Few things amuse me more than pundits trying to use hip lingo. From today’s Bobo blog:
Impulsive people might sleep with each other faster and also behave in other ways that damage relationships. On the other hand, if you took impulsive people and surrounded them in a culture that strongly discouraged bedding down on the first date, would this by itself improve relationship quality?
The question I have for conservatives is always this: how would you create this “culture that strongly discouraged” whatever bad thing you think people shouldn’t do? I’m afraid that the answer is always going to involve some form of government enforcement.
I doubt there are many people who base their personal mores on what they read in New York Times columns. I certainly hope there aren’t!
Update. Bad news from Steve M.
May I tell you something horrible? The Brooks book hit #1 on the Times bestseller list. (The list will be on the site this weekend—I get it by email.)
Just Some Fuckhead
Impulsive people might eat at the Applebee’s salad bar instead of growing their own vegetables and making a salad at home.
Mustang Bobby
The image of David Brooks “bedding down” is enough to make me celibate for a good long time. Thanks a lot.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
Is relationship quality really in the shitter? Oh wait–this is Bobo mourning a changing society in which women can actually make choices about who they fuck and how long the fuck them again. Never mind.
Steve M.
May I tell you something horrible? The Brooks book hit #1 on the Times bestseller list. (The list will be on the site this weekend — I get it by email.)
That alone makes me hope the Mayans are right.
Comrade Mary
“Bedding down on the first date” sounds like two people breaking out the flannel jammies and fluffy duvet, while making sure they each have a glass of water, their reading glasses and some light reading on their respective night tables.
I mean, if he can’t type “fucking like monkeys on meth”, can’t he at least try “hooking up”?
cleek
it can be done if we return this country to its Judeo-Christian™ foundations by allowing the Bible (©, 1 Jesus, et al) in government-run schools, and by promoting Family Values™ at home and in schools. first, stop the radical Homosexual Agenda™ that is destroying the fabric of this country. and then, reaffirm our country’s commitment to God™ by eliminating the insidious multi-cultural infection™.
mclaren
In this case, you’re incorrect. Many human behaviours are strongly discouraged because we’re hardwired to avoid them.
Having sex with siblings is strongly discouraged by biology. Studies of unrelated children who are raised in kibbutzes as a family show that they have the same incest taboo as real relatives.
Likewise, people have a strong aversion to scat: it’s hardwired.
Genentic egineering the population to introduce a strong aversion to greed and selfishness would probably be the only way to get rid of thugs like David Brooks. No government enforcement required.
jibeaux
To be fair, it could take on a more vigilante flair. You know, neighbors spying on neighbors. Like Cuba!
Or like the guy who wrote A Year of Living Biblically and had to figure out a way to try to stone adulterers. I think he found a guy in Central Park who confessed to it, so he chucked tiny pebbles at him surreptitiously.
Comrade Mary
Ooh! Ooh! Make Bobo use the bully pulpit!
(What do I win?)
urbanmeemaw
@cleek: And don’t forget the most important thing – abolishing government’s intrusion into our lives!
scav
“bedding down”? I’m clearly behind the curve because that makes the old dear sound exactly like one of more censorious great aunt figures from Anthony Trollope.
Tim F.
I believe that David Brooks exists to give a small happy jolt to people who already feel that way. If Brooks and chunky Brooks did not exist, bigots and retrograde cranks would feel isolated and out of touch and might start to ask uncomfortable questions about their own assumptions.
David in NY
@Comrade Mary: Well said.
Probably, an old guy should make clear those are just tenses of the same verb:
1. Past: We used to fuck like monkeys on meth.
2. Present: We have sex.
3. Future: Think I’ll go bed down (yawn).
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@scav:
I’m pretty sure that’s an accurate description of Bobo. Thanks.
jibeaux
I wonder if it would blow Bobo’s mind to tell him that there might be individuals who wouldn’t even require a date. If one had certain star from the Firefly series and Dr. Horrible’s sing-along blog captive, it might be at most whatever drink’s on special….
Dammit, NOW I know why Firefly got cancelled! Stupid strong discouragement.
Holden Pattern
Make sure that contraception and abortion aren’t available, and then on to the public
slut-stoningslut-shaming!It always comes down to this. You want to make fucking a horrible horrible thing for which you make everyone except straight rich men feel really guilty, and preferably attach some kind of lifetime punishment (again, for everyone except straight rich men). Never mind that people have been fucking for the entire history of people, and even before.
