political, educational, religious who can be trusted to do what is right/proper/needed/required for the benefit and, dare I suggest, the welfare for those Americans NOT in the top income 10%.
Thread, and all of the other organizations/groups like it, simply does not have enough power to make progress against the strong head wind it faces.
44
We need more people like Sarah Hemminger
However, people like Sarah are rare. It is like many ambitious kids want to be Bill Gates. Never mind it took Bill Gates himself to find the real Bill Gates, thanks to his wife Melinda Gates, his friend Warren Buffett and maybe his late friend, Steve Jobs (death is a powerful teacher)! To make the matter worse, many tried to copy the superficiality of the younger Gates
While we are talking about Sarah Hemminger, and Bill Gates, my point is that Thread and Tapestry are easy stuff. Sarah Hemminger. Many isolated don't become her or turn to someone like her. Instead, they either live a miserable life or become a tormenter instead of a healer
Thread and Tapestry may be east stuff but they are not enough. To think they are is like Mike Huckabee wanting charities to do government work to help the poor while people like him don't want charities to get any government help. Here lies the conservative hypocrisy. It thinks the food pantries could stock themselves
So, yes, people like Sarah Hemminger and Bill Gates, some with hearts. some with resources, some with experience who have walked through the Valley of Darkness themselves, are important, like people like Nelson Mandela and President Obama who serve as role models. However, you know people in power who are fair arbiter with compassion. At the very least, Head Start is a lot cheaper than prison. This is not a reject of Thread but you don't make children lift 1,000 lb weight either
8
@Bos
Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book about individuals he called "outliers". Outliers were those who had brains, resources and opportunities to succeed. Bill Gates would be one of those individuals. Sarah Hemminger might be another. I saw what it could mean to an under served child when I volunteered with a reading program in Berkeley years ago. Mothers asked me to come for lunch; I went, and learned about the desperation families in poor neighborhoods felt; they needed help, consistent, and meaningful. They didn't need a one-off event. If you start something which works, keep it going; don't start something and walk away, leaving the community to figure out how to find leadership. If Hillary Clinton was right about anything, she was right about "it takes a village"; it does, and the village has to remain active, and committed to long term success, no matter how long that takes. We have ignored our inner cities' kids; we have no idea how many bright, creative individuals whose futures will never be realized, because there is no hope, not enough money, and not enough long term investment. We make long term investments in far away places; civil wars and resource wars. The war we need to fight is right here: a war for equality and hope and community. Start next door; we don't need to go knock on doors thousands of miles from here.
26
@Linda "Outliers," "six degrees of separation," "play it forward," "it takes a village," are all valid ideas, but my point is that anecdotal heroism doesn't diminish the need of institutional prevention.
In a way, the isolation condition has created Ms Sarah Hemminger but she is a rare one. There were two brothers coming out of South Boston, Billy Bulger and Whitey Bulger. The former was a former MA Senate President while the latter infamous mobster. But you can bet the former is one in millions and the latter a dime a dozen. No individual "outliers" can fix that.
You need institutional help. After all, organizations like Thread require patrons and apps like Tapestry require money to build and maintain. While perhaps it is not Mr Brooks's intention, you cannot deny the role of government at all levels.
So these volunteers provide legal help, counseling and tutoring. There is a tremendous need elsewhere, but Thread doesn’t have the resources to scale up. If only there were a way to fund such programs on a broader scale. We could fully fund our public schools to pay teachers and counselors a proper living wage. But that’s considered evil socialism in this country so we give tax cuts to the rich and make other disastrous policy decisions instead.
89
@EJK
Or, we could have a governmental system that thinks severe inequality and economic exploitation is anathema to social cohesion and the thriving of citizens and provides universal health care, a reasonable minimum wage, decent public housing, maybe even a job guarantee or a universal minimum income.
But hey, we can dream.
6
Admirable volunteerism, but questions:
Why aren't their parents doing this for them?
Why do they need rides to school? My children walked or took the bus.
6
@Jonathan Katz, unfortunately, both in America today and America 25 years ago (when I was in high school going through similar neglect within my family), many parents are not able to do these things for their children, for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to: They might be impoverished and working multiple jobs. They might be struggling with a history of abuse or PTSD. They might have mental illness. They might be incarcerated. They might be emotionally or logistically neglectful. Also, many children may live miles from where they go to school, or might be running late because of bringing a younger sibling to their school, or having stayed up all night to finish a paper (because no parent has taught them how to manage their time, or they're constantly taking care of their siblings or working a job, or two). I'm shocked you live in America today and aren't already fully aware of this.
