There are two kinds of people in this world; those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don’t

Showing a complete lack of originality, I’m following up my Nader post with another classic topic around here: the scribblings of that leading sociologist, David Brooks. His column today indicates a turn. Apparently the “Red state vs. Blue state” theory is no longer the cutting edge approach to social stratification. A new model is needed. Mr. Brooks, I give you the floor:

There are two sorts of people in the information-age elite, spreadsheet people and paragraph people. Spreadsheet people work with numbers, wear loafers and support Republicans. Paragraph people work with prose, don’t shine their shoes as often as they should and back Democrats.

Yes, that’s correct. Paragraph people and spreadsheet people. Once your head is finished exploding, let’s take a gander at why the paragraph people support Democrats, and the spreadsheet people support Republicans.

Why have the class alignments shaken out as they have? There are a couple of theories. First there is the intellectual affiliation theory. Numerate people take comfort in the false clarity that numbers imply, and so also admire Bush’s speaking style. Paragraph people, meanwhile, relate to the postmodern, post-Cartesian, deconstructionist, co-directional ambiguity of Kerry’s Iraq policy.

The problems with this op-ed are legion, and it would insult your intelligence to go through and point them all out. I’ll limit myself to one comment: anyone who thinks that the Democrats are the postmodernists of modern politics needs to do a more careful study of the role of truth and fact in Republican discourse.

And a final thought–if this is how out of ideas Brooks is now, less than a year into his tenure on the op-ed page, what is he going to be writing about in 20 years?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m feeling like a class traitor. Time for a shoe-shine.