dude. this "we live in stories" crap is so over. actually, if we were the stories we tell, there'd be no evil at all. your body getting riddled by bullets is not a story. at any rate, i just want to point out that the wearethestorieswetell thing originated with literary critics, who really wanted to live in stories - that is, curled up on their couch with books - and then somehow entered public consciousness in a kind of hackchump postmodernism. it sort of sounds good, or like an explanation or something. push it even slightly and you realize it's a bizarrely backwards and misleading metaphor. it doesn't help with the ethics, the aesthetics, the metaphysics, the science, the history, the psychology. it's a gigantic univocal pseudo-explanation that does absolutely nothing.

brooks: "Most people select stories that lead toward cooperation and goodness. But over the past few decades a malevolent narrative has emerged." ok. so. i freely select my story, and i select a story that leads to cooperation and goodness. (really?) what is my story, my story of the whole world and human history? ain't got one, dave. maybe you do. but if you do i can guarantee you this: it's false. but of course "false" makes no sense in a world consisting of stories, whatever that could possibly mean. actually i have a thousand stories and a thousand beliefs and experiences that don't fit into my thousand stories. it's a mess out here. but at any rate, if you wanted to explain islamic extremism, how useful is it to say that they selected a bad story? =0.

Comments

[mr.fun]

on you, maybe.

[Standard Anthony]

No, dildos can be effective.

[mr.fun]

David Brooks is a dildo.

[Stephen]

Yeah... that one post where you said that you really related with David Brooks made me cringe. He's a fool. A really really nice guy but a fool. He's the kinda person that loves thinking and loves ideas, but he's also never known 10 minutes of real trouble in his life. Seriously. He's eloquent but none of his concepts are tested against reality. He wrote a book called "Bobos in Paradise", about his cohorts, the Bobos ('bourgeois bohemians' -yeah he coined that brilliant neologism). Yes, the "let's do tennis and mint julips" crowd and here's what he says:

“[Bobos] are the new establishment….When I use the word ‘establishment,’ it sounds sinister and elitist. Let me say first, I’m a member of this class, as, I suspect, are most readers of this book. We’re not so bad. All societies have elites, and our educated elite is a lot more enlightened than some of the older elites, which were based on blood or wealth or military valor. Wherever we educated elites settle, we make life more interesting, diverse, and edifying.”

Really? "We're not so bad?". Fucking please.

Here's the full takedown of Brooks on the Exile.

http://exiledonline.com/david-brooks-blows-bobos-an-exile-classic/

[mr.fun]

it's all "busy work."

[Standard Anthony]

You obviously haven't read "The Secret" :) This is their whole bag. All of these guys: Brooks, Friedman, Friedman and Bush (and Obama for that matter). Calvinism meets the Human Potential Movement. It's why our economy collapsed, it's why we're fucking around and failing with "nation building" and it's why very little will change until the boat sinks. "If we cold all be like Duffy Moon, the world would be a groovy place". The boys up top may be less than sincere about this gack, but the kids in the middle eat this shit up. It gives them a false sense of upward mobility. Werner Erhard wins. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go cleanse my chakras and think success.