David Brooks
David Brooks
Conservative political columnist for the New York Times. He also wrote for the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times and provided political commentary for National Public Radio (NPR) and the PBS NewsHour.
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth11 August 1961
CityToronto, Canada
CountryUnited States of America
gay two people
We shouldn't just allow gay marriage. We should insist on gay marriage. We should regard it as scandalous that two people could claim to love each other and not want to sanctify their love with marriage and fidelity.
country order accomplishment
Most poverty and suffering - whether in a country, a family or a person - flows from disorganization. A stable social order is an artificial accomplishment, the result of an accumulation of habits, hectoring, moral stricture and physical coercion. Once order is dissolved, it takes hard measures to restore it
giving people focus
What you hear in focus groups and conversations, people will give you 20 minutes of rage about how the borders are out of control. But then you start saying, practically, what are we going to do about it? What are we going to do about the 11 million here? What are we going to do to get some workers we need for the farms? Then people start having a normal conversation.
moving thinking hands
Stairway to Wisdom”) David Brooks detailed the needed ingredients to gaining a deep understanding of a social problem, beginning with the data and moving on to first-hand accounts. The highest rung on his stairway, though, went beyond those: “Empathy opens you up to absorb the good and the bad. Love impels you not just to observe but to seek union—to think as another thinks and feel as another feels.
inspirational graduation school
The school asks a person who has achieved a certain level of career success to give you a speech telling you that career success is not important.
language english-language
There is the English language and then there's the Trump language.
thinking levels awareness
We are primarily the products of thinking that happens below the level of awareness.
sleep funny-graduation people
I've observed a few things about the few really great people I've had a chance to meet and cover...They need to be around people. You and I require sleep. They require people.
creativity ideas people
Creativity is not a solitary process. It happens within networks... when talented people get together, when idea systems and mentalities merge.
donation empty
If we got rid of everybody in Washington who sold access for donations, then the town would be empty. But it's unseemly.
simple rise-of-china narrative
It’s easy to see why politicians would be drawn to the populist pose. First, it makes everything so simple. The economic crisis was caused by a complex web of factors, including global imbalances caused by the rise of China. But with the populist narrative, you can just blame Goldman Sachs.
character ideas knowing
When you cover politics, you realize that knowing how to talk about character matters more and more. The way we hold ideas is more important than the ideas.
people
Labor-rich manufacturing doesn't exist anymore. Manufacturing jobs are white-collar, Silicon Valley programmers or highly-skilled technicians. They are not going to employ lots of people.
way matter born
What family you were born into matters so much more than it did before in a perverse way.