:THE ATLANTIC MONTHLy:

THE AGENDA

THIS M O N '1' H, two views of GeorgeBush j" re-electabilitij; what bin Ladenand Chirac have in common; pork barrelsin the air?

PATRICK J. BUCHANAN

"// is ihc experience a/ the father thathaunts the son, because the strong

hand that George W. Bush has beendealt in 2003—successful war

Preside72t, popular with the people,and no Republican rival or third-party challenger on the horizon—

is the hand his father held in thesummer of 1991 r PAGE 34

JACK BE Airy

"President Bush wontfaee athird-party challenge from a firmerRepublican President, as Taft did in

1912, or from a billionaire paranoiae,as hisfathei- did in 1992. He will,

hozvever, come before the voters withthe abysmal distinction of being the

first President in decades to have lostAmerica jobs during his tenure."

PAGE 38

PRIMARY SOURCES

'%ist how hot was the tu^entieth century?h'obabl}j colder than the Mediexml

iVarm Period, when the Vikingseolonized GreaUand and olive trees

flourished as far north as Gei'manyPPAGE 42

THE NATION IN NUMBERS

"Each economic era has a resourcethat drives wealth creation. In the

agriadtural era it was land. In theindustrial era it was ei^ergy. Todai/ it

may be the airwaves^ PAGE 46

PEOPLE LIKE US

We all pay lip service to the melting pot, butwe really prefer the congealing pot

BY DAVID BROOKS

Maybe it's time to admit the obvious. We don't really careabout diversity all tbat much in America, even though wetalk about it a great deal. Maybe sotnewhere in this countiy

there is a truly diverse neighborhood in which a black Pentecostalminister lives next to a white anti-globalization activist, who livesnext to an Asian short-order cook, who lives next to a professionalgolfer., who lives next to a postmodern-literature professor and acardiovascular surgeon. But 1 have never been to or heard of thatneighborhood. Instead, what I have seen all around the country ispeople making strenuous efforts to group themselves with peoplewho are basically like themselves.

Human beings ai-e capable of drawing amazingly subtle social dis-tinctions and then shaping their lives around tiiem. In the Washington,D.C, area Democratic lawyei s tend to live in suburbanMaryland, and Republican lawyers tend to live insuburban Virginia. If you asked a Democraticlawyer to move from her $750,000 house inBethesda, Maryland, to a $750,000 honse inGreat Falls, Virginia, she'd look at you as ifyou had just asked her to buy a pickup truckwith a gun rack and to shove chewing tobac-co in her kid's mouth. In Manhattan the ownerof a $3 million SoHo loft would feel out of placemoving into a $3 million Fiftli Avenue apartment.A West Hollywood interior decorator would feel dislo-cated if you asked him to move to Onuige County. In Georgiaa barista ftxjm Atliens would probably not fit in serving coffee in Americus.

It is a common complaint that every place is starting to look thesame. But in the information age. the late writer James Chapin oncetold me, eveiy place becomes more like itself. People are less oftentied down to factories and mills, and they can search for places tolive on the basis of cultural affinity. Once they find a town in whichpeople share their values, diey flock tlierc, and reinforce whatever wasdistinctive about the town in the first place. Once Boulder, Colorado,became known as congenial to politically progi'essive mountain bikers,half tlie politically progressive mountain bikers in the countiy (it seems)moved there; they made the place so culturally pure tliat it has becomepractically a parody of itself.

2!)

But people love it. Make no mistake—we ai-e iiicreasiiig our happiness by seg-menting off so rigorously. We are findingplaces where we are conifoitable andwhere we feel we can flourish. But thechoices we make toward that end leadto the very opposite of diversity. TlieUnited States might be a diverse nationwhen considered as a whole, but blockby block and institntion by institution itis a rektivdy homogeneous nation.

When we use the word "diversity"today we usually mean racial integra-tion. But even here OLir good intentionsseem to have run into the brick wall ofhuman nature. Over the past generationreformers have tried heroically, and inmany cases successfully, to end housingdiscrimination. But recent patterns aren'tencotiraging: according to an analysis oftlie 2000 census data, the 1990s sawonly a slight increase in the racial inte-gration of neighborhoods in the UnitedStates. The number of middle-class andupper-middle-class African-Aniericimfatnilies is rising, but for whateverreasons—racism, psychological comfort—tliese families tend to congregate inpredominantly black neighborhoods.

