Respect Mah Authoritah!

[giandujakiss]

Cries David Brooks.

I... don't even really know how to react to this except to repeat "citation needed" over and over while rocking in a corner somewhere.

But mostly, I find this column profoundly ... unAmerican. There is a very famous quote from a Swedish immigrant who wrote a letter home praising the American experience in 1848 - "Neither is my cap worn out from lifting it in the presence of gentlemen." Apparently, Mr. Brooks would prefer more cap-lifting.

To put it another way, Brooks faults the Dr. Martin Luther King memorial for failing to capture Dr. King's "nuanced and biblical understanding of power," and then laments that "We live in a culture that finds it easier to assign moral status to victims of power than to those who wield power," to which Charles Pierce responds:

I'd simply suggest that "assigning moral status to victims of power" was pretty much just about everything Dr. King's "nuanced and biblical understanding of power" was about.

Will no one stand up to defend the privileged any more?

More here.

Comments

[intothespin]

"You end up with movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Parties that try to dispense with authority altogether. They reject hierarchies and leaders because they don’t believe in the concepts."

... Yes. The Tea Party doesn't believe in hierarchies and leaders. That is totally their motivating idea.

[laceblade]

I'll admit that I have a pretty weird sense of humor, but Brooks's editorial was hilarious to me.
All he's saying is, "Submit! Submit! Submit!"