Jane Addams: Land of Contrasts

Before blowing off his New York Times gig once and for all, piling into the RV with his former-mistress-and-soon-to-be new wife and hitting the road to tour American lecturing the hoi polloi  on the importance of humility and civility, Mr. David Brooks has a few loose ends to tidy up.

First, of course, he need to find a good home for Moral Hazard, the Irish setter Mr. Brooks' owns for photo-op purposes (h/t Charlie Pierce.)  There are many candidates for the honor, but Vegas odds makers currently give Mr. Bret Stephens the inside track.  Mr. Stephens appears to have the right Brooksian mixture of horror at the existence of President Stupid and sanguinity about the grotesque Conservative ideology that led directly to President Stupid that will keep New York's most influential plutocrat shut-ins happy in their dotage.

Second, he needs to he need to find a good home for Mark Shields, the superannuated garrulous Irish "liberal" from 1966 that PBS keeps on hand to make Mr. Brooks' appear reasonable and to make sure no one asks Mr. Brooks about his habit of being completely wrong about everything

And third, he needs to finally turn in that god damn book report on Jane Addams that's been hanging over his head since the 7th grade!  You know, there always seemed like there'd be plenty of time to get around to it but now, on the brink of what might be his greatest adventure in hectoring the poors about their moral failings, it's really time to get that shit nailed down.  After all, if he retroactively flunks the 7th grade, that might retroactively get his application to the University of Chicago rejected, which means that they might retroactively rescind his bachelors degree in history.   And without that bachelors degree in history from 1983 to qualify him as America's Most Ubiquitous and Respected Conservative Public Intellectual...well the consequences of that are simply to terrifying to think about.

For want of a nail the kingdom was lost and so forth.

And so, with all deliberate speed, America's Most Ubiquitous and Respected Conservative Public Intellectual has once again used his column in the New York times to circumnavigate completely around the grim, mind-blowing cliusterfuckery of President Stupid and instead check another item off of his personal to-do list.

Can you figure out which one?  (Hint:  If you guessed, "Jane Addams:  Land of Contrasts -- by Davey Brooks, age 13" get yourself a beer!  And as long as you're up, get one for me!)

The Jane Addams Model

These days everything puts me in mind of Jane Addams. Many of the social problems we face today...

Yes!  Yes!  The social problems.  In these modern times.  And so forth.

Addams was born to an affluent family in Cedarville, Ill., in 1860...

Cedarville!  Really?  You are fucking kidding me.  Wow!  Tell me more!

In her teenage years, she earnestly set to reading — “Pilgrim’s Progress,” Plutarch’s “Lives,” “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” — but in her twenties she was one of those young people who don’t get to themselves quickly. They spend years in study and in acquiring degrees with a vague sense they are preparing for something...

For a 7th grade book report, you are killin' Mr. Brooks!

Addams took a Grand Tour of Europe and found herself in a vegetable market...

Europe you say?  Really?  The one in Europe?

In London, she visited a place called Toynbee Hall, a settlement house where rich university men organized social gatherings with the poor in the same way they would organize them with one another... 

As today, it was a time when the social fabric was being torn by technological change...

They had technology too? Fuck!  They were so much like us in so many ways!  I gotta hear more more about this old timey technology and shit!

For example, Addams thought it was especially important to put immigrant adults into the role of teachers, because it affords “a pleasant change from the tutelage in which all Americans, including their own children, are so apt to hold them.”

...

Please remember to cite your sources, Mr. Brooks.  We've talked about this.  In high school your teachers are not going to be nearly as forgiving with your sloppiness as I am.  

Our antipoverty efforts tend to be systematized and bureaucratized, but Hull House was intensely personalistic...

You're right.  Things suck now.  They suck azz!  So when are you going to get back to the old timey technology?  I'm dying to know how the olds could tell time without FitBits and Samsung.  

Addams had amazing capacity to work from the specific case to the general philosophy...

Listen up kids, because I want to to say one word to you -- just one word -- about how to pad out a shitty book report to the minimum required length.  

Are you listening?  

"Adjectives".

Onward!

In her day, like our own, public life was dominated by manly men ...

I have no idea what the fuck this even means, but I'm getting the impression that we're actually not going to hear about the marvels and menace of turn-of-the-century technology.  Which is a pity, because anything along those lines written by any half-awake 7th grader would be infinitely superior to this demonstration of the absurdity of the NYT's "Fuck you, I can turn in literally anything and get away with it" op-ed policy.  

Addams was certainly political, but she defended the primacy of the “woman’s” sphere...

Yes, Jane Addams truly was...

...a Land of Contrasts!