By David Brooks

...unlike the other animals, people do have a drive to seek coherence and meaning. We have a need to tell ourselves stories that explain it all. We use these stories to supply the metaphysics, without which life seems pointless and empty.

Some might say recognize the metaphysics, instead of “supply” them—but that’s my metaphysics.

Among all the things we don’t control, we do have some control over our stories. We do have a conscious say in selecting the narrative we will use to make sense of the world.  Individual responsibility is contained in the act of selecting and constantly revising the master narrative we tell about ourselves.

“Is contained”?  How about, “Individual responsibility drives the act of selecting and constantly revising the master narrative...”?

The stories we select help us, in turn, to interpret the world. They guide us to pay attention to certain things and ignore other things. They lead us to see certain things as sacred and other things as disgusting. They are the frameworks that shape our desires and goals. So while story selection may seem vague and intellectual, it’s actually very powerful.  The most important power we have is the power to help select the lens through which we see reality.

Perception is not Reality. [contrary to the popular cant] But how you arrange your perceptions [and interpretations] create your perception of Reality, which, in turn, guides your responses.

eg:  If you believe/perceive that there is, say, a sword held above your head by thin, fraying ropes, you will respond in a certain way.  If no one else is able [or willing] to perceive that sword, they will respond to you in a certain way; often ending in the gift of a nice long-sleeved jacket.

However, to be able to make this choice in a useful and responsible manner, one must have at least a majority of the facts available for consideration.

“The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers… [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper.”
--Thomas Jefferson to G. K. van Hogendorp, Oct. 13, 1785. (*) ME 5:181, Papers 8:632

Brooks demonstrates this point nicely.

...over the past few decades a malevolent narrative has emerged ... on the fringes of the Muslim world… that sees human history as a war between Islam on the one side and Christianity and Judaism on the other. This narrative causes its adherents to shrink their circle of concern… [not] see others as fully human… believe others can be blamelessly murdered and that, in fact, it is admirable to do so.

He’s right in his description—he just misses the part that this is an inherent part of the political side of iSlam.  And the history of actions demonstrating this.  He missed the part of the argument that studying History is not just a pass time for those who are interested, but a personal responsibility of those who would be citizens rather than slaves.

Brooks uses this basis to discuss the Major Hasan coverage, using such phrases as;

A shroud of political correctness settled over the conversation. ... There was a national rush to therapy. 

So far, so good.  Then he chooses to wander off.

This response was understandable. It’s important to tamp down vengeful hatreds in moments of passion.

*forehead slap*

But it was also patronizing.

hm… ya think?!?

Public commentators assumed the air of kindergarten teachers who had to protect their children from thinking certain impermissible and intolerant thoughts.

There is no other way to manage the feelings of others [ie., the masses] than that of behaving like a constipated kindergarten teacher.  And it still doesn’t work, merely driving the “impermissible thoughts” underground where they’re more difficult to keep track of.

Still, his final para is a useful commentary.

It denied, before the evidence was in, the possibility of evil. It sought to reduce a heinous act to social maladjustment. It wasn’t the reaction of a morally or politically serious nation.

Which is what folks earn when they allow the prissy-pushy kindergarten teachers to hand them, whole and undigested, Teh Narrative that not only tells them how the world IS but how THEY are in that world.

You know; a bunch of Clinging, Ideologically Stubborn Mobster Ruralist Morons.