TED 2011: David Brooks Outlines Problems With Our World View

From TED.com: "New York Times columnist David Brooks is the author of 'Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There' and 'On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (and Always Have) in the Future Tense.'"

Note: Live blog from Brooks' TED talk is not an official transcript, but a compilation of quotes (indicated where relevant with quotation marks) and paraphrased statements. Find more updates from TED here.

On politicians:
They're all emotional freaks of one sort or another...They have logorrhea dementia, they talk so much they drive themselves insane.

What they do have are incredible social skills. They lock in to you, invade your personal space, massage back of your head. I had dinner with a Republican senator who kept his hand on my thigh through the entire meal.

On problems with our world view:
Why are the most socially attuned people on Earth dehumanized when they think about policy? It's symptomatic of a larger problem: we have inherited a view of human nature based on the idea that reason is separate from emotions...that society progresses to the extent that reason is separate from passion.

This has led to ways of seeing world where people try to use assumptions of physics to measure human behavior.. It has produced a great amputation...a shallow view of human nature.

On our "revolution in consciousness":
We're developing a revolution in consciousness...when you synthesize it all it's giving us a new view of human nature. It's a new humanism.

[Brooks noted three key insights that are changing our view of human nature:]

While the conscious mind writes the autobiography of the species, the unconscious mind does most of work.

The second insight is that emotions are at the center of our thinking...Emotions are not separate from reason, but the foundation of reason because it tells us what to value.

The third insight is that we're not primarily self-contained individuals. We're social animals, not rational animals...We're deeply interpentetrated one with another.

Comments

[Robert Blackburn]

02:21 PM on 03/03/2011

Mankind's current problems do not stem from the separation of reason and passion, but rather from the passion people have for that which is not reason. What's not recognizable in today's world is that reason is itself compassionate, and it's the beliefs and fixed values of society that have replaced and diminished the humanism of our native reason. See RevolutionOfReason.com and YouTube: RobertLBlackburn

[GaiasChild]

01:34 PM on 03/03/2011

David your dinner companion did not have great social skills. He or she had a tremendous lack of boundary. And evidently, if you left the hand there the whole time, you liked it or you have no boundaries or you have a fear of authority.

[mamacat]

08:42 PM on 03/02/2011

Mr. Brooks is the only Conservative I know of worthy of the term "intellectual". While I may not often agree with him, I do find his ideas and opinions worth listening to, which is way, way more than I can say about 99.99% of Republicans.

[rigmoten]

02:33 PM on 03/02/2011

"I had dinner with a Republican senator who kept his hand on my thigh through the entire meal."

That's nothing I had a Senator keep his foot on mine the entire trip to the Minneapolis bathroom.

[liberalcomesfromliberty]

01:43 PM on 03/02/2011

His insights are within the Bible. He just wants credit for them.

[liberalcomesfromliberty]

01:40 PM on 03/02/2011

Has this guy come out of the closet yet?

[Andy49]

10:46 AM on 03/02/2011

At least someone in the media has it together, there are others but they are few and far between.

[Danek Greori]

09:22 AM on 03/02/2011

Did anyone else notice how hollow most of his statements were? It was like a mixture of some new age nonsense mixed, a touch of scifi, and some bs about the human condition.

[Sou-P]

02:25 PM on 03/02/2011

I believe you have hit the nail on the head! (also: the photo of Brooks that accompanies this article makes him seem to resemble Glen Beck -- fo what that's worth...)

[blackhawaiian]

08:44 AM on 03/02/2011

David Brooks has a problem, he's a conservative, with a brain. He's capable of thinking beyond the confines, of the typical republican, conservative. What republicans hate, is other republicans who don't march along, in lockstep.

[mamacat]

08:43 PM on 03/02/2011

It didn't used to be that way.

[lastpost]

08:28 AM on 03/02/2011

“Problems With Our World View”
On a clear day we may see a sphincter. Though sadly, its invariably from the wrong side.

[Visionary Excellence]

11:46 PM on 03/01/2011

The Oligarch cant help themselves. They are emotional human beings. Greed is a human emotion. They are human. Their lap dog politicians are like puppy dogs that will hump your leg and ask for a bone. Don't blame them for licking the hands of oligarchs. They cannot be expected to be rational. Don't blame them for being corrupt and inefficient and driving civilization off a cliff.

[orchidOne]

09:27 PM on 03/01/2011

that hand on your thigh was his attempt to find your kanish. Poor senator living int he closet of his own republican minds making

[RedDogBear]

06:58 PM on 03/01/2011

David Brooks also had a big Bromance crush on George Bush: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/57125/

David Brooks was consistently wrong about the Iraq war: http://www.progressive.org/blogressive_brooks102306

Why does anyone still listen to David Brooks?

[eric14]

07:15 PM on 03/01/2011

He efficiently recycles and repackages progressive ideas into packages which can be sold to the greedy.

[WileE116]

11:19 PM on 03/01/2011

Well said Eric14. You hit it right on the nail.

[Quincy Miller]

03:11 AM on 03/02/2011

Seriously. There wasn't an original thought in that entire presentation.

[blackhawaiian]

08:46 AM on 03/02/2011

Why does anyone still listen to Newt Gingrich, and Sarah Palin?

[rainbowblue]

06:13 PM on 03/01/2011

David Brooks was on TED and people still take take TED seriously...

Daviid Brooks wason TED complaining about politicians while internally wishing he would be invited to the next Obama state dinner and people still take TED seriously...

I never really liked those talks, but now I have proof that they are worthless.

[adrianrf]

07:53 PM on 03/01/2011

in the past, TED sessions have been gob-smackingly great.

they've certainly plummeted in content value if vacuous DC-Villager conventional wisdom retailers like Brooks are now commanding air-time.

ugh; talk about yer "shark-jumping" developments...