The Babbling Brooks of the NYT Advocates Liberal Arts Studies and Knowing The Big Shaggy to Cope in our Society.

Abstract: David Brooks soars off into some mental swamp with noisy laments on the current financial outcomes of those who studied the liberal arts. We learn that only those who dived deeply into Thucydides, Herodotus and Gibbon can attain the nirvana of a close relationship with their Big Shaggys. I read Gibbon’s Fall and Decline of the Roman Empire in high school and was bored to tears. [What happened to Aristotle? Or, Roger Bacon?] We learn that we all carry around a Big Shaggy that is impervious to penetration or even conscious self-awareness without a detailed grounding in college courses that stir the emotions. Technical types like me are apparently unable to construct a proper declarative sentence. An ignorance of such literature as David lists apparently prompts “self-destructive overconfidence” and was the probably root cause of the current BP oil spill in the Gulf. Perhaps Tony Hayward, CEO of BP, should have read Chaucer or Byron instead of geology.

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Introduction to Incoherent Babblings and the New York Times:

In times of stress and turmoil, many in our society call for more soak time in the liberal arts cold tub to sooth their emotional sores and help them struggle to cope with modern life in a capitalist society.  Some must work for a living however repellent that concept is for the left.  So they read more literature seeking diversions or take more drugs and anxiously seek counsel from the far left writers at the near-bankrupt New York Times—aka the Walter Duranty Papers.[1][2]  Wisdom resides there. Here, they will find hope if not the truth. This newspaper, possessing a discernible ranking that scores only a bit above a crude pamphleteer’s production of pulp political sloganeering or perhaps a wheezy maudlin ragzine on politics, continues to produce little other than new theorems on unfinished racial bias, the crafting of some new amoral litany immersed in reversed racism and all sorts of other projects designed  to increase our taxes, but they have yet to rechart the course for their dedicated readers toward a modern understanding  of the business world.  All they can ever seem to find are ways to increase the size of government via higher spending and taxes. They love other people’s money. The readers who studied the liberal arts are now gauged as being stuck with having to work for a living unless they are lucky enough to secure some cushy government job where they can maliciously meddle with the system for good pay and excellent benefits[3] and insulate themselves from reality. Unfortunately they are competing for very few stylitic[4] pedestals where they might cast illuminations and leftist wisdoms upon the ignoranti from a lofty height. They prefer to wallow in misery and celebrate the self-inflicted horrors of the life of True Believers[5] and through propagandistic means attempt to broaden the path to socialism although this requires some social crutches so today the NYT offers some balm for this deficiency.  

So, today our Chief Babbler David Brooks[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] invents new vistas in the politically unhygienic topic of ‘education.’ He suddenly realizes that students need to study and master some different [and hostile] elements of ejukashon[13] as that may lead to real jobs. He must also reflect on the rage from the far left as directed against Nancy Pelosi[14] by hecklers who were enraged by the absence of some key public assistance legislation and the fact that the State of Israel still exists. Carbuncles like this need a soothing poultice and David Brooks will hopefully help to distract them with fluff pieces like today’s piece.

He begins:

“When the going gets tough, the tough take accounting. When the job market worsens, many students figure they can’t indulge in an English or a history major. They have to study something that will lead directly to a job.”[15]--History for Dollars  By David Brooks Op-Ed Columnist Published: June 7, 2010 [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]

How sad. No openings for basket weavers or business diversity inspectors?

“So it is almost inevitable that over the next few years, as labor markets struggle, the humanities will continue their long slide. There already has been a nearly 50 percent drop in the portion of liberal arts majors over the past generation, and that trend is bound to accelerate. Once the stars of university life, humanities now play bit roles when prospective students take their college tours. The labs are more glamorous than the libraries.”--History for Dollars  By David Brooks

After having studied engineering, math, chemistry and spent a mere 30 years on the lab bench, inter alia[16], I wonder how those liberal arts majors even got jobs other than as sex workers, government employees, chancre mechanics  or dumpster divers. I am not sure than drug addicts have ‘jobs’ in the usual sense, but I might be wrong if they deal drugs on the side.

The buggy whip nostrum now arises:

“But allow me to pause for a moment and throw another sandbag on the levee of those trying to resist this tide. Let me stand up for the history, English and art classes, even in the face of today’s economic realities.”--History for Dollars By David Brooks

The best sources of ‘art’ are clearly Good Will or the Salvation Army. Evidences of some remote association with the fine arts lay in heaps on the floors of these establishments where the buyers first look at the frames for value. Then, there is ‘journalism’ or communication. Does anybody really believe the rants in the New York Times?

