David Brooks is very high on my list...

...of People I Would Like to Have Dinner With. (Others that immediately come to mind are Ezra Klein and Andrew Sullivan.) Brooks was on Charlie Rose this week and had a number of interesting things to say, as usual. The interview was broken into two parts: Obama and the state of the country, politically; and Brooks's interest in the latest research involving the human brain. (All emphasis mine.)

In regard to the political climate in America, the tea party movement, and the failure to pass health care reform:

CHARLIE ROSE: How much of this has to do with a sense that Washington and power in America is elitist and does not either represent or listen to me?

DAVID BROOKS: I think it's likely.

The first thing to remember is we had this period of trust in government '32 to '64. That was the exceptional period in American history. It was because of Franklin Roosevelt and because World War II. People had trust. But for all the rest of American history, there has been this strong current of distrust.

It's magnified, I think, by a lot of things. It started with Watergate, Vietnam, and all of that. But then I do think we have become a class society to this degree that people in Washington -- including myself and maybe the viewers of this program -- are predominantly coastal, highly educated, and we live in a different world.

And it's not traditional sort of liberal academic elites. I don't think that's what it is. It is, in this country until 1964 college educated and non-college educated families were basically the same. The divorce rates were the same, volunteering was the same, voting patterns were the same.

That began to divide. And now you have this chasm in lifestyle. So people in the college educated class have half the divorce rates of people in the high school educated class, vote twice as often, volunteer twice as often, and most importantly have a much higher degree of social trust.

Do you trust the institutions of society? People in my class have a relatively high level of trust. People with high school degrees or some college -- which is the vast majority -- do not have that level of trust and they do not think those people get it.

So if you have this climate of opinion in the country and you get the whole country really concerned about economics and you talk to them for nine months about health care, they're going, whoa, what is that about?

And then if you -- if it at a moment of economic insecurity you add what you might call political insecurity with the whole raft of changes, they're going, whoa, what are you doing here?

DAVID BROOKS: People feel trustful and are willing to take a risk what the wind's at their backs, when they're feeling comfortable and security. It's basic attachment. There is a child psychology.

CHARLIE ROSE: When they're hurting they don't feel trust.

DAVID BROOKS: No, pull in. Why are you adding more insecurity in my life?

Brooks next tackles Paul Ryan's budget proposal and health care plan:

DAVID BROOKS: And everybody in Washington on both parties now bows down do that context with the exception of a guy named Paul Ryan, who's a Wisconsin Republican, who proposed a budget which would really be balanced. Whether it's a political seller is a crucial question because it basically cashes out Medicare, gives people a check which will not cover their health care costs, but that's reality.

I've looked at Ryan's health care plan and, as far as I can tell, it would balance the federal budget by essentially privatizing Medicare. That's all well and good, but it seems to me that the upshot would be that the elderly would eventually be priced out of health care. What private insurance company would write a policy for a 70-year-old? So the elderly--excepting the very rich--wouldn't have access to health care. Is that really how we want to balance the budget? Brooks doesn't think so. (Phew!)

CHARLIE ROSE: What mistakes can the Republicans make?

DAVID BROOKS: By seeing the public revulsion as a ratification of a libertarian economic philosophy. People are against Washington therefore they want a libertarian view of government. Well, we actually tried that. Gingrich tried that, Delay -- not so much Delay, but Gingrich tried that. And Paul Ryan, who's a very respectable and I think a very admirable member of Congress, what he is essentially proposing is very intellectually honest but is essentially voucher government. It's government would give you a voucher for health care.

CHARLIE ROSE: Give you a voucher? You buy your own health care. You make the choices.

DAVID BROOKS: Right. And that's an intellectually coherent and honest position. I do not think that's where the country is. I do not think the country has lost a sense of common security and common cause. I don't think they're in that more libertarian spot. And so I think the Republican would make a mistake of over-interpreting the protest as an ideological shift, which I don't think it is.
____

CHARLIE ROSE: Turning the corner here -- science, the brain, which we're doing a series on, which we've completed. What is it that's drawn you this subject? For all of your -- from the wide spectrum of your interest, there have been three or four columns about the brain. What is it you're coming to, what is it you're discovering, and what's worth --

DAVID BROOKS: Nonetheless, they don't solve philosophical problems. They don't give you a new philosophy of life. But they do confirm or validate some old philosophies.

If you thought that emotion was not separate from reason, that we were all fundamentally emotional creatures, then this confirms that, the importance of emotion. And so few if you felt we were fundamentally social creatures, then this confirms that, because we get dopamine surges when we have social conferences.

If you thought we were utilitarian, purely rational individualists, then this disconfirms all that. So it confirms certain -- it settles certain philosophical arguments, or at least biases you in one direction. And I found that just tremendously useful.