David Brooks has written an op-ed revealing once again that he is not really one of us. His tribute to “dignity” starts out just fine:
When George Washington was a young man, he copied out a list of 110 “Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.” Some of the rules in his list dealt with the niceties of going to a dinner party or meeting somebody on the street.
[...]
Washington absorbed, and later came to personify what you might call the dignity code. The code was based on the same premise as the nation’s Constitution — that human beings are flawed creatures who live in constant peril of falling into disasters caused by their own passions. Artificial systems have to be created to balance and restrain their desires.
The dignity code commanded its followers to be disinterested — to endeavor to put national interests above personal interests. It commanded its followers to be reticent — to never degrade intimate emotions by parading them in public. It also commanded its followers to be dispassionate — to distrust rashness, zealotry, fury and political enthusiasm.
Then Brooks takes a rather sharp turn. He cites recent examples of a dignity deficit, correctly calling out the Lovernor and those who have magnified Jacko into a demigod, then swerving wildly to take a cheap shot:
Then there was Sarah Palin’s press conference. Here was a woman who aspires to a high public role but is unfamiliar with the traits of equipoise and constancy, which are the sources of authority and trust.
We must have heard different press conferences. The first person I thought of when Palin spoke was ... George Washington. Washington is famous in American politics for thrice giving up power: as commander of an army, as the man who wouldn’t be king, and finally as a president who chose retirement. He stands out for doing it thrice since few pols will do it even once, except at the behest of grand juries. Palin specifically said she refused to become a self-serving lame duck. In an interview with Time, Palin has started (“Obama is growing government outrageously, and it’s immoral and it’s uneconomic”) in her new role as a full-time critic of Obambi. Isn’t that the very definition of putting “national interests above personal interests”?
Brooks goes from bad to worse with this:
But it’s not right to end on a note of cultural pessimism because there is the fact of President Obama. Whatever policy differences people may have with him, we can all agree that he exemplifies reticence, dispassion and the other traits associated with dignity. The cultural effects of his presidency are not yet clear, but they may surpass his policy impact. He may revitalize the concept of dignity for a new generation and embody a new set of rules for self-mastery.
Obambi is excellent at keeping up appearances, but dignity must be more than a facade or a pose. One definition of “dignity” is “formal reserve or seriousness of manner, appearance, or language.” Another is “the quality or state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed.” Reality trumps appearance. Obambi is instigating a fundamental change in our republic, a shift of power from the citizen to the state. Subjects of a welfare state lack dignity, begging for what they ought to earn or surrendering what they have rightly earned at the point of a gun. The power of Obambi’s personal example can not balance the corrosive effects of his policies. A truly dignified man doesn’t want all the dignity for himself. (Via InstaPundit.)
