I just polished off David Brooks' The Social Animal. He's a political commentator on NPR, playng the reasonable conservative to contrast with the reasonable liberal, E.J. Dionne. Anyway, I joke with my wife that we should believe the opposite of anything this wag says. He's the annoying Samuel Johnson of his day.
So that's my take on this guy before reading this book, and it's essentially the same after reading it. Basically this is a fictional account of a relationship of a married couple that he uses as a vehicle to discuss various social science and neurosicence research. His thesis is that the unconscious has much more influence over what we do than previously thought. As an example, a guy named Dennis is more likely to end up a dentist than someone not named Dennis.
His method was effective in that he found a way to deliver conclusions without having to get bogged into the details. The content was interesting and surprising, and doubly so coming from an enlightenment wag knockoff. I would also say that he is a very talented and creative writer.
David Brooks is still a pundit in my view but a curious one who is very good at the craft of writing.
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