David Brooks

In this morning's New York Times, David Brooks compares public reactions to a real sex offender with a fictional one. I'm dumbfounded by Brooks' steady descent into senselessness.

It seems fairly obvious to me that when one expresses shock and dismay at a real sex offender (Mark Foley), one is living in the real world and reacting accordingly. After all, there has been a victim. Sex offenders in plays aren't real. There is no victim. When one celebrates the play, there is the writing, the performance, and the art to consider. Whether or not wants to celebrate these things in art, is another matter entirely. These things are not comparable.

Deaths in movies aren't real deaths. And yet we sometimes cheer, because it's only a movie. It's not real.

Nearly every David Brooks piece is dumber than the last one. I wonder what Brooks has been drinking ... water? wine? turpentine? paint?