“Studying the humanities improves your ability to read and write. No matter what you do in life, you will have a huge advantage if you can read a paragraph and discern its meaning (a rarer talent than you might suppose). You will have enormous power if you are the person in the office who can write a clear and concise memo.”--History for Dollars  By David Brooks

This comment is one of those only-one-way theorems so cherished by the left. I wonder what a liberal would conclude after reading a few paragraphs of the Constitution and reporting back to the therapy room with a discernment of its meanings.  Could its deep meaning ever be untangled by the left? Here, we must bust into some engineering classes at UCLA or maybe a chemistry lecture at SUNY and demand some proficiency in English from those majors who errantly study something valuable in the market place. It was my experience that many such technical students could have gone into history, art or basket weaving or even journalism, and many should have, but chose a more interesting life other than recycling political slogans in snappy prose. Business courses are omitted from scrutiny here and if liberals could read a few thousand intra-corporation e-mails they might get a better understanding of modern communication. I can just imaging G. Bernard Shaw[17] as a new hire writing a memo to manufacturing requesting the making of 10,000 new gizmos in the computer world.

What we missed:

“Studying the humanities will give you a familiarity with the language of emotion. In an information economy, many people have the ability to produce a technical innovation: a new MP3 player. Very few people have the ability to create a great brand: the iPod. Branding involves the location and arousal of affection[18], and you can’t do it unless you are conversant in the language of romance.”-- History for Dollars By David Brooks

Brooks might be obliquely referencing the strange career of Steve Jobs who was in technical fields in his youth but was attracted to new ideas by accidentally auditing a course in calligraphy and then became a Buddhist and broadened his mind with psychedelic drugs.[19] Those sound like proper attributes for success on the left.

After stumbling through a mangled essay on analogies and citing works by Thucydides, Herodotus and Gibbon he cobbles this together:

“Let me try to explain. Over the past century or so, people have built various systems to help them understand human behavior: economics, political science, game theory and evolutionary psychology. These systems are useful in many circumstances. But none completely explain behavior because deep down people have passions and drives that don’t lend themselves to systemic modeling. They have yearnings and fears that reside in an inner beast you could call The Big Shaggy.”-- History for Dollars  By David Brooks

Wasn’t this similar to the Id [Id, iPod…they sorta rhyme…] of several decades ago by Freud as his mind was collapsing?[20] This run for the swamp is a favorite theme in the liberal glubberance[21] theory. The proof of this statement is that we cannot understand some process and because it is intractable then we need to slither sideways or resort to dumpster diving or other frivolities to broaden our intellectual vision. Not knowing the answer to perplexing problems is so enlightening for some.

“You can see The Big Shaggy at work when self-destructive overconfidence overtakes oil engineers in the gulf, when go-go enthusiasm intoxicates investment bankers or when bone-chilling distrust grips politics”-- History for Dollars  By David Brooks.

How about other examples like the failed mission of Barrack Obama, the outcome of Social Security from politicians or even Greek state financing? Brooks keeps his examples tightly bound to his political opponents.

“The observant person goes through life asking: Where did that come from? Why did he or she act that way? The answers are hard to come by because the behavior emanates from somewhere deep inside The Big Shaggy.”--History for Dollars  By David Brooks

Ah, a conundrum![22] Brooks sums up here with the expected conclusion strained from this mush:

“Technical knowledge stops at the outer edge. If you spend your life riding the links of the Internet, you probably won’t get too far into The Big Shaggy either, because the fast, effortless prose of blogging (and journalism) lacks the heft to get you deep below.”--History for Dollars  By David Brooks

Technical and business people are simply louts.  Journalism is effortless? Probably true if you have a short stack of political clichés to guide your reasoning and written work as in the case of Frank Rich.

David Brooks runs out of clichés and concludes that ignorance of The Big Shaggy will eat you up.

“Few of us are hewers of wood. We navigate social environments. If you’re dumb about The Big Shaggy, you’ll probably get eaten by it.”--History for Dollars  By David Brooks

This scary scenario works for rodents and leprosy too. This current op-ed would make a good theme for a children’s fairy tale book or a new character for a Dora the Explorer episode. [23] Brooks fanaticizes that he has found the door to the Fourth Wall[24] [late 18^th century philosophy now discarded]  and can peer inside whenever he wants. I think he is merely lost.

I presume those of us who studied science, engineering and business are lame-brained zombies who stumble through life in blissful ignorance of what great activities and achievements we have missed. The odd part of this observation is that we who have mastered science or business seem to detect the heavy jingle of coins in our pockets—the absence of which appears to fester in the limited neuronal sets of most liberals. They want our money. On the other hand, this essay by David Brooks might just be a parody on “…watching the old senile dribbler who wanders about in a quest for the origin of the stench of stale urine. It seems to be everywhere he reasons.”[25]  On the other hand, maybe Brooks laments for the liberals who missed out on much of life and are perpetually broke and need to embrace parasitism to keep up their appearances and their caloric intake.  That situation does offer more time to explore the mysteries of Allen Ginsberg.

I think I will take up the lute, study astrology, shave my head like Jobs did and become a hermit until I enlighten myself with a personal knowledge of my own Big Shaggy. A fortuitous reincarnation might allow me to continue on with more important works that I missed in this life.

rycK [a 5^th generation Californian in exile]

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