I have a few issues with David Brooks’s latest New York Times column, a lament for the end of globalization. Here is his peroration which highlights some of my issues:
I look back over the past few decades of social thinking with understanding. I was too young to really experience the tension of the Cold War, but it must have been brutal. I understand why so many people, when the Soviet Union fell, grabbed onto a vision of the future that promised an end to existential conflict.
I look at the current situation with humility. The critiques that so many people are making about the West, and about American culture — for being too individualistic, too materialistic, too condescending — these critiques are not wrong. We have a lot of work to do if we are going to be socially strong enough to stand up to the challenges that are coming over the next several years, if we are going to persuade people in all those swing countries across Africa, Latin America and the rest of the world that they should throw their lot in with the democracies and not with the authoritarians — that our way of life is the better way of life.
And I look at the current situation with confidence. Ultimately, people want to stand out and fit in. They want to feel their lives have dignity, that they are respected for who they are. They also want to feel membership in moral communities. Right now, many people feel disrespected by the West. They are casting their lot with authoritarian leaders who speak to their resentments and their national pride. But those leaders don’t actually recognize them. For those authoritarians — from Trump to Putin — their followers are just instruments in their own search for self-aggrandizement.
Let’s consider the three italicized words. In his confidence I see the Dunning-Kruger effect. It’s not merely a matter of framing as he suggests again and again, using various wordings.
But the resentments that are felt by people in various non-Western countries aren’t just a matter of framing. They are disrespected by people, at least some people, in the West.
And I don’t see a trace of the humility that he claims in his column. If anything it’s the opposite.
And, finally, understanding. I’m not even confident he understands North American elites particularly well. If he did he would recognize the disdain with which many European elites see American elites for the simple reason that they aren’t particularly elite.
And then there’s this sentence:
What we call “the West†is not an ethnic designation or an elitist country club.
Is there actually a “West”? Or are there a group of countries, many of which have an ethnic basis and most of them highly nationalistic, that cling together in pursuit of their distinct national interests?
Consider France, for example. France is unquestionably part of “the West” but it’s also highly nationalistic. For France nationalism is tied up with French culture but dig beneath the surface and, although you might be French by virtue of adopting French culture, if you are not “of French stock” you may be subject to discrimination.
Furthermore “human rights” mean different things in different countries in the West.
I suspect that Mr. Brooks is confusing “the West” with “everybody I know”.
