David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute

The history of the Thanksgiving celebration in the US is many things, but it is not, for most of its history, an echo of Puritan religiousity.  The story of the Plymouth thanksgiving of 1621 doesn’t even reach print until the mid 18th century, and the various thanksgiving observances called by, say, the Continental Congress have essentially nothing to do with any Exodus narrative, as in this one, drafted by Sam Adams and promulgated by the Congress in 1777:

And it having pleased him in his abundant Mercy, not only to continue to us the innumerable Bounties of his common Providence; but also to smile upon us in the Prosecution of a just and necessary War, for the Defense and Establishment of our unalienable Rights and Liberties; particularly in that he hath been pleased, in so great a Measure, to prosper the Means used for the Support of our Troops, and to crown our Arms with most signal success…

Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation transformed the various and regional thanksgiving traditions into an annual and national holiday.  Unsurprisingly, given the time and place, Exodus wasn’t on the menu:

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

And, just to beat this dead horse some more, the final transformation of the holiday into its current form came as Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 tried to fix its observance on the fourth — and not the last — Thursday in November, thus setting off a die-hard rejectionist stance in states like Texas, which until 1956 continued to celebrate the day on the fifth Thursday of those Novembers that sported such an excess.  Roosevelt’s reason for imposing such a rule? So that in the ongoing depression, the Christmas shopping season would run as long as possible.

In that context, Brooks opening gambit is just a lazy fiction. Yes: the “First Thanksgiving” has been used as an all purpose rhetorical set piece.  No, the US immigrant/redemption story isn’t contained within it, not at its origins, nor in any of the evolution of that tradition as actual Americans have developed it over four centuries.

Onto paragraph two:

But we have to admit that many today do not resonate with this story. This story was predicated on the unity of the American people.

No.  First of all, and most obviously, this story, and Brooks’ particular (and familiar) gloss on it excludes African Americans. The “unity” Brooks asserts never existed, if you take all of those who crossed the ocean to dispossess those already here.  Brooks acknowledges as much in the next sentence:

But if you are under 45, you were probably taught an American history that, realistically, emphasizes division — between the settlers and the natives, Founders and their slaves, bosses and the workers, whites and people of color. It’s harder for many today to believe this is a promised land. It seems promised for the privileged few but has led to marginalization for the many.

OK:  so here Brooks acknowledges that a deeper engagement with the actual facts of history explodes a comfortable myth.  What’s the problem? Well…over to Bobo’s next insertion of foot in mouth:

The narratives that appeal today are predicated on division and disappointment.

“Division and disappointment?”  How about honesty and justice?  Seriously: is it divisive to say that slavery was central to American history and that it had terrible consequences?

That is to say: who does it divide, and on what basis — and how should we understand a living history in which saying slavery was bad is up for debate in certain quarters?  It takes a special intellectual dishonesty to dismiss as divisive claims of attention and historical clarity on such matters as the Native holocaust and the enslaved.

Brooks’ “argument” (sic) gets worse:

The multicultural narrative, dominant in every schoolhouse, says that America is divided into different biological groups and the status of each group is defined by the oppression that it has suffered.

I count at least four lies there. I’d say mistakes, or falsehoods, but that would do too little honor to Brooks.  He’s clever enough to know what he’s doing, to understand the meaning of the words he strings together.

Lie 1: “The multicultural narrative…”  There is only one? A gospel or a manifesto?  Horseshit.

Lie 2: “dominant in every schoolhouse…” Oh yeah? Show your work, you hack.

Lie 3:  “says that America is divided into different biological groups….” What? I mean wut?

This recalls the Brooks of some years back when he was eugenics-curious and dallied with HBD folks in asserting group outcomes had genetic roots and/or were so deeply embedded in “culture” as to be as deterministic as a gene for coding skill would be.  In any event, as the parent of a kid who is in his senior year at a high school right in the heart of godless liberal country, I can tell you that not once has one of his history teachers claimed explanatory power for the biology of Germans vs. Irish, Jews vs. Christians, blacks vs. whites and so on.  It’s a nonsense claim, but dangerous nonetheless — and it is arrant bullshit as both a description of what goes on in modern accounts of American history and as a way to think about conflict in that historical sequence.

