People Like Us David Brooks Analysis

Homogeneity and heterogeneity. The two have been the subject of debate within the last century. For as technology improved, so too did man's ability to move himself across the globe and integrate into societies that vastly differed from his former civilization. Throughout David Brooks essay, "People Like Us" , Brooks notes the behavior of humans to intentionally, or unintentionally, move away from diversity for the sake of comfort. He believes this because historically homogeneity had always been the status quo, as tribalism is well documented to be apart of human nature. Very rarely, if ever, throughout the history of man would one be able to find a specific culture that was non xenophobic in its practice. Much of the disdain for the outside

world could be attributed to simplistic tribalism, or perhaps it could be attributed to fear mongering tactics practiced by a civilizations leaders to help exercise control over a generally traditional populace.
Human psychology has taken its shape through eons of evolution, moving toward whichever model suited it best for survival.

The reasoning behind man's comfort with those similar to himself is fairly obvious in the sense that a homogenous society will provide a far less volatile social climate. Typically societies have been built around some rigid social norms that its denizens follow. These social norms may have been implemented possibly through religion, or law, or in some cases the latter influenced by the former. Regardless of their origins, norms may lead to tradition, and tradition may lead to law, further shaping the future fate of the aforementioned society. Through this cycle, actual human nature becomes harder to distinguish when compared to an individual's habitual traits, instilled in them during their upbringing by the

parents.
As Brooks points out, many areas can start out with many different ethnicities and cultures, but end up slowly transitioning into a homogenous community. While not intentional, its fairly typical for neighborhoods to develop a certain distinctness to them. For example; while one state may be predominantly conservative, there may yet exist a small liberal sect mainly conglomerated in the larger cities. Over time however, many more liberals eventually migrate to this state and spread out of the bigger cities. Eventually driving out what was once a conservative utopia. Such was the case of California, who from 1952-1988, had supported every single Republican running for office. It wasn't until the early 1990's that California had begun to shift left, due to its increasing diversity of the state.
The author addresses this phenomenon when he states, "But people love it.

Make no mistake—we are increasing our happiness by segmenting off so rigorously." Brooks goes on with, "But the choices we make toward that end lead to the very opposite of diversity." Which is actually relatively profound. True diversity is hardly ever reached by natural means as all life seems to operate on a pendulum. True diversity can only be inculcated by a governing body, be it with laws regarding diversity in the workplace, schooling, or ever government agencies. True diversity will never occur naturally in these fields because we as individuals all fall victim to a sense of

tribalism.
Although it should be stated that while people may not be inherently xenophobic, that there has always existed a sense of fear of the unknown. All through human history, we've seen nations divided by cultures. Borders drawn by a common language between people. We've also seen that nations that share a common tongue tend to be more stable than the unions who do not. Between people that share many similarities, be it physical or cultural, there develops a sense of kinship. Many look at their fellow countrymen as an extension of their own family, detect the sharing of characteristics, and thus develop a stronger sense of trust.
Thus far, it's been made fairly apparent that people are most content when surrounded by those that share similar interested as themselves, which is to be expected. We tend to fear the unknown and typically avoid conflict, all in our own self interest. Brooks words it best by asking "How many times have you seen someone renounce a high-paying job or pull his child from an elite college on the ground that these things are bad for equality?" Typically people only plea for diversity when it's to their own benefit. For example, when the Oscars where accused of being too white, it was blacks who brought made it a social issue, not the whites. The whites wouldn't have even considered it too white so on the grounds that it didn't seem to negatively affect them, so why complain?