David Brooks says goodbye to his job at the nytimes..to teach humanism at Yale??

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/opinion/david-brooks-leaving-columnist.html?unlocked_article_code=1.I1A.KVB0.2TT2FKuHhZ9H&smid=url-share

It’s been the honor of a lifetime to work here, surrounded by so many astounding journalists. But after 22 wonderful years, I’ve decided to take the exciting and terrifying step of leaving in order to try to build something new.

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It’s tempting to say that Trump corrupted America. But the shredding of values from the top was preceded by a decades-long collapse of values from within. Four decades of hyperindividualism expanded individual choice but weakened the bonds between people. Multiple generations of students and their parents fled from the humanities and the liberal arts, driven by the belief that the prime purpose of education is to learn how to make money.


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Trump is that rare creature, a philistine who understands the power of culture. He put professional wrestlers onstage at the last Republican convention for a reason: to lift up a certain masculine ideal. He’s taken over the Kennedy Center for a reason: to tell a certain national narrative. Unfortunately, the culture he champions, because it is built upon domination, is a dehumanizing culture.

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One of the most exciting things in American life today is that a humanistic renaissance is already happening on university campuses. Trump has been terrible for the universities, but also perversely wonderful. Amid all the destruction, he’s provoked university leaders into doing some rethinking. Maybe things have gotten too preprofessional; maybe colleges have become too monoculturally progressive; maybe universities have spent so much effort serving the private interests of students that they have unwittingly neglected the public good. I’m now seeing changes on campuses across America, from community colleges to state schools to the Ivies. The changes are coming in four buckets: First, a profusion of courses and programs that try to nurture character development and moral formation. Second, courses and programs on citizenship training and civic thought. Third, programs to help people learn to reason across difference. Fourth, courses that give students practical advice on how to lead a flourishing life.


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I look at these efforts with growing admiration and enthusiasm. My questions are: How can I get involved? Where do I go to enlist? (In my particular case, the answer turns out to be New Haven, Conn.)

[CTyankee]

1. As a resident of New Haven for almost 30 years, I have learned a lot about Yale.

What Brooks is seeking is exciting. I get his point and hope this move signals something of great value to our country going forward. We should applaud, not sneer, at what he is trying to do.

Thanks for posting this. Learning "to reason across difference" is a good thing. We should applaud and encourage, not deride, what he decided to do with his life.

[J_William_Ryan]

2. "It's tempting to say that Trump corrupted America."

America was corrupted long before Trump – corrupted by conservative dogma hostile to, and fearful of, positive, beneficial change, diversity, inclusion, and expressions of individual liberty.

Corrupted by nativist, reactionary conservativism seeking to return to an ideal American past that never actually existed and was far from ideal – a past that embraced racism, bigotry, and hate.

And corrupted by conservativism that abandoned America’s democratic norms for expedited partisan advantage.

[PCIntern]

3. Yeah but Al Gore's suit and he was "boring"

Brooks, you stupid bastard. You are seeking to redeem yourself in the final stages of your work life

But you are no different from any other major player at the Times, some of whom I’ve been acquainted with (Yes, that clause contains questionable grammar) like your buddy Richard Meislin. Snotty dilettantes.

You can kiss my petunia.

[struggle4progress]

4. ,I'd like to be more cheerful but David Brooks seems to me to be a smarmy, mush-mouthed, smirking

mug-wump whose game is to disguise bad behavior by white-washing it

Trump has been terrible for the universities, but also perversely wonderful is typical Brooksian apologetics: a layer of perfumed bullshit intended to keep everybody from thinking clearly

Nobody ever gets a usable humanistic analysis from this guy: what you get is an icepick lobotomy delivered with soporific happy-sounding nonsense

[choie]

5. If he doesn't include a sincere

Apology for his role in destroying our democracy, I don’t give a shit what he says.

[Bristlecone]

6. While I appreciate the thoughtful reflection,

it needs more introspection.

Propaganda arms of the right wing are directly responsible for the loss of faith and our hate culture. Non stop blaming the other side started with Roger Ailes and his idea of “GOP TV” (now Fox News), formulated under Nixon - and made possible by Reagan and a conservative Supreme Court with the fairness doctrine decision. That and 30 years of AM hate radio, reaching and preaching the inner rural masses by the now thankfully dead and rotting in hell Rush Limbaugh; that’s bedrock of the “nihilism” and loss of faith. And need I remind that the NY Times pushed the Hillary Clinton email server scandal into oblivion, perhaps being the single most campaign dooming entity of 2015 .
Further, they engage in so much both-siderism to this day that there is a satirical NY Times Pitch Bot that turns major stories into a headline that states how bad the topic is for democrats.

And the ideas and practice of being kind, fair, and altruistic are alive and well, they have just been relabeled as “woke” and are represented daily by the almost every member of the collective Republican Party as weakness.

I could go on and bring up how the religious right fleeces the flock and Christofacism are more responsible for people moving away from religion than anything, but I won’t.

David Brooks can’t hide behind his “moderate” conservative façade and bemoan “where have our collective conscience and better angels gone.” IMO, he had just as much to do with the current state we are in as Trump does. He’s just literate.

[hatrack]

7. Brooks requests fainting couch while decrying the decay . . . of . . . EVERY-THING!!!

And this comes after 40 years of stoutly ignoring economic fuckery benefiting an ever-shrinking and more exclusive donor class and screwing pretty much everybody else.

Hard to cultivate empathy and a sense of the power of humanism when you're jobless, homeless, can't see a doctor, addicted or desperate, eh Dave?