130
@Jonathan Katz: First question - because they don't have parents available to do it for them. Second question: because the neighborhood they live in doesn't look like the neighborhood these children live in.
31
@Jonathan Katz
You read the article and still to need to ask? Obviously these children don't have stable homes due to any number reasons: parents with long hours at work for low pay jobs; possible incarceration; no money for public transportation and no public provision for school buses; too many blocks through dangerous neighborhoods without protection. Your children walked through neighborhoods with drive by shootings? Your children had access to public transit and money to pay the fare? If no to the first, and yes to the second, you might want to address issues about which you know something from experience. Arrogant judgemental opinions are never a path towards good public policy.
58
I'm reading a lot of Hannah Arendt these days (for reasons obvious to all), and she believed that totalitarian governments were born out of loneliness:
“While isolation concerns only the political realm of life, loneliness concerns human life as a whole. Totalitarian government, like all tyrannies, certainly could not exist without destroying the public realm of life, that is, without destroying, by isolating men, their political capacities. But totalitarian domination as a form of government is new in that it is not content with this isolation and destroys private life as well. It bases itself on loneliness, on the experience of not belonging to the world at all, which is among the most radical and desperate experiences of man.”
The Origins of Totalitarianism.
Trumpism, addiction, nationalism seem to appeal to people, mostly young men, who feel lonely and alienated from the world. Extending familial relationships to young people in need of familial relationships seems like a fantastic idea.
64
Rugged individualism will be the death of this country. Every time I see a "Don't Tread on Me" license plate I see another Point of Darkness.
But stuff like this gives me hope. The notion that we work better when we work together seems so obvious that one wonders why it's even an issue. The counter-case is vicious Darwinism or Lord of the Flies; we should aim higher than that.
As should churchgoers who shun those who do the right thing.
60
You may think this odd, but as a geologist, I heartily agree. We can't progress as a species, let alone as a nation, unless most of us are on the same page with respect to lots of (but not necessarily all) social, economic, and environmental issues. The fragmentation that is exploited and enhanced by politicians looking for a quick uptake in the polls, and the fragmentation that gives false comfort to those who are insecure and fearful, has to be healed or we will continue in this downward spiral. We need to talk to each other at the grassroots level and find our common good again. Geologists do this when they look for drinking water, explore for minerals or energy sources, try to keep people from building in hazardous places, and clean up environmental messes. The rest of us need to do it, too, everyday. And we must expect more of our "leaders."
21
" We need to talk to each other at the grassroots level and find our common good again. "
So what is the common good?
One side wants mass unbridled, unending immigration while the other side will do anything to stop it (including voting for a lout like Trump)
Unless both sides can compromise we are at an intractable impasse.
@Greg Wessel
Thank you. Imagine our world if John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison et al were in it for the short term; they planned for a the long term. They were products of The Enlightenment. Trump and his cult followers are the least enlightened citizens in decades. FDR and Truman were fortunate in the citizenry they had to work with, tough from a Depression, threat of fascism abroad, and the willingness to step up. No one is going to follow a spoiled five time bankrupt draft dodger; and, why should we? Any decent Democrat should be able to beat this loser, even against the odds of gerrymandered in EC venues. Get out the vote for State legislators, Governors. Congress people: Democrats young enough to have the passion and time to make a difference. Pelosi ought to spend her time raising money and mentoring young candidates.
3
Ah, again the trope that liberal America wants ‘unbridled immigration’.
Or maybe just that those who do immigrate are treated as human beings once they get here, rather than as political pawns.
4
Thread sounds like a wonderful program in a specific locale that is working. Reading between the lines of this column: Equity, inclusion, and diversity are fully embraced by everyone involved in Thread.
How great will it be when David Brooks finally makes that leap and embraces the truth that well-meaning white men writing Great Books are not All That? When Mr. Brooks is willing to be uncomfortable in his own skin, he might be truly invested in reducing social fragmentation and social isolation.
135
The young are, indeed, trying to rise above the cacophony of vitriol to do some good. I hope the oldsters of our country don’t continue to find ways to slap them down, because that happens.
