Thursday, February 10, 2022

Hyper-Reality's Luxury Beliefs: The Values it Takes to be a Socially Acceptable Progressive Today

Robert Henderson & Daniel Kennelly, "Status Anxiety and Social Class"
Robert K. Henderson is a doctoral candidate in psychology at St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge who has written extensively on social class. He recently spoke with City Journal associate editor Daniel Kennelly about the admissions process at elite colleges, luxury beliefs, and how they apply to America’s status system.

You coined the term “luxury beliefs” as a new way of looking at America’s status system. What does it mean?

Luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class, while inflicting costs on the lower classes.

One example of a luxury belief is “defund the police.” A 2020 survey found that the wealthiest Americans showed the strongest support for defunding the police. Since then, murder rates in the U.S. have soared. The poor—who were least supportive of defunding the police—have been the primary victims. The poor reap what the luxury-belief class sows.

I developed the concept after interacting with students and graduates of elite universities, and reading classic texts by Thorstein Veblen, Pierre Bourdieu, Paul Fussell, and others.

In the past, the wealthy displayed their social rank with physical status symbols. As trendy clothing and other material goods become more accessible and affordable, less status attached to them. Luxury beliefs have arisen as a new status symbol.

In a recent essay, you wrote about your misgivings about the trend among elite universities of eliminating or minimizing standardized testing in favor of personal essays about overcoming adversity. What’s wrong with that approach?

Elite universities have decided to focus on adversity narratives to identify talented or extraordinary applicants. But ironically, the most well-off accentuate their marginalization more fluently. Truly disadvantaged people often have difficulty communicating their hardships in a way that the gatekeepers of elite institutions can understand.

Therefore, it’s no surprise that a recent study from Stanford found that college essay content correlates even more closely with family income than SAT scores. Presumably, applicants from affluent families are particularly adept at using the “right” buzzwords, slogans, and accounts of victimhood that please admissions committees.

Standardized tests are more objective than essays. A kid from a low-income background can more easily ace the SAT than master the tastes, conversational styles, and ever-evolving etiquette of the luxury-belief class.

On the one hand, as you write, schools are looking for applicants who propel themselves above their circumstances through personal initiative, and yet universities are now steeped in ideologies that emphasize how the marginalized are passive victims of their circumstances. How does this tension resolve itself? Or is the tension even felt?

One possibility is that this tension encourages a form of duplicity. Applicants may claim that systemic forces are working against them while simultaneously demonstrating how special they are for rising above those impediments. This could cultivate a potent blend of victimhood and superiority.

Often, it seems like people who are relatively fortunate stress their marginalization by co-opting the suffering of truly disadvantaged individuals. They then tell the most extreme version of what might potentially reflect reality, given whatever discernible characteristics they happen to share with those who have been historically mistreated.

Encouraging victimhood while rewarding those who claim to have risen above it also reinforces the existing system, such that the most advantaged people will continue to occupy the most elite institutions while thinking of themselves as somehow beleaguered. This in turn enables them to abdicate the responsibility that should come with immense privilege.

What’s the best book you read last year?

Tough to pick just one. Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng is definitely one of the best. It’s a haunting memoir written by a woman who was wrongfully imprisoned during the Cultural Revolution in China. The events themselves are heart-wrenching, and the way Cheng describes the Communist regime’s psychological manipulation is both disturbing and illuminating.

Others books I enjoyed are Alchemy by Rory Sutherland, about the limits of human rationality and the importance of tinkering and experimentation; The Status Game by Will Storr, about how the desire for social esteem explains much of human behavior; and Codes of the Underworld by Diego Gambetta, about how criminals (and noncriminals) communicate information and establish trust under conditions of uncertainty.

You have a book of your own coming out this year, right? What can you tell us about it?

My forthcoming memoir is on track to come out late this year. I share my recollections of growing up in foster homes in Los Angeles in the 1990s, the trouble I’d get into as a kid, and the steps and missteps I took on my path to escape the drama and disorder of my youth. The book also contains some cultural commentary, reflections on childhood instability, and my observations about social class in America.

52 comments:

  1. Obviously we need more cops. More cops giving more wood shampoos, choking more arrest resisters to death, blasting more perps welding imaginary guns and shooting more fleeing suspects in the back.

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  2. It must be nice to live in a gated community with private security, eh, Dervy? Let actual crime victims worry about silly things like law enforcement. It's no skin off our antiracist noses if the crooks are allowed to run wild. No one can blame us for racism!

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  3. Can always just steal groceries off all the parked trucks.

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  4. Why is there some ordinance in Ottawa preventing the truckers from gang raping attempted looters?

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  5. Will to power. Ask the Branch Davidians about holding a fixed position.

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  6. And ask the German Wehrmacht about attacking one.

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  7. As long as I've got a supply chain, hole me up in my Fortress of Mantua (or Syracuse) every time.

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  8. The crook donald tRump and his criminal spawn continue to run wild, yet, instead of prosecuting him and throwing him in prison, some people would like to see him back in the White House.

    FYI, I know you believe otherwise, but rape is illegal. Regardless of how many rapes you're gotten away with.

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  9. That's just cold-blooded man. Derpy honor-killed his mom?

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  10. My mother is Christian and I am the product of a consensual relationship. I have no idea about "Derpy".

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  11. Wasn't it Spain that extended human rights to chimpanzees?

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  12. "Wasn't it Spain that extended human rights to chimpanzees?"

    Evidently, it was the US.
    How else can you explain "Progressivism?"

