LOSING CONFIDENCE IN THE INSTITUTIONS? Laura at 11-D approves of a David Brooks column suggesting shifts in the public mood. Here's the take from 11-D.

Fourth, there is going to be a lot of rebuilding going on. Not just in New Orleans, but in Washington. Institutions and levees are going to torn down and rebuilt.

Possibly. (I'm going to gloss over the preceding three points, which focus on the role of government and future political alignments. More on that another day.)

Here's Mr Brooks.

The economy and the moral culture are strong. But there is a loss of confidence in institutions. In case after case there has been a failure of administration, of sheer competence. Hence, polls show a widespread feeling the country is headed in the wrong direction.

Katrina means that the political culture, already sour and bloody-minded in many quarters, will shift. There will be a reaction. There will be more impatience for something new. There is going to be some sort of big bang as people respond to the cumulative blows of bad events and try to fundamentally change the way things are.

The economy, strong? Perhaps. But we still have the fallout from the dot.com mania and the cult of the CEO to work through, let alone energy prices comparable to those linked in economics to the productivity slowdown of the 1970s. The moral culture? I have seen some truly nasty writing the last couple of days, from all points of the political compass. Here is one of the more temperate observations on the moral culture.

In other words, in a culture where many people dress like gangstas, talk like gangstas, and strut like gangstas, should we be shocked and horrified that they start engaging in gangsta crime when given the opportunity?

I can't help but conclude that if the tragic natural disaster in New Orleans had occurred in a culture that had daily practiced the Golden Rule, rather than the Gangsta Rot, we would have seen more scenes of neighbors helping neighbors and far fewer scenes of neighbors preying upon neighbors.

If you want to go looking for the Superfund sites of commentary, whether Angry Left or Moralistic Right, you're on your own. I want to take a shower.

The political culture? Look no further than Tuesday's Best of the Web, taking a dig at Mr. Brooks attempting to resurrect "national greatness conservatism." At Hit and Run, Jesse Walker finds a High Clearing post asserting this disaster produces a win for everybody.

Katrina has chiefly served to confirm people in their previously held views. Liberals proclaim it proof of the need for a robust federal government (shades of Bill Moyers in September 2001), conservatives find themselves confirmed in their belief in the overriding importance of social order vigorously enforced, and libertarians regard the disaster and its aftermath as an exemplary failure of government. (Anarchists see government failing at even its core functions. State-accepting libertarians see government as having ignored its core functions for inappropriate pursuits.) Environmentalists amaze themselves with the realization that Katrina proves we need cars with better gas mileage and religious nuts of all persuasions discern the hand of God smiting their - and, need it be said, his own - enemies.

Bleah. Heat up a second tank of water.

So what about the institutions? Government at all levels failed the residents of New Orleans. My view of the excesses of Big Entertainment, fundraising efforts notwithstanding, is not favorable. So what about the institutions? Eleventh grade precalculus students are beginning the semester doing collages. So are Harvard's current 1-Ls. Perhaps it is time to reconsider the damage that was done to institutions of long standing during the unrest of the 1960s and the 1970s.