I Hate Agreeing With David Brooks

 Brooks wrote one of his things in The Atlantic about doomcasting. When reading Brooks in the past, I would always be about half way through it, thinking "Actually, he makes some goods points" and then BOOM he would draw some conclusion or parallel that was just idiotic. He doesn't really do that here. He does tend to focus more on leftwing doomcasting as opposed to the apocalyptic American Carnage of Trumpistan.

In particular, he does return to his hobby horse about "community" and communal norms. 

The reason I was in agreement with Brooks is that he specifically addresses the deep pessimism and cultural depression among the young. He mentions that being negative is a great way to draw clout and attention, without mentioning the algorithms that feed negativity into our brains via our screens.

At the root of a lot of this is the idea that systems are corrupt and holding people down. This may be one reason why young people have such negative views of the economy. To believe that things are terrible is very "savvy".  It's also, I really believe, wrong. We live in an age of miracles and wonders. I'm sitting in the rainforest of Argentina, typing on a personal computer that has access to the world's warehouse of information. I can find restaurant reviews for every restaurant in town, automatically translated into English. 

Is everything perfect? Of course not. Every generation is called upon to struggle with great issues. Americans must struggle to preserve representative government. Everyone must struggle with the climate issue.

I read an interesting piece about Denmark the other day. Denmark is routinely held up as the beau ideal of countries. However, Denmark's remarkable society involves very real tradeoffs. Universal health care is awesome, but that means primary care is largely assembly line medicine. Universal education is awesome but tracking exams basically rule you out of professions before you turn 20. All societies involve tradeoffs, good and bad intertwined. 

Relentless negativity serves no one but the forces that want you to turn on your neighbor or devolve into despair and inertia.