Student Voices: David Brooks Teaches us to Humanize Public Policy

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In our polarized world embedded within “sad, mean times,” we must practice “defiant humanism” by prioritizing human connection “in defiance of social conditions” around us. This was David Brooks’ key message to us—an eager crowd of students, faculty, and community members filling Penn Pavilion to the brim—as he delivered the semester’s Rubenstein Distinguished Lecture on October 28^th.

David Brooks is a prominent New York Times columnist, PBS NewsHour contributor, and the bestselling author of How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. His Rubenstein Distinguished Lecture, co-sponsored by the Sanford School of Public Policy, the DeWitt Wallace Center, and the Duke Centennial, was incredibly insightful. Despite his shining accolades, Brooks was open and humble. He was vulnerable and shared his deeply personal revelations (both on human connection and his preference for Taylor Swift’s early music). At both the lecture and our smaller dinner afterward, he embodied the essence of his message: The importance of building trust on an individual level. Beaming with gratitude while fondly recollecting his lived experiences, he exemplified what he had articulated so poignantly in his 2019 TED Talk: The need for a relational, rather than individualistic, culture. By acting as a “Weaver”—someone actively bringing a community together—he encouraged us all to recognize our shared humanity, beginning with vulnerability.

Our world today is fragmented and disconnected. We live amidst a loneliness epidemic, as explained by Brooks, where our “secure bases” of values, beliefs, and other forms of attachment are eroding due to this dehumanized disconnection. This is certainly driven by technological innovation. Audience and content fragmentation through the digitization of our information ecosystems has exacerbated our information and audience silos (a trend highlighted heavily in my Can Journalism Save Democracy? class last fall). This fuels polarization—people then seek “the illusion of a tribe” to feel belonging, and reinforce in-group identities by villainizing out-groups.

This is epitomized by the elephant in the room: The 2024 presidential election. One of its only predictable results? That America is deeply polarized. Much of this division is driven by hate. Brooks described this as “a brutal age. A bitter, angry time.”

How can we start rebuilding our broken community? Though we’re angry, Brooks implores us to listen deeply to one another. To see each other’s humanity by initiating dialogue across differences, and to apply this mutually. Brooks emphasizes the importance of building a culture of empathy and care; of rebuilding with love. His sentiments remind me so vividly of bell hooks’ All About Love: New Visions, where hooks emphasizes that “we can begin the process of making community wherever we are.” First, we must meet people where they are.

Rebuilding starts small—on the individual level. Brooks’ emphasis on personal actions was the central takeaway for me. Too often, we think of public policy matters in the aggregate, but as Brooks reminds us, “most of our political problems have psychological, emotional, and spiritual roots.” We must examine individual drivers of behavior. Brooks compounds this by highlighting our lack of attention towards “private policy:” “A lot of people go into public policy because they don't like talking about private policy. It’s very easy for them to talk about the world, saving the world, but not necessarily saving their friend.” As a public policy student double-majoring in psychology, this strengthens my resolve to investigate policy issues on both a macro (societal) and micro (individual) level. After all, individuals form the fabric of communities and societies—public policy stems from “private policy.” As summarized by Lisa Borders, Duke alumna and Board of Trustees member, in conversation with Brooks, “It starts with the individual and radiates outward.”

Rebuilding starts with us being “Illuminators” in our individual conversations—to emanate warmth, care, and love in our interactions. It begins with us being loud listeners: Prioritizing respect, and treating attention like an on-off switch (if you have my attention, you have 100% of it; no distractions). It is rooted in genuine curiosity about others and the act of asking good, storytelling questions. (Rather than asking, “What do you believe?” Brooks asks, “How'd you come to believe that?”) It is the act of truly seeing others.

This underlies the practice of building trust collectively. Brooks cites powerful examples from his “Weave, The Social Fabric Project,” which spotlights “Weavers” like Asiaha Butler building community in her “tough neighborhood” of Englewood in Chicago. “She’s just building trust on the local level, ’cause she’s a sticker.” This reinforces the power of starting small—building connections locally strengthens foundations for trust. This is also illustrated in the realm of local journalism, whose presence is shown to heighten community trust; the 9th Street Journal operated by the DeWitt Wallace Center is a prime example.

“The thesis of the book is that it’s not naive to lead with curiosity. And it’s not naive to lead with vulnerability and to lead with trust.” It’s something we as college students need to adopt more, where the illusion of effortless perfection and intense competition pervades. We need to trust one another more. We need to humanize each other more.

We are all capable of loving. We are all capable of being present. If we all commit to being Illuminators and Weavers—leading with empathy, curiosity, and trust—we can foster the relational culture that Brooks advocates for, one small connection at a time. With this warmth, we can foster further dialogue across differences and more effectively address political polarization. With this care, we can humanize public policy.

Angela Chen (she/her) is an undergraduate sophomore from Hong Kong studying Public Policy and Psychology. She’s passionate about researching information ecosystems and inequalities (including misinformation and its psychological drivers), and how digital policy shapes audience trust in these ecosystems globally. Over the summer, at the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation through DukeEngage, she investigated AI use in election information dissemination for minority language voters in the US. At Duke, Angela is continuing her research through Bass Connections, and is an inaugural Laidlaw Scholar for research and leadership through Sanford’s Hart Leadership Program. She’s also involved in the Duke Student Government, Duke’s Information Technology Advisory Council, the Global Fellows Program, the Transformative Ideas Program, and the Quad Identity Team. In her free time, you’ll find her strolling around campus with friends and cafe-hopping!