David Brooks is a cultural and political columnist for the New York Times. He began writing there in 2003. Before then, he was Senior Editor at The Weekly Standard. If one were pressed to affix a label to him, one do worse than call him a “conservative,” but then the label wouldn’t be terribly helpful.

While I don’t agree with everything Brooks says (this is true especially with regard to his specific political opinions), I’m generally sympathetic to Brooks inasmuch as he is a thinker. By “thinker,” I mean something very particular: someone who is neither a dogmatist nor a skeptic but someone who mulls things over, admits to being fallible in his judgment, is willing to change course and do an about-face on previous opinions, and writes in a mood of knowing a few things but certainly not everything. I like Brooks because he embodies that venerable American tradition of nonconformity.

The following is a philosophical sketch of what I take to be many of his “first principles” on culture and politics. I’m not sure how well the sketch resembles the man.

Brooks’ Views About Human Nature and Culture

1. Human beings are social animals. They are not pre-social animals which are then socialized. But neither are they individual atoms severed from social identities. Rather, they are born into social groups, and, where possible, they seek to find meaning through their cultural affiliations.

2. The intelligence that best describes human beings is contextual and empathic. Human beings feel their way through situations, and the best develop a “knack” for intuiting how others think and feel, how others tick. This kind of intelligence is not so clear and distinct as to be rendered in arguments or in PowerPoint presentations. It is instead vague and indistinct but, for all that, necessary for feeling connected to and reaching a better understanding of others.

3. Situations are irreducibly complex. Inasmuch as this is the case, we must train ourselves to look “aesthetically,” fixing our eyes on particulars and bearing in mind that we won’t have the last word. And yet, irreducible complexity does not entail a certain pessimism with regard to understanding the world. To split the difference between a sea of particulars and the summit of perfect knowledge, Brooks adopts the Weberian method of employing “ideal types”: he sketches general characterizations of persons, time periods, or moods that function as provisional organizing categories. By definition, ideal types admit of exception and nod toward revision. They are “handles,” tools for arriving at a general view of the world but not at a God’s eye view.

4. Each child’s education is (or ought) to be grounded in the moral virtues. Apart from cultivating one’s talents (something that Brooks also writes about), each child should be introduced to the virtues of humility, good judgment, industry, courage, and so on. Brooks seems to believe that a good economy is predicated on, or is at least underwritten by, good persons. In what follows, for the most part I don’t address his views on the economy.

5. Human beings are higher animals who seek forms of transcendence. Even in the suburbs which are typically described as spiritual wastelands, Brooks argues that human strive toward higher values or greater aims. We are not content, he implies, unless we can hook our life plans up to larger networks of meaning. For this reason, he insists that religion and religious surrogates will have their place in modern society.

Brooks’ Views About Government

1. The spirit of good government is Burkean. In this respect, the best sort of government builds off the best traditions embedded in a culture even as it resists utopian thinking, a form of thought fond of wiping the slate clean in order to start from scratch. In addition, social and political change is incremental. The work is piecemeal in nature, with bits cobbled together from here and there and the final product being better than the worst case but worse than the best case. Finally, when it works as it should, the legislative process is messy and complicated, filled with conflicts and culminating in compromises. From this, it follows that Brooks lacks sympathy for the partisanship presently on display in Washington

2. Smart governments are good administrators. Better yet: good shepherds. In this administrative capacity, legislators avoid two extremes: the “nanny state” and the abstentionist state. The hallmark of the nanny state is paternalism, the view that government bureaucrats know best and thus should keep a tight reign on the marketplace and on social behavior, while the central feature of the abstentionist state is that government is essentially corrupt. In consequence, a free-wheeling, libertarian, “market knows best” approach is to be preferred. Smart government, by contrast, involves seeking to cultivate talent, grow the economy, and maintain certain standards of equity. Hence, the “size” of government is a moot point and the stuff of foolish, albeit endless, debate in Washington. The only question, for Brooks a pragmatic one, is whether government is effective, i.e., whether certain policies are likely to meet reasonable objectives that aim to enhance the well-being of US citizens.

3. Policymakers should be modest, not awash in hubris. In the past, Brooks has been skeptical of technocratic elites and policy wonks working under the Obama administration. And why? Because he does not believe in the top down approach reminiscent of the nanny state (this a political principle) and because he has no faith in the infallible judgment of human beings no matter how intelligent they are or how many Ivy League degrees they have (this a principle about human nature). In his cultural and political opinions, Brooks thereby treads lightly, not seeking to align himself with elitism and the cult of genius nor with populism and the plea to melodrama. The latter rules out offering up his support for Sarah Palin.