How David Brooks Explains the World
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 08.13.08 | 11:51 AM ET
Among the ways he says the world can be divided: Societies with an individualist mentality versus societies with a collectivist mentality. Specifically, he writes in the New York Times, “Americans usually see individuals; Chinese and other Asians see contexts.” Intriguing, but also a ridiculous generalization, according to James Fallows.
“This is the kind of thing you can say only if you have not the slightest inkling of how completely different a billion-plus people can be from one another,” he writes in The Atlantic.
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
Ling 08.14.08 | 12:38 AM ET
With all due respect, and I don’t say this lightly - David Brooks is a pompous ass. He lives in an ivory tower, and makes abstract generalizations which often end up very far from the truth. Far as I’m concerned, the NYT is wasting precious digital real estate with Brooks’ op-ed columns.