david brooks knows......

I thought Brooks made some good arguments about aid. We've dumped a hell of a lot of aid into Haiti without much in the way of results. Macro, micro, you name it.

Brooks didn't have a clue about Haitian society, though. Half the population lacks basic literacy skills. Will they be demanding a lot of their schools like good middle-class Americans? Hell no. Will their kids have paper and pencils and books at home? Hell no.

He knows less than zilch about voodoo. That's a whole 'nother essay. Needless to say, voodoo isn't the problem. It might possibly be a symptom (I've never been convinced it could coincide well with an educated population with a high school level of science.)

To pull Haiti out of the ditch it's in, requires getting the majority of the population to have at least a high school education. That's the work of at least 20 years. That's the starting point.

malusinka....don't you think there's a difference between general aid though, and the aid that is sent/needed during this crisis?

I thought Taibbi had it right that Brooks is sort of arguing against helping the haitians...seeing them as more victims of their own natures than of a natural disaster.

which is a limited/limiting perspective that was also felt by some when katrina hit the lower 9th ward etc.

but you make a good point about education. It's crucial in developing countries that children are educated. Girls too.

a commenter on Taibbi's blog makes this stunning point:

"I love the way people try to compare Haiti to other countries, without actually delving into what makes Haiti different. The implication being that the Haitian people are somehow at fault, when in actual fact, history dealt them a really bad hand.

Barbados was an English colony, Haiti was a French colony. Haiti won its independence in a slave revolt. The slaves of Barbados were freed when the British abolished the slavery in 1834. As a result of winning their freedom in a slave revolt, Haiti had to make reparation payments to their former masters back in France. They paid the equivalent of $25 Billion over the period from 1825 to 1947. This was a rather major drain on their economy, something Barbados didn’t have to deal with. Imagine if that money could have been directed into the development of Haiti instead!

What’s more, at one point, Haiti was the more developed side of the Island of Hispanola, while the Dominican Republic lagged behind. Problem was, as Jared Diamond writes in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail, much of that development was not done in a sustainable manner, and ended up destroying much of the country’s environment. Today, you can determine the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic from the air. The Dominican Republic is the side that has trees. (At one point, a Dictator in the DR instituted the death penalty for illegal logging, which helped the DR keep their forests.) The lack of tree cover especially in a country that gets hurricanes means that much of the top soil has washed away, greatly reducing the productivity of the island’s soils."

I don't know, dolores. I read Brooks' article earlier and thought that he chose this timing to make some big-picture observations about global aid. It makes sense, in a way, that his piece would have relevance now rather than, say, two months ago when the NYT wouldn't have run it.

He actually makes the point about micro versus macro help, and I think he's tapping into that frustration that many of us feel in the face of gigantic, bureaucratic crises or systems in which we feel we have no control. Many of us--and I'm thinking of myself in the education world--understand that any big, universal truths we want to apply just don't seem to hold up in any particular situations, so we hunker down and say, "Well, I'm going to make a difference in my corner of the world, anyway. I'm going to help this one child." I totally get that feeling. I think all Brooks is saying is that we need all those small-picture actions but that, even combined, they aren't enough.

I would like to hear more from Malusinka about her experience in Haiti; I understand she spent some time during the 80s there. Because it's true that most people writing about this don't have the culture down. And that probably makes a big difference when it comes to figuring out what works and what doesn't. Still, I don't mind someone stepping back and asking the question.

(At one point, a Dictator in the DR instituted the death penalty for illegal logging, which helped the DR keep their forests.)

Though it's a rather dramatic example, don't you think that in some way this demonstrates what Brooks suggests is the solution? A heavy-handed, authoritarian insertion of policy to bring the underdeveloped country up to snuff? (I don't have his article in front of me, but remember that his piece ended with something to that effect. I also remember feeling rather queasy about it, like, "Whoa, I hope that's not the only answer." But what if it works? What if doing things like making draconian policy--forcible education and environmentalism--turns a country around? I don't know enough to say what the evidence suggests, but I'm not afraid of the question or the suggestion that what we're doing now doesn't work. As long as we always take care to read the culture and history right. I think that's the sticking point in Brooks' article.)

Lainey, you raise a good point. but my problem though is why is Brooks looking (again) primarily at the Haitians when he's asking the question of what happens to the aid money and why is it not more wisely spent?

Using the example of the Harlem Children's Program...do you see the problem? This is a "Children's" program. Why don't we apply it to a nation of adults who we consider to be "children"?

