)
One of Rob Henderson’s earliest memories, a veteran of the United States Air Force and a doctoral candidate in psychology at the University of Cambridge, is the image of his own mother handcuffed beside him in a long white corridor, after being dragged away by two police officers. A short time later, the three-year-old boy would enter the Los Angeles-area foster care system. He would never find his mother again, a woman addicted to drugs who didn’t even know who the father of her only child was.
Before joining the armed forces at 17 years, Henderson went through seven foster homes in the state of California, as well as five different schools. In his words, he got used to gathering his belongings “in a shoebox or a garbage bag and moving in a few months”. He worked as a supermarket packer, dishwasher and busboy. After his military service, he won a scholarship to Yale University through the Gates Foundation. And it was at this gem of liberal education, one of the prestigious Ivy League universities, that Henderson was first called “privileged.”
Without knowing it, the then psychology student watched from his cabin one of the first scandals that would draw the attention of the press to the resurgence of the “woke” culture in American colleges: in 2015, Professor Erika Christakis questioned an institutional email sent by the College’s Intercultural Affairs Council on the eve of Halloween. The text contained a list of “unacceptable” costumes for the party and asked students to reflect on whether their attire would offend someone, to which the teacher replied: “is there no more room for a young person to be unpleasant or inappropriate?”. After reading and rereading the email in which the teacher and her husband, sociologist Nicholas Christakis, were accused of attacking the students’ well-being, Henderson innocently questioned what was, after all, so offensive about the couple’s position. . “You are too privileged to understand the pain this email caused”, heard from a classmate.
Having grown up in poverty – even after being adopted, at age 9, the boy would end up addicted to alcohol and drugs, suffer with the divorce of his adoptive parents and get involved in violent conflicts in the streets -, Henderson ended up occupying a very “privileged” space to identify a phenomenon common to the new warriors of social justice: the absurdities that you can only believe if you are rich enough not to bear the consequences.
Comparing his personal experience and the best available research with the idyllic preaching of university elites who are self-proclaimed defenders of the oppressed, Henderson coined the term “luxury beliefs”, which ended up taking hold among conservative and progressive intellectuals critical of the cancel culture and the extreme left: the researcher was interviewed by journalist Ba ri Weiss, former opinion editor for The New York Times, by Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and has written articles on the subject in the American press.
Traditional family
“A former Yale classmate recently told me that ‘monogamy is kind of outdated’ and not good for society. I asked her about her upbringing and if she planned to get married. She said she comes from an affluent family and works at a well-known tech company. Yes, she personally intends to have a monogamous marriage – but quickly added that marriage shouldn’t be for everyone,” says Henderson, in one of the most famous examples of “luxury beliefs”. Changing into kids, the girl in question was raised by a traditional family and intended to have a traditional family, maintaining that “traditional families are outdated and society must ‘evolve’ beyond them”.
There are substantial data indicating that family stability is indeed a relevant predictor of longevity, health and professional success. No wonder marriage rates among upper-class Americans have remained virtually the same since the 1990s. while the poorer classes bear the costs of family erosion, a result of the “belief of luxury” that it is not important.
“The evidence is clear that families with married parents are the most beneficial for young children. And yet, wealthy people raised by married parents are more likely than others to believe that monogamy is outdated, that marriage is a sham, or that all families are the same,” explains Henderson.
Relaxed attitudes about marriage reach the working class and the poor. In the 1990s 1960, marriage rates between upper-class and lower-class Americans were nearly identical. But during this period, wealthy Americans relaxed social norms, expressing skepticism toward marriage and monogamy.
“This belief in luxury contributed to the erosion of the family. Today, marriage rates for wealthy Americans are about the same as they were in the 1990s 1960. But working-class people are much less likely to get married. Also, out-of-wedlock birthrates are more than 10 times greater than they were in 1960, especially among the poor and working class. Rich people rarely have children out of wedlock, but they are more likely than others to express the luxury belief that it doesn’t matter,” says the psychologist.
In this sense, Henderson’s argument is in line with the analysis of political scientist Patrick Deneen, author of “Why did liberalism fail?”. “Elites maintain a studied silence about the family basis of their relative success. Marital stability is now a form of competitive advantage for the upper classes, an advantage amplified by the insistence that family formation is a matter of individual choice and even an obstacle to autonomy”, explains the author. “The irony is the creation of a new aristocracy that enjoys inherited privileges, predetermined economic roles and fixed social positions.”
A world without religion and without police
The same happens with the debates about the role of religion in society, the management of public security and the quality of services offered by the State. It is common to hear progressive elites defend, for example, that religion is irrational, alienating and should be banned from public spaces, when, in fact, religious ties generate networks of support and stability that are essential, especially for the poorest. The idea that the police or the prison system must end is also common on the left, being not only frowned upon by the poorest, who want more investment and improvements in the police system, but also harmful to underserved communities suffering from the rise in crime. while elites enjoy their private security systems. Take, for example, the trail of destruction left by the protests of Black Lives Matter in the poor neighborhoods of Seattle and the reaction of the local population to the progressive proposal to cut funding for the police.
The list is extensive and encompasses the most different areas: from influencers who trumpet the superiority of public education and health services without depending on them to advocates of closing schools that disregard the cognitive and emotional impact that affected the poorest children even more intensely. The most alarming fact about these “luxury beliefs”, however, is the fact that they are reproduced within the educational system itself. But what leads, after all, an influencer, a university student or a researcher to be so easily seduced by these fallacies?
According to Henderson, it is privilege itself. “As with diamond rings or designer clothes, members of the elite use their luxury beliefs to distance themselves from the working class. These beliefs, in turn, produce real and tangible consequences for the disadvantaged, further widening the divide. Just like the fashion clothes that will soon be out of date, the beliefs of today’s fashion will also pass away. In the future, expect the upper class to reshape even more values – including those they hold dear today – in their quest to stay at the forefront.” It is necessary, after all, to be very “privileged” not to bear the consequences of experiments with human nature.
The list is extensive and encompasses the most different areas: from influencers who trumpet the superiority of public education and health services without depending on them to advocates of closing schools that disregard the cognitive and emotional impact that affected the poorest children even more intensely. The most alarming fact about these “luxury beliefs”, however, is the fact that they are reproduced within the educational system itself. But what leads, after all, an influencer, a university student or a researcher to be so easily seduced by these fallacies?
According to Henderson, it is privilege itself. “As with diamond rings or designer clothes, members of the elite use their luxury beliefs to distance themselves from the working class. These beliefs, in turn, produce real and tangible consequences for the disadvantaged, further widening the divide. Just like the fashion clothes that will soon be out of date, the beliefs of today’s fashion will also pass away. In the future, expect the upper class to reshape even more values – including those they hold dear today – in their quest to stay at the forefront.” It is necessary, after all, to be very “privileged” not to bear the consequences of experiments with human nature.