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Deplorables. The forty-seven percent. The fact that Americans have become increasingly divided is hardly breaking news. But Arthur Brooks is somewhat unique in finding the cause in an ethical/spiritual crisis as opposed to blaming one side or the other. Brooks believes that each side is animated by a spirit of contempt. Dismissiveness, arrogance and close-mindedness have replaced love of neighbor. To return to a more temperate politics we do not need new leaders or new parties as much as a recommitment to commonly shared values and humanity. Armed with impressive social scientific data, Brooks argues that such a transformation would be good not only for the country but for us as well. He also marshals the world’s philosophic and religious traditions to create arguments against tribalism, identity politics and shunning of the other side. Most readers will fully support Brooks’ project but will probably wonder whether a real movement can be started across ideological lines. Recent social movements have started, however, around messages with similarly inspirational content (see Lean In). Like most readers I would welcome a return of a sense of national community and wouldn’t want to prognosticate that Brooks cannot launch such a cause. But this same hope makes explicit one of the major assumptions of the book. Brooks assumes that the hard right and hard left have similar commitments to core enlightenment and humanistic values. We need only to be reminded of our better angels. He does not take seriously the idea that those on the hard right who want to stop all Latino immigration or those on the hard left who think Enlightenment reasoning is a tool of oppression really envision mutually incompatible Americas. That at the root of the increasingly strong partisan divide is different understandings of what America is all about and not just a lack of humanistic virtue. For my part, I hope Brooks’ more optimistic vision of mutually shared values is correct. But I cannot help but notice that the opposite notion is not so much debated as ignored. Given that the core of the book is a personal message to transform ideological contempt into love this may be understandable. But, if the book is mostly an effort aimed not at making an argument but at achieving personal transformation, then ultimately its success is to be judged not on the relevance of its social scientific data, nor on its handling of the wisdom of the ages, nor even on its sales but on whether it achieves some success in changing the tone of political rhetoric. It certainly will be interesting to see whether it helps push Democrats and Republicans to unite around the good of the body politic once again.