I love David Brooks. He is so wise, and temperate, and fair-minded, and even-handed. And reasonable. There may not be a more reasonable man tapping a keyboard in America today. Every time I read one of his columns, I feel a warm, gentle, reasonable arm around my shoulder, gently guiding me towards the path of enlightenment. There’s no denying it–sometimes when I’m feeling confused and forlorn, I wish David Brooks was my dad.
I had that feeling the other day, when he wrote a column in The New York Times about George Washington and the decline of public dignity. There Brooks was, talking about how George educated himself with a series of maxims designed to improve his character. And lo and behold they did, which is why George was able to become the father of his country. During the following decades, millions of Americans tried to follow George’s example.
But “the old dignity code has not survived modern life,” writes Dad–er, David Brooks. “The costs of its demise are there for all to see. Every week there are new scandals featuring people who simply do not know how to act. For example, during the first few weeks of summer, three stories have dominated public conversation, and each one exemplifies another branch of indignity. First, there was Mark Sanford’s press conference. Here was a guy utterly lacking in any sense of reticence, who was given to rambling self-exposure even in his moment of disgrace. Then there was the death of Michael Jackson and the discussion of his life. Here was a guy who was apparently untouched by any pressure to live according to the rules and restraints of adulthood. Then there was Sarah Palin’s press conference. Here was a woman who aspires to a high public role but is unfamiliar with the traits of equipoise and constancy, which are the sources of authority and trust.”
Excellent point. The decline of–say what? Michael Jackson? Gosh, I don’t like to disagree with someone as wise and reasonable as David Brooks, but how would even the most massive dosage of George Washington-class dignity have helped Michael Jackson? I don’t think urging him to act more dignified would have done much to discourage his perversions, and it certainly wouldn’t have helped him moonwalk during the Motown Reunion or sell more copies of Thriller, and I doubt it would have increased the surge of mourning his death invited across the globe. And not to knock dignity, but whatever has drawn us to Elvis Presley, Jerry Lewis, Marilyn Monroe, Pablo Picasso, Lord Byron, and so many others, it certainly wasn’t their dignity. And for as vital a sense of dignity is–often enough, it’s the only thing people have left–there’s certainly no need to mention how often it has been invoked to induce people to inhibit and repress all sorts of feelings and behaviors that might just possibly have made them happy.
Dignity is all well and good and possibly even essential for the guy who is leading a ragtag group of revolutionaries and is tying to launch a fledgling republic, and for a great many other purposes as well. But I would say we have also been enriched by the comic stylings of Mark Sanford, Michael Jackson and Sarah Palin. It’s a big world, as my real dad might have said, and it takes all kinds, even ones who don’t shit marble. Come on, Dave baby, loosen up!