My problem with Brooks is not that he asks the questions, but where he narrows his focus in looking for answers. He looks among the usual suspects. He doesn't focus on the political aspects of the aid organizations themselves and why they invest differently in some countries than in others. Haiti is not the only country that has this problem of misspent aid...the non-governmental organizations in distribution should bear some blame for the fact that aid monies aren't helping enough.

And Malusinka's point is that when most of the country is illiterate and not given the chance to have an education, most of Brooks' suggestions would be hard to apply anyway. The literacy rates in Afghanistan, by the way, are similarly abysmal, and the economy and infrastructure--despite the large amounts of aid money being spent--appears similarly bleak.

lainey,

sorry we're cross posting. but you write, "A heavy-handed, authoritarian insertion of policy to bring the underdeveloped country up to snuff?"

...doesn't it sound eerily familiar? Is that what's worked for the U.S. in iraq and afghanistan? Are we an openly imperialistic, authoritarian country that goes in and brings underdeveloped nations up to snuff?

I'm depressed that this is now the fall-back position of columnists in the New York Times. Why stop at Haiti then?

here's an article in big salon about voodooism, Haiti, and popular misconceptions...

http://www.salon.com/news/haiti/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2010/01/13/haiti_satan_pact

I love Matt, but he can get a bit melodramatic.

Many Africans are rethinking the whole foreign aid concept and there are many on that continent who say aid makes them weak. So going after our traditional thinking about aid is not new with David Brooks.

We have a culture of poverty problem in this country. It's useless to see that being the problem of one country, culture or religion—I agree. And I agree that our supposed "disciplined" ethos is not the best or even correct. If everyone on the planet ends up being a yuppie, I want off.

I couldn't help thinking about Brazil here. Brazil has a wretched social problem, but it does not have natural disasters. So we don't get to wag our fingers at Brazil like we do at the Haitians, who happen to live their creol lives right ontop of a major fault line.

Yes, well, I'm just as disheartened by Brooks' conclusion as you, as I mentioned. I'm just not as sure that he's wrong. (as usual). I agree with you of course that Iraq didn't work (bring about democracy and peace and prosperity) nor is Afghanistan working--even if one sets aside the morality of war, which I can't personally do--but I think Brooks meant authoritarian policy other than war as well. That's why I pointed out the trees thing--It seemed to work (keeping trees) in the DR when a dictator threatened death to illegal loggers. The existence of a dictator and the threat of execution are two parts of that story that don't sit well with me, but it's hard to argue with his results. I think that's what Brooks is saying. That a heavy-handed approach will produce results. Again, setting aside the methods--there will always be a question of values to begin with: which policies are worth pushing? That we can't even agree on basic health care as a right or global warming as existing says a lot about whether we could even come up with a policy to push, heavy-handed or not.

Joy Mars, your last line was priceless.

And btw, dolores, thanks for posting that comment from the blogger over at Matt's site. I didn't know all that Haitian history.

Yeah, It's really great when some guy who's never been there and hasn't even bothered to read the Britannica entry on the place starts thumping the pulpit about what it "proves."

Simple question: do you know who the Duvaliers where? Do you know why the US helped maintain them in power? Do you know what they did?

Consider the following essay question: Compare and contrast Papa Doc with Batista. Why did a communist revolution succeed in Cuba, and not in Haiti? Which is better off today and why?

joy mars,

thanks for adding to the conversation. I think you're referring to
dambisa moyo and her book "Dead Aid" about stopping the Aid to Africa

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/magazine/22wwln-q4-t.html

I've read interviews with her and am interested in her book. I don't know enough about how aid works to know whether I agree with her thesis or not, but I appreciate that she's challenging some of the (obviously problematic) assumptions about global aid.

I also wonder what ever happened to the dismiss the debt campaign that Bono (among others) was leading a few years ago? It seems like the debt that loans sometimes engender can also drag countries down, especially when the national debt payments are larger than the aid payments.

lainey, I usually find myself in more agreement with you...but I'm rarely in favor of authoritarian governments (or organizations)...it's just not my style. Brooks made a small point about trees, but that could have been done in Haiti without having to install a dictator. The DR doesn't have a dictator now, for example, but the trees are still standing.

Just saying.

dolores, I'm not really advocating Brooks' viewpoint, just worried that he may have some points that I don't want to hear. (The trees thing came from the blogger you quoted).

