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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: freelyhovering who wrote (261030)	9/23/2014 12:30:48 PM
From: bentway	Respond to of 540746

I also find Brooks inedible: "Second, the elite we do have has to acknowledge that privilege imposes duties. Wealthy people have an obligation to try to follow a code of seemliness. No luxury cars for college-age kids. No private jet/ski weekends. Live a lifestyle that is more integrated into middle-class America than the one you can actually afford. Strike a blow for social cohesion." In other words, the wealthy and uber-wealthy should just HIDE their economic status, for the sake of keeping the peace with the less well-to-do. Don't fix economic inequality, just HIDE it!

To: freelyhovering who wrote (261030)	9/23/2014 4:08:54 PM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 540746

Thanks for posting the link to the Brooks' op ed. I don't read him so I always miss his pieces. As your metaphor suggests, it's, at best, fanciful. He's pining for a time that not only no longer exists but actually never existed. If you pick, for instance, the 50s as the closest embodiment, we need to all remember segregation was unchallenged until well into the decade and no serious work was done to overcome it. Women's place was definitely in the home. Just to mention two matters. It was, to defend Brooks for just a moment, somewhat early in the long buildout of the middle class following the end of WWII that lasts, debatable, into the 70s. But it's easy to draw the wrong lesson from that.