Weekend reads: Musa al-Gharbi on why the symbolic professions are super WEIRD

They select for characteristically WEIRD people and exacerbate those tendencies further. The consequences are more significant than might be immediately apparent.

This week on the Lean Out podcast, I was thrilled to bring you an interview with sociologist Musa al-Gharbi, an assistant professor in the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University. The famed American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has said that Musa al-Gharbi is “among the most original and exciting thinkers about the rapid moral and sociological changes sweeping across America and universities since the early 2010s” — and I couldn’t agree more. His brilliant new book, We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite, is one of the best titles I’ve read all year. 

You can listen to my interview with Musa al-Gharbi here, and read the transcript here. The discussion really struck a chord with many of you; thanks to all who took the time to share your thoughts. I’m happy to be able to continue the conversation around this groundbreaking book today, with an extended essay from Musa al-Gharbi (originally published at his Substack). — TH

---

Symbolic capitalists are strange people. Actually, it might be more apt to say we are particularly WEIRD. In decades-worth of empirical studies carried out across the globe, anthropologist Joseph Henrich and his collaborators have documented many ways people from Western, Highly-Educated, Industrial, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) societies diverge systematically from most others worldwide. For instance:

• People from WEIRD societies tend to be much more future-oriented than other people: We prioritize patience, discipline, efficiency and planning. We valorize hard work (as something to be celebrated for its own sake rather than something that often simply must be done in pursuit of other objectives). We view time in a linear way, hold faith in ‘progress,’ and try to actualize progress according to our visions for the future.

• People from WEIRD societies tend to be very focused on individuals — including and especially ourselves: We ruminate on the mental and emotional states of ourselves and others. We try to analyze others’ apparent motives and dispositions. We work to cultivate and affirm a sense of self (as distinct from others). We value the ability to exercise choice and determine our own future rather than conforming to traditions or expectations. We tend to overvalue our own stuff, to have a strong sense of possession and entitlement with respect to what is ‘ours,’ and more regularly display overconfidence in our own socially-valued abilities.

• People from WEIRD societies tend to prefer instrumental relationships, and ties that are freely entered into and exited over the sorts of duties and bonds that arise organically out of one’s history, circumstances or kinship networks (which we often try to escape).

• People from WEIRD societies tend to prefer abstract standards that apply to everyone and across circumstances over context-dependent judgments and norms. We are much more likely to conform to these rules and norms even in the absence of apparent surveillance, enforcement mechanisms, or likely sanction. We have much more faith than most others in formal processes and impersonal institutions.

• People from WEIRD societies tend to prize analytical over holistic thinking — and we tend to be particularly focused on ‘central’ actors and on foregrounded actions.

The most immediate implication of these realities, Henrich argued, is that many psychological theories and results claiming to illuminate “human nature” were, in fact, unlikely to generalize to humanity writ large. Key findings had been derived primarily from convenience samples of college students in America and Western Europe whose cognition and dispositions are not well-representative of the societies they hail from, let alone reflecting general tendencies of all mankind. It is therefore critical, he asserted, for psychologists to draw larger and more diverse samples, and to adopt a cross-cultural perspective with respect to key questions.

However, as Henrich later detailed in his 700-page magnum opus on WEIRD societies, the peculiar psychological biases and proclivities of characteristically WEIRD people have important implications for political economy as well.

For instance, in the cognitive profile described above we can see some of the building blocks of symbolic capitalists’ peculiar gravitation towards rational-legal authority (we prefer abstract and universal standards and meritocracy), free markets (we prefer instrumental and mutually beneficial relationships that are entered and exited at will), meritocracy (we valorize hard work, focus on individuals, and associate outcomes with agency), progressivism (we view history as a linear series of events within our control; we focus on the future — on risks, opportunities and possibilities — over the present or the past), and identitarianism (we are individualistic; we strive to distinguish ourselves from others; in interpreting the world, we center questions of authenticity, sincerity, intent, and so on).

Our unique desire to maximize happiness pushes WEIRD people to be restless with what we have, to always look for something better (a better job, a better mate, a better house, better gadgets).

It also leads us to be concerned with removing any impediments to our own or others’ self-actualization. In the words of Christian Smith, we support “the emancipation, equality, and moral affirmation of all human beings as autonomous, self-directing, individual agents, (who should be) out to live their lives as they personally so desire — by constructing their own favored identities, entering and exiting relationships as they choose, and equally enjoying the gratification of experiential, material, and bodily pleasures…. Unacceptable, therefore, is any form of real or symbolic lack of acceptance, exclusion, or moral judgement against another. Every identity and lifestyle must not only be tolerated but positively validated, affirmed, and included.”

Smith penned these words describing the project of American sociology, but this approach to self-and-other actualization is distinctive of WEIRD morality more broadly.

That said, within WEIRD societies, characteristically WEIRD modes of thought and action tend to be especially pronounced among symbolic capitalists (including the sociologists Dr. Smith was focused on). There are a few reasons for this:

Colleges and universities serve as the primary gatekeepers in determining who gets to become a symbolic capitalist (and who does not). Critically, these institutions tend to select for people who demonstrate WEIRD tendencies (and filter out those who are insufficiently WEIRD): college admissions essays are, fundamentally, about presenting a unique and compelling curated self to help applicants “stand out” against competitors with similar (or even superior) qualifications; standardized testing requirements and score thresholds filter students based on their cultivated skills in analytical reasoning; GPA and attendance records are largely a proxy for students’ future-orientation and self-discipline.

