what the fuck is david brooks yapping about

what's with david brooks? how's this guy an expert on anything? i guess i find him mildly entertaining on shields & brooks, but most of the time he seems to be reporting from a vacuum. so he writes this op-ed today in the times about how people in their 20s seem to be less and less inclined to follow the "traditional" march into adulthood. alright, i'm on board. sounds good. then he starts to lose me:

Dating gives way to Facebook and hooking up. Marriage gives way to cohabitation. Church attendance gives way to spiritual longing. Newspaper reading gives way to blogging. (In 1970, 49 percent of adults in their 20s read a daily paper; now it’s at 21 percent.)

what the hell is he talking about? i understand that some of this is hyperbole, but could this column be any more plodding? who is his audience? oh man, it gets even weirder!

This has fundamentally scrambled the courtship rituals and decreased the pressure to get married. Educated women can get many of the things they want (income, status, identity) without marriage, while they find it harder (or, if they’re working-class, next to impossible) to find a suitably accomplished mate.

it's not news, it's not opinion, it's not fact...i don't know what that is. and the best yet:

Rather, what we’re seeing is the creation of a new life phase, just as adolescence came into being a century ago. It’s a phase in which some social institutions flourish — knitting circles, Teach for America — while others — churches, political parties — have trouble establishing ties.

knitting circles?! can i get paid to write this shit? please? and to conclude...

And as the new generational structure solidifies, social and economic entrepreneurs will create new rites and institutions. Someday people will look back and wonder at the vast social changes wrought by the emerging social group that saw their situations first captured by “Friends” and later by “Knocked Up.”

come back, timesselect! if i had submitted something like this in college, nay, middle school, i think it would've been returned to me with "THESIS?" in giant red letters along the front.

anyway, this reminds me. i was reading some article entitled, "why is bob herbert boring?" while chuckling to myself bc, let's face it, he is! the sad part is that he is so relevant and almost always right, yet i never feel compelled to read his artcles. and sure enough, the day after i giggled through that column, i saw this.