I’m also reminded of the kinds of support communities that have built up around Robert Parris Moses’ algebra project in several cities. Their work, for instance, goes far far beyond schooling and math into the basic network that just doesn’t exist for many young people.
Brooks keeps writing the same Bowling Alone column tong and time again, though, and I keep wondering why the number of people willing to commit to this work is just do frightfully small. We live in venal times. I hope we can overcome that too.
13
Or perhaps both as we weave a future. As a loom that needs a strong warp that is always getting better~ more perfect~ at protecting, justice, promoting the general welfare and the blessing for all and the threads of the woof as we live our daily lives together.
9
Community and volunteer programs are lovely, Lord Brooks, but they are no substitute for humane public policy and good government.
The USA has the highest rates of poverty in the developed world.
US income and wealth inequality is also extreme compared to other industrialized countries.
Sociologist David Brady:
“Societies make collective choices about how to divide their resources. These choices are acted upon in the organizations and states that govern the societies, and then become institutionalized through the welfare states. Where poverty is low, equality has been institutionalized. Where poverty is widespread, as most visibly demonstrated by the United States, there has been a failure to institutionalize equality.”
Compared to other Western industrialized countries, the United States devotes far fewer resources to programs aimed at assisting the economically vulnerable.
The US allocates a smaller proportion of its GDP to social welfare programs than virtually any other industrialized country.
Political scientist Charles Noble writes, “The US welfare state is striking precisely because it is so limited in scope and ambition.”
https://confrontingpoverty.org/poverty-discussion-guide/why-is-poverty-h...
Perhaps if America's government hadn't been hijacked by a bunch of right-wing, racist and vulture-capitalist political sociopaths, our white, black and Latino kids might have a fighting chance at escaping grinding poverty.
531
@Socrates - Oh stop. Please. You can only criticize. Money can't solve all problems, particularly if it isn't allocated effectively.
But this - this is a brilliant program, tackling a culture-wide problem in the US, and in my native Canada too. It's the antithesis of what we usually promote - strength, power, cynicism, attack politics and speech, independence rather than interdependence.
She has hit at the root of so many, many problems - lack of connection and people who have your back, and fundamental lack of honesty and trust.
Some people overcome any problem thrown at them - maybe because someone came along who had their back no matter what.
7
@Socrates
The kinds of institutional change that you suggest are certainly needed in this country. However, I think that Brooks' point is that we need to begin at the grassroots level by people working cooperatively and building social trust. This is more likely to be successful than calling people "sociopaths."
1
@Socrates Good morning and thank you. Incisive as always. But isn't it true, do you think, that Mr. Brooks is the real subject of this piece, and not surprisingly. Mr. Brooks is aghast and agog at what his philosophy fully distilled has produced and makes a cri de coeur to give him the strength to endure the mornings. Volunteerism such as Thread equals effective, egalitarian government in the right hands and conversely. We were asleep, we got conversely. Chin up, Mr. Brooks. Find fixes.
3
A wonderful column!
Indeed, Thread *is* what renewal looks like - commitment to others on a personal level that doesn't fizzle when the going gets tough.
I would add that limiting the concept of family along traditional, rigid lines just increases social isolation for many.
Only by expanding the idea of what family is and can be, could Thread be the family to its participants that it has become
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@Teg Laer
Obviously Thread creates a family for young people who need a family, immediate or within the larger community. The current Congress is what Mat Bai described as the Vampire Squid. Vampire Squids crush and suck the life out of any immediate living thing.
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I'm not sure what you mean by "The program rejects any distinction between haves and have-nots." The program may reject that distinction, but reality certainly does not. The distinction between haves and have-nots is the most critical distinction in the United States today.
If you mean that the volunteers and employees of Thread emphasize their common humanity with the kids they help, rather than looking down on them as "cases," that's great. But if you mean that they gloss over the reality that they are PhD candidates at Johns Hopkins, and the kids are just trying to survive another day in Baltimore, this program is destined to fail.
I also question your assertion that "The volunteers are not there to do social change." I agree with you that isolation is a huge problem. But poverty is also a huge problem. A lot of kids in Baltimore aren't thriving because they worry every day whether they will be evicted, or whether they will get on the bad side of the local gangsters, or whether they will watch their mom die, convulsing on the kitchen floor, because she couldn't afford her insulin.
