Let’s say you’re an untalented conservative hack who loves straw
You’d probably write something like this:
Let’s say you are an 18-year-old kid with a really big brain. You’re trying to figure out which field of study you should devote your life to, so you can understand the forces that will be shaping history for decades to come.
Apply for a job at AEI? Turns out the answer is:
Go into the field that barely exists: cultural geography. Study why and how people cluster, why certain national traits endure over centuries, why certain cultures embrace technology and economic growth and others resist them.
Why do certain cultures prosper and others do not. Yeah, it sounds like no one’s ever thought of that before. Much the same can be said of cultural geography. It’s unheard of. That David Brooks fellow sure is a pioneer. Maybe he should start his own university? Because you sure can’t study anything like that these days:
This is an advanced-level undergraduate course examining historical and cultural geography of the world from the basis of the National Standards for Geography. Course content includes identification and discussion of how history has influenced settlement patterns, how cultures have influenced the development of nations, and how the physical landscape influenced the human mosaic.
Then again, maybe the reason there are only 202,000 results on Google for “cultural geography” is because most people already have a name for what Brooks is writing about: anthropology:
the science of human beings; especially : the study of human beings in relation to distribution, origin, classification, and relationship of races, physical character, environmental and social relations, and culture
Having “invented” a field of study, Brooks turns his attention to straw:
This is the line of inquiry that is now impolite to pursue.
Yeah, no one is writing about why some countries are prosperous democracies, and others are not. What a shame that is.
The economists and scientists tend to assume that material factors drive history – resources and brain chemistry – because that’s what they can measure and count.
Yes, economists and scientists only look at material factors (because Karl Marx is running the world’s universities,) and everyone agrees brain chemistry is easily measured. On that note, the doctors x-rayed David Brooks’ head and found nothing.
But none of this helps explain a crucial feature of our time: while global economies are converging, cultures are diverging, and the widening cultural differences are leading us into a period of conflict, inequality and segmentation.
And here we thought the Bush Doctrine was making sure everything is getting better. You know, we remember liking Brooks’ ideas a lot better when they were called The Clash of Civilizations. Twelve years ago!
If you look just around the United States you find amazing cultural segmentation.
Like the op-ed page of the New York Times has been taken over by Three Morons and a Shrill.
People like Max Weber, Edward Banfield, Samuel Huntington, Lawrence Harrison and Thomas Sowell have given us an inkling of how to think about this stuff, but for the most part, this is open ground.
Two Harvard professors and a Hoover fellow — those damn liberal universities indoctrinating the nation’s youth.
If you are 18 and you’ve got that big brain, the whole field of cultural geography is waiting for you.
And if you’re 40-something and have got a small brain, the field of op-ed writing is waiting for you.
Added: More on Brooks courtesy of Citizen Kane, who got there first.
why certain cultures embrace technology and economic growth and others resist them.
Yes it’s true: only one in ten cultures embrace economic growth.
People like Max Weber, Edward Banfield, Samuel Huntington, Lawrence Harrison and Thomas Sowell have given us an inkling of how to think about this stuff, but for the most part, this is open ground.
Quite the list. It makes me wanna study why swarthy brown people embrace selling their kidneys on the black market, while rich white people do not.
This guy gets paid for this garbage? The NYT sucks.
I read this book, the one he’s looking for. It’s really popular. It’s called “Guns, Germs and Steel” by Jared Diamond. Maybe he’s heard of it. It won one of those Pulitzer thingies.
If he’s forgotten how to read, there’s even a PBS series based on the book.
For some reason, that column reminded me of everyone who ever announced they had The Solution to Spammers and why hasn’t anyone done it before, it’s so simple!
I read this book, the one he’s looking for. It’s really popular. It’s called “Guns, Germs and Steel” by Jared Diamond. Maybe he’s heard of it. It won one of those Pulitzer thingies.
It’s even been on television. If he wouldn’t consider watching it himself(PBS, doncha know), you’d think the TV section of his own paper might have disclosed the broadcast.
*shakes tiny fist at D. Sidhe*
Darn you and your faster-than-me typing! Darn you to Heck!
Huntingdon sucks. At least everything he’s done starting with and since Clash of Civilizations. That is all.
I haven’t read Brooks, but the idea that cultural and religious factor influence technological progress — or the lack of it — should not be dismissed.
Similarly, should we dismiss the “amazing cultural segmentation” in USA?
Let us face it: authoritarian religious forces bent on censoring and distorting science and persecuting independent thinkers are not exactly conducive to quick technological progress. As long as these forces are essentially making noise and nothing else, the impact is modest — although the shift of manufacturing AND research to other countries is troubling.
From 7-th to 10-th century Islam had a vibrant innovative civilization and then it was over. It can happen here.
Brooks columns are intellectualism for morons, incredibly brilliant and insightful to anyone who still can’t quite figure out how shoelaces work.
tigrismus, please watch your language. There are ladies present!
“If you look just around the United States you find amazing cultural segmentation.”
Yes. Blue staters all drink lattes, work as graphic designers, get around on rollerblades, have an average of 0.4 children, and divide their spare time between yoga, foreign films, and X-rated performance art. Red staters all drink Pabst Blue Ribbon, work in a quarry hauling gravel, drive pickup trucks, have an average of 4.9 white babies, and divide their spare time between church, wrestling, and NASCAR. In the real world we call that “overgeneralizing” and “stereotyping”, but on the New York Times editorial page it passes for informed analysis.
Beth – I’m so sorry, you’re absolutely right. I suppose it should actually have been “faster-than-I”, what with nominative case and “than” used as a conjunction an’ all. How mortifying.
hey, that should be FOUR morons and a shrill. don’t forget about tierney: sure, he’s not as well established as the other morons, but he tries really hard and has plenty of natural talent.
But the question nobody has asked yet is: What does Marie Jon’ think of Brooks’ ideas on cultural geography? Can she even pronounce it? And is Marie Jon’ too last-week to bring into this discussion?
Excellent post! I had very similar thoughts, pulished on my page on August 11. Great minds think alike.
Love the new favicon.
Should I be embarrassed that my dissertation (in literature, no less) was mostly about the cultural geography of 19th-century suburban London? (Well, obviously, yes, I should, but there are so many other good reasons to be embarrassed about it that the c.g. elements hadn’t even made the top ten til now.) The funny thing is, most of my c.g. sources were from the 1970s and I was under the impression it was a pretty dead field, having been replaced by cultural anthropology. But apparently Brooks has rediscovered it? What a genius.
I write a regular op-ed column for the local paper here in Milwaukee. I work hard to write interesting pieces, to find fresh angles, to look for issues that haven’t gotten enough attention. And one thing I do before every column is research, research, research.
Then the freakin’ New York Times prints the vacuities of ignoramus David Brooks — or Thomas Friedman mindlessly repeating, “The world is flat,” “geo-green strategy,” ad infinitum — and I just want to cram my puny paycheck down my throat until I choke to death on it.
Well, if Brooks actually did research before writing one of his columns, he’d end up producing a column that started off with something like “I was trying to do some research to figure out what to write about this week, and I found this incredible thing all the kids are hip to nowadays – it’s called ‘the internet’, and I think it’s going to revolutionize the future.”
Iceman, don’t be ridiculous. In the Red States, we call it ‘rasslin’. Geez.
I have to admit though, I first realized that one can study anything in college when I first heard about ethnomusicology.
Brooks has rooked me. I hope his columns go behind the ‘wall’ in September. Another reason not to pay for it. He must have a sweet contract, along with his buddy Fried-market-man.