November 14, 2015

It's not the most poorly timed NYT article ever, but this David Brooks article — "My $120,000 Vacation" — was published yesterday.

"Thanks to the Four Seasons’ new 24-day, round-the-world fantasy trip, you get all the indulgences of travel without any of its hassles. But like all fantasies, is this too much of a good thing?" Ugh. How embarrassing to find yourself — you, the moralizing columnist — asking that question on the day of the Paris attacks. I'd be smacking David Brooks around anyway, even if this were not published on a day when you pretty well know that the editors must have wished they could recall this one and publish it some other time.

It got me thinking back to September 11, 2001, a day when I spent the morning reading the paper NYT delivered to my doorstep. I calmly read it for an hour or two before setting off for work, not knowing what those who used TV or radio in the morning already knew. What was in the paper that morning? Maybe you remember: "No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen":
''I don't regret setting bombs,'' Bill Ayers said. ''I feel we didn't do enough.'' Mr. Ayers, who spent the 1970's as a fugitive in the Weather Underground, was sitting in the kitchen of his big turn-of-the-19th-century stone house in the Hyde Park district of Chicago. The long curly locks in his Wanted poster are shorn, though he wears earrings. He still has tattooed on his neck the rainbow-and-lightning Weathermen logo that appeared on letters taking responsibility for bombings....

''Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon,'' he writes. But then comes a disclaimer: ''Even though I didn't actually bomb the Pentagon -- we bombed it, in the sense that Weathermen organized it and claimed it.'...

Mr. Ayers has always been known as a ''rich kid radical."... Thinking back on his life, Mr. Ayers said, ''I was a child of privilege and I woke up to a world on fire. And hope and history rhymed.''
Terrible. Terrible beyond terrible timing, but what mind-crushingly bad timing. Brooks's bad timing is almost nothing compared to that. But still, it must pain him with a pain with which no one can sympathize that his effort traveling the world and cogitating about it appears in print at a point when no one will be enticed to share his broodings.

But so what if the Four Seasons slaps its brand on a package tour and you flit from place to place on a chartered jet? I don't see what's particularly posh about this. They keep plying him with champagne. He goes around the world stopping in Tokyo, Beijing, the Maldives, the Serengeti, St. Petersburg, Marrakesh and New York, because these are all places with Four Seasons hotels, so that's where you stay. Who are your co-travelers, these people who pay $120,000 each to be shuttled around like that and always assured of a stay in a Four Seasons hotel?
Each morning you get to choose from an array of options — a visit to a Russian ballet school? A tour of Nevsky Prospekt shopping street? An excursion to the Fabergé Museum? The people on this trip loved the experience. They were very satisfied customers.... The people on this trip were by and large on the lower end of the upper class. One had a family carpet business. Another was an I.T. executive at an insurance company. There were a few law partners....
Yes, thanks, David. This is what anyone can figure out from the description. $120,000 isn't really that much to spend for all this. It's kind of a bargain, a bargain with nice branding that effectively sends the message that one can see the world from inside a cocoon of protection. Who with $120,000 to spare falls for a pitch like that? The lower end of the upper class. Brooks is looking down on these people.
[T]hey were socially and intellectually unpretentious. They treated the crew as friends and equals and not as staff. Nobody was trying to prove they were better informed or more sophisticated than anybody else. There were times, in fact, when I almost wished there had been a little more pretense and a little more intellectual and spiritual ambition.
Almost wished? You wished it every moment, didn't you? These people were beneath you. A family carpet business. They didn't even know to treat the servants as servants. And, you, David Brooks, didn't know how to treat rather ordinary people as people.
The guests were delighted by the intricate wall carvings in the Royal Harem building in Istanbul, by the vegetables in a Turkish restaurant, by 15 minutes of opera in a Russian palace. But over dinner, they mostly spoke with their new friends about their kids and lives back home, not about the meaning and depth of what they had just seen. 
The rubes. They looked to each other for friendship and human contact. I wonder what they thought of the disapproving eminence from The New York Times. They visit the Hermitage and see Rembrandt’s "Return of the Prodigal Son" but nobody talks about the meaning of the familiar Bible story. They visit Ephesus but don't air their opinions about St. Paul, so Brooks is forced to tell us what he might have told the carpet people and their ilk:
Paul must have been regarded as an extreme religious crank, preaching a life of poverty and love. His antimaterialistic and anti-achievement message was diametrically opposed to the prevailing ethos of classical Rome, with its emphasis on wealth, power and grandeur.... It would have been nice to stand amid these ruins reading Paul, or to talk about how to reconcile material happiness with spiritual joy as we were on the very spot where Paul preached, where the ethos of Athens met the ethos of Jerusalem. But our guide never really told us Paul’s story. He spent most of his time instead taking us through the royal palaces, with the grand chambers, frescoes and meeting halls. He gave us those material facts about the place that tour guides specialize in (who built what when), but which no one remembers because they don’t really have anything to do with us emotionally. The Ephesus visit was an occasion to have a good discussion about how to live and what really lasts. But if anybody was thinking such thoughts, they went unexpressed.
And the anybodies included Brooks himself. America is full of people who would love to talk as long as you want about the meaning of Christianity. Why would "the very spot where Paul preached" get you closer to any significant meaning... especially from folks who opted into the Four-Seasons-branded package tour? But if you thought it was important — mystical? — to talk about Paul's ideas in the very place where he had them, why didn't you see fit to talk? Why didn't you think the people you were living with were worthy of conversation? Imagine what you could have said: I paid $120,000 to stand here and think about Paul, but Paul's ideas are in a book and I can read that book again, but I've read it already, and I know it's perfectly obvious that it would have been better for me to donate $120,000 to charities that serve the poor and stay in America and find the people who truly believe in Christianity and to talk about Paul with them, but I'm here now, and you are the people who are with me, and I want to hear what you think about Paul.

