The nihilism of David brooks.

A number of people have critiques David brooks' op-ed puece, and as usual I'm somewhat late to the game. But despite the excellent critiques of krugman, Klein and Delong the fundamental disingenuousness of Brooks' piece has been overlooked.

Krugman suggests that Brooks has missed what Krugman believes should have been the key take-away of the last decade, the need to question authority. Instead, Brooks has fallen back on what may be the central theme of his political thought: systems of great complexity require humble policy. Ive noted before that his humbleness drops away at certain convenient times, as evidenced by his claim that poor academic performance amongst minorities is the result of cultural deficiencies which he believes can be changed by a massive and explicitly coercive effort on the part of the federal government.

But this article I think highlighted a deeper problem with Brooks' political thought, namely his willingness to embrace nihilism if it will lead to policy postures that he is comfortable with. Contrary to Krugman, Brooks was questioning authority. When he writes...

The Demand Siders write as if everybody who disagrees with them is immoral or a moron. But, in fact, many prize-festooned economists do not support another stimulus. Most European leaders and central bankers think it's time to begin reducing debt, not increasing it — as do many economists at the international economic institutions. Are you sure your theorists are right and theirs are wrong?

... he is questioning authority. Specifically he is trying to support those in the administration-the political advisors-against the intellectual authority of the economists on this issue. He is questioning the authority of krugman, suggesting that his arguments and the arguments those in the administration should not be listened to without skepticism just because they are economists making economic arguments.
And this is good! He is right that economists differ on this, that economists might not be right even if they were unanimous, that their models might be hubristic and flawed. Certainly that wouldn't be the first time. But this is where he ends. The models might be flawed so let's just ignore them.

Instead of actively questioning authority, he leaves is with a passive doubting. He does not even try to do what has so impressed me with krugman and Delong and others, namely ask the question "how could we be able to know, what evidence should there be if the debt worries were right?"

This is a recurring pattern in his writing, one that is most prominent when actually asking this question and lookin at the evidence might lead to a policy prescription whose posture and tone does not like. In short, he tells us we shouldn't blindly trust models because after all there are serious disagreements, but that actually weighing the evidence and making a determination, one that admittedly might still be wrong, is too rammed hard and instead we should take as little action as we can. It is a nihilism, but it is a nihilism that comes out when following the evidence and actually deciding between different policy prescriptions might lead to a governmental role that disturbs his beliefs as to what the appropriate governmental posture ought to be.