Responding to a column by David Brooks, readers offer a mix of optimism, pessimism and puzzlement.
To the Editor:
Re “Why Are So Many of Us Behaving So Badly?,” by David Brooks (column, Jan. 14):
Mr. Brooks asks why reckless driving, altercations on planes, disruptive classroom incidents and other bad behaviors have been increasing in the U.S., while “care for one another seems to be falling.” After offering some plausible hypotheses, Mr. Brooks humbly acknowledges that he has no answers. I’d like to suggest one.
Growing up in a small town in the late 1950s, I took for granted some fundamental “truths.” Parents and teachers had my best interests at heart. Doctors, the police and clergy were honest and trustworthy. It was safe to walk the streets and ride my bike. My neighbors could be difficult, but were fundamentally decent. And if I worked hard and played by the rules, I would eventually succeed.
For many Americans, each of those supposed truths is now doubted or disparaged. As Mr. Brooks suspects, there is a “spiritual or moral problem at the core” of our wintry discontent. As in Dante’s “Inferno,” we find ourselves in a “dark wood” from which the straight path is unclear.
Ronald W. Pies
Lexington, Mass.
The writer is a psychiatrist and medical ethicist.
To the Editor:
David Brooks wants to know why people are driving recklessly, the murder rate is surging and gun purchases are soaring. Similarly, Sarah Lyall (“We’d Like to Speak to the Manager,” Sunday Business, Jan. 2) tells of a man’s outburst in a supermarket when he couldn’t get Cambozola, a type of blue cheese he wanted. A store employee said, “I don’t think this is about the cheese.”
She is right — it’s not about the cheese, it’s about anger. Whether it’s pandemic overload or four years of Donald Trump, people are very angry.
The solution? Talk about the anger. Schools should talk about anger in classrooms — what causes it and what to do with it. Families need to discuss anger with their children, teaching the right way to express it and the wrong way. Houses of worship and community organizations need to talk about situations that cause anger and appropriate solutions to dealing with those strong emotions.
We all need to have a curiosity about our own anger. Remember, it’s not really about the cheese.
Maureen Molé
Mahwah, N.J.
To the Editor:
Mr. Brooks, we certainly have many challenges in the United States, as outlined in your grim column. However, let me paint a different, more optimistic picture of everyday American teamwork fulfilling a community mission.
I work at a children’s hospital in New England that is weathering two years of a pandemic. This includes exhausted staff, lots of very sick patients, many ill providers and the constant negative political swirl that has demonized public health officials. Our doctors, nurses and other staff come together day after day to do their job, supporting one another and our patients, and each day finding a common purpose that supersedes any differences we may have.
We are in a very diverse community. Our team includes every race, creed, color and religion. I have no doubt that our story is duplicated across many industries and in our military.
Perhaps if the media focused on our ongoing successful American experiment, instead of amplifying our cynical politicians who thrive on discord and anger, we could begin to solve problems again.
John Schreiber
Hartford, Conn.
To the Editor:
Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. There will be a collapse of institutions that are no longer (or maybe never were) functioning the way they were meant to. That collapse is necessary in order for a new, better version of social contracts and institutions to arise out of the rubble.
It will not be smooth, easy or fun for many, but it is necessary, unavoidable change. We can wring our hands and worry, or we can get on board, focus on what really matters — love, gratitude, compassion — and ready ourselves for massive change by ridding ourselves of all the unnecessary stuff weighing us down.
For many, including me, this has been the most important takeaway of the Covid era.
Sheryl Burpee Dluginski
New York
To the Editor:
In speaking of “the fraying of the social fabric,” David Brooks gives two sociological examples: the falling number of church memberships and the rising number of single-parent households.
A healthy social network does not need to include a church, and a child does not need two parents to be healthy and happy. Any fraying is much more likely the fault of greedy, corrupt and/or hardhearted politicians and the corporations they’re often beholden to.
Mary Lyn Maiscott
New York
To the Editor:
We are living through a perfect storm. We survived a dysfunctional presidency that tested our democracy during a pandemic that tested our resilience and patience. Our country is not composed of individuals who are used to sacrificing their needs for the good of the community. We want what we want and work toward immediate gratification. The pandemic has tested us individually, as a country and as a collection of countries woven with different fabrics.
Our recent experience in Louisville and Superior, Colo., surviving a fire that threatened the lives of many and destroyed over 1,000 homes brought out the best in people. We’ve seen people taking care of one another. We’ve seen public servants work tirelessly to save the community from a total disaster. We’ve seen strangers drive far distances to provide resources for those who lost everything. We’ve seen local bakeries and restaurants offering free food.
Our world is filled with goodness. We are waiting for the dense fog to dissipate and the sun to shine on all of us.
Janet Lowe
Louisville, Colo.
To the Editor:
David Brooks and I are a similar age, but our memories of a bucolic past seem very different. He states that when he went to college, “I never worried that I might say something in class that would get me ostracized.” Perhaps that’s because he never said, “I used to be a woman” or “I’m gay.”
None of those statements would have been well received in my schoolgirl days. The Times story on the killing of a gay student in 1988 (“Australian Man Convicted of Killing Gay American Doctoral Student in the 1980s,” news article, Jan. 13) reminds us of that.
Kathleen Rackley
Charlotte, N.C.
To the Editor:
David Brooks errs when he attributes the drop in charitable giving to changes in people’s attitudes toward helping others. The decline is more likely another consequence of Donald Trump’s tax cuts, which preserved the benefits of large charitable donations for the very rich but by raising the standard deduction removed the tax incentive for, say, weekly collections at church or the donations of old cars or clothing to charities — the types of giving most Americans practice.
Stephen Phillips
St. Petersburg, Fla.
To the Editor:
Yes, David Brooks, I agree with you. Everything I read, everything I watch, everything I talk about convinces me that the world is, indeed, “falling apart at the seams,” to use the words of your online headline. My heart is broken because of it. Many of my friends have stopped watching the news because they are just trying to maintain their precarious mental health.
You say you don’t have answers. I don’t either, but I hope you and everyone else who has access to a research staff start looking for solutions instead of continuing to tell me what I already know.
It’s past time to give people direction. The tipping point may well have come and gone. But isn’t it worth the attempt?
Donna Kenton
New York
