rickumbaugh
I'm a Ph.D. candidate in Psychology at Saybrook University, my concentration is sexuality. I was in the Entertainment business for 35 or so years. I have lived in NYC and inside the Beltway, but not I live in CA and feel a long way from everything.
On David Brooks and the Myth of the New Fair Society
It is interesting to me how certain paradigms tend to hang around for ages. I thought that the American Revolution got rid of the idea of aristocracies in favor of meritocracies. Now, because meritocracies are so changable people are griping that there is no aristocracy to make things less changeable.
This fallacy crops up all the time and is a result of conservative fear of change. It showed up all the time at the beginning of our republic. It was part of the reason of the demise of the Federalists and it was one of the motivations for the South seceding (check out the books Empire of Liberty, What Hath God Wrought and The Battle Cry of Freedom). It is the impluse to revive feudalism that is the motivation for Fascism (see the writings of Mussolini). Now it is back here in the US, where the conservative cause is creating a divide between the Upper Class and the Working Classs and David Brooks supporting antique elites. I think if people think about this they will reject the whole idea.