Some methodological errors in the thinking of David F. Brooks

John Agar in Nathan H. Juran's The Brain from Planet Arous (1957). Via Chandler Swain Reviews.

David F. Brooks is still writing that column about how somebody needs to give Western society a makeover, because it's getting awfully tatty and mean. As a matter of fact the column is getting pretty tatty too.

This time it is called "The Power of Altruism", under the influence of the French biologist and Vajrayana monk Matthieu Ricard, whose Altruism: The Power of Compassion to Change Yourself and the World came out in English just a year ago, horrible self-help book subtitle and all (the French title, Plaidoyer pour l'altruisme: La force de la bienveillance, sounds a lot more dignified, presented as a lawyer's brief for the defense, and using the noble "benevolence" instead of the sickly "compassion", and omitting the self-help how-to coda).

I am totally on board with the idea that it would be a good thing for all of us to spread around a little more of that "love and kindness" as my girl Hillary Clinton likes to call it, if we can, and loath to cast any doubts on the soundness of Ricard, who is a trusted French translator for the Dalai Lama, but as far as Brooks goes, you know, odds are always that he's doing it wrong, whatever it may be, and this train of thought as he represents it is no exception. Indeed, the new piece presents an especially clear opportunity for explaining Brooks's inability to understand what societies are, how they work, and what could be done to improve them, starting with his bizarre first sentence:

Psychopath Watch

Santorum Not Yet Toasted

At least, grammatically speaking. You read it here first:

“We made a decision over the weekend that while this presidential race for us is over, for me, and we will suspend our campaign today, we are not done fighting,” Mr. Santorum said as tears welled in the reddened eyes of his wife and the aides and friends who ringed the room.

That is "we are not done fighting" is the decision, and "the presidential race is over" is a kind of part of the environment, as in "we made a decision that while it's too cold to go to the beach, we are making a Rick Santorum sand sculpture."

It's a good example of how a thought expresses itself almost automatically in the form of a lie: a less twisted politician just says, "I'm not a quitter" as he or she is quitting, Santorum makes not quitting the subject of his announcement, while suggesting that the campaign just sort of quit on its own, when nobody was looking.

The likeness of Rick Santorum is demolished as the Democratic Women of Horry County secured the rights to demolish the Republican 2012 Primary Debate Sand Sculpture dubbed "Mount Myrtle," in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Steve Jessmore/Myrtle Beach Sun-News.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2012/01/24/2126449/snap-a-mcclatchy-photo-gallery.html?KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=515&width=910#storylink=cpy

Betcha David Brooks won't be reporting on this one:

Berkeley psychologists Paul Piff and Dacher Keltner ran several studies looking at whether social class (as measured by wealth, occupational prestige, and education) influences how much we care about the feelings of others. (Scientific American, via Huffington Post)

For instance,

luxury car drivers were more likely to cut off other motorists instead of waiting for their turn at the intersection. This was true for both men and women upper-class drivers, regardless of the time of day or the amount of traffic at the intersection. In a different study they found that luxury car drivers were also more likely to speed past a pedestrian trying to use a crosswalk, even after making eye contact with the pedestrian. 

And so on, through four more studies showing that "as people climb the social ladder, their compassionate feelings towards other people decline." Toward the end, the reporter asks, a little plaintively,

But why would wealth and status decrease our feelings of compassion for others? After all, it seems more likely that having few resources would lead to selfishness. Piff and his colleagues suspect that the answer may have something to do with how wealth and abundance give us a sense of freedom and independence from others. The less we have to rely on others, the less we may care about their feelings.

Or couldn't it just as easily be the other way around? I mean, the more psychopathic a person is to start with, the more likely to claw her-or-his way up that ladder?

From All about Eve.