The Republican Albatross: Conservatives, Ideology, and the Human Condition As Seen By David Brooks

Apparently as a counterweight to its centrist liberalism, the New York Times keeps a few "house" conservatives writing on its Op-Ed pages. One of these conservatives, David Brooks, occasionally reports on the "human condition" from a conservative viewpoint. In a recent column (July 15, 2008) Mr. Brooks gives us ample evidence of one of the basic problems with conservative ideology: the dogma of American conservatism is to look backward, which means you're usually out of date in understanding progress and usually wrong in understanding the human condition.

In his recent column, Mr. Brooks offers us a belated revision of some of his old ideas about genes -- his old ideas that genes rule and that a search for genes that produce human behavior will lead anywhere useful. He has apparently changed his mind about a few things. He quotes a study by Eric Turkheimer, a study published five years ago that I wrote about here last year. Mr. Brooks suggests the Turkheimer study on contributions of genes and environment to variance in IQ shows us how complicated the "human condition" is, and he concludes from this that since we understand so little about the human condition, it's best to follow conservative ideology and do nothing about the differences in the cognitive performance of the underclass and overclass.

The problem is that not only is Mr. Brooks late in his understanding of what has been happening in the cognitive sciences, he's also so hog-tied by conservative dogma that he forces a twisting or even a complete neglect of realities.

Contrary to Mr. Brooks, it's not true that the 2003 study led by Eric Turkheimer on effects of environment on IQ does not suggest possibilities for intervention. As I've elaborated here before, the Turkheimer group found that in poor families nearly all the variance in IQ is accounted for by a combination of fetal and postnatal environments, and that the contribution of genes to IQ variance is close to zero in poor families. In contrast, in affluent families, the result is almost the reverse. What does it mean? As one might predict, Mr. Brooks says it means the human condition is too complicated for intervention.

Not so, Not so at all. One reasonable interpretation of the Turkheimer study is that among poor children genetic differences contribute almost nothing to the measured variance of IQ because environmental damage, both fetal and postnatal, overwhelms all other variables in accounting for IQ variation. In contrast, in the middle and upper classes, in which fetal and postnatal damage to the nervous system is much reduced and hardly variable from one family to the next, genetic differences account for most of the variation in IQ. In plain English, for middle and upper class children, differences in IQ can be explained mostly by genetic differences, while in lower class children, differences in IQ are explained mostly by non-genetic differences (fetal and postnatal environments). So if we ask about interventions, we should not be too quick to dismiss possibilities. The most reasonable preventive interventions are an improvement in prenatal care and a reduction in environmental toxins to reduce harmful fetal impacts. (There will be more about this in my forthcoming book: Changing Destiny: How the Fetal Environment Shapes IQ and Behavior. Oxford University Press, 2009.)

At the end of his analysis of the human condition, Mr. Brooks gives us a grand conservative mantra. He says:

"This age of tremendous scientific achievement has underlined an ancient philosophic truth -- that there are severe limits to what we know and can know; that the best political actions are incremental, respectful toward accumulated practice and more attuned to particular circumstances than universal laws."

Not quite. There is no demonstrated ancient philosophical truth concerning severe limits to human knowledge. An argument is not a truth. In the realm of social interventions that move the human species forward, there's much to be done, many goals to achieve, and a focus on the so-called limits of knowledge is not useful to society. Philosophy may focus on limits, but science and engineering and medicine have no such focus. It's an irony that Mr. Brooks acknowledges "this age of tremendous scientific achievement" but fails to realize such achievement was possible only because no limits were accepted. Truly, with Brooksian "limits" we would still be in the Middle Ages.

As for the poppycock idea that "the best political actions are incremental" -- this is the usual conservative ideology and a silly idea in America given that we came into existence as the result of a sudden revolution. As was said years ago by Jean-Francois Revel, what America is all about is a continuing revolution without Marx or Jesus. America is a revolution in progress, but a revolution without any dominating ideology. If any idea drives us in our continual movement forward, it's the idea of simple pragmatism. Conservatives may hate the reality, but we will indeed move forward, and we will keep looking forward rather than backward.

The Republican Party is now America's conservative party. If Republicans are wiped out as a political party this November, they can lay the blame at the feet of its current conservative ideologues -- the people who promote the idea of limits to knowledge, who promote the idea that social intervention is futile, and who turn their backs on the future. That's the Republican albatross.