Post admission, actually attending college — and landing a job in the symbolic professions thereafter — often requires students to sacrifice connections to place and community, to move away from family and lifelong friends, and to develop new, contingent, instrumental, and more superficial relationships. That is, it requires a WEIRD approach to social ties.

All said, WEIRD norms of self-orientation, independence, instrumentalism and meritocracy are so pronounced within institutions of higher learning that those who come from families that are less connected to the symbolic economy (such as first-generation or nontraditional students) often struggle to ‘belong’ at colleges and universities. The sense that colleges and universities are not for ‘people like them’ contributes significantly to lower grades and higher drop-out rates among said students. And even when students from underrepresented or nontraditional backgrounds do manage to refashion themselves according to the dominant institutional culture, aspirants often struggle with feelings of guilt, isolation and inauthenticity despite their professional flourishing.

In short, colleges and universities tend to select for people with WEIRD tendencies, and then refine and exacerbate those inclinations further over the course of one’s academic career. Subsequently, symbolic capitalist employers tend to select for the most WEIRD college graduates (preferring candidates with strong analytical skills, high college GPAs, a strong desire to distinguish themselves from other workers, and who affirm aspects of WEIRD morality — for instance, with respect to diversity, equity and inclusion). Time in the symbolic professions further entrenches these modes of thinking and being. And the communities symbolic capitalists congregate in reinforce the WEIRD habitus further.

Symbolic capitalists are largely concentrated in specialized hubs tied to global circuits for various symbolic economy industries. Living in these hubs changes individuals and how they relate to others.

As sociologist Georg Simmel explained, cities are liberating in part because people are forced to traverse different social contexts over the course of any given day — and to occupy different social roles and interact with different social networks across these contexts — amidst untold numbers of others, each pursuing their own agendas largely independent of (and indifferent to) one’s own.

In order to manage the complexity and diversity of their social milieu, Simmel argued, city dwellers tend to cultivate an intellectualized distance from most phenomena they encounter. They abstract away from the particulars (which become untenable to track or pay attention to at scale). They adopt a blasé attitude towards most situations and individuals they’re confronted with (you’re faced with unusual people, bizarre encounters, and alien modes of self-presentation on a regular basis). Relationships become increasingly transactional and contingent (it’s impossible to meaningfully invest in most people you interact with due to the sheer number of contacts one has to maintain and the increased transience of where people live, what they do, and so on).

On the one hand, these dispositions give city dwellers a lot more freedom to engage in various forms of social deviance with minimal consequences or judgement: for the most part, no one is paying attention to what you’re doing, and no one really cares in any event. However, these same attitudes also make it difficult to cultivate deep and durable relationships or to convince others to support one’s preferred causes (precisely because no one is really paying attention to or caring about what you’re doing — they have other fish to fry).

In order to secure and sustain the interest of potential mates, allies, employers or benefactors — and indeed, in order to see oneself as an interesting and worthwhile person — city dwellers feel a strong need to cultivate unique personas. It becomes a psychological and practical imperative to differentiate oneself from the masses that everyone crosses paths with daily, and to set oneself apart from the other potential employees, life partners, or comrades that others could just as easily associate with instead of oneself.

This need for differentiation is part of the reason cities have always been core sites of cultural innovation, Simmel argued. These pressures are particularly acute among professionals whose lifestyles and livelihoods depend on their ability to cultivate and leverage symbolic capital.

As sociologist Elizabeth Currid-Halkett demonstrated, denizens of symbolic economy hubs spend far more of their money on things like fancy clothes, makeup, cosmetic surgery and so on — symbolic capitalists more than most — in a bid to stand out from the crowd. We also gravitate towards extreme and unusual moral, cultural, and ideological postures to distinguish ourselves from “lesser” people.

The longer symbolic capitalists live in “superstar cities” and associate primarily with others like themselves, their social context would push them further towards individualism, abstraction, instrumentalized relationships, etc. That is, it would render them more characteristically WEIRD.

Collectively, institutional selection effects, professionalization, and living in symbolic economy hubs push symbolic capitalists towards much WEIRDer ways of perceiving and engaging in the world than “normie” Americans (who are already outliers worldwide in terms of their own WEIRD psychology). We are the WEIRDest of the WEIRD.

We are so WEIRD, in fact, that our rise has exacerbated global cultural divides. As the U.S. and peer countries have been reoriented around the symbolic economy, the psychological and moral differences between WEIRD societies and most others seem to be growing more pronounced.

Interestingly, symbolic capitalists from non-WEIRD societies seem to be an exception to this trend. Globalized trade, culture, and institutional isomorphism have inspired those inclined towards the symbolic professions worldwide (urban, highly-educated, relatively affluent) — alongside non-Western symbolic economy firms — to adopt relational modes, personal dispositions, life preferences and modes of talking about the world that diverge systematically (and increasingly dramatically) from most others in their own societies, but are highly characteristic of WEIRD cultures.  

As a result of these dynamics, many symbolic capitalists worldwide feel more kinship and comfort with peers from other societies than with “normies” born and raised in their home countries (whom they openly disdain and disparage with regularity).

In turn, “normies” have been growing increasingly alienated from symbolic capitalists and the institutions they dominate. More and more, polarization across and within countries turns on constituents’ sociological proximity or distance with respect to the symbolic professions. Finding a way to bridge these growing divides is one of the core sociopolitical challenges of our times — perhaps a prerequisite for effectively addressing many other pressing social issues.

If symbolic capitalists and the institutions we dominate are going to continue to be exceptionally WEIRD (as will likely be the case for the foreseeable future), we’ll have to figure out how to relate better to everyone else.