Folk Sociology: NYTimes Columnist David Brooks

David Brooks is a man of high intellectual well-roundedness, which makes his articles a pleasure to read. One thing I have noticed is that he usually ties in his "conservative cause" some way into his articles, some appeal to conservatives to become more like the "conservative" he is: intellectual, stoical, and politely satirical--something that some think only "liberals" are capable of doing. But I've also found that Brooks has often exaggerates and distorts differences between Red and Blue states, beating the old drum about "conservatives" and "liberals", to make his pop sociology even fizzier. I'm not sure what the vulgar fascination is with that dichotomy, but some columnists take it too far. They forget about the marginalized populations of academia whose views are too eclectic to be considered "red" or "blue".