Re David Brooks, I’ve no problem with “ideas” in general, but I do have with his in particular. A couple of days after September 11th, as details of what happened on Flight 93 were still emerging, Virginia Postrel wrote:

All three of the men who took action to save their fellow Americans, and quite likely the White House, from destruction were technology-company executives. They were the sort of people David Brooks has been bashing in The Weekly Standard for the past several years. (Sample passage, from this Weekly Standard article: “Nowadays when you walk amidst the office parks, you see a country that is great but insufficient too—great in its scientific accomplishments, in its tolerance and in its industriousness….And yet insufficient because of its self-satisfaction and complacency.”) These men were the people who create national greatness, not the ones who talk about it. Like foreign enemies past and present (as well as many American preachers and writers), Brooks has mistaken the quiet pursuit of happiness for weakness and decadence.

It’s worth quoting further from Mr Brooks’ indictment of the office park:

When you scan through the great figures who are supposed to represent the American spirit, almost all of them seem hopelessly out of place in office parks. We used to think America was a pioneer nation, but the people in the office parks haven’t thrown off the comforts of civilisation to strike out on their own: This isn’t the realm of the Puritan, the Cowboy, or the Immigrant.
So too you can’t fit George Washington in an office park. He may have embodied the American spirit when we were a nation fighting great wars for freedom and democracy, but it is hard to see Cincinnatus getting excited about an IPO.
Nor is it easy to imagine Lincoln parking his Chevy Suburban in one of the oversized spaces and fiddling with his Palm Pilot on his way to the morning meeting. Lincoln was too grand and too political for an office-park nation.

This has a amused glib plausibility but it is (as the Brits say) bollocks on stilts. In the London Telegraph of September 22nd 2001 (not available online), I responded:

I don’t suppose Lincoln would have given his office park any more thought than he gave his log cabin. But, insofar as there were any consolations on September 11th, it was because of the heroism of the “office-park nation” on Flight 93. Why’s that so surprising? Thomas Burnett headed a company that’s making the devices that replace heart valves smaller. These men worked in the most dynamic sector of the economy, where people start their own businesses, develop new products, and maybe don’t worry enough about how swank their office is. Pace Brooks, they are the new pioneers, the first settlers: they strike out for barely charted territory – the undeveloped plot on the sub-division on the edge of town – throw up a rude dwelling and get on with the important stuff. According to a friend, Burnett was a “patriot”, a hunter and military history buff whose office had busts of Lincoln, Churchill and Teddy Roosevelt. It’s what’s inside the office park that counts.

Does Mr Brooks ever wonder what’s inside the Annenberg Challenge or the ACORN or Trinity Church offices? And, when the next shoebomber bends down to strike his match, would he rather the guy sitting in the next seat is too immersed in his Niebuhr to notice?