But Brooks keeps his opinions to himself until he gets home and puts it in writing, opening himself only to those of us who encounter him on the other side of text.

UPDATE: Here's another post, dealing with some of the ethical issues.

83 comments:

chickelit said...

Nice rant!

Michael K said...

"They didn't even know to treat the servants as servants."

Oh they were just Republicans. In the best Reagan memoir I've found, Riding with Reagan, the Secret Service agent comments on how, when Nancy called him by name the morning of the inauguration, Rosalyn Carter looked at Nancy in astonishment and said, "You know their names ?"

I am certain that Hillary, who returned an agent's "Good Morning, Ma'am," with a "fuck you," doesn't know their names.

Why should David Brooks know the names of little people ?

Patrick said...

Oof

sane_voter said...

I think this is the best Althouse post of 2015.

Quaestor said...

The best Althouse rant in ages.

Karen of Texas said...

This is ... *two thumbs up* I love a great rant; and when it comes along because someone or something deserves a great rant, then is even better.

Sebastian said...

"Terrible. Terrible beyond terrible timing, but what mind-crushingly bad timing."

No. Airing Ayres on 9/11 was perfect. It showed exactly who he was. The hatred for this country could not be made more clear. You would think any and all of his associates would have been toxic after that. But many people, certain law profs included, thought otherwise.

The Brooks column looks ill-timed, but isn't. It is important to continue to live life as normally a possible. That includes rich people spending money on rich-people indulgences. Especially if, by all appearances, they happen to be very decent, ordinary rich people, who know how to live a good life even if they do not care to philosophize about it with Mr. D. Brooks, thereby depriving him of nuggets of rube stupidity to dish out to NYT cognoscenti.

Virgil Hilts said...

For the record, and sorry but I have had too much to drink today! Ayers did not even build the bombs. He was too much of a pussy to do even that. His girl friend -- Diana Oughton -- did that and was killed when their bomb she was building to commit mass murder for her beau blew up in her face. If Ayers had had the testacles to build his own fucking bombs maybe Obama would not be president. Either Ayers would have blown himself up or, his real goal, become a legitimate mass murderer. Either way, America was prospectively damaged on March 6, 1970. The fact that Bill Ayers still walks the streets makes me want to vomit. He is a brother of ISIS born in a different decade and in the wrong country.

amielalune said...