In fact, evidence suggests that someneighborhcjods become more segregatedover time. New suburbs in Arizona and

Nevada, for example, start out reason-ably well integrated. These neiglibor-hoods don't yet have reputations, sopeople choose their houses for other,mostly economic reasons. But as neigh-borhoods age, they develop personalities(that's where die Asians live, and that'swhere the Hispanics live), and segmen-tation occurs. It could be that in a fewyears the new suburbs in the Southwestwill be nearly as segregated as theestablished ones in the Northeast andthe Midwest

Even though race and ethnicity rundeep iti American society, we should

in theory be able to find areas diat areat least culturally diverse. But here, too,people show few signs of being trulyinterested in building diverse commun-ities. If you run a retail company andyou're thinking of opening new stores,you can choose among dozens of con-sulting finns that are quite effective atlocating your potential customers. Theycan do this because people with similartastes and preferences tend to congi-e-gate by ZIP code.

The most famous of tliese precisionmarketing firms is Claritas, which breaksdown the U.S. population into sixty-twopsycho-demographic dusters, based on

such factors as how much money peoplemake, what they like to read and watch,and what products they have boughtin the past. Foi- example, the "suburbansprawl" duster is composed of youngfamilies making about $41,000 a yearand living in fast-growing places suchas Bumsville, Minnesota, and Bensaleiii,Pennsylvania. These people are almosttwice as likely as other Amencans (ohave three-way calling. They are two anda half times as likely to buy Liglit n" LivelyKid Yogurt. Members of die "towns&c gowns" duster are recent collegegraduates in places such as Berkeley,California, and Gainesville, Florida.They are big consumers of DoveBarsand Saturday Night Live. They tend todrive small foreign cars and to readRolling Stone and Scientific American.

Looking tliRtugh the market research,one can sometimes be amazed by howeffidently people duster—atid by howpredictable we all are. If you wantedto sell itnported wine, obviously youwould have to find places where richpeople live. But did you know that thesixteen counties witli the greatest pro-portion of imported-wine drinkers areall in the same diree metropolitan areas(New York, San Frandsco, and Wash-ington, D.C.)? If you tried to open amotor-home dealership in Montgomery-County, Peruisylvania, you'd probablygo broke, because people in this ringof tlie Philadelphia suburbs think RVsare kind of uncool. But if you traveledjust a short way north, to Monroe County,Pemisylvania, you would find yourselfiii tlie fifth motor-home-friendliestcounty in America.

Geography is not the only way wefind ourselves divided from peopleunlike us. Some of us watch Fox News,while others listen to NPR. Some likeDavid Lettennaii, and otiiers—typicallyin less urban neigliborhoods—like JayLeno. Some go to charismatic churches;some go to niainsti-eani churches. Ameri-cans tend more and more often to marrypeople with education levels similarto their own. and to befriend people

30 THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY SEPTEMBER 2003

with backgrounds similar to tlieir own.My favorite illustration of this latter

pattern comes from the first noncontro-versial chapter of Vie Bell Curve, 'lliinkof your twelve closest friends, Richard J.Hermstein and Charles Murray write.If you had chost'ii them randomly fromthe American population, the odds thathalf of your twelve closest finends wouldbe college graduates would be six in adiousand. The odds that half of the twelvewould have advanced degrees would beless than one in a million, Have any ofyour twelve dosest friends graduatedfrom Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton.Caltech. MIT, Duke, Dartmoudi, ComelLColumbia, Chicago, or Brown? Kyoiichose your friends randomly fr'om dieAmerican population, the odds againstyour having four or more friends fromthose schools would be more than abillion to one.

Many of us live in absurdly unlikelygroupings, because we have oi^anizedour lives tliat way.

