Why I hate the NY Times

[CommuterBob]

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/07/...ca.html?referer=https://t.co/v8CWd6Gx5c?amp=1

Op-Eds like this should never see the light of day. This is beyond stupid.

Over the past generation, members of the college-educated class have become amazingly good at making sure their children retain their privileged status. They have also become devastatingly good at making sure the children of other classes have limited chances to join their ranks.

How they’ve managed to do the first task — giving their own children a leg up — is pretty obvious. It’s the pediacracy, stupid. Over the past few decades, upper-middle-class Americans have embraced behavior codes that put cultivating successful children at the center of life. As soon as they get money, they turn it into investments in their kids.

Recently I took a friend with only a high school degree to lunch. Insensitively, I led her into a gourmet sandwich shop. Suddenly I saw her face freeze up as she was confronted with sandwiches named “Padrino” and “Pomodoro” and ingredients like soppressata, capicollo and a striata baguette. I quickly asked her if she wanted to go somewhere else and she anxiously nodded yes and we ate Mexican.

American upper-middle-class culture (where the opportunities are) is now laced with cultural signifiers that are completely illegible unless you happen to have grown up in this class. They play on the normal human fear of humiliation and exclusion. Their chief message is, “You are not welcome here.”

Or this one blaming smartphones for the reason why people bail:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/07/07/opinion/the-golden-age-of-bailing.html

It’s clear we’re living in a golden age of bailing. All across America people are deciding on Monday that it would be really fantastic to go grab a drink with X on Thursday. But then when Thursday actually rolls around they realize it would actually be more fantastic to go home, flop on the bed and watch Carpool Karaoke videos. So they send the bailing text or email: “So sorry! I’m gonna have to flake on drinks tonight. Overwhelmed. My grandmother just got bubonic plague.…”

Bailing is one of the defining acts of the current moment because it stands at the nexus of so many larger trends: the ambiguity of modern social relationships, the fraying of commitments, what my friend Hayley Darden calls the ethic of flexibility ushered in by smartphone apps — not to mention the decline of civilization, the collapse of morality and the ruination of all we hold dear.

This is not enlightened thinking. It is class warfare and complete selfishness. I am almost certain the second op-ed by David Brooks was penned because he constantly gets bailed on by his "friends." It's a joke that a major news outlet would not only publish such drivel in a Letters to the Editor page, but have a paid columnist spout such insanity.

 

[UCFKnight85]

David Brooks- the "conservative" on the NYT Editorial Pages. Lulzzzz

What he's basically saying is that it's RACIST! for parents who have succeeded to upper-middle income levels to provide for their children as best they see fit. He is almost saying that even if you can afford to get your kid extra tutor lessons if they're slightly struggling, you should really send them into the hood to sling drugs instead. You know, to level the playing field and everything.

 

[UCFWayne]

LOL thanks for the morning laugh. It still so odd to me that people like this have the opportunity to share their insane thoughts and somehow get paid for it.

 

[CommuterBob]

David Brooks- the "conservative" on the NYT Editorial Pages. Lulzzzz

What he's basically saying is that it's RACIST! for parents who have succeeded to upper-middle income levels to provide for their children as best they see fit. He is almost saying that even if you can afford to get your kid extra tutor lessons if they're slightly struggling, you should really send them into the hood to sling drugs instead. You know, to level the playing field and everything.

It's even worse than that. He's suggesting that instead of trying to educate people on different forms of merchandise, that shops are discriminatory by not dumbing everything down to a 2nd grade level. Nope, let's not foster curiosity about the world, educate those around us, and try new experiences, let's dumb down the menu at a sandwich shop because the poors can't understand anything beyond "ham & cheese". SMH

 

[Great2BAKnight2]

This is not enlightened thinking. It is class warfare and complete selfishness. I am almost certain the second op-ed by David Brooks was penned because he constantly gets bailed on by his "friends." It's a joke that a major news outlet would not only publish such drivel in a Letters to the Editor page, but have a paid columnist spout such insanity.

Enlightened thinking waved bye bye long ago. Even moderately educated discourse is moving to the fringes and being replaced by yelling matches, 2 minute extremely simplified summaries, and what's going on with the Kardashians.

If you follow Daniel Kahneman's work that we have two modes of thought: a fast, instinctive, and emotional "System 1" and a slower, more deliberate, and more logical "System 2". It's clear that most people work entirely in the System 1 mode of thought and rarely engage System 2. Maybe it's because they were never taught to think critically, but what we have now is the result of large portions of the population not using System 2 thinking.

 

[Happy Hands]

Most college educated people l would be confused in that sandwich shop unless they took the time to learn about what is served there. There is no sandwich theory class in college that I know of. I know that's not the point. It's just a horrible example.

 

[Ace of Knights]

LOL thanks for the morning laugh. It still so odd to me that people like this have the opportunity to share their insane thoughts and somehow get paid for it.

That's just it though. They publish it because it's so obscene it will get people talking and fighting over it.

Opinion based reporting and journalism is how everything is going now and it's part of the huge reason this country is as divided as it is. People start looking at it as fact and not opinion and it sets a dangerous precedent.

 

[UCFKnight85]

Most college educated people l would be confused in that sandwich shop unless they took the time to learn about what is served there. There is no sandwich theory class in college that I know of. I know that's not the point. It's just a horrible example.

I have 2.5 degrees and rarely know what the hell I'm eating on a charcuterie board (which I called a meat and cheese board as recently as last year)

 

[barrister1602]

This kind of enlightened horse chit pisses me off. I make 10x more than those editors. I've seen much more of the world than those fruit loops. I am better educated than those self important know nothing's. Hell, I am much more of a real man than those fairies. All that to say ... I choose not to waste my time learning about stupid sandwich ingredients. That doesnt make me culturally afraid of anything. I make fun of self important sandwich makers and those that buy into that nonsense. Just like those liberal weenies that order a caramel frap with skim milk with an extra shot and whip and call it coffee. I follow them up and just order large dark coffee. I don't want to know the stupid coffee lingo because I'm a real man and I don't give 2 chits about their fruity drink. And because their women eventually want me instead of metrosexual pussies like the NYT writer.