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  13. I'd forgotten that one. :)
    Of course, now the lyrics need to be changed to appease the Progs.
    i.e. 'I'm a ape person' or maybe Ze or Zi or whatever is a voguish pronoun among the "enlightened". -To many to remember.-

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  14. ...that's "progress" for ya! Morality is becoming temporally more and more a fashion statement. It changes with one's "seasons of life."

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  15. Tomorrow's weather forecast... Cloudy with a chance of promiscuity.

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  16. Quote: "There have been no scientifically verified specimens of a human–chimpanzee hybrid".

    fyi, humans are animals but they cannot crossbread with any other animal. When it comes to science, Minus clearly doesn't have a clue.

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  17. I don't believe you know anything about morality either.

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  18. "A 2020 survey found that the wealthiest Americans showed the strongest support for defunding the police. Since then, murder rates in the U.S. have soared".

    A survey caused the murder rates in the US to soar? What bullshit :P

    Doctoral candidate Robert K. Henderson should receive an F for his work.

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  19. The best parts of Dervy's genetic inheritance dripped down his mother's leg.

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  20. Have you counted your chromosomes lately?

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  21. @ The Honorable yada, yada, yada.
    "A 2020 survey found that the wealthiest Americans showed the strongest support for defunding the police.

    Let's read that statement again.
    The five main parts of a sentence are; capital Letter, Subject Noun, Predicate Verb, Complete Thought, and Terminal Punctuation.
    i.e. "A"= capital Letter, "2020 survey"= subject noun, "found"= predicate verb, "wealthiest Americans showed the strongest support for defunding the police"= complete thought, "."= terminal punctuation. End of sentence, end of one statement.
    Please tell me you know the difference between coloration and causation!
    No where was it stated that a survey caused or even suggested that it caused murders but there was a correlation between increased murder rates and "defund the police" attitudes among "the wealthiest Americans unstated 'who- showed the strongest support for defunding the police.
    You could have argued against the accuracy of the survey or any other bit of information in the article but your statement was 'almost' the most stupid thing I've ever read -but continue commenting and you just might win first prize yet-.

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  22. @Warren. You'll find that Dervy becomes selectively "quite literal" at times. Context often simply confuses him.

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  23. @dervy "Paging Dr. Moreau. Your patient is waiting for you in Examination Room #5."

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  24. @ FJ
    I just find it unnerving that I would have to explain things to a "supposed" adult that should have been taught to him in a fifth grade English or Literature class.
    Hell, I'll bet that his supposed teacher committed suicide rather than fail him and have him repeat the grade!

    One of the differences between Chimps and Humans is that Humans are able to manipulate symbols to transfer knowledge -i.e. primarily, the written word-. That doesn't seem to be the case here...

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  25. I think it's the extra chromosome...

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  26. "Claims that Oliver had 47 chromosomes ... were disproven after an examination of his genetic material at the University of Chicago in 1996".

    The police have not been defunded nationwide. Something that hasn't happened could not cause the murder rate to rise. This alleged 2020 survey and nationwide murder rates have nothing to do with one another.

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  27. Warren: ...there was a correlation between increased murder rates and "defund the police" attitudes among "the wealthiest Americans...

    Rich people like murder and want more of it? I call BS. I think it must have been Warren who received a lot of failing grades when he was in school.

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  28. So goes Baltimore, so goes the nation? Who knew?

    btw, "defund" means to "prevent from continuing to receive funds". The Baltimore PD budget is $0?

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  29. @ The Honorable, Esteemed And Distinguished Judge Dervish Sanders:

    You and I are lifeforms of the biosphere.
    The quantum matrix is radiating ultrasonic energy. We exist as a resonance cascade.
    Eons from now, mystics will reflect like never before as we are recreated by the cosmos. It is in condensing that we are re-energized. The stratosphere is approaching a tipping point.

    It can be difficult to know where to begin. The quantum cycle is calling to you via psionic wave oscillations. Can you hear it?

    If one examines precultural libertarianism, one is faced with a choice: either accept rationalism or conclude that context is a product of the Conservative masses, -given that Marx’s essay on precultural libertarianism is not invalid-. The subject is contextualised into a precapitalist dematerialism that includes, -culture as Progressivism- a reality.

    To leverage agile frameworks to provide a robust synopsis for high level overviews, Progressives need to:
    #1. Iterative approaches to corporate strategy.

    #2.foster collaborative thinking to further the overall value proposition.

    #3.Organically grow the holistic world view of disruptive innovation via workplace diversity and empowerment.

    Always remember that Obama, -in his autobiography- said. "Too long a stick wanted the TRUTH!"
    I hope I answered your question.

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  30. I'm with Elon Musk. If we are living in a simulation, then what is outside the simulation?

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  31. Q: "If we are living in a simulation, then what is outside the simulation?"

    As,opposed to an "A:" how about another "Q:"

    Q: Another simulation?
    I'm getting damned sick and tired of all these nested simulations and running short on red pills (next time I'm taking the red pill!)

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  32. Derpy asked "Rich people like murder and want more of it?"

    Did the average German want the murder of 3 million Jews?
    They supported the policies that enabled it!

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  33. "(next time I'm taking the red pill!)"

    Should have said 'blue pill'. All these simulations are beginning to confuse me.

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  34. Everything on the Internet, radio, and television is a simulation...

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  35. ...our post-human, device enabled "Society of Control".

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  36. @ FJ,
    Here, let me fix that for you:
    "...our post-human/simian hybrid, device enabled "Society of Control"
    ;)

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