David Brooks just pithed on me (and by extension, many Kossacks and other bloggers) and I'm not going to take it any more.
Many readers no doubt observed that if today's prostate-aged moochers wanted to loaf around all day reading books and tossing off their vacuous opinions into the ether, they should have had the foresight to become newspaper columnists.
Others will note sardonically that the only really vibrant counterculture in the United States today is laziness.
http://select.nytimes.com/...
Follow me after the jump to find out why the ever-reactionary Brooks is just following a fine old aristocratic tradition of ignoring basic economics and social history to instead pass a condescending moral judgment on the lower classes.
Ha! Ha! The "vibrant counterculture" of blogs, podcasts, vlogs, zines, Move.on and Meetup is nothing more than the "laziness" of those who did not have the foresight to spend their entire lifetimes insinuating themselves into the journalistic establishment like those esteemed purveyors of Truth like Judith Miller, Bob Woodward, Jason Blair, Geraldo Rivera, and Brooks himself.
As the illustration above shows, the tradition of defending unjust upper class privilege by denigrating the alleged vices of the lower classes is an enduring intellectual pretense of those who need to maintain the status quo. This famous illustration named "Gin Lane" by William Hogarth (1751) shows the wicked social abuses the poor would perpetrate due to their indolence unless proper gentlemen made sure they were gainfully employed and kept away from strong spirits. Rather than discuss political and economic reform, or social progress like universal education, the noblesse oblige titter behind their tasteful fans and embroidered hankies at the sheer ridiculousness of moral failings of their inferiors, and cackle at the thought of what would happen should such depravity gain greater social traction.
Brooks seems amused that those without journalism degrees and New York Times paychecks actually care enough to think and write about their country and the evil corruption destroying it from within. He seems to not consider that many highly-skilled and educated people who would LOVE to be working full-time are driving cabs, making lattes or "going back to school." He sees these folks as a "Leisure Class," too good to work the menial jobs available to them because of lazy pretensions, instead of as victims of his beloved "free market" which ships whole industries overseas to add a few cents to the bottom line, while foisting all the associated social costs onto the rest of the nation to pay, as the top one percent lobby for more tax cuts. Billions for Halliburton and Exxon, not one cent for health care or education!
Wouldn't we all be working very hard, if like Mel Gibson, we could command a million dollars a day in our chosen profession? Is it just our own laziness and damn fault that we don't? The role of family, edcuation, health care, social connections never enters into Brooks meritocracy of the extremely, very overworked rich. But then how did George W. Bush get to where he is today? All that hard work of four hour workdays and ten weeks of vacation? Yes, there must have been some "screw-up in the moral superstructure."
As an alleged "prostate-aged moocher" myself thanks to the dot.com crash and government-supported outsourcing of tech jobs, and health conditions exacerbated by the lack of access to affordable healthcare in this country, Brooks is not the first person who would prefer to call me "lazy" than actually help make me a whole, fully-productive member of society again. Or to assert that my political opinions and blogging would disappear like a snowflake on a globally-warmed July sidewalk if only I had a "real job" to occupy my squandered "free time."
Make no mistake, Brooks and others of the same historical ilk have as firm a grasp on reality as did Marie Antoinette when she said of the starving French peasantry rioting for bread, "Let them eat cake." They are whistling pass the graveyard of their illusions that their privileged positions are somehow secure due to their "god-given moral superiority." As people like Brooks and Lieberman notice that something is stirring up the lower classes, like Gandhi famously said: "First they laugh at you..."
So while the laughing rich dump their pisspots out the window on the heads of the poor begging for survival in the streets below, they can't help but notice something seems different now. The allegedly lazy seem to be industriously building barricades and organizing themselves. Instead of obsequiously thanking m'lord and m'lady for the tuppence tossed into an outstretched hand, there's a sarcastic sneer and a glimmer of something angry about the eyes on the beggar's face. The streets don't feel as safe for them to parade around in their finery, and in hushed whispers in grand salons they ask each other if they have heard of the latest act of insolent disrespect. That groaning rumble in the distance couldn't be tumbrils heading for the palace, could it?
Keep laughing, David, at your Georgetown neocon cocktail parties, while DC declares a crime emergency. Keep laughing, George W, at the "bitch in the ditch" who now owns a piece of Crawford real estate just down the road apiece. Keep laughing, ex-Exxon CEO Lee "Fat Bastard" Raymond at $4/gallon a gasoline and your $400 million golden parachute. Keep laughing, KKKarl at getting away for now, with what will almost certainly be seen by history as a piece of treason that may well bring the world to its first nuclear "war of civilizations."
You keep laughing, and we poor, lazy schmucks will just keep "tossing our vacuous opinions into the ether." And that knock on your door that will come in the middle of the night in the none too distant future won't be the maid arriving early to tidy up. You keep "standing up for traditional morality" while the housing bubble pops, Americans file record numbers of bankruptcies, and another generation of fellow citizens despairs of ever having the semblance of middle class security their parents took for granted.
And remember, he who laughs last, laughs best.
Read the Brooks' article in its entirety (emphasis on "tired") outside the New York Times subscription wall here:
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/...