As I understand it, "Luxury Beliefs" are a false front that the elite spout to make life harder for the lower classes. If you look at it that way, it makes sense. This secret was well kept until now.
Public health officials and the NGOs that service the homeless drug addicts talk like that. It starts with Body Autonomy, Harm Reduction, meet them where they are at, no encampment sweeps, shelter spaces and housing must meet their individual needs, defund the police, shoplifting & theft are "survival crimes", no forced treatment for drug use or mental illness, safe injection sites, safe supply, 24/7 full supports, no shaming: they are not addicts, they are "your neighbours who are temporarily unhoused". I can't leave out: "we must respect and listen to people who have lived and are living the mentally ill and drug addiction experiences."
When I questioned this, a local Harm Reduction believer who directs the Downtown Business Improvement Association, said that the best minds in our city (Sudbury) support this and that I was uneducated.
Well you almost certainly are uneducated, you are uneducated in double-speak and in shutting off your damn brain. The key to survival for the elite class is that they don't think too much and they absolutely never, ever consider long term consequences or the contradictions of what they do.
I'm 100% with you. It's insanity. It's absurd and I don't think it can last forever.
sorry, i see my last sentence didn't make sentence (argh, there's no edit function!!)
correction: many people have made parallels between wokeness and religion, and this fantastic explanation of it's (additional) uselessness as a status marker to "separate the wheat from the chaff" is really, really important as well. it immediately reminded me of the hasidic schools example, i guess bc in that case its a mix of both.
I know what you mean. For sure it's basically the same thing. Education is secondary, teaching a person to be part of a certain class is the first priority. I wrote some more on this topic in my article on wokeness if you're interested. Point #4
What we need is a way to separate activism from education. You want to train people to be part of the elite class, fine... But you don't get to claim that they're getting a great education too.
A few months ago there was this big expose on the private religious schools in the hasidic communities in Brooklyn, NY. at the time i had read a great piece, not exactly defending their abyssmal English language and basic math test scores, but explaining that these schools are not meant to educate kids in the same way that more mainstream, non extremely religious people think is appropriate. that is, to prepare them for a job, a social life in modern American society, etc. instead, those schools are meant to socialize those little hasidic kids into... wait for it... Hasidic society. they don't care about learning English well. they don't *want* their kids interacting with non-yiddish speakers. they look down on non-Jews. (they value much more their kids learning Aramaic, a language totally useless outside of Talmud learning.).
i know many people (John McWhorter , and others) have made the parallels between wokeness and religion but this explanation of the usefulness of teaching kids completely idiot ideas (to the tune of $20-50k a year) was so fantastic. thank you!
This preposterous criticism of "the luxury belief class," ignores the fact that more than half of the so-called values voters, Christian conservatives, and other Constitution-thumpers are so devoid of scruples or community interest that they reserve their spleen for a few late-adolescent gen-zers spouting nonsense on the manicured lawns of their quads. These kids are just developing their values and personalities -- they are not making policy or bribing Supreme Court Justices. Even if they did maximal damage to campus culture, there is little chance their impact would be felt beyond the ivyed campus gates. They have no power; not so for corporate lobbyists, mendacious (I will surely be tarred and feathered for that 50-center) politicians, or hypocritical judges. I read "Troubled," and found its thesis troubling at best. If Henderson had simply indicted the shallowness and hypocrisy of a bunch of pampered 20-somethings, I would have no quarrel with him, but to lay the ills of poverty, addiction, child-maltreatment and social entropy on "luxury beliefs," belies the fact that our national politics has been coopted by paleo-conservatives, Burkean reactionaries, and Christian Nationalists. The counter-argument is in the book itself. First, Henderson's critique is reserved for his student peers (most of whom were younger) not for the Yale faculty. It isn't reasonable (or generous) to expect critical thinking from students who are in school to learn precisely that. Second, his thesis that two-parent traditional households would have a salubrious effect on individual achievement may have some merit, but these are the same households that spawned his callow peers and the luxury upper-class beliefs that he finds so reprehensible. No one disputes that people hold self-serving beliefs (just look at our former president); but Henderson exaggerates the destructiveness of these beliefs. These hyperbolic prognostications give the impression that the author is boxing a straw-man. Henderson did not come from a stable background, he was traumatized by repeated family disruptions, became addicted, was taking foolish, impulsive risks, had genetically-mediated mental health and behavioral issues, but he still managed to lift himself up by using the anemic social safety-net available to him. He had a family who adopted him (most foster kids only dream of being adopted); his adoptive mother was loving if often ineffectual; her partner, a woman, continued to care for him even after their breakup; he had a younger sister who expected him to be responsible; he had teachers who took an interest in him and encouraged his curiosity; he was able to access substance-abuse treatment and mental health intervention when he was ready use them; he did not get caught or held accountable for much of criminal behavior because he was known in his community (are we really so naive as to think that race played no role in his soft treatment by law enforcement?); he had an opportunity to see a world beyond the narrow world of despair and self-destructiveness that he was raised in; and he had self-discipline, a sense of right and wrong, hope, and the inner strength to persevere in spite of setbacks. Note that none of these supports or buffers has anything to do with the luxury beliefs of people he has never interacted with. The most powerful and politically astute moment in "Troubled," is when Henderson encounters a text by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin on the two concepts of liberty. [https://cactus.utahtech.edu/green/B_Readings/I_Berlin%20Two%20Concpets%20of%20Liberty.pdf]. After reading Berlin, Henderson remarks that his whole upbringing had been about the negative idea of freedom whereas in college he learned about positive freedom, the freedom to imagine and to act intentionally. Yet when Henderson sees his fellow students asserting their freedom to act or test their ideas, he dismisses these beliefs as unserious luxuries.