Lee H,

thanks for contributing...did you see this? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/haiti/7004813/Haiti-earthquake-Baby-Doc-Duvalier-pledges-5m-aid.html

speaking of the Duvaliers...


lainey, sorry I guess I put the brooks essay out of my head that fast. I didn't see him making any point that was more special than the bootstraps theory applied globally and to other nations. And it does seem particularly harsh considering the timing. That there are literally people dying as he's typing.

I guess I could have typed this earlier but I've been to the Dominican Republic as a college student...it was only for a short time but we visited a sugar planation and saw actual slaves...there were people guarding the plantation with guns. It shocked me because I had no idea about modern slavery up until that point.

I was with a college group that was pitching in to help out after a hurricane or something like that. It was a long time ago, I don't know why I'm just thinking of it now. But the slaves we met were Haitians who occupy the bottom rung on the social and economic ladder in the D.R.

I posted Taibbi's article to my Facebook page as soon as I read it and Lainey called my attention to your post from there.

I always wonder about the lack of compassion that the right is constantly demonstrating, all the while trumpeting how charitable they are. Anything that you have to say that loud rings falsely.

I lean toward's Taibbi's opinion here.

I wonder, did Brooks ever study any of the things I did when I was undergraduate, such as Maslow's Hierarchy of Need? It's simply stupid on his part if he doesn't realize that those who have the least of their needs met do whatever they need to do to get their immediate needs met. When it takes all day just to get food, that doesn't leave a great deal of room for the practice of structural engineering. The science which San Francisco benefitted by during the Loma Prieta earthquake (which I experienced in Monterey).

All of the advances that we had in California, a Building Code, with strong earthquake standards, for instance, are a product of privileges that come with prosperity.

David Brooks knows nothing directly about poverty or human development and embarrasses himself with his callousness at making these comments while thousands still suffered alive, and may still be suffering in the rubble. It's shameful.

Lee H:

For starters, the US didn't support Papa Doc. No aid was given to Haiti for most of his regime. When Baby Doc came in, the aid agencies were eager to begin to help the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. When the country threatened revolt, the US negotiated with him to remove him. He flew to France voluntarily on a US plane.

How is that support for the Duvaliers?

If we didn't give aid to countries with less than democratic governments, we'd be basically abandoning the people of the third world.

Dolores:
The deforestation is much more recent than 100 years ago. It's over population and poverty. The trees are cut to make marginal or submarginal subsistence farm plots and for charcoal for cooking.

When I was there in the '80s, there were few other options for cooking. Electricity was unreliable, natural gas non-existent, propane canisters unavailable outside the few cities and most people didn't have cars, so exchanging one was not as easy as putting it in your trunk and driving to the nearest gas station. Kerosene stoves were smelly and prone to explosion.

Most of this was due to extreme poverty. There was no market for all sorts of products, services and conveniences we take for granted. Even if propane was widely available, how many families could afford the deposit for their first tank of propane?

The thing people like Brooks don't realize is what extreme poverty looks like. Haitians were always making choices that were based on today's needs, ignoring the effects for the future. That wasn't laziness, carelessness or stupidity. That wasn't the lack of good American middle class values. That was people finding it so hard to meet today's needs that they couldn't invest a penny in tomorrow's.
That was a symptom, not a cause of extreme poverty.

I didn't think Brooks was arguing against helping Haiti through the current crisis. I think the earthquake has awakened Americans to the extent of poverty there, and as always, the question is, why didn't we do something before now?

I thought that was what he was trying to address.

Susanne,

I wonder about the particular language of compassion that seems way more aligned with liberal conversation than conservatives. I've read studies though that say conservatives do donate more personal money to charity (maybe for religious reasons...and maybe to churches primarily?) but I wonder why conservative political speeches seem alarmist over words like compassion, or God forbid, empathy. It's odd and I wonder if it's left over from the red scare days. I thought during Sotomeyer's hearings that those senators must think "empathy" is code for socialism.

I agree with you about the lack of Brooks' lack of understanding about abject poverty though. Of course, I have little understanding myself, only strong grief over up-close poverty I've observed in countries like Burma, or even inside the U.S. in San Francisco, for that matter.

Malusinka, I posted on your blog but I hope you write more about your experiences in Haiti. I'm interested to know personal narratives that are outside of media kit narratives that often follow a crisis like this. (ie. looting etc.) Thanks for your insight.

I started wondering about this years ago with the "Thousand points of light" meme from the Bushies. I didn't see more money coming into the Rape Crisis Center where I was a volunteer counselor and sexual assault team member.

