How Neocon David Brooks Gets Human Nature (and Everything Else) Completely Wrong

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 11:39 AM on February 22, 2007.

Guest post by Glenn W. Smith.

Humans are a brutish, belligerent and evil species, rotten to the core of our incorrigible selves, according to New York Times columnist and neo-conservative propagandist David Brooks. We should consider ourselves lucky to have committed, self-sacrificing leaders like, I guess, David Brooks to help build and enforce the commands of the "strong, order-imposing state" Brooks says we need in his column, "Human Nature Redux," of February 18, 2007.

Given the number of downright brutish and belligerent misrepresentations of science and history in the column, the piece is a kind of paradoxical self-proof of Brooks' view of human nature. That is the contradiction at the heart of this gloomy, Hobbesian view of human nature: If humans are not to be trusted, why in heavens name would we...

... trust those who sell us this particular bucket of Chicken Little, "Man is fallen! Man is fallen!" drivel? Isn't it a bit transparent when those who hold or seek power tell us that their power is all that will save us from our natural degeneracy? Where did their unnatural grace come from?

Mr. Brooks writes that the "belief in natural human goodness" has been discarded. This, he says, has happened because of new understandings of "the content of our genes, the nature of our neurons, and the lessons of evolutionary biology." He doesn't mention the half-century public relations campaign to convince us that the pseudo-Straussian philosopher-kings like himself are our only hope.

No antinomian counterculture? Well, here I am, Mr. Brooks, your worst antinomian nightmare. Like my own 9th great-grandfather, William Wardwell who stood with Ann Hutchinson in her rebellion against the 17th Century American theocrats, I am under no obligation to obey your authority. In fact, I am genetically pre-disposed to suspect it, resist it, and condemn it if necessary. Your report of my demise is greatly exaggerated.

As anthropologist Christopher Boehm and others have persuasively shown, both Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Hobbes were right. We are the children of Rousseau and Hobbes. You quote Steven Pinker giving the advantage to Hobbes. Human nature is competitive, status seeking, and violent, but, contra-Pinker, human nature is also egalitarian and predisposed to conflict resolution. Bands of hunter-gatherers in antiquity were not pacifists, as you say, but they reserved a good bit of their belligerence for bully leaders who stepped over the line and threatened their well-being, their equality, and their freedom. Egalitarianism and the love of freedom were part of their genetic make-up. I guess I inherited mine from my American forebear, the good Mr. Wardwell.

Our neurons are wired for empathy with others, as neuroscience has shown. Among them are "mirror neurons" which mimic the behavior of others. These neurons fire when I raise my hand and when I see others raise their hands. This is one way humans learn; it's also part of the way we learn to see through the eyes of others.

Breakthroughs in cognitive linguistics, especially regarding the embodiment of our thinking, deep and superficial conceptual frames, the forming of habits, and styles of thought known as reflexive (unconscious) and reflective (rational and available to consciousness) have redeemed the experiential pedagogy of American philosopher and progressive education reformer John Dewey. These progressive reforms had nothing whatsoever to do with "liberating children to follow their own instincts," as Brooks claims.

The work of Antonio Damasio -- and many others -- has revealed the important role of emotions, the "feelings" Brooks dismisses as irrelevant in his manly universe, as critical to rational thinking. But Brooks is at his most deceitful when he attempts to dismiss the 1960s as nothing but some kind of irresponsible, utopian failure. He conveniently forgets that much of the upheaval of the 1960s was a well-justified political rebellion against the authorities of that time, authorities that were defending the forced segregation of African-Americans and sending troops to an unjust war, a war that, in the end, even made President Lyndon Johnson bury his face in his hands.

It is true that the era had its excesses. The "turn on, tune in, drop out" mindset was irresponsible. The self-righteousness of some of the political rebels became an unbecoming self-absorption. It is also true, I believe, that the progressive movement of the age erred when it embraced a "strong, order-imposing state" if only the order imposed fit its moral view of the world. But the justness of the opposition to the authorities of the age cannot be questioned.

American progressivism is based on the promotion of freedom and equality and the frequent need to demote authoritarian leaders who get it wrong. Progressives were too quick to dismiss their libertarian roots, and conservatives rather cleverly co-opted the anti-authoritarian cause, claiming that they were opponents of "Big Government." Now, the truth of their enterprise is evident. The Bush Administration has expanded the reach of government from our bedrooms to the bedlam of Baghdad. They seek a global empire and a domestic despotism.

Individual humans commit atrocious acts. But the greatest horrors of our age are committed by Brooks' "strong, order imposing states." Many Americans were deceived into thinking the Iraq adventure was an effort to depose such a state that threatened our own security. Bush is no Saddam; but neither Saddam's government nor Bush's are particularly happy justifications for the glory of order imposing states. In fact, there's never been one.

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Glenn W. Smith a senior fellow at the Rockridge Institute.