The story Brooks tells is one of moral decay – where once there was personal virtue and a whole network of institutions dedicated to “moral formation,” there is now a black hole of amoral emptiness that people try to fill by engaging in “moral war” and “tribalism.” 2/

Brooks’ story doesn’t hold up to scrutiny and is indicative of a much larger problem: A pervasive longing for a golden past that never really existed, providing dangerously fertile ground for a reactionary politics of weaponized nostalgia. 3/

There are at least three major problems with the diagnosis Brooks presents here. First, he operates entirely on the level of individual behavior, unwilling to grapple with the systemic injustices and inequalities against which individual morality must fail as an antidote. 4/

Secondly, Brooks completely obscures the specifics and the stakes of the political conflict that is shaping the country and has shaped much of U.S. history by dissolving everything into an ultimately apolitical morality tale. 5/

Look closely at the phenomena Brooks presents as evidence for his morality tale and they point to a concrete political conflict. For that, however, Brooks has nothing but contempt. Brooks is as disgusted as he is frustrated by what he perceives as silly “tribalism.” 6/