One of the most persistent mistakes in modern politics is the insistence on flattening all ideologies -- pretending that all human beings think the same way, want the same things, and are motivated by the same forces. Every time policymakers fall into this trap, the result is not compassion or clarity but some of the worst public policy imaginable.

The assumption usually begins with a comforting but false premise: that all people harbor the same yearning for freedom in precisely the same way. That belief animated much of the George W. Bush administration's foreign policy, when the president famously declared that America's mission was to end tyranny on planet Earth. Noble as the sentiment sounded, it was never sustainable. It presumed that every society shares America's priorities, values and political instincts. History has shown otherwise.

The same flattening impulse appears whenever violence is discussed. Instead of examining the specific causes behind specific acts -- who committed them, why they were committed, and which ideas justified them -- many commentators abstract everything into a vague moral generality. Violence is bad, they say. All people should know that violence is........

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