David Brooks on US society

It was David Brooks's turn at the Celebrity Forum at the Flint Center in DeAnza College last Wednesday (10/14/2009).

The conservative New York times columnist did not appear conservative. In fact, I was impressed with his balanced perspective. He covered a lot of ideas, peppered with anecdotes that made his conclusions real.

Here is why David Brooks thinks Obama is great:

1. He is tremendously perceptive about other people.
2. He is very intellectual - reads not only what he needs in politics, but also other things
3. He has surrounded himself with "nice" people. The tone of his administration is "niceness."
4. He has immense self-control and self-confidence.

David Brooks thought that George W. Bush was also smart and well-read, but he surrounded himself with people who would say yes to him. His people were afraid of organizing meetings that would bring other viewpoints. The result was that there was no debate in his administration. Obama on the other hand, looks for debate, and seeks out people who disagree with him. This ensures that he has heard it all before, and can stay calm on the outside even when confronted with hostile viewpoints.

But things are not all rosy for Obama (remember, David Brooks is a conservative columnist).
According to the speaker, Obama is:

1. Trying to do too much
2. He has a desire to rise about debate (also known as not taking position)

That led Mr. Brooks to talk about the country and its future. He believes that the country has two issues.

The character: Today's culture in America is about self-indulgence, as opposed to self-effacement, and humility. This has let to an erosion of financial morality. In this context he also talked about health-care. Interestingly, he said that none of the proposals under serious consideration is good enough. They are all tinkering with health care, but none of them is transforming it (he pointed out Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden's plan as one such transformational plan).

Decline in human capital: US traditionally enjoyed a 35-year lead in education, but that has now been squandered away.

The two are related. He drew a very interesting analogy - our intellect is like a boy riding an elephant; the boy is the conscious mind and the elephant is the unconscious mind.

If we want to improve character and human capital, we need to improve the unconscious. Much of this unconscious development takes place before we are four years old. To bolster this, he quoted a study on delayed-gratification apparently done at Stanford many years ago. (Children were left in a room with a marshmallow. They were told that they can eat the marshmallow, but if they waited until the researcher got back, they would get two marshmallows. The researchers tracked these children over time, and found that those children who delayed their gratification by waiting for the second marshmallow grew up to be more successful in many aspects of life - academics, income-levels etc. While the other group had much higher incarceration rates.)

The conclusion I draw from this is fairly straightforward, and that is not new, but as a society we are not able to address this. Helping children develop good character before the age of four can't happen through teaching. It has to happen through role-modeling. Unfortunately, as David Brooks points out, the current generation is self-indulgent - which implies that they can't be good role models. Are we, then, in a downward spiral, or is there a way out?