This afternoon, I got two e-mails from book club members alerting me to John Updike’s death, and I promptly e-mailed another friend. We all felt like we knew him in a minor way: I was born in the same town as Updike; my friend L. and he went to the same dentist; J. is helping put together the local literary festival that was planning to honor him in 2010; and then there were his books. At 76, and still so prolific, he was too young to go.

Another writer I’ve covered in these pages, Harold Pinter, also kicked off recently. These things tend to come in threes; who’s next?

Apropos of nothing (really), what IS David Brooks smoking these days? He obviously can’t come up with anything interesting to say about the Obama administration, because he’s back to these “social criticism” columns. Today’s topic: a liberal arts education is nice, but all that questioning the status quo is so tiresome; the real heroes are those who “think institutionally,” those with the great courage to live life strictly within the confines of the rules laid down by the institutions in which they find themselves.

No, really.

In this way of living, to borrow an old phrase, we are not defined by what we ask of life. We are defined by what life asks of us. As we go through life, we travel through institutions — first family and school, then the institutions of a profession or a craft. Each of these institutions comes with certain rules and obligations that tell us how to do what we’re supposed to do…. So the institutionalist has a deep reverence for those who came before and built up the rules that he has temporarily taken delivery of.

Institutions, like family. Marriage. Slavery. Patriarchy. Damn those liberal arts-educated yuppies with all their damn questions.

Sometimes, I think Brooks is trying to become the Stephen Colbert of the New York Times.