I didn't read his article, and never would, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming he was traveling alone??

tola'at sfarim said...

Isis is contained seems like something more relevant to rant about. This just seems lame. What did the local papers have in the travel section today?

Alex said...

And this is why I come to Ann every day. A ray of sunshine amidst the gloom.

Ann Althouse said...

"I didn't read his article, and never would, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming he was traveling alone??"

He doesn't reveal it, but I'll bet he wasn't. I've never gone on any kind of travel package tour, but back in my solo traveling days, I wouldn't even consider getting into a situation that would be loaded with couples (even though I suspect they'd be pretty nice and inclusive). If you're trying to observe and get insights, it would be weird to just be the loner and to be a known NYT writer. Seems kind of unfair to the couples. And then he dissed them in his article! Dissed them, while parading as the more spiritual, thoughtful one! (What a clusterfuck!)

Ann Althouse said...

Hey, thanks for the compliments! I love doing this kind of fisking. Glad you appreciate it. I hold myself back sometimes, so thanks for the encouragement!

clint said...

For Brooks, this was just bad luck -- he wrote the article long before the Paris attacks.

What I don't get is the editors. They had to decide at the same time that they were cutting things to make room for a bunch of new breaking-news articles about the attacks that *this* piece was not one of the things they could push.

It makes you wonder what articles they did push off to next week.

Ann Althouse said...

@clint I think this went up before the attacks. It was too late to pull it.

bleh said...

He wouldn't have dared challenge them like this to their faces. Because he's a pussy.

I know quite a few well-off young Ivy-educated professionals. They are insufferable when speaking about their travels and all the terribly cultured things they do. I usually just smile and nod.

clint said...

"Ann Althouse said...
@clint I think this went up before the attacks. It was too late to pull it."


Ah. That makes more sense.

Anonymous said...

Add my vote to conferring the "quality rant" seal of approval.

Brooks is so dreadfully vulgar.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

Brooks is a democrat's house-republican.

David Begley said...

Timing almost as bad as Obama declaring ISIS contained on Friday.

Only hope Brooks reads this post.

William said...

Gore doesn't have much luck with his timing either. He thought that by holding the AGW warning conference in early November he could avoid those pesky blizzards which do so much to undermine his credibility. Now this. How can you point out the imminent threat of global warning to people who are running for their lives from psycho killers. It's a huge distraction. Global warming conferences should ideally be held in July somewhere in the Caliphate.

D. B. Light said...

I used to dislike David Brooks, but over time I've come to despise him. He's always looked down on the bourgeoisie but before he masked his contempt in the guise of social commentary. Now he's getting personal and implying that he's a better human being than they.

wildswan said...

A Perfect Day for Ranting

William said...

If Brooks had visited Ephesus with hard line Christians, he would have pointed out that in Paul's time people were comparatively relaxed about their sexuality, and even homosexuality was tolerated. He would point out how Paul's hysterical anti sexuality had damaged the lives of his followers then and for generations to come. ......The important thing is not to have the right opinion of Paul but rather to show your moral superiority to those who surround you.

Skeptical Voter said...

Poor snotty little David Brooks. The horror! The absolute shrieking horror of having to spend time with folks from the lower end of the upper class. Why I bet there was not a future presidential pants crease among the crowd; which of course spared David the problem of getting down on his knees and worshipping the possessor of that crease.

David said...

Ayers did not feel much pain over his "poor timing," except perhaps the reduced royalties.

As to Brooks, he could republish this during the upcoming "climate summit" in Paris.

As the man says, I'll believe that climate is a crisis when they start acting like its a crisis.

Paul said...

I too would think that being friends with Bill Ayers would immediately disqualify a politician from receiving a thinking person's vote. Or a 20 year association with Jeremiah Wright. Or having Frank Marshall Davis as a mentor.

Apparently not.

But Donald Trump? Now there's a real threat to the nation.

