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| Photo by Julie Larsen Maher © WCS, via National Geographic. Talking about preserving it when our EPA is run by a tool of the agents of pollution and greenhouse gas production is dreary policy and politics, isn't it? Let's make it into a deep-sounding allegory instead! |
Verbatim David Brooks, "This American Land":
These days I often ask people what percentage of our nation’s problems can be solved through policy and politics. Most people say that most of America’s problems are pre-political. What’s needed is a revival of values, fraternity and a binding American story.
Question to Radio Yerevan: Is it true that David Brooks often asks people what percentage of our nation's problems can be solved through politics and most of the respondents say that most of America's problems are pre-political?
Answer: David Brooks refuses to release his visitor logs, so we can't ascertain for sure.
Today we have some entirely original thinking from David Brooks as 1950s New York intellectual, armed with quotes from Thoreau and Whitman and aiming at the Great American Summary Statement. I'm trying to imagine how stressful it is to have a conversation with him:
Answer: David Brooks refuses to release his visitor logs, so we can't ascertain for sure.
Today we have some entirely original thinking from David Brooks as 1950s New York intellectual, armed with quotes from Thoreau and Whitman and aiming at the Great American Summary Statement. I'm trying to imagine how stressful it is to have a conversation with him:
BROOKS: Say, Yas, just offhand, what percentage of our nation's problems can be solved through policy and politics, would you say?
YAS: Uh.
BROOKS: I mean, I'd say not that many.
YAS: Well, um, sure. I mean the question would be, what other means are you talking about? What's your no-policy, no-politics approach to national problem solving? Who's in charge?
BROOKS: I don’t know all the ways that revival of spirit can come about, but even in the age of the driverless car and Reddit, I suspect some of the answers are to be found in reconnecting with our ancient ideals and reconnecting with the land.
YAS: Oh. Ah. Reconnecting with the land. To be sure.
BROOKS: So I can chalk you up for revival of spirit, and fraternity, and a binding American story?