Comments

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

Some months ago, Frank RIch wrote the most fascinating piece (although most of his writing is fascinating and well done) about how the republicons have painted themselves into a corner by pandering to the evangelicals and bigots on one hand and the corporations on the other.

Their blathering only works when there's a bad guy: It's Al Qaeda, it's labor unions, it's the liberals, it's the gays getting married, it's the people that want your guns, it's Bill and Hillary Clinton, it's blah blah blah.

Now that so many Americans are FINALLY waking up and realizing what these people have done to our Democracy, the republicons find it impossible to make necessary changes in the evolution of their message because of their philosophical debt to their base.

It is only a matter of time until they run out of corner.............

[zurcl]

posters beware! intelligent posts ahead.
damn this is a refreshing change. whether i agree completely or not,
these are smart people saying smart things.
ahh... fresh air.

[StephenDedalus82]

"If any idea drives us in our continual movement forward, it's the idea of simple pragmatism."

Brooks and other conservatives should read the great American Pragmatists (Peirce, Dewey, James). I believe Pragmatism is the nearest thing we have to an American philosophy, and it's one we should stick to.

[mediamarv]

Excellent writing, sir.

[Pdubya]

how could brooks have a valid opinion on conservativism when he is not a true conservative himself?

but that also applies to "progressives" when they aren't realy liberal, but socialist.

i must be conservative because i certainly long for the day when we had statesmen - i don't care what party they were.

[BillZBubb]

You don't need to guess any longer: You are a conservative.

[ContraEgoiste]

Well, I guess that if you read the works and aspirations for America from these statemen, you would consider them socialists.

The people are the government, administering it by their agents; they are the government, the sovereign power.
~ Andrew Jackson

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.
~ Thomas Jefferson

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
~ Thomas Jefferson

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
~ Thomas Jefferson

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
~ John Adams

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
~ James Madison

(continued below)

[ContraEgoiste]

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it."
~ Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes strong than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.
~ Woodrow Wilson

If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it.
~ Woodrow Wilson

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

- - - - - - - - - - - -

And let's not forget that socialist document, the Constitution,

[BADEN]

He is truly the "Frank Burns" of op-edness.

I cannot WAIT until aviator sunglasses go completely out of style, along with bad comb-overs.

I feel like I've been living the movie "Brazil".

[TakeSake]

Make sure they fill out a 27B/6.

[StephenKMack]

Dear Mr. Agin, and to all the other people who posted.
Mr. Agin, thank you for an invaluable critique of Mr. Brook’s column. It was worth the time to read and reread. To think about the consequences of the “philosophy of conservatism”, if one can characterize an amalgam of bastardized Social Darwinism, social prejudice, in fact downright snobbism: or even to dignify it beyond its real significance, a kind of Neo-Hobbesian philosophy of a “war of all against all,”and the attendant political nihilism that this philosophy can make concrete.
Your participation in the continuing debate, in the form of your responses to the other posters was an invaluable contribution to the community of free inquiry, that could be the future of the internet, if we but take the risk, and dare to do what is necessary, and you have led the way. And your effort is much appreciated, and should be a model for other writers, on this and all other internet sites. I look forward to your book. Thank you to all the others posters, who have contributed to a very spirited conversation. Best regards to all.

[DavidBeckwith]

As a fellow David B, let me defend Mr. Brooks for his incrementalism by saying that I believe he is changing, if incrementally, into a progressive liberal democrat. The sheer weight of David Bs falling on the side of lefteousness will eventually cause him to crack, and realize that he has been cool all along.
He just didn't know it. Or maybe be couldn't find anyone to pay him to think it. I'll not be that harsh. I think he's a good man, and I look forward to having him on our side...where his public conversion might be as rewarding as was Arianna's.
He has yet to recognize Goliath.

[editorjuno]

The eight hundred pound albatross in the room is not actual conservatism as expounded by Buckley, Goldwater, and their present day heirs like Brooks and George Will or even the militantly naive libertarianism touted by the progeny of Ayn Rand. Those philosophies have had very limited resonance with the electorate since the Cold War wound down and today are merely quaint.

The essential big bird around the GOP's neck is the faux conservatism implemented by the political heirs of Reagan, a polygamous marriage of convenience between would-be "Christian" theocrats, ruthlessly avaricious business interests, the virtual Likudnik auxiliary that comprises the original PNAC neocon crowd, the Constitutionally clueless and megalomaniacal "unitary executive" advocates, and the sadly ignorant racist/sexist Dixiecrat remnant that has been dutifully pandered to by Republicans ever since LBJ cut them loose by signing the Civil Right Act.