FleetUSA said...

Yes, what a clusterfuck is DB (and the NYT for that matter). And yes, best item of the year pointing out how out of touch the lib professional class is compared to the rest of us. Her highness HC is the leader of that pack.

Mary Martha said...

Great rant!

If Brooks wanted to go to Ephesus and discuss Paul that can very easily be done. There are religious pilgrimages there all the time. He *choose* to go on a package tour and then berate it.

Imagine the nice couples who shared this trip with him. They came home from what was likely for most the 'trip of a lifetime'. After years of working and building their businesses (even carpet business takes work) they saw the world in comfort and style. Maybe they told their family and friends about the NYT writer on the trip with them. Who they shared meals with and spent time with around the world.

Only to find that this man was looking down on them the whole time. Judging them as 'lower upper class' (whatever that means). If they were kind to the staff I bet they were kind to Brooks as well. He didn't deserve that kindness.

Quaestor said...

And then he dissed them in his article! Dissed them, while parading as the more spiritual, thoughtful one! (What a clusterfuck!)

Clusterfuck is perhaps one of those words with much too much latitude in its meaning. I can't say when it entered my vocabulary (high school days, most likely) but whenever I've heard it, read it (up to now) or used it myself, it has meant a coincidence of time, place, or context in which a number of small mistakes, random accidents, minor incompetencies, and/or bureaucratic inanities combine to produce disaster. Clusterfuck is not a word I would apply to David Brooks and his writing. Another c-word comes to mind...

Jeff said...

I know quite a few well-off young Ivy-educated professionals. They are insufferable when speaking about their travels and all the terribly cultured things they do. I usually just smile and nod.

What's worse is listening to them discussing their nannies. On my first day of work in DC, I sat at a table in our cafeteria and listened to people alternately praising and complaining about the people they hired to care for their children. I really wanted to grab them and shake them and tell them that they only get to raise their children once. I pity the kids who grow up knowing they're less important to their parents than an exciting career as a Washington bureaucrat.

Laslo Spatula said...

I had an encounter with one of Brooks' 'Kind of people' today.

I was at Starbucks, drinking a three-shot diuretic, when I went to visit the single bathroom.

A woman passed in front of me: Yoga pants, expensive jacket, expensive purse, expensive hair.

She smiled, then slipped into the restroom in front of me.

Fine.

Moments pass, and I try not to hear the sound of a dinosaur slowly giving birth to a large dry egg.

For a moment there is the sound of running water, but no sound of a paper towel being pulled from the dispenser.

Worse: no flush.

She exits the bathroom with a precious grin on her face, and hands me a Starbucks Napkin in the process.

There is no phone number on the Starbucks napkin, so I know that sex is not going to be a part of this story.

I enter the bathroom, close the door and lift the toilet lid -- and seat, I am all for etiquette -- and there it is, floating serenely in the bowl.

The Turd Of The Entitled.

There is nothing special about the Turd: asymmetrical, inconsistent in color, speckled, blandly shaped.

The room does not smell of roses.

I no longer find it as urgent to urinate.

I leave the restroom, and take a quick peek in the Starbucks: she is not there.

I exit, and quickly find her in an Audi on her iPhone. I rap hard on her driver's door window, which she opens before realizing that opening the window was a bad idea.

"Eat the fucking napkin" I say, shoving it towards her mouth.

She is now fumbling to raise the window but doesn't want to let go of the iPhone.

"Eat the fucking napkin!"

Sadly, she does not eat the napkin. She hits Reverse, and promptly smacks into a car waiting in the Drive Thru.

My Good Deed done, I head back into the Starbucks to flush the toilet, but I think there is someone in there, masturbating.

Masturbating to The Turd Of The Entitled.

For a brief moment I Hate Everybody.


I am Laslo.

David said...

"If they were kind to the staff I bet they were kind to Brooks as well. He didn't deserve that kindness."

