Tuesday, October 27, 2015

David Brooks, Adios

As regular readers know, I have long listed The New York Times' David Brooks in my Favorite Links column. Honestly, I should have deleted Brooks some time ago but, being lazy, didn't get around to doing so. It is now done.

A long Columbia Journalism Review article by Danny Funt looks at a major shift in career emphasis David has made, while continuing to write for the Times. What Brooks was good at is what I no longer see in his work, explaining current events using neurobiology, sociology, and social psychology. Hat tip to Power Line for the link.

As Funt reports, Brooks has grown disappointed with the explanatory power of these fields. He has moved into what could be described as "moral philosophy" and his musings in this arena I frankly find preachy, boring and irrelevant to my interests.

His political analysis, once insightful, has become perfunctory and he no longer really holds up his end in the weekly joust with Mark Shields on the PBS News Hour. According to Funt, Brooks no longer finds politics fascinating and perforce I no longer find Brooks interesting.