Conor Williams takes on David Brooks over poverty and character:
So when Brooks writes, “It’s not only money and better policy that are missing in these circles; it’s norms,” he’s being willfully blind. Stable marital norms are difficult to develop, refine and maintain at any income. In the face of extraordinary adversity—consider that approximately half of American students are growing up in low-income families—we should expect what he terms “an anarchy of the intimate life.”
Brooks worries that, for the poor, “there are no basic codes and rules woven into daily life, which people can absorb unconsciously and follow automatically.” But there are codes! They simply happen to be punishing, degrading codes shaped by poverty and material and educational inequality. In short, norms are built on resources and opportunities.
