His new hobby horse is brain science, which?by telling us that reason and emotion are not separate but symbiotic that the unconscious mind is most of the mind that we are, at base, ?social animals?will have a giant effect on the culture? and will ?change how we see ourselves.?Who knows,? he writes, ?it may even someday transform the way our policy makers see the world.? And how might those policy makers sharpen their vision? Brooks gave an example yesterday on NPR's All Things Considered: ?The reality of education is that people learn from people they love. ?We may have found a remedy for the achievement gap,? he gushed. Brooks later says we should avoid ?an overly simplistic view of human nature.? How about avoiding an overly simplistic view of policy? Not long ago, Brooks wrote a column called ?The Harlem Miracle? in which he twice stated that Promise Academy ?eliminated the black-white achievement gap? (it didn't). ?Over the course of my career,? he begins, ?I've covered a number of policy failures.? Not exactly: he has covered and commented on a number of policy failures and not infrequently has been one of the most-enthusiastic supporters of the failed policies in question. I don't relish piling on, but David Brooks's column today, ?The New Humanism,? timed to coincide with the release of his new book The Social Animal, is intellectual cotton candy.
