On one hand I agree with you.  But Brooks is making a point which I think does need to be addressed.

Those “Question Authority” bumper stickers no longer symbolize an attempt to distinguish just and unjust authority. They symbolize an attitude of opposing authority.

I don't think he made the argument there is a moral equivalency between Tea and Occupy (although he made believe so). He merely was stating that if one opposes authority because it is authority:

You end up with movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Parties that try to dispense with authority altogether.

The problem he says we have is one I think we do need to be able to think better about [emphasis mine]:

But the main problem is our inability to think properly about how power should be used to bind and build. Legitimate power is built on a series of paradoxes: that leaders have to wield power while knowing they are corrupted by it; that great leaders are superior to their followers while also being of them; that the higher they rise, the more they feel like instruments in larger designs. The Lincoln and Jefferson memorials are about how to navigate those paradoxes.

I had a few civil discussions here at dagblog during the Occupy movement's heyday about the need for leaders if the movement was to be successful long-term.  I would argue that one of the key reasons Occupy is where it is today is because of the unwillingness to allow leaders to rise up to help guide it (it is just as likely that those who ended up in leadership roles would have derailed the movement faster than it did without them).

We might not like the sound of it, but

To have good leaders you have to have good followers — able to recognize just authority, admire it, be grateful for it and emulate it.

In Brooks defense, he is not saying that if someone is a leader, then you must follow.  He is saying that should a good leader come along, one should follow - which isn't necessarily an inherently bad thing  (although Brooks may be of the ilk to ask one to do so blindly once the decision is made to follow).

Hey, David Brooks knows something about vanity. Also about pompous, precious and prissy. (o/t, praying in advance for no double post...let's see...)

Brooks really stretched to make his point.  What is that saying about correlation versus causation?  That said, the Michael Lewis essay Brooks is riffing on makes some excellent points, perhaps chief among them:

 ...These aren’t the men we knew. It is not easy, of course, to make a succinct statement in sculptural form of the essence of a man’s life. It is something American art has always struggled with, especially in our chronic divided loyalty between realism and idealism. But this is the least of the problems with the Eisenhower and King memorials. They fail fundamentally as monuments, not because they misunderstand the nature of their subjects, but because they misunderstand what a monument is, or should be.

During the design process, anti-smoking groups succeeded in eliminating Roosevelt’s ubiquitous cigarette holder. Evidently Halprin and his collaborators did not recognize that Roosevelt’s cigarette holder was not the sign of a lamentable addiction, but the president’s most effective visual prop. He clenched it in his teeth with his jaw thrust forward so that it pointed upwards jauntily, to create an image of buoyant and unshakeable optimism. At the same time, pressure from activist groups for the disabled ensured that FDR would be depicted as wheelchair-bound and handicapped with polio—a fact he carefully suppressed in all public appearances. So the element he flaunted was eliminated, the element he concealed was stressed, and the rakish and jaunty cavalier was transformed into a differently-abled and rather prim non-smoker. I can’t help but think that Roosevelt himself was much more gifted in creating inspiring visual imagery than the makers of his monument.

What can we do about this? First, we can recognize that it is possible to make a convincing monument with the means of modern architecture. Eero Saarinen showed that it could be done with his Gateway Arch at St. Louis: an exquisite portal that opens to the west, it is our version of a Roman triumphal arch. It is abstract, but its visual logic is direct and persuasive, showing that modern materials and forms are not incapable of suggesting timeless ideas. Second, we can recognize that it is not too late. Just because a world-famous architect has submitted a design does not oblige us to build it. Third, we can remember that greatness is possible. For more than a century and a half, we built monuments with spectacular success. We have only been building them badly for a generation. I look at these recent designs, which are perhaps an honest reflection of our divided and uncertain culture, and can’t help but think we can do better once more.

Ah, Brooks doing what he knows how to do best, opining invitingly (via just a pinch of shit stirring) on topics on which everyone feels entitled to a strong opinion. And there isn't anything on the "everyone has a strong opinion" front that can top publicly-funded art. You've got a plan for a public sculpture or a public memorial? Be ready for decades, if not centuries, of arguments about it!

Authoritarians are useless pricks. They deserve zilch respect.

I have a new idea for a bumper sticker: Question David Brooks

PAIN IS THE AGENDA 

In other words, it is necessary to put the division of labour and the distribution of its fruits beyond the reach of the electorate

The class war is on  

I know this is out of place, but everyone should read this IN THE NEWS article