Brooks on China
Is it just me … or are the criticisms of Brooks’s column totally trivial? Does this post — commenting on Chinese diversity — contradict anything in David’s column?
As a college student, my main interest was in the history of ethnographic ordering. I was very interested in Chinese discourse surrounding race and nationhood. And one thing you learn pretty quickly is that China’s “ethnic homogeneity” in fact masks tremendous subethnic diversity, and strong regional identities. The Hakkas, for example, persist as a kind of diaspora minority with its own historical myths. Also, state ethnographic policies have in a sense manufactured ethnicities — minority status means that a simulacrum of civil society is permitted, and it means that you aren’t subject to one-child restrictions. It’s no wonder that entirely secular Hui identify as Hui, despite the fact that Hui status is rooted in religious identity. Foreign journalists who spend a lot of time in China will talk to a lot of assertive characters: fabulously rich entrepreneurs, the kind of curious people who enjoy talking to foreigners. Which tells us what exactly about whether Chinese culture is individualistic or collectivist in the broadest sense?
Would Brooks be wrong to describe the US as an individualistic society? Well, it’s certainly complicated — we have individualistic strands in our culture, but also a strong capacity for social cooperation. Some have called Chinese society an example of “amoral familism,” paralleling the Mezzogiorno rather than, say, densely associative Emilia-Romagna. Who knows? What I do know is that calling the US individualistic is certainly not crazy — and to say that people who live in Detroit are really different from people in Palos Verdes or Brooklyn as a rejoinder to that claim would be a non sequitur.
Some, including Kishore Mahbubani, have argued that the Cultural Revolution represented a serious break in the history of Chinese self-perception — that we’ve seen more individual assertion since. It’s possible. But Brooks was basing his characterization on scholarly work that ought to be addressed on its own terms. His view is impressionistic, which is exactly as it should be.
I have to say, I find it frustrating when people pull rank in this way. I’ve been here for a decade — you’ve been here for a week! There are straightforward tests of individualism vs. collectivism, e.g., attitudes towards adoption — Francis Fukuyama’s Trust had some neat insights on this front. Brooks had the right idea: let’s look to just this kind of scholarly work. Now, I would caution us against overinterpeting the individualism vs. collectivism scale. Some of Fukuyama’s critics noted that the “amoral familism” of southern China and its settler society offshoots might be very well suited to intense economic competition. Functionally, collectivism at the level of the family maps on to what we think of as individualism. There are a lot of fine distinctions to think through. But the job of the columnist is to provoke. Mission accomplished.
Now, Reihan, I love Brooks’ writing. But that column was goofy.
You want to tell me that the stuff is based on scientific, scholarly work? Great. Then give me some references to go on. Hell, he’s published next to Olivia Judson’s and John Tierney’s column, he should know how to do that. In fact when I read that column I felt considerable foreboding regarding Brooks’ upcoming foray into neuropsych.
And, making a conclusion about social homogeneity from a long choreographed show, starring of all things military members — I mean, that was a howler. Surely David “student of middle America” Brooks has seen a hell of a lot more superbowl halftime shows and cheerleading squads and Macy’s parades than have I. He was reaching, bad, and it showed.
And you get, obliquely, at the interesting question: is the rise of China something that goes on in parallel to whatever gross, averaged out differences there may be in Chinese versus American worldview, or is it something that is happening because the Chinese are adopting Western values and something that will continue to reinforce those values? I’m agnostic on this question but there’s people strongly arguing both points of view and Brooks and his critics know that. Here Brooks kind of implicitly assumes the former but gives you no evidence, scholarly or otherwise, to support it (because you don’t know, and he doesn’t say, if, say, the data in that aquarium study have been changing over time).
It was a terrible column from a guy who’s generally much much better.
— Sanjay · Aug 13, 12:59 PM · #
Actually, Brooks is going on references. And the guys at Language Log are checking up on them:
— Wrongshore · Aug 13, 04:04 PM · #
Is the job of a columnist really simply to provoke?
Is a column bad only if it is contradicted? what if it just isn’t that well researched? The NYT opinion page isn’t “Science” but if you’re going to refer to all this research than how about giving us something other than one guy who wrote a book or a single study of psychology major’s predilections for how to organize cows and hay? We’re not that far from “white people can’t dance territory here”…sure there’s some truth to it, but is an essay with some truth, you know, good?