To prevail, all the Dems have to do is to assemble a somewhat less disparate, more durable coalition, and then run the federal government with a modicum of prudence, efficiency, and accountability -- easier said than done, but eminently doable given suitably skilled people appointed to key management positions.

[ContraEgoiste]

Don’t be to sure that the Reagan/NeoCon revolution owes nothing to the conservative ideology of Buckley, Goldwater and Ayn Rand. If anything, it is an aggressive Machiavellian bringing about of the tenets of their philosophy.

The idea of unregulated “free-markets” and selfish avarice of the individual out for his own at the expense of whomever can be used and gets on his/her way, is almost central to their belief. The god-like traits attributed to the "Leaders of Industry", where their morals are as inscrutable as are their vision and intelligence, is a myth that they blindly believe and perpetuate. Of course, this is a fallacious image that is aggressively sold by those on top to deflect any criticism by the average Joe and to promote unquestioning compliance and reverence. So when these “gods” speak the conditioned masses have no doubt that they are being steered to their benefit and happily run in the direction pointed. And the occurrences of Enron’s, WorldCom’s, et-al, aside from a temporary scandal do little to mar their enigmatic morals, as does GM, Fanny Mae, et-al manage to tarnish their “superior” vision and intelligence. This god image has been deeply embedded on the American psyche, and why we don’t question their exponentially large salaries nor their hoarding of the wealth.

This is the reason why our government is being handed to these individuals. And naturally, “absolute power…..”

[Bateman]

Dan Agin, why don't you let your readers know that Brooks wrote this in the piece you refer to:

"Prof. Eric Turkheimer of the University of Virginia, conducted research showing that growing up in an impoverished environment harms I.Q. He was asked what specific interventions would help children realize their potential. But, he noted, that he had no good reply. Poverty as a whole has this important impact on people, but when you try to dissect poverty and find out which specific elements have the biggest impact, you find that no single factor really explains very much. It’s possible to detect the total outcome of a general situation."

"growing up in an impoverished environment harms I.Q."

Plain as day. Poverty harms IQ. He is arguing that we do not know precisely which aspects of poverty do this, not that we do not know that poverty harms IQ.

[csavage]

There's a corollary to the study...the ability of some minds to tolerate ambiguity. Some people really have to see the world as either black or white and some people have no problem seeing the world in various shades of gray. Because we will always have people born who cannot tolerate ambiguity in their lives, we will always have people that we label "conservative"
A conservative needs to label their culture as all together good, because they cannot tolerate the ambiguity that realizing their culture has some fault would bring.
Europe has plenty of US style conservatives but they also have a more cohesive cultural structure than the US with it's pseudomelting pot mentality. They also have a bit more of a sense of community responsibility than the US.

[Bateman]

David Brooks: "We can strive to eliminate that multivariate thing we call poverty. We can take people out of environments that (somehow) produce bad outcomes and try to immerse them into environments that (somehow) produce better ones."

He is not saying that we should not try. He is saying that we will never determine precisely how each factor interacts to produce outcomes. And that this is hopeful because it means that totalitarian dreams to shape and control people using scientific knowledge can only fail. Maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong. He is not saying that we cannot improve the plight of the poor. Are you simply determined to misinterpret the words of people whom you already do not like?

Yes, he concludes with a brief for conservatism. But he writes "incremental change," not no change. So to say that we would be mired in the medieval era is unfair. Brooks is not arguing against progress itself but the totalitarian aspiration to create a 'New Man' that has resulted in eugenic and communist nightmares.

The American Revolution was a revolution that did not seek to do away with everything in the past, including English common law and past political advances. In contrast, the French Revolution was a revolution that sought to break away with past tradition. Compared to the French Revolution or the communist revolutions, the American Revolution and ongoing American political reforms are "incremental, respectful toward accumulated practice." And that's why the American Revolution was an enduring one.

[DanAgin]

Sorry, I don't agree at all. In interpreting the Turkheimer study, Brooks chooses pessimism rather than optimism. Why is that? He wants no change, that's why. Incremental change? That's a euphemism for no change. If he wants change, why doesn't he say so directly? Are the "increments" to be measured in centuries? Who has the time? How many are to be sacrificed for "increments"? Science and engineering and medicine strive for revolutions, not increments. The conservative "ideology" is a cook-up to justify the status quo in power and privilege. The give-away is that any radical measure that would amplify established power is quickly supported by conservatives. It's a lost cause, the arguments for it played out and dribbling into incoherence. If the best response is a bleat about "totalitarian aspirations" of those who seek to improve society, the con game is finished. Thanks for your comment. Dan Agin

[Bateman]

"If the best response is a bleat about "totalitarian aspirations" of those who seek to improve society, the con game is finished."

