The Trouble with Tribbles...

Lucid in New York said...

Regarding Brooks's column--the issue is not that they are the elite; the problem is that they are so self-serving, using government power and access to constantly feather their own nests. The Trump indictments are an obvious example of this.

Moreover, the real sub-text of almost every column that David Brooks writes is: We are the Elite.

8/3/23, 11:36 AM

-----------------

Correction:  "We are the MERITOCRATIC Elite."  He really believes that, he does.

No, sir.  Gentle point of correction?  You are the Artificial Elite.  Plucked by Fate and circumstance, into an apparently career-lifetime tenurable polition:  the Public Intellectual David Brooks.

Thing is:  1)  You're not all that good.  Not anymore, perhaps not ever.  Possibly, looking back at your career, you were overrated all along as a Top Thinker (and writer too)?

                2)  I don't care how many prizes or honorary degrees you've taken home; how much they pay you or how many fans you've garnered on the Times platform over the years, nor even how much you have craftily calculated your "brand" to pull in extra income from the "side" speaking gigs / book deals / tv performances, etc.    I think that just clouds you to your real intelligence worth, the "rewards".  Don't believe your own marketing, sir.

With all the goodwill fellows you break bread with in your mission to make this a better world, I doubt any of them are courageous enough to be less than kind and truthful in telling you what you have become...

Self satisfied.  Content (and not in a good way).  Stagnant. 

Old.

Climb ev'ry Mountain and all, follow ev'ry rainbow until you find your dreams, sure.  But don't kid yourself.  The Artificial Meritocratic Elite have their sell-by date too, and when the shelves get swept of expired products to donate to the needy at the local food pantries, even the Brand Names and most popular sellers are pulled to make way for the fresher product behind them.

You think Brooks ever spent a day in his adult life stocking shelves?  Gives you a lot of time to think.  Some people just stick the "new" product up front of the old, never bother to clear past products...

But that's not how you should do the job, really.

It matters the quality of the workers out here.

Can you even see them anymore?  

------------

* " You just take more... 2) you just take more... 3) you just take more than you give. "