Is there any way to get David Brooks to just shut up? I mean, I try to be patient, but I keep seeing his September 4 New York Times editorial being thrust into my face, but to see it recycled (with the title changed from "The Bursting Point" to "A new storm ahead") in today's Philadelphia Inquirer was the last straw. His thesis seems to be that America is "losing" its "innocence":

It's already clear this will be known as the grueling decade, the Hobbesian decade.

Americans have had to acknowledge dark realities that it is not in our nature to readily acknowledge: the thin veneer of civilization, the elemental violence in human nature, the lurking ferocity of the environment, the limitations on what we can plan and know, the cumbersome reactions of bureaucracies, the uncertain progress good makes over evil.

If I could learn that at two, and if I have seen that reconfirmed for most of my adult life, why has it taken David Brooks so goddamned long?

Or is he just pretending to be shocked? If there's one thing more tedious than naive people being shocked, it's sophisticated people pretending to be shocked. Most tedious of all (and what I find unendurable) is when the latter is done in the name of moral leadership. I have enough trouble as it is without others telling me how much trouble I'm supposed to be having "acknowledging dark realities."

Is there any way to make it stop?

As a result, it is beginning to feel a bit like the 1970's, another decade in which people lost faith in their institutions and lost a sense of confidence about the future.

"Rats on the West Side, bedbugs uptown/What a mess! This town's in tatters/I've been shattered," Mick Jagger sang in 1978.

Midge Decter woke up the morning after the night of looting during the New York blackout of 1977 feeling as if she had "been given a sudden glimpse into the foundations of one's house and seen, with horror, that it was utterly infested and rotting away."

Americans in 2005 are not quite in that bad a shape, since the fundamental realities of everyday life are good. The economy and the moral culture are strong. But there is a loss of confidence in institutions. In case after case there has been a failure of administration, of sheer competence. Hence, polls show a widespread feeling the country is headed in the wrong direction.

As to the "feeling the country is headed in the wrong direction," yeah, I admit to that. I think we're headed in an increasingly communitarian direction, with elements of the left and right combining forces to further destroy freedom. But it's not unexpected. I expect more, and I expect to see emotion-laden, moralistic communitarian drivel squeezed drop by drop from the fetid water until at last it's all pumped out, and then I expect to see the daily scolding continue as the corpses are discovered. Wrong direction? Sure. But there's more than one way of defining wrong.

Sorry, he's not done yet. (I know this is last week's editorial, folks, and I tried to ignore it then, but recycled moralizing has a way of motivating me to do what I'd just as soon not do. It's no fun being a reactionary and a counter-reactionary at the same time.)

Funny thing, this "reaction" business:

Katrina means that the political culture, already sour and bloody-minded in many quarters, will shift. There will be a reaction. There will be more impatience for something new. There is going to be some sort of big bang as people respond to the cumulative blows of bad events and try to fundamentally change the way things are.

Reaganite conservatism was the response to the pessimism and feebleness of the 1970's. Maybe this time there will be a progressive resurgence. Maybe we are entering an age of hardheaded law and order. (Rudy Giuliani, an unlikely G.O.P. nominee a few months ago, could now win in a walk.) Maybe there will be call for McCainist patriotism and nonpartisan independence. All we can be sure of is that the political culture is about to undergo some big change.

But don't take it from me; here's Reagan speaking:

If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals -- if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.

I'm glad Brooks at least recognizes that people are ready to burst:

We're not really at a tipping point as much as a bursting point. People are mad as hell, unwilling to take it anymore.

I can only hope that moral lectures don't help pave the way for ever more big government solutions to problems caused by big government.

UPDATE (09/08/05): Matt Welch questions the report of the raped child, and cites the Guardian, which says

New Orleans police chief Eddie Compass said last night: "We don't have any substantiated rapes. We will investigate if the individuals come forward."

And while many claim they happened, no witnesses, survivors or survivors' relatives have come forward.

Nor has the source for the story of the murdered babies, or indeed their bodies, been found. And while the floor of the convention centre toilets were indeed covered in excrement, the Guardian found no corpses.

So, while I am not about to track down the reporter and the guardsman (who doubtless have better things to do right now than answer bloggers' questions) I'm wondering about the claims that the stories can't be substantiated and sources can't be found. . .

CORRECTION AND UPDATE (09/28/05): It turns out that Brian Thevenot's piece (which I linked above) turned out to be wrong. I have admitted my mistake in linking to it, and I regret linking to it. (The above link no longer works, but the story can be found here.)

Brian Thevenot has not issued any retraction; instead he has attacked the media for bad reporting, while saying nothing about his own.

My thoughts here, here, and here.