"Memory is the new sex"

Today's column proves beyond doubt that David Brooks is becoming a senile old coot. Some choice tidbits:

"They say the 21st century is going to be the Asian Century, but, of course, it’s going to be the Bad Memory Century."

"In the era of an aging population, memory is the new sex."

"Society is now riven between the memory haves and the memory have-nots."

"The dawning of the Bad Memory Century will have vast consequences for the social fabric and the international balance of power. International relations experts will notice that great powers can be defined by their national forgetting styles."

Maybe Baby-Boomers find this stuff hillarious, but really it's just sad. In no way is it newsworthy. Also, grand-theorizing-as-satire doesn't work very well when you are, like Brooks, a satarized grand theorist. My advice: go write for the large-print edition of Readers' Digest before you have to start wearing adult diapers.

And, in keeping with the theme of this blog, let's remember (if we can) Funes el memorioso, the Borges character who remembered so much it killed him. Let that be a lesson to you.