- US conservatives try to redefine themselves after the years of Obama and the Tea Party. Arthur Brooks, one of its most influential intellectuals, seek inspiration in eastern spirituality
Arthur Brooks and the Dalai Lama, last February in Washington.
Economist Arthur Brooks is Catholic, apostolic and roman. In the living room of your house, on the outskirts of Washington, He has a photo of him with Pope Benedict XVI.
He is also one of the most influential conservative intellectuals in the United States.. Few in this country have articulated with such force the defense of capitalism and the free market against the supposed socialist drift of President Barack Obama.
He American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the think tank he presides, has nourished the Republican Party for decades. From the Reagan Revolution to the Iraq War, This laboratory of ideas has been the kitchen of some policies that have defined the North American right..
Now Brooks (Spokane, Washington, 1964) wants to redefine what it means to be conservative. It is no longer useful to talk only about money, of benefits, of efficiency.
“The formula of materialism is: worship yourself, "love things and use people.", dice. “The correct formula for a happy life, a non-materialistic life, es: worship God, love people and use things”.
Books the rights of Pharisha (India) to the Tibetan monks of Dalai Lama, has studied eastern spiritual texts and has converted the AEI headquarters, en Washington, in a discussion forum about human happiness. The approach to Asian spirituality in this temple of North American conservatism coincides with the coldness towards Pope Francis: His criticisms of capitalism have bothered the Catholic right.
“In Dharamsala”, dice Brooks, “I meditated with the Dalai Lama's monks in his monastery, which for me is quite easy, because I'm catholic: “We pray the rosary every day.”.
In February, Brooks received the Dalai Lama at the AEI, the buddhist leader. In June he spoke in the same place with the Hindu guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
The ties and suits common in the corridors of the ideas laboratory are now mixed with tunics and beards, and rhetoric about Christian values, with Buddhist and Hindu thought.
“¿The secret of happiness?”, the economist asked the guru.
“Be yourself and find the inner reserves of peace, with which we have all been gifted”, replied the guru. “And go little by little, ¿You know? “Drive behind the bike.”.
In the US, happiness and politics are inseparable: The Declaration of Independence proclaims the right to seek it. But this idea has rarely been at the center of the debate.
The years of Tea Party —the populist movement that has driven opposition to Democrat Obama— They have left the Republicans battered. A part of the citizenry identifies them as a party of white and older men. 50 years, of tax cuts for the rich and social cuts for the poor.
in 2013, Several leaders of the Republican Party confirmed in a report on the failure in the presidential elections of 2012 that young people and minorities did not even listen to them. “We need a party whose conservatism invites and inspires new people to approach us”, the document said.
Married to a Catalan, Brooks was a musician in the Orquestra Ciutat de Barcelona before he was an economist: a career change less unusual in the US than in Europe. Much of the interview took place in Catalan. Not affiliated with any party.
But the Republican leaders consult him and listen to him. During the campaign for the Republican Party nomination for the last presidential elections, The main candidates paraded through his office, decorated with a poster of a bullfight by José Tomás in the Monumental.
a weeks ago, while Brooks was driving his car, a friday afternoon, back home, received a message on his mobile phone. “It's Marco Rubio”, Brooks said., between flattered and amused. I congratulated him on his birthday.
Rubio, of Cuban origin, He is a senator from Florida and one of the names that most sounds like a Republican Party candidate in the presidential elections of 2016, in which Obama's successor will be chosen.
Talking about poverty and inequalities is no longer taboo in the Republican Party. And the dogma of tax cuts and welfare cuts is in question.
The right, dice Brooks, must “make peace”” with the social protection network. “¿Where do you save money? Don't save it with the poor: “Save it with the subsidies that go to the rich”, advise.
Del Dalai Lama, Brooks says he “knows nothing about politics.”: “What he understands is human conscience.”. “He will say: 'I am a Marxist'. But later he will add that he does not believe in sharing by force, who believes that voluntarily sharing is a matter of human morality.”, Explain.
—¿What the right can learn from the Dalai Lama?
—To move away from materialism. The same as the left.