Still, though we are not Christian my husband and I worked with Habitat for Humanity for years. He's an architect who wants to see all people adequately housed.

Over the years I have worked with lots of Christians who volunteer, but, in my experience, they don't talk about Conservative or Republican stuff. They show up and cheerfully get the work done that needs to be done to actually help someone. Probably most of the folks I knew were from older, traditional denominations that are not evangelical.

Susanne,

I'm not sure if you're still checking this, but I was just thinking. I don't mean to imply that evangelicals are less compassionate or anything like that. I grew up in an evangelical community and there was a lot of compassion on a personal level. It's just that in the political leadership of conservatives there's frequently a fierce aversion to the "soft" language of compassion. The one exception might be Mike Huckabee. It just always startles me hearing the difference in tone. Brooks was a good example of what I'm talking about, but hardly the worst example. Maybe I'll have to keep observing this and write a blog with more examples.

dolores, I think that part of my opinion is based in current reading and my experience is older, and I think, there are a lot more evangelicals being political, but I don't know about the people practicing their faith at a local level. I was raised going to whatever church was convenient to our home. My mother was not particular.

dolores, I came over here to PM you about something else but got caught up again in your thread, which is thoughtful and interesting as usual. I like your question about the difference in tone (as opposed to practical application) between conservative and liberal messaging. Sometimes I wonder if people have these ideologies in their heads that they "think" they believe in--why, I don't know; that would be a phd in itself, understanding why people identify as conservative or liberal--but that don't match their actual behavior when push comes to shove. I know a woman who claims that her husband talks in a bigoted way, kind of like a stereotypical racist redneck, but would help anyone anywhere anytime, giving the shirt off his back to absolutely anyone in need. This guy's a Republican with a Capital R but I take her word for it that he's kind. I know a lot of people who don't get their own inconsistencies. Lefties too--like our next-door-neighbors who are always talking/voting left but who have figured out a way to cheat on their emissions test and get their several, gas-guzzling, polluting vehicles to pass when they shouldn't. They also apparently are taking behind-the-scenes steps to prevent their employees from unionizing. It's just weird.

I think people like the sound of something, a theory like the free market or pull-yourselves-up-by-your-bootstraps or God-helps-those-who-help-themselves or environmentalism or whatever and kind of define themselves around those things without really knowing how they'd react if it's tested. And then when a pattern of events happen to test their instinctive responses, some fall in line with their espoused beliefs and some don't. I know some people who really seem Republican to me (and are, in fact), mainly by their insistence on Personal Responsibility (without taking into account that people bring to the table all manner of different abilities and start with shortcomings and inequities, etc.) and their natural authoritarian tendencies toward child-rearing and personal relationships.

Anyway, I'm already so sidetracked, but I did want to say about Brooks that I get where he's coming from more than you do, I think, but I'm finally understanding the main thing you're wondering about, which is his apparent lack of compassion in even talking about the subject. He seems to be approaching the whole thing from a merely intellectual lens, kind of a detached anthropological worldview as opposed to constantly be acknowledging that real people's lives are at stake as he writes. I totally get what you are saying. I just think that people are different, that some can compartmentalize better than others and honestly? I bet it's hard for you to turn off that fundamental compassion that keeps the humans in the forefront. That's such a lovely thing. Still, I'm wondering if it would be hard for you to dispassionately have to develop policy, to make choices among only evil ones, to leave this set of poor people in the dust in favor of that set whom we can help. Or whatever. I think everybody has their role to play, and I guess I appreciate the intellectuals who can step back a little bit and question whether our efforts, however well intended, are working.

[I'm not even going to read this over because I've bored my own self, so forgive me if it's a mess and makes no sense.]

i hope to read the comments on this topic soon because my quick-scan impression is that a lot of smart people see the whole Brooks thing in different way.

I don't know anything about the man and I'll assume he's awesome. I can't stand how he makes arguments. But you've got to read many of his articles before you can see that he makes NO EFFORT to stick to the same criteria across time. no, no...no.................But my parents and all their friends love how conversational and kind he sounds. I get that.

I LOVE taibbi's take on this. But he refers to Greenwald's latest look at Brooks and I think Greenwald exposes him more clearly and fundamentally. Did you see this one:

http://salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/19/brooks/index.html

carol,

thanks so much for weighing in. I love that article by greenwald...especially when he points out that david brooks says the democrats are like marie antoinette--because they want to bring health care to all americans.