Imagine for a moment the life-altering anxiety and fear that would cause.
If you want to help those kids, and you come to them with all the privilege that wealth, status, whiteness and elite education bring -- then one of the very best things you can do for them is to hook them up with resources that might address their most urgent everyday problems.
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I agree with this commenters point. Financial resources need come from somewhere. Start with health care. That critical policy says to fellow citizens that we care whether you live or suffer. This would have been the right program to off-set the separation between wealth and poverty, but the Clintons got seduced by their power and the mission became sidetracked by ego. Once Obama had this in his grasp to do the right thing he appointed Hilary to Secretary of State which reinforced the impression that the Democratic Party mission was hijacked by ego and the Clinton's over-all lust for power, not purpose. And very painfully we have racism and sexism that is being fought though silly political correctness, rather than confronting our deeper fears of others.
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@B.C.
I disagree. Resilience and perseverance are developed through sustained experiences of trust, including experiences between the so-called “haves” and “have nots”. And it develops in both directions over time.
We have gotten so used to monetizing success that we have lost sight of everyone’s need to be seen and heard by trusted others in a community as a building block to a healthy, productive society.
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Why so negative? For the potential faults that may arise, which you may or may not be accurately describing, it is better to try than to do nothing. Chin up and get out there.
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Bravo to both Sarah and David, Sarah for loving thy neighbor based on the sole fact that the helpee is her neighbor, (Fred Rogers must be sming down on Sarah). And David for always looking for the way out of this national mess we're in.
As a product of the 60's, it seemed that despite whatever happened, America existed in an era of perpetually expanding enlightenment and progressivism. All neighbor's problems could be solved through education, scientific discovery and community outreach.
These days it feels like the exact opposite. All neighbors seem to be unreachable and dug-in, festering in our mutual hatreds as we all bear witness to the death-throes of American democracy.
How much easier it is to let the national depression consume us. To focus on what it takes to get through your daily tasks and do the work you need to get done. Deposit your checks. Pay your bills.
Bravo Sarah.
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Now, if only the ethos of Thread could become the ethos of our nation and of our national politics.
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My goodness. It takes a village to raise a child. Who could have guessed?
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@Larry Roth
Right, Parenting is really complicated. Who knew?
@Larry Roth
It takes an intact family with two parents, preferably a married mother and father. Villages help, but aren't replacements for family.
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Isn’t this what parents are supposed to be doing for their own children? That is the real moral failure here.
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@Eric
Of course some children don't have two parents, and some children have parents who need some parenting themselves. Not all people who have biological children are capable of parenting. And there are some people who do the best they can, but work two or three jobs so there is no time to ferry kids to activities or help with homework. This seems to be where Thread is most helpful.
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@Eric
They would if they could.
@Eric
Your critique assumes they have parents, and that those parents have sufficient resources to provide.
I lived years of my life in the type of isolation you are talking about. Some people are “primed” for it, by early life experiences for example, and the fall into the abyss is triggered by a set of experiences, but in some cases the worst aspect of the isolation is that you start to want it. The joys of life become grey and the concomitant challenges of life become impregnable walls that aren’t worth fighting. Your inner light is dulled, often times by drugs and alcohol, but always by fear and anger. In retrospect, now that I’m out, I realize that I couldn’t have done gotten out without the unasked for help and unconditional love of others. You’re one of them David. I’m a devoted reader and sometimes I even feel you “speak” to me. Now I see you as speaking to others who need your wisdom though and it’s so wonderful that you have such a platform. I’m particularly fortunate to derive a great deal of purpose from my work. It’s those people who are in the pit and don’t feel that sense of purpose, who don’t have arms reaching out to them, and who don’t feel the warmth of love, forgiveness, and acceptance, who are the sad cases. It’s them who God holds closest. It's wonderful that there are places like Thread to be there for young people in these types of struggles. I will do my best to pay back the unconditional love that has saved me.
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@Paul Q
Thank you for your eloquence in articulating a near universal experience of millions. This isolation is a pandemic. Many seem to believe there is no alternative. I don't see elected officials with awareness of this problem even though implications of the "disease" continually slap us in the face such as addiction. Yes, I concur with your assessment of Brooks and I am gratified that he spends his afternoons searching for those rays of hope that bring people together in mutual solidarity and support.
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