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To: LindyBill who wrote (131523)	8/11/2005 1:40:35 AM
From: D. Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793914

Go into the field that barely exists: cultural geography. Study why and how people cluster, why certain national traits endure over centuries, why certain cultures embrace technology and economic growth and others resist them I took my one and only geography course in college that was titled "cultural geography". I expected the above. I just got plain ole geography, in exotic locales. Ho-hum. But what Brooks refers to as cultural geography - that's good stuff. Derek

To: LindyBill who wrote (131523)	8/11/2005 10:54:06 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793914

Apparently "culture" is a construct that is no longer acceptable to explain the similarities and differences between people. This may sound surprising but the explanation makes sense. The word first came into English from German as a way of explaining that someone had good taste -- for example, they liked to listen to opera and lieder, and go to museums. We still use it that way, someone is "cultured." About the same time, it became popular among social scientists to use the word "race" to mean things we no longer mean by that, if you recall discussions of the "English race" vs. the "Irish race" and the "French race." "Race" fell out of favor for these discussions and explanations, because racism was a bad thing, so "culture" was substituted. It's a lot of fun to say things like "the British have a dry sense of humor" and "the French wave their hands around a lot" and "heaven has British cops, French chefs, Italian lovers and German mechanics and it's run by the Swiss, while hell has German cops, British chefs, French mechanics, Swiss lovers, and it's run by the Italians." Fun, but meaningless. Exactly the type of thing that Brooks specializes in. He really is a lot of fun, but still, it's no longer a respectable field of inquiry. Not because of PC, but because it's silly.

To: LindyBill who wrote (131523)	8/11/2005 12:46:48 PM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 793914

All Cultures Are Not Equal By DAVID BROOKS I still fail to understand why the NYTimes publishes David Brooks. Bring back Safire. This one confuses two arguments: that geographically bounded groups have distinct cultures and that those cultures account for their level of economic development. There is in addition, another very large caveat, that it's terribly hard to determine what a "culture" is and just how predictive it is. But the part I find the most inept is the list of scholars at the bottom. It's fine for Brooks to have some favorite authors but he needs to talk to some serious scholars in the field of cultural geography before listing the serious minds. Sowell doesn't do that kind of work; nor does Banfield; nor Huntington. Weber, we all know, argued the classic Protestant ethic argument which continues to be a source of much debate in several fields (which debate doesn't appear in Brooks' essay). Post Krugman who knows what he's talking about.