Lie 4: “the status of each group is defined by the oppression that it has suffered.”  This is as much word salad as it is a simple falsehood.  What does he mean by “status”?  Place in society? Moral hierarchy? Precedence entering the room on Thanksgiving?

In context, he’s pretty clearly complaining that African Americans, for example, might have a claim on society given the lasting consequences of their historical circumstances, but such claims aren’t a marker of status.  Rather, a more nuanced understanding of our national story than “the melting pot” and “a city on a hill” compels at least some recognition that different communities and different times have wildly divergent historical experiences. Given that history as written and taught is always about what the present in which that writing and teaching occurs finds most urgent, that’s not a failed national story; rather it reflects the process of creating a more complete such story.

To continue!

The populist narrative, dominant in the electorate, says that America is divided between the virtuous common people and the corrupt and stupid elites.

OK. More BS.  To begin…what’s this “dominant in the electorate” effluvium?  To repeat, wearily, Hillary won the popular vote.  The polls since show that the Trump electorate, though way too large for comfort is not even close to a plurality. There is exactly no evidence that a “dominant” majority of the electorate has succumbed to or is committed to Trumpian populism.

And, of course, more important, this is merely a Brooksian twist on the “economic anxiety” trope that suggests that the Trump/GOP voter sees as its core motivation class conflict.  Brooks cannot stand the fact that Trump’s great political move was to divert such “common man” identification into race and religion-centered bigotry.  There’s no testament to virtue even in the seemingly endless New York Times sequence of stories on WWC voters.

Rather, at best, there are replays of a Hunger Games approach to social life: I gotta get mine, more of it and before those people get theirs.  IOW, as we’ll see in a moment, Brooks wants a particular kind of national reconciliation, and in order to do so he has to pretend that most of what is genuinely dividing the nation isn’t what it clearly appears to be.

Back to Brooks.  The common man and the multiculturalist have left us in a pickle, facing a problem that is more fundamental than any particular question of politics or policy.  What is that existential crisis?

Today, we have no common national narrative, no shared way of interpreting the flow of events. Without a common story, we don’t know what our national purpose is. We have no common set of goals or ideals.

This reads to me mostly as civic masturbation.  “National purpose” is one of those phrases that seems pregnant with meaning, but is enormously tricky once you get up close.  This is the rhetoric not of nations but of empire…and as such it’s a way of asking folks to agree to/acquiesce in getting lots of people killed. When genteel GOP apologists come asking you to buy into goals, check your wallet, and whether or not their kids have preemptively managed to sign up for the Texas National Guard.

Anyway, Brooks’ solution to the impertinant fact that actual history doesn’t fit comfortably into myths of power is to come up with a new national narrative.  How to do so?

Well, he writes,

One way to identify one is to go back to one of the odd features of our history. We are good to our enemies after wartime. After the revolution, we quickly became allies with Britain. After World War I, Woodrow Wilson was humane to our European enemies. After World War II, America generously rebuilt Germany and Japan.

Umm…”After the revolution, we quickly became allies with Britain” — except for that unpleasantness in 1812.  To speak of an alliance with Britain before 1917 is…stupid.

Umm…”After World War I, Woodrow Wilson was humane to our European enemies…” I’m guessing Brooks has heard of the Treaty of Versailles. There’s plenty to debate there, but no reasonable observer would assert that the war guilt clause and the reparations requirements were “humane.”

Umm…”After World War II, America generously rebuilt Germany and Japan.”  If history as a rigorous discipline, and not just series of Hallmark card cartoons, actually mattered to Brooks he might have recalled that the Marshall Plan was conceived not as charity but rational self interest: in the emerging conflict with the Soviet Union, restored counter-balances were essential.

That’s leaving aside those smaller wars we’ve fought for power and gain. Were we generous to Mexico after 1848? To Spain fifty years later? To those who lost the Indian Wars?  To pretend the US has not (and won’t continue to) act as a great power is make Brooks’ readers less informed than they were at the head of the column. Or to put this another way: Brooks is asking for a national story that cloaks the actual motives behind American policy in pious bullshit. We’ve done that plenty, and I’d advice BoBo to spend some time here before he asks us to do that again.

But I digress.  Onwards:

Elsewhere, enmities last for centuries. But not here.

Umm.

Umm.

Umm.

