The Inverse Logic of Life: David Brooks

Featuring David Brooks at the 2013 Aspen Ideas Festival

[@pratibhasinghal748]

Most impressed with David Brooks. Profound ideas with profoundly balanced perspective! Comforting to know that such sane thinkers are still out there.

[@MichaelMMorganm984638]

"The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second....The sale of souls to gain the whole world is completely voluntary and almost unanimous--but not quite." --Doc (p.135 in Cannery Row by John Steinbeck).

[@DoubleBob]

Beautiful quote. Now I must read this book. Thank you.

[@brin42156893]

Outward achievement

[@devonnelson9708]

i guess it is kinda randomly asking but do anybody know of a good website to watch new movies online?

[@rileygage6454]

@Devon Nelson i use FlixZone. You can find it on google :)

[@juliaaweis862]

Medicare.org/home

[@tiasmith1633]

The way David Brooks thinks and relates is a great comfort. Tia Smith

[@edwconr]

How I wish all youtube videos were like this one with closed-caption /cc-option....thanks for this one especially for those with hearing impairments.

[@edwconr]

Mr. Brooks is awesome!!! brilliant and bold.

[@petetsaggaris5163]

Dr. Edwconr bald for sure

[@kguigou]

enjoyed this immensely.

[@gloriabriere6435]

And David Brooks, you are that teacher.

[@davidsolomon8203]

Dear Mr. Brooks, I think that you missed your true calling: I’ve read your column for years, but here, you proclaimed gloriously the only road to redemption: dying to self and it’s passions!

[@juliacichon7125]

What about the teaching of 'finding your bliss'?

[@diegonayalazo]

Thanks for sharing

[@kristinakelly5051]

52:23 My convent education in the 60’s and 70’s was for me primarily an education in hypocrisy of what was taught, love of Jesus etc by Irish and German nuns from another era where beatings were the answer to any transgression and “just have faith” to any question regarding the Bible. Not all of the nuns were damaged of course, and one young highly educated nun was inspirational. The result was I was an irritating atheist by age 12 who insisted on taking bible studies up to my final year. I’m not highly educated however all my life I have been intensely curious about everything, especially the question of what exactly is life, the point of it and how to navigate it without fear. I have always been looking for voices to articulate what I am not able to. I feel that we are a more highly evolved part of nature and that there is no god outside of that nature and I have found that the mystics of all religions best express that feeling. That the universe is neither mechanistic nor overseen by an all powerful being. It seems to me through all I have read including Christian, Jewish and Sufi mystics, great writers, and philosophers, books and people where I have had to hold on by my fingernails because my education and intellect are sorely lacking yet I persevere because I have an intense curiosity about the core question. What is life. My feeling is that we are no more nor less than all things in nature. A buzzing mass of cells and electricity that is evolving far more quickly than other parts of nature and that all the questions and discussions we involve ourselves in about the true nature of humans can be attributed ultimately to choice. Our experiences mould us and perhaps point us in certain directions but I feel that ultimately, if made aware, we understand what we are is a choice. The story of religion seems to be a teacher comes with a wide and comprehensive overview of how life works and is capable of imparting that information with great success. Then they are no longer and the message is quickly corrupted and moulded into something else by humans that have not understood the core message. This is repeated throughout history, most recently with Hillsong. The problems with religion begin with “unaware”people trying to organise it. It’s an essence, it’s ethereal. It can’t be organised without being corrupted. Seekers attaching themselves to various religions and gurus, attaching to the speaker. Gurus like to say, attaching to the finger pointing to the moon and not the moon itself. I love listening to David, with his dry self deprecating delivery. For some reason he reminds me of Thomas Merton. He speaks to all my struggles and questions and I genuinely wonder why, when he is so clearly my intellectual superior and by a country mile, he feels the need to attach himself to a conventional and flawed system that has so many ignorant connotations and connections. I respect all peoples journeys, knowing that we are so very complicated and I find David’s aspirations to and delivery of his thoughts on what it is to be an effective and essentially good human being wonderful to listen to. Thankyou David

[@clarkpatrick1]

This is amazing.

[@haynesteen]

Fantastic.

[@gollypo448]

How did I not know how funny David Brooks is?

