Article by David Brooks in the Weekly Standard via Arts & Letters Daily.

The article is articulate, persuasive, and well-written, but utterly wrong and deliberately blind. It's more interesting as an exhibit in sophistry than anything else. The ostensible point is that there is no higher ethic than materialism. The author paints all arguments against materialism (and, incidentally, the entire continent of Europe) as, basically, allied to terrorism. It is diificult to underestimate the willful ignorance, and intellectual damage that an article like this can do. It's difficult to argue against someone with whom I have so little common ground.