Yo! David: check this out. If we leave our enmities behind, tell me why Robert E. Lee still rides in so many town squares and courthouse entrances.  Or if you want a more personal account of lasting division, perhaps this would be common-man enough for you.

Brooks is, of course, undeterred by the pure fabulism of his essay at this point. If he says it, it must be so!

The story of America, then, can be interpreted as a series of redemptions, of injury, suffering and healing fresh starts.

That “can be” is doing a ton of work there, isn’t it.

Look at the mottos on our Great Seal: “A New Order for the Ages” and “Out of Many, One.”

Well, yeah — but the question of whether those claims stand close scrutiny is kind of what this whole piece was supposed to be about. Those mottos are the question, not the answer.

In the 18th century divisions between the colonists were partially healed. In the 19th century divisions between the free and enslaved were partially healed. In the 20th, America partially healed the divisions between democracy and totalitarianism.

And again, “partially” is taking on a heavy load there.

In the 21st, we have healing fresh starts still to come.

It would be nice to think so. Can’t happen if we don’t come to grips why prior healing has been so consistently incomplete (at best).

Brooks closes by invoking Lincoln and his second inaugural address. It is, as you might imagine, a partial and motivated reading.  I won’t go word-by-word through it (hallelujah–ed.).  Rather, I’ll just note this one turn in his exegesis:

Slavery, Lincoln says, was not a Southern institution, it was an American institution, weaving through our common history for 250 years. The scourge of war, which purges this sin, falls on both sides.

That’s almost right.  Lincoln famously said near the end of the speech that

If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?

So, yes, slavery was an offense whose consequences strike both sides.  But Brooks ignores that part of this speech in which Lincoln was equally and absolutely clear on the why and the who of the start of the terrible war:

Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.

That is to say: to assert Lincoln saw no absolute right and wrong in the causes of either side in the war is worse than foolish. It is to choose, deliberately, to pursue unity at the expense, say, of that peculiar interest whose legacy is still so much with us, so much at the heart of Trump’s appeal.

Brooks elsewhere deprecates moral relativism, the “wet” tendency to try to see a matter from the other’s point of view. Here, he’s all in on the idea that it’s not possible to decide where the moral balance lay back in 1864:

We cannot really understand the course of events or God’s will. Therefore, we can’t be certain of our notion of what’s right, or rigid in clinging to abstract principle or dogmatic ideology. Everything should be open to experiment, flexibility and maneuvering.

So, Jim Crow was just an experiment.  Japanese internment, an experiment?  And so on…

Yes. Moral certainty gets us Roy Moore.  But to see in Lincoln a justification for eliding the experiences Brooks derides at the start of his essay, that “multicultural narrative,” is both feckless as a reading of that one speech and the tell that gives away his whole game.

That is:  Brooks knows, none better, of the bankruptcy of the Republican party and its program.  Its policies are kleptocratic (and he can read well enough to know this).  Its patrons and driving engines are oligarchs, a category of people that is in itself inimical to any kind reading of an American democracy that can act as a beacon.  Its fundamental popular appeal turns on race and divisions of all kinds, and has since at least Nixon’s Southern Strategy of 1968.  What we’re seeing now is the mature form of that pathology, not a sudden, de novo outbreak.

The loss of a national story, the destruction of any core claim of unity derives from that real, event-by-event sequence of political history.  The Republicans aren’t the sole source of either disunion or policy failure.  But the two parties aren’t the same — just as Lincoln was, eloquently, subtly, pointing out in the address Brooks can’t bring himself to confront in full.

In the end, this column, as howlingly crappy as it is, remains nothing new. Brooks hates politics.  He loathes the fact that the grubby choices we make actually matter.

He’d rather preserve the basic power structure by rendering the messy business of deciding who pays taxes and what we get for them something most of us don’t need to trouble our pretty little heads about.

And that’s why he writes such piffle about a national story, and how sad it is that an intellectually rigorous history makes the most comfortable stories untenable. All that is really just Brooks saying “pay no attention to what the GOP is doing to you — and by no means ask for a cigarette after.”

Alright.  That’s enough.  Rather more than, I’d say.

Have fun, y’all.

Images: possibly Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen, The Laughing Fool, c. 1500.

Jan (Godfrey Jervis) Gordon, HMS Castor. Wounded Received After the Battle of Jutland, 31st May 1916, 1918