PurpleGirl
…culture that strongly discouraged…
Is Bobo alluding to a culture wherein people shun other people who behave in bad ways? (Does he want us to take on the culture norms of the Amish?) Will he shun the banksters who defrauded investors and caused the financial meltdown? Will he refuse to accept paychecks from those same people? Somehow I don’t think so.
ed
Elitist Fuckhead David Brooks has a knack for unintentional comedy that is downright Friedmanesque.
Superluminar
@ Comrade DougJ
Your relationship to Bobo is not dissimilar to that between Maclaren and m_c. This explains a lot.
R-Jud
@Tim F.:
This has been exactly my feeling for some time. I’ve an uncle who is both a bigot and a retrograde kook (not a crank, he’s actually genuinely sweet to the people he likes, and non-brown strangers), and he often quotes Brooks when trying to support himself in an argument.
Bill ORLY
Is it just me, or does every video currently displaying on the site link to the same al Jazeera video of Japanese tsunami destruction?
Sentient Puddle
@Bill ORLY: I had the same issue a few days ago, but with the Friday video. I think that was more unfortunate.
Joel
These guys are just mad they were virgins well into their late 20’s. In Douthat’s case, the clock is still running.
cyntax
Way OT, but color me pretty fucking surprised:
Just Some Fuckhead
@ed:
Cmon dawg, don’t be a playa hater.
Howlin Wolfe
@Comrade Mary: Bobo will need a safe word for that. How about “Applebees!”
Roy G
Brooks must cut quite a figure in the salons of the Upper East Side, and the silver hair & spoon crowd must be quite awed at his knowledge of the social dynamics of Teh Kids, but really, it’s like his ‘research’ involves nothing more than watching an episode of Jersey Shore.
gbear
So that’s what the colonists are calling it these days.
@cleek: Yep. The only thing to add to that is preventing the redistribution of wealth.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
RE Brooks’s book (say that fast three times) at #1 on the NYT best seller list: This is a surprise? Quick, here’s a pearl,clutch it!
piratedan
the scene….. Brooks and an unnamed person of the female persuasion sipping coffee in the breakfast nook…. she is lightly tapping her Apple Ipad2 and he is somewhat old fashioned, rustling the morning paper, perusing the Op-ED pages….
he speaks to her, using his manly base pitched voice, “yes, it appears that I awakened somewhat overstimulated from last night’s stirring conversation regarding proper societal mores….”
She raises her eyes to make contact with his wire rimmed frames and the milky brown irises behind the prescription lenses and cocks an eyebrow in feigned interest and from that movement is the suggestion that perhaps he should take the necessary actions…..
he sighs inwardly at her unspoken response and refolds the paper and takes himself off to the bathroom with a slightly tattered edition of a 40 year old National Geographic and closes the door behind himself….
Comrade Scrutinizer
@jibeaux: A certain star from the Firefly series? Jeez, I’d do any of ’em, given the chance. Well, mebbe not Glass or Tudyk. But mebbe so. ‘Course, they’d have to be willing to go both ways.
I don’t think Bobo would approve of me.
Brachiator
@ Comrade DougJ:
Oh, man, this was just crying out for the title, Bobo Booty Call!
Stefan
On the other hand, if you took impulsive people and surrounded them in a culture that strongly discouraged bedding down on the first date, would this by itself improve relationship quality?
A culture such as, for example, Afghanistan, or Saudi Arabia, or Iran. How’s their relationship quality stack up?
Bob Loblaw
A post of mine is doomed to moderation hell down a couple of threads. Could somebody please undoom it?
Stefan
Concern David Brooks is concerned.
Cat Lady
Has Bobo ever seen Skins? Or Two and a Half Men, or basically anything on TV for that matter? Does he understand that what he wants would involve government censoring of most of what passes for entertainment? What a wanking clueless wanker.
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
That’s okay, I’ll take ’em while I’m waiting for Captain Tight Pants to clear his schedule for me.
bemused
Bedding down, quaint but very unspecific. He cites a study that couples who delay first time sex have higher relationship satisfaction. He neglects to mention that some couples such as teenagers do everything but have actual intercourse because they believe that is not sex. Bedding down to him probably means male/female missionary.
Social Outcast
It’s BS. The Bible belt has such a culture, and those people fuck like rabbits behind the facade of moral purity.
Ella in New Mexico
David Brooks’s tender psyche is about as transparent as glass.
Obviously he has a new adolescent in the family. I would guess, a very pretty daughter.
RSA
Brooks needs to work on his wordsmithing; I don’t think “faster” is the word he wants.
