david brooks says with circumspection what i've been shouting. but there is a reason i've been shouting it, and brooks might go ahead and start drawing conclusions. if american jurisprudence really rests on fictions, and not only fictions but fantasies, might there not be a bit of a problem? and it's one thing to to say that the fiction is useful, another thing to show that it is. in fact, though its results might be useful on some occasions, the whole haze of mythological claptrap is devastating. for example, the delusion of impartiality disguises massive prejudices, and one might think that if brooks were black or poor or under arrest, he might think about this sucker a wee bit differently. people whose actual motives or decision-making procedures are opaque to themselves and disguised from the public by clouds of hooha are liable to do terrible things, and the best approach is surely to know as much as possible about how one is actually making decisions, which is the only way actually to try to filter for irrational prejudice.
and let me just add a statement of my religious creed. there may be useful illusions. there may be necessary illusions. i intend to pound the living crap out of them.