Author: David Brooks
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Quotations
No Philosophy of Family Life
In other words, while social conservatives have a philosophy of family life they can’t operationalize, because it no longer is relevant, progressives have no philosophy of family life at all, because they don’t want to seem judgmental. The sexual revolution has come and gone, and it’s left us with no governing norms of family life, no guiding values, no articulated ideals. On this most central issue, our shared culture often has nothing relevant to say—and so for decades things have been falling apart.
From the article “The Nuclear Family was a Mistake”
— March 2020
Life is more like settling a sequence of villages
Life is not really an individual journey. Life is more like settling a sequence of villages. You help build a community at home, at work, in your town and then you go off and settle more villages.
From the essay “The Strange Failure of the Educated Elite”
— 28 May 2018
Life is a series of daring adventures from a secure base
Human development research offers a different formula: All of life is a series of daring adventures from a secure base. If government can create a framework in which people grow up amid healthy families, nurturing schools, thick communities and a secure safety net, then they will have the resources and audacity to thrive in a free global economy and a diversifying skills economy.
From the essay “Trumpism at Its Best, Straight Up”
— March 3, 2017