[@petetsaggaris5163]

Golly Po you think is funny you got to go out more often

[@ruthieC]

10:30 "pear pressure"

[@michaeldoyle6702]

Dead on.

[@b.terenceharwick3222]

Yes. Perhaps to be more precise, it may be less the inverse logic of life, and more the inverse logic of the cultural life in which we are raised today and by which we in everyday life are increasingly surrounded...

[@kathystewart8871]

Hopeful !!!!

[@nurlatifahmohdnor8939]

Why the word Lothario is said to be related to Nicholas Rowe's tragedy 1703? count = hi-tung or bi-lang

[@nurlatifahmohdnor8939]

What is digit?

[@nurlatifahmohdnor8939]

Page 702 loris = n, pl loris. any of several omnivorous nocturnal slow-moving prosimian primates of S and SE Asia, esp. the slow loris and slender loris, having vestigal digits and no tails. [C18: from LORY + -keet, as in PARAKEET]

[@Royal_mathematics]

Adam 1's paradox, or maybe plight, is that for every milestone he achieves he must achieve one more. Is that an addiction?

[@myhobbyt6102]

Like it or not, the reward of success is more responsibility- that's what the society believes works better to take humanity ahead

[@rasheed567]

Hi

[@420blackbirds8]

David Brooks on PBS this week after the 4th of July call trump a "GENIUS" for building his policy attacking liberal and by David so call standard, This is his core value of conservative doctrine, Trump is a genius conservative. Go watch him bullshit again and again! Look up the characteristics of a psychopath. He is very good a lying.

[@joemccafferty6158]

10:20...pear pressure

[@kirillkhvenkin6001]

I wish the book was as good as the talk

[@aminkanji8501]

I wanna see God

[@veritas6335]

Brook's admiration of religion is misguided. The greatest evil and atrocities in human history have been committed in the name of religion. One can be a good person and believe in goodness without ever having heard of any "god" or set foot in a church. Goodness comes naturally. One doesn't have to be threatened with eternal "damnation" and burning in "hell" to know the difference between good and bad. Besides, there is no such thing. Being good feels nice. Being a bad person just feels lousy. Organized religion is just a social construct and a base one at that. Little good can be said of it. Atheists simply admit that there is no bearded guy sitting up in the clouds reading your thoughts. That doesn't keep them from being good people. Atheists are as loving and caring and honorable as any other sentient being or even animal. Love comes naturally to all beings. One doesn't have to be brow beaten by sermonizers who are typically as base and shallow and frequently evil as any criminal. Goodness is in everyone. Honoring it is the task.

[@CedarSpringWolf]

I agree.

[@blueskies8834]

In November of 2013 David divorces his first wife Sarah, his next love interest will be his research assistant Anne. They will marry in 2017.

[@herblapp]

and your point is????

[@ibperson7765]

Jeez man too loud.

[@leenelson303]

I too value the teachings of Buckley and M. Friedman but when you are speak on PBS News hour you sound more liberal than the 2 men you admired & your dislike for Trump is apparent. Do you feel Clinton would have been better for the nation... I think not.

[@myhobbyt6102]

Don't think if he is criticising one, he is admiring the other. The facts need to be brought out. Instead of thinking that we are voting for some kind of heroes, we need to understand that we are voting for humans who always bring along their baggage of struggles, issues and virtues, and either side will be somewhere in between a scale of 1-10 in that spectrum. And then being humans, they will also falter while carrying out their responsibilites. I kind of like his statement that both the parties have partial truths, none is better than the other, we need both of the parties, so as not to be a nation which gags it's residents.

[@skyfairy1959]

So when David Brooks was commenting favorably on Israel’s onslaught on Gaza this summer on National Public Radio, his son was serving in the Israeli army. Why didn’t NPR tell us? Rob Eshman at the Jewish Journal meditates: “Through his son, Brooks will be able to get closer to the reality of the conflict, for good or ill, than most other pundits. How is that a bad thing?” Answer: his son will be involved in a force that occupies and commits human rights abuses; I’m sure Brooks- who has said he is gooey-eyed about Israel and lo the acorn falls close to the tree- will not wake up to these realities - See more at: mondoweiss.net/2014/09/surprise-brookss-israeli/#sthash.JK95XyIG.dpuf