David Brooks Is A Huge, Giant Tool

Because only a tool of epic proportions would ever, ever write this:

The American model allows for disruptive change because it is easier for firms to hire new people when they start and shed people if they fail. That makes places like Silicon Valley possible, where you have highly flexible workforces chasing radical new ideas. The European model protects producers more and has greater social trust within companies. That makes steady, gradual innovation more likely — the kind you find at German metallurgic firms. I’m glad the world has both models, but I’d prefer to live in the more dynamic one.

Or this, especially these days:

I knew people in Brussels who went to work at an organization at 25 sitting in one desk, and they could tell you exactly what desk they will be sitting in and what job they will be doing when they retire at 60 or 65. Yawn.

These are the words of a dick, who speeds past homeless people in his chauffer-driven car on his way to another boring dinner at another four-star restaurant and thinks, You know, those guys? They have the life!

This man is seriously suggesting that the advantage American business has over European business is that we're willing to throw our mothers over for a goddamn percentage and they're not. They're boring and solid and like things like having reliable health care and an effective social safety net, but we're cooler because...fuck all that! Let's uproot our families because the guy at the top wants to make a few more bucks. Let me sacrifice my weekends because I'm the last guy in my department, so the guy at the top can make a few bucks. That's a goddamn feature?!? That's an upside. Yeah, David Brooks? Fuck you. Get fired and see how exciting you think it is then. No, really, Pinch, fire this asshole, make him experience some excitement. Apparently going to the same job is boring poor little David.

This is everything that's wrong with American punditry today. Scratch that - it's what's wrong with America, period. With all the talk of money, job security, longevity prospects in the arts, I started to think that a lot of what we run up against is this particular strain of American thought: the rat race, the buck chase, the whatever you want to call it that values results, "innovation", buildings and expansion over people, social trust and connection. Maybe Kushner's angel was right; rootless has to stop if this country is to survive.

But mostly...David Brooks? You're a tool. And New York Times? You're a bigger bunch of asshats for paying him for this.

(H/T Sadly, No!)