Yes he did, in the minds of the people he was traveling with. Because he was a human being. People successful in the carpet business and other remunerative drudgery tend to have the so called "servant's mentality." This requires kindness. (Not indulgence but kindness.) They understand that their success is rooted in fulfilling the needs of others. Others" include employees, because they can't run a successful business without dedicated employees. This is particularly true of successful small and medium sized businesses. The large and mega-large institutional organizations can easily stray from this ethic in practice, though they may still profess it. The most successful of the mega institutions find ways to preserve a humane service oriented approach.

And I'll bet there were quite a few fellow travelers who could have had a thoughtful conversation about the apostle Paul, if (as Althouse points out) Brooks had chosen to engage them on the subject.

[Who paid for this trip? Probably not Brooks. If he did, he likely will expense it on his tax return since he took it to write about it. If someone else paid, I bet he does not declare the value as taxable income. Call it the Geitner Effect.]

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Laslo,
You're the Balzac of the Althouse commentariat.

pst314 said...

"But over dinner, they mostly spoke with their new friends about their kids and lives back home, not about the meaning and depth of what they had just seen."

I've had dinner with a number of writers known and honored around the world and although we have sometimes had the sorts of conversations David Brooks longs for we have more often talked about the the same things that everyone else does, the stuff of normal human life which seems to not be enough for Brooks. I pity him.

rcocean said...

Great post. Of course, everyone at the New York Times Op-ed page is an easy target.

Irene said...

One of your finest posts, Althouse.

pst314 said...

David Brooks wants us all to take Global Warming more seriously by living much more frugal lives, eliminating cars, suburban commutes, and everything else that can reduce our sinful carbon footprints. Clearly, though, such admonishments do not apply to such exalted personages as David Brooks, a special person with special privileges.

Achilles said...

David Brooks purpose at the NYT's is to make conservatives look bad.

This article fulfills his purpose.

Achilles said...

So is anyone going to ask Obama if he feels like "Mission Accomplished?"

I know, he isn't a republican...

Big Mike said...

@Althouse, (1) great piece of work, but (2) you reminded me all over again about how angry I am that the Times tries to present Brooks as some sort intellectual conservative when all he is is a grade A twit.

Michael K said...

"Timing almost as bad as Obama declaring ISIS contained on Friday."

The worst example of timing I know is related in a book called Touching History, which is about 9/11 and written by an airline pilot. She relates that the head of the Air Force Air Defense Command told her:

General Larry Arnold tells how he was informed by a superior that, "If everyone would turn off CNN, there wouldn't be a threat from Osama bin Laden." General Arnold was, at the time, commander of the Continental U.S. North American Air Defense Command and the statement was made two weeks before 9/11. That's serious bad timing.

Speaking of "cultured conversations", does anyone recall the story of Obama complaint about his dinner companions on a trip?

“I think he was refreshed to sit down in a beautiful place, with good food, and talking with serenity about important things,” Mr. Piano said. He recalled that Mr. Obama, who once had dreams of becoming an architect, had many questions about Mr. Piano’s work.

“It was a real curiosity of a real man who was trying to explore how things happen,” Mr. Piano said.


Those stupid politicians. Who would want to talk them them ?

Michael K said...

talk to them.

traditionalguy said...

Why can't the GOP draft Brooks at the last minute to stop the outsider rebellion? He would win every debate by talking the others and the panel to death with elegant platitudes and no one could understand well enough to reply. Jeb would just nod his head and agree silently. Kasich would waive his arms and cheer. Carly would try to answer as if only she understands the nonsense. The Cuban duo would deny they want to emigrate to the USA anymore. Lindsay Graham would suggest nuking NYC and Christie would say New Jersey agrees. Carson would cast demons out of him.

Oh well, I guess we are stuck with the rude, crude and socially unacceptable Trump...the one with the beautiful wife and classy family.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for reading the Times for me. I once was quoted in a story there but I disagree with their world view. I plan to save time in the future by skipping any posts with the words "NY Times" or "David Brooks."

Fred Drinkwater said...

