The Times Does it Yet Again
I've been simmering a long while about David Brooks' deeply stupid gloss and misreading of Al Gore's book, but wanted to wait until I'd read the book myself before advancing an opinion. Brooks' assessment, that "...whatever the effects of our homogenizing mass culture, it is still possible for exceedingly strange individuals to rise to the top" is just plain yellow, Limbaugh-style crapcasting done with an air of restraint (sans prescription meds, one presumes) and put forth as a review. Now we all know about Mr. Brooks' irrational and atavistic love of this war (which, incidentally, he'll never have to participate, so his enthusiasm becomes a sort of political Fantasy Football) and his exceptional right-wing thinking (hardly a surprise in this paper), but I wonder did he read the book at all or did he simply form his opinions from what he imagined the book would say?
He does that one thing which I hate in a reviewer: he opens not with any discussion of the books substance but rather of its style. Gore's sentences and not his arguments are run out for ridicule, and though the sentence he cites is perfectly understandable and clear (well, maybe not if you are someone who finds multiple clauses a little complicated: if you are such, you can always wait for the graphic novel), but more to the point it is not his clarity as a writer but his clarity as a thinker which will attract all to this book. And yes, while Gore does love his machines (called by Brooks a "radical technological determinist," a moniker I might think better suited to someone who goes to war in an attempt to root out cutting-edge destructive weapons that were never even actually suspected to be there, but I will let it rest) he makes his point over and over that it is televisions one-sidedness that he finds to be the greatest threat to a well-connected citizenry, and offers solutions involving the internet rater than simply cursing the offending machines. In fact, throughout the book, Gore--painted by right wing pundits like Brooks as not exactly a "people person," which was often held in relief to the donwhome affability of our current despot (who, incidentally, never meets the commoners, only dignitaries or stars, so all that flap about desiring to have a beer with Bush is actually irrelevant--he has a lot of people fooled)--is invested mostly in people interacting, creating communities be they right or left. He speaks of moveon.org and rightmarch.org as two shining examples about how technology can inform people.
Another misreading: "Has Al Gore actually ever looked at the internet? He spends much of this book praising cold, dispassionate logic, but is that what he really finds on most political blogs or in his email folder?" This rhetorical question of course goes unanswered, and rightly so because frankly this is one of the most despicable things I've ever seen in a book review: hang the man out to dry with a posed question. "Gore's imperviousness to reality" he continues "is not the most striking feature of the book. It's the chilliness and sterility of his worldview. Gore is laying out a comprehensive theory of social development, but it allows almost no role for family, friendship, neighborhood or just face-to-face contact." This is, presumably, contra the oakiness of our current administration, who purports to help people and then disgraces themselves, sans mea culpa, in the face of Katrina; who consistently lie to us about our war, our tax cuts, funneling money to corporations which, when last I look, are in fact the enemies of "family, friendship, neighborhood or just face-to-face contact" as they elevate the wealthy, strip the poor, and wholly eliminate the middle class. If that's not a dispassionate approach, handily the iciest administration in American history, I shudder to think of what is. And this White-House received bit of counterpress is not even accurate: Gore, quite the contrary, calls for a certain coming together of people, he wants citizens to again have a say. And if they cannot afford to buy television slots (or even if they can: apparently one Super Bowl disallowed a MoveOn.Org sponsored spot that was critical of the White House, but allowed one in praise) and people no longer read newspapers, the youthful technology of the internet is a fantastic solution.
Most scurrilous about this review, however, is that Brooks commits a sin of omission that ought to get him fired: he leaves out the main point of the book, which is a long overdue scathing account of how Bush and his attendant people have utterly and completely failed. Finally a (possible) candidate who has the nerve to say what most of the country is feeling--that this has in fact been the most damaging and unscrupulous administration in American history--and the Times winnows its focus to only one small aspect of the book, leaving out its main point entirely. Is it pompous, in a democracy, to criticize these temporary offices set up to help the country run smoother? If you are getting your opinions from the White House (as I believe Brooks, like Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, and the whole rogues gallery of wailing, lying banshees that for some reason have our ear, is) then of course you could. But Al Gore has finally scrupled a response to our current problem--and it is a massive, probably unfixable problem that is going to result in thousands more dying at least--and of course the heart of his argument is wholly ignored. It's like reviewing a production of Macbeth and citing it a comedy because you choose to focus solely on the hysterically drunken gatekeeper. Forest, meet trees.
So please do not listen to this warmonger's incorrect mis- or non-reading of Al Gore's book. The work itself is hardly perfect--I wanted at least some discussion of the horrors of the dimpled chad, but alas nary a mention; and his faith-based solutions made me wince a bit--but at least we have this person who can write a complex sentence, quote from great historians and philosophers, and who is truly taking a stand on these issues. And his book and film "An Inconvenient Truth" were so tremendously effective that even our lame duck President Designate is now addressing, in however sound-bite-ey a fashion, the need to remedy our treatment of the earth. All I can say is, I hope Gore hits the silver screen with these details, because he is both fair and right, hardly self-congratulatory, and if he as the technocrat (which he is not) would like to see the world be safer and cleaner and better for all of us, who is a criminal apologist like David Brooks to stand in his way.
