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
country ideas people
We have an international system. We all profit from it. Trade profits from it. Peace. We can travel around the world because of it. And part of that system is certain ideas, the certain ideas you can't invade other countries for no reason. You can't commit genocide. You can't - rogue regimes can't have nuclear weapons, and you can't gas your own people.
growing-up home action
If you grow up in a home where actions don't lead to predictable consequences, you don't develop strategies to control your impulses.
trying very-good happenings
I learned I'm not a science writer. I'm not very good at describing how something is happening. I try to describe "So What?"
kids thinking media
We live in a culture of a big me. We're encouraged - we raise our kids to think how great they are, where we have to market ourselves to get through life. We're in social media, where we broadcast highlight - highlight reels of our own lives on Facebook.
views dating people
I take a benign view of digital connectedness. I notice in most young people's lives, Facebook and such doesn't replace normal dating or hanging out, it just facilitates it.
frustration vocabulary world
One of the frustrations about the modern world is that we don't even have a good vocabulary to describe our state. The word sentiment sounds mushy [but] sentiment is not mushy.
thinking law people
I don't think history will ever be a science because history will never be reduced to law-like behavior. People are to unpredictable.
self law people
Economists sometimes do try to reduce behavior to law-like predictability. But people respond differently to different primes, to different contexts even from one moment to the next. We possess multiple selves that are aroused by different circumstances.
country marine soldier
If you're a soldier or marine in an Arab country, Islam is the solution. And you need to show respect.
thinking isis should
I think that it's an arguable position, whether with Hamas and ISIS around, whether there should be a Palestinian state, but it's a defensible position, given the current circumstances.
march stills fundamentalism
Fundamentalism is still on the march.
feelings weight might
When your institution is under assault, you're feeling like the weight is on it and the history might be flowing away, don't turn inward, go outward.
focus inward slipping
When your institution is under threat, you feel you have a lot of hostility, you feel things are slipping away, you have got internal problems, there's a tendency to turn inward and to focus on yourselves.
military order play
America has an important role to play as the world leader in creating a global order, free trade, free waterways, free commerce, free movement of people. That happens because of U.S. military might.