Achilles hits the 10-ring.
Brooks is a docile house-"conservative" working for a perpetual campaign organization. His actual job description must have the word "caricature" in it.
And we get to pay for it, since his adventure was certainly written off on taxes by him or the NYT (or more probably, by both.)

FullMoon said...

Goddamn,
If AA ever gets pissed off and addresses me directly, I am changing my alias
and becoming invisible.

Drago said...

Thank you Althouse. This was exactly the thoughtful and spot on palate cleanser I needed before finalizing my travel preparations (business only of course, my being part of the lower-lower-upper-middle-betweener class)

Titus said...

My neighbor Julliet Kayem is on CNN now-she is fab! We go to the same dry cleaners.

tits and muscles.

Oh and I send pics to Althouse of my grindr tricks just so she knows my worth.

ndspinelli said...

Travel rant from the Madison, shut-in, bag lady.

Known Unknown said...

Did you miss the Paris attack op-ed from the woman whose Parisian dinner party was interrupted?

Yes, she had skin in the game as her husband was at Stade de France, but it read like one big inconvenience.

Known Unknown said...

Brooks is a total dickhead.

robother said...

Ah, cruel neutrality at its cruelest....Thank you Ann.

Roughcoat said...

Terrific post, Althouse. One of your best.

Sydney said...

Is it true that in the painting of the Prodigal Son the father has one masculine and one feminine hand as Brooks asserts? I looked at the painting online and didn't interpret it that way.

richardsson said...

I Agree, a great post.

Anonymous said...

I've been on several package tours, one of them by myself and the others with my husband. The 24-day round-the-world tour wouldn't have been my cup of tea, because I prefer to take trips one country at a time--or one cluster of nearby countries at a time. The whole point of a package tour is to have your time arranged efficiently by people who know how to do that and also know a lot more about the places you're visiting than you do. Tour packagers can also arrange experiences for you that would be much harder for you to arrange on your own--or even learn that they existed. And let's face it: Unless you move to a country and live there for a while, you're never going to have an "authentic" experience of the country or its people. You're a tourist. But you can get a pretty good sense of what the country is like on a well-run package tour.

And also, I don't really want to have deep, meaningful, intellectually stimulating conversations with my fellow travelers, none of whom I'll ever see again. I just want to have pleasant conversations with nice people who aren't pretentious and who don't get snobby with the help. And most of the people who go on package tours are exactly that: genuinely nice and unpretentious. Obnoxious snobs, especially of the intellectual variety, look down on package tours and don't take them. That said, there are usually certain stock personality types along on package tours--the shopaholic, the know-it-all, the cliquish girls, the chatty Cathy, the Patagonia-catalogue victim, the fashion plate, the barfly, the pedant--and some of those types can get on your nerves. But most package travelers are genuinely well-mannered, good-natured, and friendly, and on large tours you can avoid people you don't like by deft maneuvering.

My husband and I just returned from a superbly organized National Geographic package to Peru--and believe me we were grateful for the efficiency and pampering, considering that our planned itinerary was severely distorted by a general strike and a train derailment. But the pace was hectic, and it was nice for us to spend three days after the official tour ended just goofing around Lima, taking in some sights at our own leisurely pace, and swimming in our hotel's heated rooftop pool.

averagejoe said...

Quaestor said... Clusterfuck is not a word I would apply to David Brooks and his writing. Another c-word comes to mind...
11/14/15, 6:42 PM

Chloroform...

mezzrow said...

Ah, now I remember why I come here. Thank you, Professor.

hoyden said...

NYT Liberals have little use for the bible or religion beyond knowing how to apply the words towards their political enemies in the inimical Alinsky style. Brooks fulfills a similar role for the NYT as Steven Colbert provides for TV.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

I would like to add my Kudos. Well done, well done.

Unknown said...

"And, yet, I must confess, other sweet small moments came when I just said what the heck and enjoyed the self-indulgence. The caviar in Russia was really nice. So was the beautiful hotel pool in Morocco, the sweet staff at every stop and the little cubes of Turkish delight. And yes, over the course of the three days at the Four Seasons in Istanbul, I did drink both bottles of champagne"

Oh, I can't even.....