Bill Section 147
Regulating morality does not necessarily require government institutions, involvement or mandate. It can be handled more easily by and extra-governmental institution like the Church.
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
j low
“Bed down” is something you do to a horse after a long day “wranglin'” cattle. “Bed” is something Bobo’s anscestors did to women up till the 1890’s. No matter how he tries, Bobo just can’t master authenticity.
schrodinger's cat
@Ella in New Mexico:
Obviously she must take after her mother
Chuck Butcher
I’m a bit tired of hearing about the ‘demise’ of the GOP. It would seem that bunch is a bit more like herpes than terminal syphillus. They’ll come around and make your life miserable and then recede leaving you feeling pretty good and then return to make you miserable again -repeat, etc.
The Depression didn’t do the trick, RMN didn’t do it, they actually got stronger thanks to St Ronnie, and recently evident – GWB couldn’t even drive a stake into the GOP heart, and the ongoing recession brought them back strong. It would seem you’d have to do something about the sanity of the electorate first…
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
bad news for bobo, the very possibility that people might bed down on it, lay in a little short arm practice, et al, is what drives large swaths of our economy.
how does bobo account for the loss of productivity that would coincide with a loss of reproductivity?
Nicole
OT and sorry if it’s already been posted, but a judge ruled the WI GOP violated the open meeting rule and has temporarily blocked the anti-collective bargaining law:
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/118242109.html
artem1s
@Nicole:
Yea!
FlipYrWhig
I think Brooks misheard “Get Down” as “Bed Down” sometime around 1977 and only just realized his mistake.
schrodinger's cat
The popularity of Bobo is confounding to say the very least. I just don’t get it.
Southern Beale
BREAKING: Activist Judge alert!!!!
Gus
Didn’t Doughy Pantload’s magnum opus make #1 on the best seller list? After that, nothing on the best seller list surprises or depresses me. We’ve already bottomed out.
Southern Beale
“Bed down” … that is not a term we use, but I am not young and hip and kewl. I don’t know what terms you young kids today use. Judging by the lingo folks like Ke$ha use, I think the term is “fuck.”
Southern Beale
@Gus:
Yes but that was aided by the wingnut welfare gravy train: bulk orders from “patriotic” organizations like the folks at NewsMax who later resell them for $1 if you subscribe. That kind of stuff.
Suffern ACE
@schrodinger’s cat: Why. There are a lot of hysterics in our country who live for a moral panic more than anything else. There is also a large demographic of the smug who hate the hysterics but wish to remain smug and comfortable, knowing that all of their decisions are correct. He appeals to the smug.
MikeBoyScout
Well, if those silly folks in Oklahoma would get over their aversion to Sharia, we’ve got a perfectly good example to follow for BoBo’s dilemma:
cleek
@jibeaux:
mmm…Morena Baccarin
mmm…Christina Hendricks
no, wait. i’m married. scratch that.
R. Porrofatto
Only $195 a year for bitchin’* stuff like this? Wow, sign me up!
*hip lingo
piratedan
@cleek: or even… mmmm Jewel Staite or well, lets just say that whoever cast those talented women had an wonderful grasp on how variety of the feminine form is an altogether good thing.
Mnemosyne
@Southern Beale:
He may not be published by Regnery, but I suspect Bobo is benefiting from the same wingnut gravy train.
PWL
Cute rhetorical trick from Mr Brooks, and worthy of Fox News: Posing a question that suggests a particular answer, without actaully amswering the question.
I’ve always wondering why Repubs like brooks are so uneasy about sex, yet are perfectly OK with the (a)morality of money and war. When you think about it, more harm has been done to this country by your fine upstanding Chamber of Commerce ypes than by any porn star….
CanadaGoose
“…if you took impulsive people and surrounded them in a culture that strongly discouraged bedding down on the first date, would this by itself improve relationship quality?”
I grew up in such a culture (United States in the 1950s) and the answer is an unqualified NO. What a dimwit.
sukabi
@Mustang Bobby: well there you go, a solution for everyone… televise Bobo getting down with his goat of choice and you solve all kinds of problems… over population, teen pregnancies, abortions, STD’s… it’s a HUGE WIN!!!
Woodrowfan
I love that video and wish I could work it into my US survey class when we get to Vietnam.,..
Carl Nyberg
This is just a way to switch the conversation from discussing wealth, power and legitimate public policy issues–stuff we can influence by government policy–to something else that people feel strongly about.
Ella in New Mexico
@schrodinger’s cat:
Eeewwwwwwwwwww!!! lol!