I plainly used the term "totalitarian aspirations" to refer to eugenicists and communists. If you mean to suggest that I was referring to things like publicly funded prenatal health and preschool programs you are incorrect.

David Brooks is well known to support federal funding of some social programs.

David Brooks, NYT, 6/8/07:

"We ... disagree with the limited government conservatives because, on its own, the market is failing to supply enough human capital. Despite all the incentives, 30 percent of kids drop out of high school and the college graduation rate has been flat for a generation. ...

No one policy can increase the quality of human capital, but a lifelong portfolio of policies can make a difference.

... Bigger child tax credits and increasing the earned income tax credit can reduce the economic strain on young families ... Extending government income support to young men in exchange for work would make them more marriageable.

... Quality preschool can help young children from those disorganized homes develop the self-motivation skills they’ll need to succeed. ... The government should increase funding for basic research, especially in math, engineering and physics."

[Bateman]

Before we get too caught up in the issue of what Brooks does or does not believe, let me add that I could not agree more with this passage:

"The most reasonable preventive interventions are an improvement in prenatal care and a reduction in environmental toxins to reduce harmful fetal impacts."

The research of David Barker and others on the developmental programming of physiological systems suggests that prenatal and early childhood intervention can have large positive outcomes on future health, cognitive ability, and social functioning. I believe that we should make promotion of developmental health a national priority.

[DanAgin]

And, Bateman, you do leave out the next sentence in your Brooks quote. His next sentence reads: "But we’re not close to understanding how A leads to B, and probably never will be. "

So what he tells us is that it;'s all so complicated, we can never know what to do. Not the words of someone seeking a better society. Not the idea that pervades modern science and engineering and medicine. We don't need his attitude. Dan Agin

[manan01]

It was incremental change that kept people who were affirmed to be "created equal” enslaved for close to a century after the vaunted American revolution.
It was incremental change that led to the subjugation and humiliation of people whose rights were guaranteed under the constitution for a century after the civil war.
It was incremental change that allowed the humanity of certain human beings not to be “self evident”
The tropes and tripes of not seeking “to do away with everything in the past, including English common law and past political advances” and respect for “accumulated practice” is, to me, nothing but pus and piffle.

[sufi66]

Of course the one thing that can be greatly affected are the bank accounts of the so-called conservatives when they get government contracts and bail outs, not to mention myriad tax deductions and credits which they gladly hoard.

Brooks should be fired for intellectual dishonesty. The only mantra he does believe in is simple: money is good for the rich, but bad for the poor.

[lwaxanatroi]

It's all in the serenity prayer. Liberals (of which I am one) often have a hard time with the "serenity to accept the things we cannot change." So-called conservatives lack "the courage to change the things they can." And both sides could use a large dose of the "wisdom to know the difference." Brooks does indeed have it completely wrong in his interpretation of the study, and the posters here have put their fingers on the reason. If we as a society corrected for the environmental insults to babies born in poverty and all babies were able to grow up competitive with one another based solely on IQ and talent, the children of the affluent would lose their advantage. And this, above all, is what so-called conservatism really wants to conserve: their place at the top of the heap. God knows they're not about conserving the planet.

[loril]

This makes me think about one of the reasons I take pride in being liberal. For me, it is a stretch. I am not the most revolutionary person. I tend to be uncomfortable with change. I enjoy my simple routine. I am one of those people who does like to know what the day will look like when I get up in the morning. And "boredom" is not the dirtiest word in the dictionary for me...I can amuse myself without a lot of constant drama and change.

However...I realize that this is just me. Why should I impose my own personality quirks on society at large. Choice, choice, choice is my mantra. Within reason, people should be given the latitiude to do as they please and live according to their own lights. This naturally involves change for society as people discover and explore new ways of being. Just because I am happy in a more traditional life does not make my choice the correct one for someone else.

It is about reaching your own potential and being allowed to aim as high (or low) or you care to. Being a liberal is a ying to my usual yang of sticking to something for years because it is "easier'. I see my more conservative personality traits as being drawbacks, I guess.