David Brooks and the "Importance of Institutions"

A reader has drawn my attention to an article by David Brooks in today’s New York Times, in which Brooks praises the importance of institutions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/opinion/27brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

David Brooks is a conservative. He is a Republican. He was a supporter of George Bush. He was a supporter of the Iraq War. He has, as far as I recall, equivocated about evolution and "intelligent" design. He was a supporter of John McCain. He has argued against Obama’s Keynesian program of fiscal expansion, and he is sympathetic to free-market fundamentalism. In short, he has been utterly wrong time and time again.

Now Brooks sees fit to instruct us about the dangers of "personal liberation", and tells us that we should learn to love institutions and "institutional thinking". Brooks tut-tuts about modern notions of "personal inquiry, personal self-discovery and personal happiness". He warns against the idea that "individuals should learn to think for themselves". He cautions against the notion that people "should be skeptical of pre-existing arrangements" or that "they should break free from the way they were raised, examine life from the outside". Instead, Brooks sings the praises of "institutional thinking".

Conservatives often imply that things were better in the past, before people started getting uppity and demanding freedom. Conservatives can get away with arguing this because we have all largely forgotten just how crappy life was in the past. Are we to believe that things were better back when slavery existed? When women could not vote? When life-expectancy was about 40 years? When people were ruled by kings and priests? When homosexuals were persecuted? When most people were illiterate? When children worked in factories? When the vast majority of humanity lived like dogs? When women were burned as witches? When people were beheaded in the town square for the public’s entertainment?

The fact is: for most human beings this is the safest, most pleasant time to be alive in the entire history of humanity.

Conservatives always praise "traditions" because traditions apparently embody the cumulative wisdom of the ages. Which traditions are they talking about? The "tradition" of wife-burning that used to exist in India? The "tradition" of female genital mutilation?

The other tactic conservatives use is to argue that the progress in freedom up until now has been fine, but that it has now gone far enough, and that if we go any further society will collapse, and then you’ll all be sorry, just you wait and see, blah blah blah. This is what conservatives have always argued. If most of today’s conservatives had been around a few hundred years ago they would probably have been arguing in "moderate" tones that slavery is a useful institution and that slaves should learn to sing in their chains, because that is the cumulative wisdom of the ages, and that if slaves are set free society will collapse. They would have been telling us that women should get back in their kitchens where they can be happy, or else it will be the end of civilisation as we know it. They would have been telling us that the women they most admire are the ones who stay in their kitchens where they do the work that "gives meaning to their lives". They would have been musing about the "dangers of personal freedom", just like they are still musing about the "dangers of personal freedom".

As an example of Brook’s sophistic argumentation, consider the way he tries to blame progressives for undermining the "banking code" that previously made bankers behave themselves – thus precipitating the current financial collapse. What planet is he living on? When have bankers ever behaved themselves? What did the "banking code" accomplish back in the 1920 and 1930s when bankers did the exact same thing that they have just done now? It has been the progressives who have wanted to regulate banks, and Brook’s conservative chums who have encouraged deregulation. But somehow Brooks manages to blame all of this on the way progressives have been undermining institutions by promoting individualism.

So my question is: who cares Dave Brooks thinks? To hell with him!