— berger · Aug 13, 04:50 PM · #
A good article on GNP and education:
http://americasfuture.org/doublethink/2008/08/the-education-party/
— don · Aug 13, 05:54 PM · #
Wrongshore, thanks. That’s the sort of thing that’s actually helpful, as opposed to Fallows’s sneering.
— Alan Jacobs · Aug 13, 06:40 PM · #
Alan~
I think the cause of Fallows’ sneering as you call it was that, in typical David Brooks’ fashion, Brooks posits a thesis (Asians are culturally different than Europeans/Americans), finds a study that in general terms supports his thesis, and then, voila!, look at all the consequences that flow from my thesis. In this case, his thesis is trivial and, as Fallows points out, he ignores what contra-cultural trends lie below the surface. I think Fallows’ criticism would have been more on point if he had pointed out that Brooks’ column has no real point—unless his point is the last sentence of his column, in which case why did he even bother.
I think David Brooks is a smart guy, but his forays into amateur sociology and cultural determinism are not his strongest suit.
— Steven Donegal · Aug 13, 08:15 PM · #
The Language Log post is just devastating, isn’t it? What was Brooks thinking? It sounds like he totally misrepresented the studies he discusses in the column. Unintentionally, I’m sure, but badly. (I presume that if the Language Log post is itself inaccurate or misleading, Brooks or his defenders will point that out.)
It is also notable that Reihan’s post was every bit as “sneering” as Fallows’s. I understand that Reihan has a personal relationship with Brooks but considering Reihan’s talent and intelligence I do hope that at some point he will get a little distance and realize that Brooks can be a real dilettante and is more often than not in over his head when he tries to turn whatever academic book he’s most recently read into perceptive social commentary. Brooks’s best is very good, but his worst is really pretty bad.
— Christopher M · Aug 13, 08:21 PM · #
Brooks did give a reference, to Richard Nisbett, the U. of Michigan scholar who wrote “The Geography of Thought : How Asians and Westerners Think Differently…and Why.” It’s quite a good book.
The caveat I would bring up is that Japan and China aren’t necessarily all that similar.
— Steve Sailer · Aug 13, 08:47 PM · #
The wagon circling around here regarding David Brooks is really annoying. I understand— you all like him a great deal. Treating someone like a sacred cow is not demonstrating respect them; in fact, it’s quite the opposite. You all treat Brooks with such kid gloves that it seems clear to me that you don’t interrogate his arguments at all. That’s the opposite of the kind of respectful but critical and skeptical reading that a interested evaluator should have. David Brooks is a big boy; so is James Fallows. You can defend one against the other without into this tired huffing that pops up here whenever criticism of David Brooks dare speaks its name.
— Freddie · Aug 13, 09:03 PM · #
East Asian thinking has put a very high value on social “harmony” for at least 2500 years. They don’t always achieve it, but harmony is clearly something they tend to value more than, say, David Brooks’ relatives value social harmony.
— Steve Sailer · Aug 13, 11:53 PM · #
>>But the job of the columnist is to provoke. Mission accomplished.<<
I’m curious about this. I did a stint at a think-tank and was pretty shocked at the sloppiness and carelessness of the research of the scholar for whom I worked. He simply cherry-picked the ideas that appealed to him or supported his arguments and put them in his footnotes. When I challenged some of this (in a pretty laid-back way—just suggesting that he sit on the article while I dig up some more stuff), he rather condescendingly informed me that he wasn’t interested in absolute accuracy but instead in provoking people and getting them thinking.
I took the hint, but I have to wonder when I read some of the rubbish published on all points of the political spectrum at what point do the sloppiness of these overly-broad, poorly-researched “provocations” become counterproductive? If some journalist or public intellectual is producing sloppy work, won’t that tend to derail and sidetrack discussion?
— scriblerus · Aug 14, 02:48 AM · #
I don’t have a strong opinion one way or another on the work Brooks cited coming out of Nisbett’s group at the U. of Michigan on different cognitive styles of Westerners and East Asians, but I can say for sure that it’s legitimate scientific research.
A lot of people started denouncing Brooks without realizing that they were ignorant of the U. of Michigan research, and now they’re just trying to cover up their ignorance through ad hominem abuse of Brooks.
— Steve Sailer · Aug 14, 09:27 AM · #