Please write to the Times and remind them of their negligence, which cannot be denied.
He does that one thing which I hate in a reviewer: he opens not with any discussion of the books substance but rather of its style. Gore's sentences and not his arguments are run out for ridicule, and though the sentence he cites is perfectly understandable and clear (well, maybe not if you are someone who finds multiple clauses a little complicated: if you are such, you can always wait for the graphic novel), but more to the point it is not his clarity as a writer but his clarity as a thinker which will attract all to this book. And yes, while Gore does love his machines (called by Brooks a "radical technological determinist," a moniker I might think better suited to someone who goes to war in an attempt to root out cutting-edge destructive weapons that were never even actually suspected to be there, but I will let it rest) he makes his point over and over that it is televisions one-sidedness that he finds to be the greatest threat to a well-connected citizenry, and offers solutions involving the internet rater than simply cursing the offending machines. In fact, throughout the book, Gore--painted by right wing pundits like Brooks as not exactly a "people person," which was often held in relief to the donwhome affability of our current despot (who, incidentally, never meets the commoners, only dignitaries or stars, so all that flap about desiring to have a beer with Bush is actually irrelevant--he has a lot of people fooled)--is invested mostly in people interacting, creating communities be they right or left. He speaks of moveon.org and rightmarch.org as two shining examples about how technology can inform people.
Another misreading: "Has Al Gore actually ever looked at the internet? He spends much of this book praising cold, dispassionate logic, but is that what he really finds on most political blogs or in his email folder?" This rhetorical question of course goes unanswered, and rightly so because frankly this is one of the most despicable things I've ever seen in a book review: hang the man out to dry with a posed question. "Gore's imperviousness to reality" he continues "is not the most striking feature of the book. It's the chilliness and sterility of his worldview. Gore is laying out a comprehensive theory of social development, but it allows almost no role for family, friendship, neighborhood or just face-to-face contact." This is, presumably, contra the oakiness of our current administration, who purports to help people and then disgraces themselves, sans mea culpa, in the face of Katrina; who consistently lie to us about our war, our tax cuts, funneling money to corporations which, when last I look, are in fact the enemies of "family, friendship, neighborhood or just face-to-face contact" as they elevate the wealthy, strip the poor, and wholly eliminate the middle class. If that's not a dispassionate approach, handily the iciest administration in American history, I shudder to think of what is. And this White-House received bit of counterpress is not even accurate: Gore, quite the contrary, calls for a certain coming together of people, he wants citizens to again have a say. And if they cannot afford to buy television slots (or even if they can: apparently one Super Bowl disallowed a MoveOn.Org sponsored spot that was critical of the White House, but allowed one in praise) and people no longer read newspapers, the youthful technology of the internet is a fantastic solution.
Most scurrilous about this review, however, is that Brooks commits a sin of omission that ought to get him fired: he leaves out the main point of the book, which is a long overdue scathing account of how Bush and his attendant people have utterly and completely failed. Finally a (possible) candidate who has the nerve to say what most of the country is feeling--that this has in fact been the most damaging and unscrupulous administration in American history--and the Times winnows its focus to only one small aspect of the book, leaving out its main point entirely. Is it pompous, in a democracy, to criticize these temporary offices set up to help the country run smoother? If you are getting your opinions from the White House (as I believe Brooks, like Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, and the whole rogues gallery of wailing, lying banshees that for some reason have our ear, is) then of course you could. But Al Gore has finally scrupled a response to our current problem--and it is a massive, probably unfixable problem that is going to result in thousands more dying at least--and of course the heart of his argument is wholly ignored. It's like reviewing a production of Macbeth and citing it a comedy because you choose to focus solely on the hysterically drunken gatekeeper. Forest, meet trees.
So please do not listen to this warmonger's incorrect mis- or non-reading of Al Gore's book. The work itself is hardly perfect--I wanted at least some discussion of the horrors of the dimpled chad, but alas nary a mention; and his faith-based solutions made me wince a bit--but at least we have this person who can write a complex sentence, quote from great historians and philosophers, and who is truly taking a stand on these issues. And his book and film "An Inconvenient Truth" were so tremendously effective that even our lame duck President Designate is now addressing, in however sound-bite-ey a fashion, the need to remedy our treatment of the earth. All I can say is, I hope Gore hits the silver screen with these details, because he is both fair and right, hardly self-congratulatory, and if he as the technocrat (which he is not) would like to see the world be safer and cleaner and better for all of us, who is a criminal apologist like David Brooks to stand in his way.
Please write to the Times and remind them of their negligence, which cannot be denied.
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posted by Daniel at 11:45 AM
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