But let’s talk about mean people. On this week’s program, Charles and I discuss David Brooks’ column, “How America Became Mean.” It’s an extensive, thoughtful ramble — over 6,500 words — and appeared in The Atlantic last September.

Brooks points out various contributors to America’s plague of meanness. Social media. Personal isolation. Shifting demographics. Economic inequality.

But that’s not the main cause, he insists: “We inhabit a society in which people are no longer trained in how to treat others with kindness and consideration. Our society has become one in which people feel licensed to give their selfishness free rein.”

He adds, “For roughly 150 years after the founding, Americans were obsessed with moral education.”

Really? Obsessed to the point of justifying slavery? Slaughtering the Native population? Irradiating the land and water of South Pacific island nations with nuclear testing? Subjugating entire small countries to serve the economic interests of US corporations? Creating a domestic workforce of “consumers” beholden to the rich and powerful? Continue Reading →