David Brooks' eulogy for Margaret Thatcher today reveals a lot more about Brooks than it does about Thatcher. Brooks exhibits many of the qualities that have made him the quintessential pompous comforter of the comfortable and afflicter of the afflicted: Perverse definitions of "morality," contradictory accusations, tunnel vision and, of course, hippie punching.
She was formed by her disgust with 1970s Britain. She witnessed a moral shift in those years, away from people who were competitive and toward people who were cooperative, away from the ambitious and toward those who were self-nurturing and self-exploring, away from the culture of rectitude and toward the culture of narcissism.
Only David Brooks could accuse people of being simultaneously "cooperative" and "narcissistic."
Before Thatcher, history seemed to be moving in the direction of Swedish social democracy. After Thatcher, it wasn’t.
And that was a good thing because . . . ?
At a time when others were sliding toward moral relativism, Thatcher stood for individual responsibility, moral self-confidence and often, it has to be admitted, self-righteous certitude.
Moral relativism? Well, of course, then Thatcher would be consistent in denouncing all vicious dictators
right?
Thatcher, 1999:
Today I break my self-denying ordinance. And for a very good reason, namely to express my outrage at the callous and unjust treatment of Senator Pinochet.
He admits there were abuses in the wake of the military coup. And some of these continued. The precise responsibility for what happened can only be judged in Chile. But it is an affront to common sense as well as a caricature of justice to maintain that a head of government must automatically accept criminal responsibility for everything that is done while he is in power - whether he authorised it or not.
Brooks once again:
Today, bourgeois virtues like industry, competitiveness, ambition and personal responsibility are once again widely admired, by people of all political stripes.
Steve M. is
justifiably astounded: "Brooks writes an entire column about how Margaret Thatcher made the world safe for go-getters and never once so much as touches on how go-getters led us to global economic calamity."
To all those totebaggers who take Brooks seriously as a "moderate" conservative: He's a charlatan, fitting everything into his imagined view of what is moral and just, but is usually the exact opposite.