An open mind is not tyrannical

Though I often don't agree with David Brooks, I do expect better of him. In his column "The Arduous Community" he writes admiringly of Erica Brown, "scholar in residence at the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington." My irritation with Brooks arises from his lionization of Brown for providing an alternative (and Brooks' implication is that this alternative is sorely needed) to what Brown calls our "relativistic culture." Specifically, Brooks writes:

Many people have no firm categories to organize their thinking. They find it hard to give a straight yes or no answer to tough moral questions.

And later:

She offers a path out of the tyranny of the perpetually open mind by presenting authoritative traditions and teachings.

What Brooks is oh-so-delicately trying to reinforce in the reader's mind is the standard-issue conservative caricature of hand-wringing liberals who are so paralyzed by guilt and so determined to be tolerant of other cultures that they supposedly cannot stand foursquare for or against anything.

"No firm categories to organize their thinking" -- what does that really mean? In context, Brooks seems to be accusing these people of not having a sense of right and wrong. I can't otherwise explain why Brooks would immediately follow that thought up with the observation that they have a hard time giving "a straight yes or no answer to tough moral questions."

However, I can suggest another reason they might find that difficult: perhaps the questions are tough?

Here's one for you, Mr. Brooks. Which of these options is more "moral": sacrificing the life of a pregnant woman to save her unborn child, or sacrificing the life of the unborn child to save the woman?

Oh, you want that phrased as a "yes or no" question? I can do that: Mr. Brooks, do we let the woman die? If you like, I can rephrase it, too: Mr. Brooks, do we sacrifice the unborn child?

As tempting as it is to beat up on a strawman argument that Brooks didn't explicitly make, I'll be intellectually honest and say that mine almost certainly wasn't the kind of "tough moral question" Brooks had in mind. So let's take one that he included in his column. According to him, Brown feels "it is necessary to expose a friend’s adultery because his marriage is more important than your friendship."

Is Brooks so unimaginative that hesitating to expose your friend's adultery can be rooted solely in a desire to protect your friendship? Perhaps you think his wife could become dangerously self-destructive if her marriage were to collapse. Maybe you don't want to see their kids undergo the trauma of divorce.

In short, maybe you know something about your friend and his marriage that Brooks and Brown don't. I can't imagine all the possible reasons you might think following Brown's prescription would be a bad idea. But to imply, as Brooks does, that not hewing to Brown's clear-cut guidance is somehow morally muddled -- that's simplistic. In fact, it's downright imbecilic.

That Brooks praises Brown's empathy suggests she, at least, would not be so foolish as to embrace Brooks' stupid strawman of "the perpetually open mind." A mind open to the possibility that old strictures might not be universally applicable today -- is Brooks really so contemptuous of that?