Engaged Or Detached Analysis

As an adult, and a person finally allowed to vote in the different elections that go on with the government, I find it important to know a little bit about who I am voting for and why I am voting for them. A lot of young adults who just now possess the ability to vote, do so by what they hear, which are usually negative things. They don’t perform their own research and get the whole story. In his New York Times article “Engaged or Detached?” Brooks discusses this in a more primitive sense. Even though his article discusses the difference between an engaged and a detached writer, he relates it to politics in the very first paragraph. He says that people know what they believe, but why do they believe it, and how? From the few articles that I have read that Brooks has written (It’s Not About You, Engaged or
Detached, and The Incoming Incompetence Crisis), he seems to write his article solely on his own opinion on the topic.
He has as little research as possible, then twists it to make it seem like he is right and that he thought of it all by himself. Throughout the entire article he claims that the engaged writer does this while the detached writer does this, making it seem like he did research, but then you get through the paragraph and realize that he must have twisted his logic a bit to make it seem like he is right. In his writing, it seems like Brooks has no side to his argument. Are engaged writers better or are detached writers better? He goes on to talk about the greatness of each, but also the flaws of each. Going as far as saying “at his worst, the engaged writer slips into raid extremism and simple-minded brutalism. At her worst, the detached writer slips into a sanguine, pox-on-all-your-houses
complacency and an unearned sense of superiority.” From this, Brooks assumes that an engaged writer is a male and that a detached writer is a female. When looking up the word “brutalism,” the definition “cruelty and savageness” shows up. Therefore, are males more “engaged” writers because they are crueler than females? Then, when looking up the word “sanguine,” the definition “optimistic or positive, especially in an apparently bad or difficult situation” shows up. Does this mean that women are more positive about things, and therefore detached writers because they care about hurting people’s feelings? To me, this seems like a sexist thing, assuming that males are crueler and that females are more optimistic and positive. Throughout Brooks’ article, he uses logos and a bit of pathos. But, not all of it is the logos that most people would think of, it’s not statistics or facts, it’s the kind of logos that makes you think. By explaining what he thinks is considered an engaged and a detached writer, he makes us think what kind of writers are we? It is also known that Brooks is not only a columnist in the New York Times, but also a book author. He must be somewhat credible if he could publish numerous articles and books. He must know what he is talking about if he has been successful thus far. He integrates some pathos by making his audience confused in the very first paragraph. He makes us question and think about why and how we believe what we do not only with politics, but with everything in general. He makes his audience feel slightly angry due to his assumptions that males are engaged writers, while females are detached writers due to how he thinks either gender acts in society.