I've been reading his columns for years, since I first read them in the Atlantic Monthly (when it was still called that). Every time I would read a piece of his, I would say "wow, he is right and he said that more succinctly and eloquently than I ever could."
I still say that. Every time.
In today's article in the New York Times, he uses the phrase "epistemological modesty." Awesome. Makes me quiver like a teenybopper at an Elvis show.
Why do I like Brooks so much? One of my colleagues at work this week told me that I am more conservative than anyone will ever know. He's probably right (except now you know).
What he meant is that I no longer have a very high opinion of human nature. I love people. I am committed to caring and building up others. I believe passionately in improving human lives. I just don't think, as a whole, people are very good or very good at making ourselves better.
I am pretty sober about human nature--what we can do and what we can know. I think that as much as we know about the world, we are pretty much always strangers to our own selves. I think the world improves not through great actions, but through great humility. I believe that we are shaped more profoundly not by what we know, but by what we admit that we don't know. I believe in... well... epistemological modesty.
i've said for a long time that humans are evil. Not literally evil, but we are basically a) self-interested more than society-interested, and b) sheep, more or less following the rest of the herd (because it is both the safest and most efficient path). We elect "shepherds" to guide us, but we're never really sure if they're leading us on a path to the Next Great Thing, or right to the edge of a Giant Cliff.
ReplyDeleteA small handful of people actually understand this: Brooks may be one of them. Maybe you are now, too. :)