Aging & Wisdom Quote by David Brooks

Brooks is poking at a very modern confidence game: we’ve built institutions that can optimize everything about a young person except the part that actually determines what they do with all that optimization. The line lands because it flips the usual sales pitch of elite education. Universities market “whole person” development, but Brooks suggests the wholeness is cosmetic: resume polish, leadership seminars, wellness check-ins, and a dense web of rules designed to prevent disaster, not cultivate integrity.

The subtext is a complaint about a managerial culture that confuses supervision with formation. “Tutored, taught and monitored” carries a faintly parental, even carceral note; students are treated as high-potential projects to be managed. Then comes the sting: when it’s time to build character, institutions suddenly become libertarians, invoking autonomy and adulthood as an excuse to retreat. Brooks isn’t arguing for moralizing deans so much as pointing out an incentive mismatch. Schools can quantify grades, placements, and retention. Character is slower, harder to measure, and riskier to claim responsibility for. If a university promises virtue and a scandal erupts, the brand bleeds.

Context matters: Brooks has long positioned himself as a center-right moralist worried about meritocracy’s spiritual emptiness. This quote sits inside a broader critique of elite pipelines that produce achievement without wisdom, confidence without restraint. It’s also a provocation aimed at parents and students who outsource moral formation to prestige. The line dares the reader to ask: if institutions won’t teach character, and families often can’t, who will?