Tank said...

This is why we use "the portal."

Susan said...

One suspects that the lower-upper class rubes who were *sniff* nice to the help instinctively know more about Paul's philosophy than Brooks and possibly the entire upper-crust staff of the NYT.

Bill Peschel said...

Brilliantly ranted, Ms. Althouse. It made me think of this clip from Monty Python's Meaning of Life: Restaurant conversation

https://youtu.be/oa0bCzwSNA0

Lee said...

There's a line in the movie "Guardians of the Galaxy" where the swashbuckler hero -- sort of an anti-hero -- describes himself as a bit of an asshole, but "not 100% a dick."

One of the other characters comments, "Well, nobody is 100% a dick."

Only someone who had never read that David Brooks column could say that.

retired said...

If Kristof had written it, your only reaction would have been envy. But since Brooks pretends to be a conservative, you bag on him.
You'll vote for her.

Mark Allen said...

I wonder if he found the Hermitage was as morally complex as the crease in Obama's trousers.

KBK said...

Althouse is drifting right, but she still swears like a lib, i.e. badly.

Bill Peschel said...

Hmmmm, now that I've read it, I think that it is still a fine rant, but you're very much reading into your own interpretations.

"Who with $120,000 to spare falls for a pitch like that? The lower end of the upper class. Brooks is looking down on these people."

He's describing the background of the people he met. Frankly, I wouldn't know what constitutes a 1 percenter on the bottom run, so I would question his judgment on this point. How much does a university administrator make? $300,000? Does that make them bottom one percenters? And owning your own business doesn't necessarily make you wealthy, either.

"But over dinner, they mostly spoke with their new friends about their kids and lives back home, not about the meaning and depth of what they had just seen."

Again, you called them "rubes," not Brooks. He described exactly what he heard. Yes, he did wish they could be a little more engaged with what they saw, but why not? What is so wrong with showing people great art and wishing they'd respond to it?

"Why would "the very spot where Paul preached" get you closer to any significant meaning... especially from folks who opted into the Four-Seasons-branded package tour? "

You're being disingenuous. You've never traveled anywhere and felt a connection to the place? Really? Never been to an art museum? How about music? You like music? Brooks is asking a valid question: why spend that much money if you're not going to engage with the place you're going to? Why else are you going?

"But Brooks keeps his opinions to himself until he gets home and puts it in writing, opening himself only to those of us who encounter him on the other side of text."

Did you expect him to challenge them? If you did, and quoted them, wouldn't you have defended them? They're private citizens. They didn't ask to be interviewed by David Brooks. They didn't know he was coming.

Like you, when I was starting into the essay, I was wondering why he didn't name them. Quote them. Seek their opinions. But because I kept an open mind throughout, I saw his strategy. He was giving them their privacy. They may see this story; they may not. It doesn't matter, because he was using the trip for a different purpose. He wasn't observing tourists, he was questioning the value of tourism.

Or as he put it: "My job was to report back on the merits and demerits of such pampered high-end travel." And what he found was "the luxury of service"--which he enjoyed. He found pleasure in that. I'm sure he was happy that they found pleasure in great service as well.

They got a "jam-packed experience." No doubt about that. Did they enjoy that? Maybe not, if the best part of the tour was sitting on the beach, able to pause for awhile. Does that make them rubes? Or did they buy into a package they didn't realize would give back so little? Who knows? It doesn't matter. This is all Brooks' opinion (which is why he didn't quote his fellow travellers; if they enjoyed the trip then from Brooks' point of view that's fantastic. He's writing about what he thinks about tourism.)

A writer who truly looked down on them would not have written: "For most people on this particular trip, money did not backfire. They were enthusiastic about the experiences and happy to be making new friends and traveling in this self-contained luxury caravan. Plus, it's important not to romanticize hassle ... If you've got money, one of the best ways to spend it is on things that will save you time."

So the point he's making is that the tour jammed too many stops and didn't provide the guests with enough context so that they could understand why they were there in the first place.