It's striking tliat the institutions thattalk the most about diversity often prac-tice it the least For example, no gi'oup ofpeople sings the diversity anthem morefR'qucntly and fervently than adminis-trators at just such elite universities.But elite universities are amazingly undi-verse in their values, politics, and mores.Professors in particular are drawn froma rather narrow segment of the popula-tion. If faculties reflected the generalpopulation, 32 percent of professorswould be registered Democrats and 31percent would be registered Republicans.Porty percent would be evangelicalChristians. But a recent study of severaluniversities by the conservative Centerfor the Study of Popular Ciilttire and theAmerican Enterprise Institute found thatroughly 90 percent of those professorsin the arts and sciences who had regis-tered with a political party had registeredDemocratic. Fifty-seven professorsat Brown were found on tlie voter-registration rolls. Of those, fifty-fourwere Democrats. Of the forty-two profes-sors in tlie English, history, sodology.

and political-sdence departments, allwere Democrats. The results at Harvard,Penn State., Maryland and the Universityof California at Santa Barbara weresimilar to the results at Brown.

What we are looking at here is humannature. People want to be arotmd otherswho are roughly like themselves. That'scalled community. It probably would bepsychologically difficult for most Brownprofessors to share an office with some-one who was pro-life, a member of theNational Rifle Association, or an evan-gelical Christian. It's likely that hiringcommittees would subtly—even uncon-sciously—screen out any such peoplethey encountered. Republicans andevangelical Christians have sensed thatthey are not welcome at places likeBrown, so they don't even considerworking there. In fact, anv registeredRepublican who contemplates a careerin academia these days is both a heroand a fool. So, in a semi-self-selectivejjattem, brainy people with generallyliberal social mores fiow to academia,and brainy people with generally con-servative mores flow elsewhere.

The dream of diversity is like thedream of equality. Both are based

on ideals we celebrate even as we un-dermine them daily. (How many timeshave you seen someone renounce ahigh-paying job or pull liis child froman elite college on the grounds thatthese things are bad for equality?)On the one hand, the situation isappalling. It is appalling that Americansknow so little about one another. Itis appalling that many of us are sonarrow-minded that we can't tolerate afew people with ideas significantlydifferent from our own. It's appallingthat evangelical Christians are practicallyabsent from entire professions, such asacademia., die media, and filmmaking.It's appallijig that people should be con-tent to ctit themselves off fiom everyoneunlike themselves.

Tlie segmentation of sodety meansthat often we don't even have aTp.iments

across the political divide. Within theirlittle validating communities, liberals andconservatives circulate half-tmtlis abouttlie supposed awfulness of the otiier side.Tliese distortions are believed because itfeels good to believe them.

On the other hand, there are limitsto how diverse any community can orshould be. Fve come to think that itis not useful to try to hammer diversityinto every neighborhood and institutionin the United States. Sure., Augusta[National should probably admitwomen, and university sociologydepartments should probably hire aconservative or two. It would be niceif all neighborhoods had a good mix-Uire of ethnicities. But human nature-being what it is, most places and insti-tutions are going to remain culturallyhomogeneous.

It's probably better to tliink aboutdiverse lives, not diverse institutions.Human beings, if they are to live weU,will have to move tlirougli a series of in-stitutions and environments, which maybe individually homogeneous but, takentogether, will offer diverse experiences.It might also be a good idea to makenational service a rite of passage foryoung people in tliis country: it wouldtake them out of their naiTow neighbor-hood segment and tlirust them in withpeople unlike themselves. Finally, it'sprobably important for adults to get outof their own familiar circles. If you livein a coastaL, socially liberal neighbor-hood, maybe you should take out asubscription to Vie Door, the evangelicalhumor magazine; or maybe you shouldvisit Bransoti, Missouri. Maybe youshould stop in at a megachurch. Sure,it would be superficial familiarity, but itbeats the iron curtains tliat nuw sepa-rate the nation's various cultural zones.

Look anDund at vour daily life. Are yotireally in touch witii the broad diversityof American life? Do you care? O

David Brooks, an Atlantic corresponderO, is also aconrrihuting editor o/Newsweek, a senior editor ofTlic W<'ek]v Standard, and a political analyst furTlie NcwsHour With Jim Lehrer.

32 THE ATLANTIC MONTHLy SEPTEMBER 2003