Politics without politics: The curious idea of a civil society without rancor

Comment published in New York Times on November 13, 2018, in response to essay by op-ed writer David Brooks, “The Struggle to Stay Human amid the Fight”:

Sure: a war that is pointless from the standpoint of any ideals may broadly generate a paranoid Manichaean mentality, and the destruction or rendering impossible of a political civil society as antagonisms become hatreds, and argument violence.  

But at least one other question is also worth asking here, even if it takes the risk of invoking an oppositional politics that Mr. Brooks would surely disparage as part of the problem. What is the role here of ruling elites and classes, and of something like political economy? Who benefits from the simplified thinking of a militarized popular mind?

Do mentalities alone explain social problems? This is like saying that they explain themselves, and in practice it adds a tactic to the toolkit of the psychological policing of peoples.  

It is true enough today that the mentality of the most powerful leaders, including those whose actions could directly end all life on this planet, is not that different than it was in 1914. These powers also have interests, which tend to be economic, though legitimated by nice-sounding ideas, including nationalisms.  

Modern wars tend to be ideological, and fought against populations. This phenomenon and that of totalitarian governments have obviously furthered each other. War and policing are both meant to combat "evils," and this means the others who do not count, foreigners and the poor.  

Could it be not only how we think that should be contested?