David Brooks Rediscovers His Burkean Epistemological Modesty Six Years After Supporting The Iraq War

Now I love David Brooks' writing as much as anyone, but surely no one can possibly be this self-unaware. The level of unintentional irony dripping in his latest op-ed is hard to express.

Let's begin at the beginning. First, Brooks tells us he read Burke in college:

When I was a freshman in college, I was assigned “Reflections on the Revolution in France” by Edmund Burke. I loathed the book. Burke argued that each individual’s private stock of reason is small and that political decisions should be guided by the accumulated wisdom of the ages. Change is necessary, Burke continued, but it should be gradual, not disruptive.

Excellent. So Brooks read Burke in college.

Next, we're told that social engineering projects - those that rely on quick and non-gradual change - have a terrible historical record:

Over the years, I have come to see that Burke had a point. The political history of the 20th century is the history of social-engineering projects executed by well-intentioned people that began well and ended badly. There were big errors like communism, but also lesser ones, like a Vietnam War designed by the best and the brightest, urban renewal efforts that decimated neighborhoods, welfare policies that had the unintended effect of weakening families and development programs that left a string of white elephant projects across the world.

Ok, I'm with you there. Unintended consequences and all that.

Next, Brooks waxes eloquent about the virtues of doubt and epistemological modesty; how important it is, in other words, to know how little we know:

These experiences drove me toward the crooked timber school of public philosophy: Michael Oakeshott, Isaiah Berlin, Edward Banfield, Reinhold Niebuhr, Friedrich Hayek, Clinton Rossiter and George Orwell. These writers — some left, some right — had a sense of epistemological modesty. They knew how little we can know. They understood that we are strangers to ourselves and society is an immeasurably complex organism. They tended to be skeptical of technocratic, rationalist planning and suspicious of schemes to reorganize society from the top down.

Finally, Brooks brings the circle to a close by telling us how wary he remains of Barack Obama's agenda of wholesale change:

Readers of this column know that I am a great admirer of Barack Obama and those around him. And yet the gap between my epistemological modesty and their liberal worldviews has been evident over the past few weeks. The people in the administration are surrounded by a galaxy of unknowns, and yet they see this economic crisis as an opportunity to expand their reach, to take bigger risks and, as Obama said on Saturday, to tackle every major problem at once.

Ok, so to recap: doubt good, wholesale societal change bad.

What a difference six years makes, eh? Let's see what David Brooks had to say about those who had doubt about, um, a scheme to reorganize society from the top down:

The American commentariat is gravely concerned. Over the past week, George W. Bush has shown a disturbing tendency not to waffle when it comes to Iraq. There has been an appalling clarity and coherence to his position. There has been a reckless tendency not to be murky, hesitant, or evasive. Naturally, questions are being raised about President Bush's leadership skills.

Meanwhile, among the smart set, Hamlet-like indecision has become the intellectual fashion.[...]

In certain circles, it is not only important what opinion you hold, but how you hold it. It is important to be seen dancing with complexity, sliding among shades of gray. Any poor rube can come to a simple conclusion -- that President Saddam Hussein is a menace who must be disarmed--but the refined ratiocinators want to be seen luxuriating amid the difficulties, donning the jewels of nuance, even to the point of self-paralysis.

As far as I gather, if Brooks is correct, it is important to be held back by Burkean doubt when (a) the society being reorganized is American, and (b) the person doing the reorganizing is Barack Obama. On the other hand, doubt and indecision is to be mercilessly mocked when (a) the society being reorganized is Iraqi, and (b) the person doing the reorganizing is George W. Bush.

Put differently, if you actually have a mandate and support for reorganization ("Change"), then you should not pursue that reorganization. But if you have no legal, moral, or strategic reason to reorganize ("War in Iraq"), then you should pursue that reorganization.

Have I missed something?