Henk
@Mustang Bobby: I suspect that most of women in Brooks’ life felt the same way. That’s why he writes this kind of stuff. For him, sex on the first date was never an option, unless it was arranged before hand and required a substantial sum left on the dresser.
Brachiator
@Social Outcast:
And in front of the facade, and in the bushes next to the facade, also.
Comrade DougJ
@Woodrowfan:
I am thinking of putting it in every post about the popularity of Bobo.
ppcli
@scav: Or like Harry Flashman’s puritanical sister-in-law Grizel Morrison de Rothschild, who edited *Flashman’s Lady*, and censored out all the mild profanities, but let the most vulgar ones through, because she evidently had no idea what they meant.
Ken J.
The amazing thing is, we know what cultures look like which discourage sex on the first date…
Iran… Saudi Arabia… China before recent modernizations…
Brooks doesn’t have to speculate, there are real-life examples he can hold up as models America should emulate!
Joseph Nobles
OMG, slightly OT (OK, completely, but there’s a clip!), but I just saw the HD trailer for the Blu-Ray Apocalypse Now, and Holy Fuckistan, I must own it.
Morbo
And the NYT thinks the paywall is a good idea.
Led
“The question I have for conservatives is always this: how would you create this “culture that strongly discouraged” whatever bad thing you think people shouldn’t do? I’m afraid that the answer is always going to involve some form of government enforcement.”
Putting aside the merits of Brooks’ argument, this bit isn’t very well thought out. People’s behavior is influenced by the opinions of others in all sorts of ways absent government enforcement. Most people don’t tell racist jokes in public and we don’t have laws against that (and, in fact, we have a very big law against such laws). Many don’t tell racist jokes in public because they don’t find them funny. But a significant percentage of people don’t do it because they know they’ll look bad in the eyes of others.
Mike G
In other words, it’s yet another tiresome dodge to cram the ‘forms’ of social conservatism into law and give smug busybodies free reign to bully people around.
Meanwhile, the “conservatives” know that it’s all a ruse they can self-righteously pontificate to the little people and their gullible followers; while they, the overlords exempt from all limitations, can keep screwing around a la Gingrich, Craig, Ensign, Vitter, Haggard et al.
DR
@Steve M.: If it is number one, it’s because of the usual corporate welfare mechanism by which “think”-tanks and other corporate funded fronts buy massive number of copies and then give them to members and friends.
When it comes to political books, the bestseller list is pure shenanigans.
Joey Maloney
@mclaren:
False. Every culture ever studied has an incest taboo, but there is infinite variation on which relations are considered incestual.
Joey Maloney
(Damn, thrown into moderation by the 1nc3st word.)
wenchacha
I would direct Bobo to:
1.) The Catholic Church re: young pregnant unmarried women and of course, little boys
2.) BYU and its Purity Code or whatever and how well that works (but they did get chastize the young buck)
3.) Bible Belt, unbuckled
4.) State of Utah, big fans of porn
for starters.
He writes for the NYT! Not that it means that much, but is NYC a bastion of abstinence? Would Mayor 911 have fucked around less on his wives if he were afraid of being shunned?
Good Gawd, Brooks is a simpleton. Give me a damned NYT column.
priscianus jr
Cheryl from Maryland
@piratedan: Another TV show which causes my spouse to exclaim, why oh why did my guidance counselor not tell me about TV show casting as a career?
Thank you Science Channel for re-broadcasting Firefly. And another reason to hate Fox — for canceling it.
As for Brooks, the less we think about him, the better. I’m not paying the NYT for that drivel.
Menu
@schrodinger’s cat
Popularity?
Never underestimate the power of flattery.
See also: Rand, Ayn
Villago Delenda Est
You’ll note that BoBo gets all bothered about sex, but when it comes to promiscuous greed, he’s utterly silent. You know, the pursuit of profit above all other values possible? The “I’d give it all up…for just a little bit more” philosophy?
Jason
It’s also interesting how strong the idea of “surrounding” some group or kind is to conservative pundits. I’m more offended at:
“Might?” If we’re going to start stigmatizing that sort of psychological issue any more than we already do, I’m out of here.
petorado
BoBo’s post reads like the latest salvo in his war for moral superiority. Since the prerequisite for being conservative these days is being an amoral a-hole, BoBo’s glossing all that over by tut-tutting the poor people for having teh sex. Funny thing this posture from a Villager who can see plain as day the link between sex and power in his circle. So where do guys like Vitter, Sanford, Craig, Newt and all the other conservative philanderers fit into his scheme?