Ron said...

What a total c*nt.

I get irritated when the NYT covers non-leftists as if they belonged to a tribe in Samoa, but the dripping condescension of Brooks' column sets a new standard for anthropological "journalism". The obvious subtext is that some wealthy people are more deserving of their wealth than others. Fortunately, neither Brooks nor his masters at the NYT get to choose.

We live in an age when almost everyone is aggrieved, on both the right and the left, and the pitchforks and torches are only an incident away. It takes someone very special - and David Brooks is very, very special - to get the affluent shopping on pitchforksandtorches.com. I'm fairly comfortable, and I paid for overnight shipping.

Glen said...

I have to agree with Bill Peschel. Althouse's rant says far more about herself than her target.

Most inexplicable is her admonition that Brooks should have “donate[ed] $120,000 to charities that serve the poor and stay[ed] in America and f[ound] the people who truly believe[d] in Christianity and to talk[ed] about Paul with them.” The original article was clear that Brooks only joined the trip for a week (out of a total journey of two and one half weeks). It was also pretty obvious that no one paid anything for Brooks' participation and that it was provided free by the tour operator in exchange for publicity.

So how is Ann Althouse any less of a “disapproving eminence” than David Brooks?

Irwin Chusid said...

Epic smackdown.

PackerBronco said...

"David Brooks is an idiot".

I'll file that in the "Water is Wet" folder.

RecChief said...

But all the things you complained about by pointing out his pretentiousness are selling points to people who subscribe to the NYT.

Except for those who cluck pretentious disapproval, like althouse.

Nothing changes here

Unknown said...

Prof. Althouse at her best.

Brooks has always been a shallow intellect. But here he is paying two and a half times the U.S. median household income for a three-week tour with some swells he can look down on. Tell you what, David. I happen to be a "one percenter." I traveled in sufficient luxury for three times that long this year for a fraction that cost. I traveled on my own, not with some effete tour group. To lands steeped in religious and spiritual history. I had some pretty engaging talks about history and religion. With whom? With monks. With priests, lamas, with people living in medieval poverty on the mud floors their bamboo houses while they served me tea. With ordinary people in markets, in little boats, in the streets. With scholars. With old people.

Your problem, David, is that you travel like you think and write: from a distance, clueless about life around you, wrapped in your delusion of specialness. You're a coward and a preposterous fraud. And this piece is typical of the Times: intellectual and moral pretension stuck between ads for Bulgari jewels and $30 million coops. Beyond parody, even.

Grumpy Old Man said...

The man's a Jew. Why does he want to lecture about St. Paul?

taiwan77 said...

Headline is a lie. He only spent 6 days on trip. So thhh

Anthony said...

The really incredible thing is that Brooks gets paid to write such tripe.

Inkling said...

Brooks question: "... are you really seeing the world?"

My short answer: "No."

My long answer: "If you're not mixing with the locals, staying where they stay, eating what they eat, and traveling like they travel, you've not really been there."

DANIELBLOOM said...

Was Brooks shilling for the travel firm, and, did he accept offer of free trip for 6 days or did he pay his own way for the 25 percent of the trip fare? Like US$30,000 Fact checkers? Or was this a paid junket by the travel firm and therefore unethical for NYT reporter to accept this? Cam anyone answer?

Ann Althouse said...

Good question DANIELBLOOM. It made me look up the answer. I'll do a new post.

pst314 said...

Bill Peschel "What is so wrong with showing people great art and wishing they'd respond to it?"

After a full day of cultural immersion, maybe these people want time to absorb what they have experienced.
And maybe they want to relax and talk about other things too. That has been my experience:
Writer X, after giving a couple talks during the day, relaxes at dinner with friends and talks about family, current events, and so on.
Writer Y, scheduled to participate with other writers on several panels, is having breakfast at the table next to mine. He is telling his friend how his post-surgery recovery is progressing, and describes how he solved the problem of fitting his huge library into a modestly sized house.
Scientist Z, scheduled to speak tomorrow, talks at lunch about hiking in the Sierras.