I like dear old David Brooks, but this is dreary boomer nostalgia dressed up as a thesis.

For a start, the fragmentation of culture is not a purely musical phenomenon, but true on every front. David watches CNN, I watch the lesbian wrestling channel, disaffected young Muslim youth in Paris and Antwerp watch Arabic TV beamed in direct from the Middle East. That’s a fact of life. And the idea of using cobwebbed popular culture to bind a fractured nation is ridiculous: The lads who blew up the London Tube liked Britpop. The Merry Widow was both the toast of Broadway and Hitler’s favorite operetta. That Politburo guy in Peking sings Elvis numbers every time he has a banquet with American politicians. Saddam Hussein and I both like Frank Sinatra. It’s not enough, and never has been, and Brooks’ notion that Bob Dylan and the Stones have uniquely healing powers is boomer self-absorption at its silliest.

As for the urgent need to teach rock’n’roll in public schools, has Brooks been in any recently? Pupils are far more likely to encounter “All You Need Is Love” than Bach or Mozart. Which is a sad thing to do to any child.