SUNDAY: Brooks expands journalistic language!

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2025

It's the stupidity, Stupid: In this morning's New York Times, David Brooks is taking an important step in a new direction.

He's extending, or seeking to extend, the possibilities found within our journalistic language. Headline included, his column starts like this:

The Six Principles of Stupidity

This was the week in which the Chinese made incredible gains in artificial intelligence and the Americans made incredible gains in human stupidity. I’m sorry, but I look at the Trump administration’s behavior over the last week and the only word that accurately describes it is: stupid.

Brooks starts by apologizing for his surprising language. We think that step was appropriate. We'd call it a good idea. 

Brooks says he's sorry for what's coming next. But then, he goes ahead and pops the cork on his unusual choice of words:

He employs a rarely used term. He says there's only one word for recent behavior by the current commander. Here's the word for which he apologizes:

The key word he uses is "stupid."

We ourselves have often noted the need to activate certain types of forbidden journalistic language:

We've often said that we need to introduce the language of "mental illness" into the journalistic discourse. Starting tomorrow, "mental illness" will be our theme all through the course of the week.

Of late, we've also noted the fact that our journalistic traditions make it hard for journalists to describe certain behaviors for what they are—for being blindingly stupid. In his column, Brooks is pushing forward toward that new frontier.

By tradition and practice, journalists don't talk a lot about people, actions or ideas being "stupid." That helps explain today's apology by Brooks. It also helps us understand the value of the direction in which he points in his column—a column which, at fuller length, actually starts like this:

The Six Principles of Stupidity

This was the week in which the Chinese made incredible gains in artificial intelligence and the Americans made incredible gains in human stupidity. I’m sorry, but I look at the Trump administration’s behavior over the last week and the only word that accurately describes it is: stupid.

I am not saying the members of the Trump administration are not intelligent. We all know high-I.Q. people who behave in a way that’s as dumb as rocks. I don’t believe that there are stupid people, just stupid behaviors. As the Italian historian Carlo Cipolla once put it, “The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.”

And I am certainly not saying Donald Trump’s supporters are less intelligent than others. I’ve learned over the years that many upscale Democrats detest intellectual diversity. When they have power over a system—whether it’s academia, the mainstream media, the nonprofits or the Civil Service—they tend to impose a stifling orthodoxy that makes everybody within it duller, more conformist and insular. If Republicans want to upend that, I say: Go for it.

I define stupidity as behaving in a way that ignores the question: What would happen next? If somebody comes up to you and says, “I think I’m going to take a hike in a lightning storm with a copper antenna on my head,” stupidity replies, “That sounds like a really great idea!” Stupidity is the tendency to take actions that hurt you and the people around you.

The administration produced volleys of stupidity this week...

After apologizing, Brooks includes a few disclaimers:

He isn't saying that members of the new administration are unintelligent. (Although some certainly may be.) Also, he isn't saying that the commander's supporters are dumber than everyone else.

He also seems to say that many of us in Blue America have trafficked in The Stupid too. That's a very important point. We'll list some specifics below.

That said, let's ponder this:

Is it true? Did the Trump administration "produce volleys of stupidity this week?"

That, of course, is a matter of judgment. As he continues, Brooks presents examples of alleged stupidity with which some people won't agree.

From there, he goes on to present what his headline promises—six "principles of stupidity." You may or may not agree with his list—but in our view, the gentleman is suddenly pruning trees in an appropriate vineyard.

The Stupid is all around us at this point in time. Our journalists never say so, but The Stupid is one of the central organizational principles of modern American "journalism."

For starters, we're thinking of the organizational principle called "segregation by viewpoint." Here's the obvious question we've raised this very week:

What's the point? What's the point of assembling four-member panels on "cable news" TV shows if every member of every panel is going to agree with every word every other member has said?

(That's exactly right should be the official corporate motto at Fox.)

Plainly, that practice is designed to create an illusion—the illusion that some sort of "discussion" is taking place. 

What's actually taking place is an act of preapproved corporate messaging. Judged on a journalistic / informational basis, the creation of those pseudo-discussions is an amazingly stupid act—an imitation of life.

That said, The Stupid has been running wild—and not just on the commander's team, and not just in Red America. As Brooks suggests, The Stupid has been on a roll in Blue America too.

Over the past four years, our own Blue versions of The Stupid helped send the commander back to his perch in the White House. We refer to the ways we Blues earned our way out, to such manifestations as these:

Our failure to see that something seemed to be wrong with President Biden. (Or perhaps, our refusal to give voice to what we were able to see.)

Our failure to see the apparent lunacy of what seemed to be happening at the southern border. (Or our refusal to discuss that unexplained state of affairs.)

Our failure to discuss the problems which seemed to be involved in various aspects of "the cost of living." Our astounding, single-minded focus on the desire to frog-march Donald J. Trump to prison, which we used as a way, on our own cable shows, to avoid discussing the actual apparent problems which everyone else could see.

Also, the endless clown shows which were tangled up in what had come to be known as "Woke." Those clown shows were endlessly tangled up in Blue, even in the bizarre (and weirdly ugly) insertions of black characters into the recent Dylan film—weirdly ugly insertions we've seen no one in Blue America notice or discuss.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep—but we humans are inclined to veer toward behaviors which are perhaps a bit "stupid."

Our journalists need to be able to talk about those endless manifestations. It's generally wiser to veer toward the gentler word "dumb," but The Stupid has been running wild, and not just Over There.

Also this, concerning the WHO: Two fact checks have appeared concerning what the commander said about the WHO. (See yesterday's report.)

We sighed when we read each fact check! We expect to discuss those offerings on Tuesday, a day on which we're scheduled to lose a large chunk of time.

Tomorrow, we start a week in which we'll be discussing "mental illness." Full disclosure—we'll be catching your eye with a (colloquial) term which is even more racy than that!

The commander keeps saying the darnedest things, about an array of topics! What should journalists think about that? What should their fact-checks look like? What should their conventions of language permit such people to say? 

Is "something wrong" with the person in question? What kinds of science are journos avoiding when they keep refusing to ask?