For one, the choice of the word "professionals" is a mistake. IIRC, true professionals are only doctors, lawyers, and ....forgot the 3rd...lil help?
Also there's this: "The members of the aristocracy of mind produce ideas, and pass along knowledge"
I haven't seen any new ideas or knowledge from the Left. They have spewed hate and vile instead of presenting constructive policy alternatives. I deal with alot of these types in MD - most are ignorant of the most basic facts re world events.
The last Great Idea was Reagan's Revolution. Liberal dogma & culture has never fully recovered from it. The NYT and its writers continue to be perplexed that America doens't "get" their message. Perhaps they flatter themselves too much.
Brooks mentioned them: architects.
Also there's this: "The members of the aristocracy of mind produce ideas, and pass along knowledge"
"Managers are more likely to value leaders whom they see as simple, straight-talking men and women of faith. They prize leaders who are good at managing people, not just ideas. They are more likely to distrust those who seem overly intellectual or narcissistically self-reflective."
The operative word is "seem." These people aren't at all intellectual. Their tagline should be, "I'm not an intellectual, but I play one on TV." And that was a cute use by Brooks of "nuanced," but the judgments of virtually all socialist "intellectuals" are standardized, off-the-rack hackery.
"forgot the 3rd...lil help? "
Accountants, no? CPAs that is. They've got a code of conduct and everything. And like the other two groups, they're always "practicing".
I work for lawyers now, how foolish I was to stop bookkeeping for accountants. That was truly the easiest job I have ever had.
Teaching used to be considered a profession before the unions got involved.
Third type, maybe I would expand that a little and include engineers, those in the hard sciences and math, and some in the social sciences who deal in the real world as it is, not what they wish it to be, e.g. Abigail Thernstrom(sp?) or Samuel Huntington. The vast majority who spout the party line in the social sciences strike me as poseurs.
BTW, the author David Brooks is a conservative who used to work at the Weekly Standard.
Everyone is forgetting the clergy, always considered one of the professions. Some would add the military. And a few Freepers are confusing David Brooks (good guy; token conservative at NYT) with David Brock (evil renegade).
Engineers. ;-)