Two Minutes with ... David Brooks

In The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, published earlier this year by Random House, New York Times columnist David Brooks explores “the new sciences of human nature” and their implications for everyday living. David Michael talked with Brooks via phone in March.

The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement

David Brooks (Author)

Random House Books for Young Readers

448 pages

$18.94

Your book is in many ways descriptive—a survey of findings in psychology and neuroscience. Is it also prescriptive in any way?

The main goal is to give people a different viewpoint, to draw their attention to things that are happening below the level of awareness, both in themselves and others. Above all, that we’re not primarily the products of our conscious thinking.

In which cultures do you see an acknowledgement of the importance of emotion and thinking more fluidly?

It was present until the methodologies of physics were embraced by social scientists. John Maynard Keynes was perfectly attuned to the complex realities of human nature, and then the physicists took over economics. I do think that psychologists have a handle on this as well as some parts of the education world. And then the world that you guys write about—the world of theologians and poets and people like that. The broad sweep of the humanities.

You write that “Philosophy and theology are telling us less than they used to. Scientists and researchers are leaping in where these disciplines atrophy—they’re all drilling down into an explanation of what man is.” I’m wondering where you’re thinking theology and philosophy failed, and what their role is now?

Both fields—philosophy more than theology—have been caught within an internal logic and maybe an insular logic. Especially in philosophy’s case, building ever more complicated logical structures, which has divorced it from the wider public. That’s less true of theology, but I do think it’s fair to say that there are very few theological thinkers today playing a role in the popular culture as Niebuhr and Heschel and Buber did in their day.

Is someone who has these traits of fluid thinking and emotional sensitivity and flexibility actually going to be valued by society? Your character Erica is decidedly less emotionally in tune than the other character, her husband, Harold, but she finds more success.

Google did a gigantic study in their own ranks of who were their best executives. They found that technical skill was at the bottom of the list, and the ability to coach people one-on-one was at the top of the list of what they needed. I think Google started with a macho mentality that writing code was the key to success, but even they, who are the least likely to embrace these sorts of messages, have been driven there by the data.

Late in the book, you discuss how the political sphere could benefit from an awareness of neuroscience, behavioral psychology, and anthropology. Is epistemological modesty possible in Washington, where politicians—and television pundits— find that their jobs depend on appearing knowledgeable at all times and on all subjects?

There does seem to be a demand that you never admit error. I remember President Bush complaining that he could never admit any mistakes because if he did that, then the news for the next six weeks would be about those admissions. In private, of course, every sane person knows about their mistakes. Some people in Washington are pretty good at understanding their own biases and their own shortcomings, though I wouldn’t say this is a large group. When Larry Summers was at the White House, he was not famous for being socially smooth, but when you would talk to him, before he would answer a question, he would give a little speech about how to think about the question. Often he would show an awareness of the cognitive pitfalls one is likely to fall into and try to steer around them.

Given that the researchers whose findings you highlight often make sweeping claims that seem to lack epistemological modesty, should we be as skeptical of them as we are of politicians?

I’m very wary of their arrogance toward the humanities and their unwillingness to acknowledge that there are certain things that can’t be counted but that nevertheless matter quite a lot—that not everything is replicable according to a certain social science model of human nature. But social scientists, neuroscientists, geneticists, and the like have a high degree of intellectual integrity compared to people in politics. They are swayed by evidence, and you do see them moving with the facts. I find them less rigid than people I deal with in my regular job.

Should we aspire to be virtuous because it creates social opportunity and better societies, or should we aspire to virtue for virtue’s sake, that is, because it is good?

I think we do it more because we want to be admired. Adam Smith suggested that we try to be virtuous because we seek the approval and sympathy of others. But not only that—we seek the admiration of an imagined objective observer who is looking at us from an independent vantage point. So there will be times when we do things that the people around us hate, but we imagine this observer judging us. Of course, a simpler version would be God. I do think that we rarely act virtuously on the basis of individual Kantian reason, but more on the basis of being drawn by certain social norms that we’re trying to live up to.

Do you see hope for creating a more fluid conversation on who we are as humans?

I do. I think this work, what I’m calling the new sciences of human nature, will move us away from some of the materialistic determinism of the 20th century. Scientific revolutions have tremendous effects on the culture at large, and we’re only at the beginning of this one.

Thanks for your time.

Thank you. I really like the magazine.

David J. Michael is the editor of Wunderkammer Magazine, a web-based journal of cultural criticism. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree at Lund University, Sweden.