[wtf??]

But this discussion also seems bigger than david brooks. And Elaine, I know you work in schools, so maybe the language Brooks is using is appealing in some sense, because it is the kind of language people use with kids and teen agers--to try to teach them you can control your destiny--work hard--straighten up and fly right.

I do understand that aspect of it, and it's appeal. We want those things that we tell kids to be true.

But my problem is that I've seen dire poverty in the world, and I never honestly saw lazy people who "asked" for it. Again, and anecdotaly, the laziest people I've ever met have been rich (a few members of my own family) because laziness is a privilege of having money. You can be as progress-resistant as you want to be, if you can only afford to pay for it.

But the way many Americans talk about poor people reminds me of the way some people still talk about abused or raped women that they want it, or that they ask for it. It's callous. It's disrespectful. But it preserves the important narrative that the world makes sense and that if you do x y or z this event could never have happened to you.

But I question that that's true. Or maybe this is easier for me to imagine because I live on a huge faultline. My workplace told me that if there's a big earthquake in San Francisco there will be ten feet or more of glass in the street so we have to wait to be rescued. A coworker sleeps with gloves under her bed so she can climb her way out if there's an earthquake.

We wait for it I guess. Maybe we, in san francisco, also wear the allegorical short skirt of asking for it by living on a faultline.

But I guess my real point is like Taibbi, I seriously doubt Brooks has the cultural anthropological background to really know that Haiti is "progress resistant" but at any rate, I question his credentials to stand so far outside of institutional poverty and to judge.

ps I also noticed this article in the UK about how "lawlessness" is being misrepresented about the aid being given out. I noticed on NPR this morning detailed comments about how people were standing in line.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/20/haiti-aid-agency-security

And I thought of this work I read a few years ago by William Vollman called "Poor People" and he too tries to figure out poverty anecdotally. I don't know if it can be done though. Humans are a complex web. When you are born into a piece of the web that's broken it's very hard not to fall off and most especially if a perfect storm hits.

but thank-you for coming back to the conversation everyone and giving me more to think about.

Elaine,

I meant to say though that I do agree with your point though about how what people do and what they say can be surprisingly different, and worth considering. Maybe Brooks is right now in Port-au-Prince handing out aid...I don't know. Maybe it's silly of me to find the language of conservatives frustrating when they are often there (frequently through churches) to offer aid when its needed. In fact, I was with conservatives when I helped out in the Dominican Republic as a teen ager. But I find it frustrating when the language is demeaning maybe because I spent around eight years working in social services with poor populations who are intelligent enough to hear the condescension and blame the victim mentality....But more importantly, I find it fundamentally dishonest to not see institutional poverty as a bigger problem than what can be blamed on vodoo or a particular set of people. As a matter of fact, right now Afghanistan has even worse poverty numbers (and a lower age of mortality) than Haiti does--and our paternal "assistance" in that country is not making their poverty rates decrease at all so far, it's worth noting.

Here's Malusinka's awesome blog about the topic--since she lived there her post is very worth reading:

http://open.salon.com/blog/malusinka


and one last note about Taibbi, I find him one of the few journalists willing to speak truth to power and this is obviously the article that also made me take notice of the way he's willing to go out on a limb and say the unsayable (for mainstream journalists at least)

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29127316/the_great_american_bubble_machine

and thanks for the link you sent me:

""I can best conceive of poverty as a series of perceptual categories." Those categories include: invisibility, deformity, unwantedness, dependence, "accident-prone-ness," pain, numbness, estrangement..."

those were Vollman's criteria for measuring poverty. I'd forgotten.

thanks for bringing to my attention. rated.

I read Matt's commentary earlier, and share your Matt crush.

My other crush, long standing, but dialed up even more during the Haiti crisis, is Ray Suarez on New Hour. He was reporting from Haiti, at the bedsides of horribly wounded people, and handling this with dignity and compassion. And his arms looked good in his short sleeve geek shirt. Do you think anyone is nursing a crush for David Brooks? Seems unlikely.

I'm trying to figure out a way to go bald as gracefully as Matt Taibbi. Whenever I see him on Real Time, I always find myself shooting profile poses in the mirror and lamenting my pointy and shining head.

Anyway, great link. Thanks!

caroline, thank-you.

greenheron, good call on ray suarez. maybe I'll have to make a my sexiest men (& ladies) post.

matthew, that's funny. it seems his trick is the baseball cap. like yours so you're on it...