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 y
old pal David Brooks has taken his pen and stirred up a few readers,
who are accusing him of many sins, including preferring life in
a big city to life in a small town. They sense condescension on
his part, and no doubt assume he wouldn't want his daughter to marry
one of them. They may be right.
Yet the real
problem here is with the readers themselves. They should know better
than to rise to this sort of bait. Haven't they got better things
to do?
It appears
not. They no doubt need some instruction regarding the true nature
of this type of journalism.
In this instance,
Dave took a short visit to what is called Red America, which is
journalistic shorthand for the vast stretch of land that supported
George Bush in his acquisition of high office. The purpose: to take
the region's pulse. Red America, of course, stretches between the
two coasts and is far too large to exhaustively research —
especially if you have other things to do — so Dave simply
slipped away to a county in Pennsylvania, which is not far from
his Washington, D.C. home and supposedly emblematic of the nation
at large. Notes were taken. Studies were apparently glimpsed. Grand
deductions were made. The check was cashed.
In short, mission
accomplished. The matter should have ended there.
Yet this inquiry
into the life of Red America has left some Reds feeling like they've
been kicked in the teeth by a big-city wise guy. One critic, a farmer,
typed up a long
response that was published by the American
Enterprise Institute (headquartered in Blue America) and reprinted
by the beloved Wall Street Journal (also in Blue Country,
though one should draw no conclusions). This critic was deeply injured
by suggestions that people who live in his neck of the woods aren't
as smart as the people who live in Blue Land, and that goes for
their children as well. He also took umbrage at the idea that people
who live in Washington are living in a town full of top-flight intellectual
activity, which is an idea so ridiculous it doesn't merit response.
Were I to meet
this farmer, I'd point out a few central facts. Number one, this
type of journalism should be seen as mere entertainment. It is,
to put it mildly, deeply subjective. Dave, for example, flew over
Scottsdale, Arizona and merely by peering down on the rooftops and
swimming pools was able to discern the nature of that community.
That is a considerable talent, of course, and one hopes it doesn't
go for cheap.
The second
fact is that this kind of work provides a living to journalists.
Without it, we'd be out rummaging through the countryside, milking
mules and shearing cows and no doubt trying to sleep in the farmer's
barn with the farmer's daughter, or whoever else might be available.
The final fact
is that Dave surely meant no harm. He has a mortgage and a family.
He has other bills. Paying that ransom with words is no easy chore.
And besides feeding his own, he's feeding journalists all along
the food chain. Critics should think of the process with the help
of this simile: This process is much like sitting on a dock and
throwing a piece of bread into a pond. Most of the time the dough
is a piece of white sandwich bread that has been compressed into
a ball. Within seconds, a horde of small fish — bluegill and
perch, for the most part — attack the bread. They go at it
from all angles, banging it around like a beach ball until the feast
is consumed. Then the fish spend a few seconds looking up at the
surface, hoping for another dose of manna. Eventually they melt
back into the murk until the next windfall arrives.
So it goes
with this type of journalism. A story is cooked up and published.
Almost immediately the hordes of commentators rise from the muck
to write this or that spirited attack, followed by a wave of supporting
pieces. In exceptional cases, a round of seminars follows, plus
a book. In the process the original writer gets paid, the responders
make their commissions, as do the vendors and other members of the
supporting cast.
And that is
the soul of the matter. No votes are changed by these stories. Nobody,
one feels safe in saying, picks up roots and relocates. There may
be a slight psychic benefit. In this case, readers from Blue America
may appreciate being told yet again that they are intellectually
superior to Reds and lead more interesting lives. So what? Blues
live in their own ruts with nagging spouses, screaming children,
annoying colleagues, various addictions, howling cats and jobs that
eventually grind them down. In the fullness of time they die and
are heard from no more.
Meanwhile,
readers shouldn't let themselves get so worked up. Instead, they
should use that excess energy and go around their neighborhoods
selling magazine subscriptions. There's no reason they shouldn't
get a cut of the action.
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