As Hunter noted earlier, the Brooks column today exemplifies the most inane collection of 'the common wisdom', we should ever encounter. I have my own preferred sources on such issues [and for anyone who cares to know - yes, that is Ioz]. But, while skirting the issue, neither really takes on the central problem - the continued use of generational myths to divide and obfuscate.
Like all great [sic] right wing writers, Brooks appeals to an ideal world that never existed, that has somehow been abrogated by someone from a younger generation that just doesn't understand. It might be Gen X [of which I am a part], it might be the Millennials - it doesn't matter. We're not wise enough to understand how things are supposed to work; we're not capable because we didn't have the proper authoritarian influences on our lives.
By extension, Brooks claims that only the older of my generation and the Boomers, have the wisdom to properly understand why authoritarianism is necessary. I'm not entirely sure of the ground for such a claim [not like Brooks has ever needed one], but I would guess that it either derives from the [again] 'common wisdom' that one becomes more tribal as they age, or [more likely] that those advocating the supposed 'old world' [regardless of age] are correct.
What is missed in the commentary - from both sides - is the setting of generational divides. Snowden exemplifies a 'different' apprehension of the world. His life and upbringing challenge the hegemony of the state a priori. He got his GED instead of finishing high school [of course most of the smartest people I met in grad school were also high school dropouts...]; he never went to those finishing schools we call 'college'; he was 'atomized' by our encroaching culture of access to information, and was never socialized to understand its import... Does that sound familiar? The same arguments have been used against every generation in recorded history. This is as old as Antigone - we should be better than this.
There are authoritarians in every generation. It is the nature of power. Those that have it, seek to reiterate it. Those that don't are usually squashed by its literal or figurative boot until they acquiesce.
There are also those in every generation that resist authoritarianism. I would like to think that most of us on the 'left' see them as our exemplars. They range from the Gandhi's of the world to those who are simply tired of injustice and do whatever they can to change it. All of the generational morass is simply noise - noise to divide us, to characterize us, to dehumanize us and to demoralize us.
As Harvey Milk would say, it's all about all of the 'us-es'. We have to stop accepting narratives that divide us against ourselves.