David Goodhart; Somewhere Vs. Anywhere people; the conflict between classes

About this episode

A landmark interview with David Goodhart — the British journalist who coined "somewhere" and "anywhere" people in his 2017 book The Road to Somewhere and returns here with his follow-up, Head, Hand, Heart. Goodhart lays out the origin of the framework (Brexit and Trump as the twin bookends of the book's writing), explains it via sociologist Talcott Parsons' "achieved vs. ascribed" identity spectrum, and walks through the mass-higher-education expansion that created a mobile, portable-identity "anywhere" elite (~25-30% of the population) increasingly disconnected from the more rooted "somewhere" majority (~50%) who value security and familiarity. He and Vance trade concrete anecdotes — California's individualist transients vs. New Jersey's Italian-family rootedness — that illustrate the theory in lived experience. The conversation pivots into Goodhart's own biography as a "heretic" within his own liberal tribe (Lehman family descendant, ex-Trotskyist turned immigration/multiculturalism skeptic, whose 2004 "Too Diverse?" Guardian essay predated but anticipated cancel-culture dynamics), then into the Head, Hand, Heart thesis: modern societies overreward cognitive/analytical intelligence relative to manual craft and caregiving skill, a distortion Goodhart traces to Daniel Bell's 1972 "post-industrial society" predictions. They dig deeply into the paradox of meritocracy — that it inevitably calcifies into hereditary oligarchy (citing Michael Young's original 1958 satirical coinage of the term), and that "elite overproduction" (too many degree-holders, too few high-status jobs) fuels resentment that manifests as Bernie Sanders/Corbyn populism for white kids and, per Goodhart's most provocative claim, partly explains Black Lives Matter energy among black kids with unmet professional expectations. Vance introduces Nassim Taleb's "intransigent minority" concept and gets Goodhart to concede anywhere elites were themselves once an intransigent minority now become the establishment, provoking Trump-style populist backlash as an equal-and-opposite reaction. The episode closes on Vance's "Peter Thiel paradox" question, where Goodhart lands on the unresolvable tension between the "noble lie" of human equality and the reality of unevenly distributed talent — a tension he expects to loom larger, not smaller, as AI erodes even the cognitive-professional jobs that anywhere people were funneled toward.

“The people from anywhere... their sense of themselves comes from their own achievements... you have a sense of yourself as, as having, you know, like I say, you've done well at school, you've gone to a good college... it's a reportable [portable] identity. You can go and live in the edgy inner city and still feel perfectly comfortable.”

“I think we have allocated too much reward and prestige to this one cluster of aptitudes [cognitive intelligence]... drawn it away from those other aptitudes related to manual skills and craft and artisanal skills, and to the aptitudes associated with heart. I mean, caring.”

“The meritocracy very quickly turns into oligarchy because of that deep human instinct to pass on your advantages to your children... a strongly meritocratic society is never going to happen because parents will always be able to hand on, pass on their privileges to their children one way or another.”

Key moments

• ~2%: Origin story — the book was bookended by Brexit and Trump's 2016 election, and its unexpected commercial success came from naming a division people already felt.
• ~9%: Talcott Parsons' achieved-vs-ascribed identity framework applied to explain why anywhere people have portable identity and somewhere people don't.
• ~24%: Goodhart's own biographical reveal — Lehman Brothers descendant, ex-Trotskyist, and his 2004 "Too Diverse?" essay as his first heresy against his own liberal tribe, printed in The Guardian pre-social-media (so no pile-on).
• ~41%: The "Cinderella services" point — a low historic glass ceiling for women meant public services got a "huge free lunch" of top-5%-talent women running schools/hospital wards; that talent has since migrated to elite law/finance, degrading public-service quality.
• ~57%: Meritocracy-to-oligarchy critique via Michael Young's 1958 satirical coinage of "meritocracy" itself, plus the surgeon/nuclear-program thought experiment distinguishing meritocratic *selection* from meritocratic *society*.
• ~70%: "Elite overproduction" thesis — degree-holders promised professional-class jobs that don't materialize, fueling Bernie Sanders/Corbyn-style resentment among white kids and, Goodhart argues controversially, contributing to BLM energy among black kids.
• ~76%: Vance's Taleb "intransigent minority" framing, and Goodhart's concession that anywhere liberalism was itself once a small insurgent minority now become the establishment.
• ~92%: The unresolved "Peter Thiel paradox" answer — the permanent tension between the "noble lie" of human equality and the brute reality of unevenly distributed talent, which Goodhart expects AI-driven job destruction to intensify.

Notable quotes

“Meritocracy very quickly turns into oligarchy because of that deep human instinct to pass on your advantages to your children.”

“We've narrowed the idea of what it is to lead a successful life into doing well at school, going to college, and getting a successful professional career... not everybody can do that.”

“Public services had a huge free lunch from enjoying the skills and abilities of the very top... the daughters of those brilliant women are now partners in big financial law firms.”

“You have a sense of yourself as portable... you can go and live in the edgy inner city and still feel perfectly comfortable.”