As I understand it, "Luxury Beliefs" are a false front that the elite spout to make life harder for the lower classes. If you look at it that way, it makes sense. This secret was well kept until now.
Public health officials and the NGOs that service the homeless drug addicts talk like that. It starts with Body Autonomy, Harm Reduction, meet them where they are at, no encampment sweeps, shelter spaces and housing must meet their individual needs, defund the police, shoplifting & theft are "survival crimes", no forced treatment for drug use or mental illness, safe injection sites, safe supply, 24/7 full supports, no shaming: they are not addicts, they are "your neighbours who are temporarily unhoused". I can't leave out: "we must respect and listen to people who have lived and are living the mentally ill and drug addiction experiences."
When I questioned this, a local Harm Reduction believer who directs the Downtown Business Improvement Association, said that the best minds in our city (Sudbury) support this and that I was uneducated.
Well you almost certainly are uneducated, you are uneducated in double-speak and in shutting off your damn brain. The key to survival for the elite class is that they don't think too much and they absolutely never, ever consider long term consequences or the contradictions of what they do.
I'm 100% with you. It's insanity. It's absurd and I don't think it can last forever.
Great review, adding Rob’s book to my list now.
Epic, I think you'll enjoy it.
sorry, i see my last sentence didn't make sentence (argh, there's no edit function!!)
correction: many people have made parallels between wokeness and religion, and this fantastic explanation of it's (additional) uselessness as a status marker to "separate the wheat from the chaff" is really, really important as well. it immediately reminded me of the hasidic schools example, i guess bc in that case its a mix of both.
I know what you mean. For sure it's basically the same thing. Education is secondary, teaching a person to be part of a certain class is the first priority. I wrote some more on this topic in my article on wokeness if you're interested. Point #4
https://theunhedgedcapitalist.substack.com/p/welcome-to-wokeistan
What we need is a way to separate activism from education. You want to train people to be part of the elite class, fine... But you don't get to claim that they're getting a great education too.
A few months ago there was this big expose on the private religious schools in the hasidic communities in Brooklyn, NY. at the time i had read a great piece, not exactly defending their abyssmal English language and basic math test scores, but explaining that these schools are not meant to educate kids in the same way that more mainstream, non extremely religious people think is appropriate. that is, to prepare them for a job, a social life in modern American society, etc. instead, those schools are meant to socialize those little hasidic kids into... wait for it... Hasidic society. they don't care about learning English well. they don't *want* their kids interacting with non-yiddish speakers. they look down on non-Jews. (they value much more their kids learning Aramaic, a language totally useless outside of Talmud learning.).
i know many people (John McWhorter , and others) have made the parallels between wokeness and religion but this explanation of the usefulness of teaching kids completely idiot ideas (to the tune of $20-50k a year) was so fantastic. thank you!
This preposterous criticism of "the luxury belief class," ignores the fact that more than half of the so-called values voters, Christian conservatives, and other Constitution-thumpers are so devoid of scruples or community interest that they reserve their spleen for a few late-adolescent gen-zers spouting nonsense on the manicured lawns of their quads. These kids are just developing their values and personalities -- they are not making policy or bribing Supreme Court Justices. Even if they did maximal damage to campus culture, there is little chance their impact would be felt beyond the ivyed campus gates. They have no power; not so for corporate lobbyists, mendacious (I will surely be tarred and feathered for that 50-center) politicians, or hypocritical judges. I read "Troubled," and found its thesis troubling at best. If Henderson had simply indicted the shallowness and hypocrisy of a bunch of pampered 20-somethings, I would have no quarrel with him, but to lay the ills of poverty, addiction, child-maltreatment and social entropy on "luxury beliefs," belies the fact that our national politics has been coopted by paleo-conservatives, Burkean reactionaries, and Christian Nationalists. The counter-argument is in the book itself. First, Henderson's critique is reserved for his student peers (most of whom were younger) not for the Yale faculty. It isn't reasonable (or generous) to expect critical thinking from students who are in school to learn precisely that. Second, his thesis that two-parent traditional households would have a salubrious effect on individual achievement may have some merit, but these are the same households that spawned his callow peers and the luxury upper-class beliefs that he finds so reprehensible. No one disputes that people hold self-serving beliefs (just look at our former president); but Henderson exaggerates the destructiveness of these beliefs. These hyperbolic prognostications give the impression that the author is boxing a straw-man. Henderson did not come from a stable background, he was traumatized by repeated family disruptions, became addicted, was taking foolish, impulsive risks, had genetically-mediated mental health and behavioral issues, but he still managed to lift himself up by using the anemic social safety-net available to him. He had a family who adopted him (most foster kids only dream of being adopted); his adoptive mother was loving if often ineffectual; her partner, a woman, continued to care for him even after their breakup; he had a younger sister who expected him to be responsible; he had teachers who took an interest in him and encouraged his curiosity; he was able to access substance-abuse treatment and mental health intervention when he was ready use them; he did not get caught or held accountable for much of criminal behavior because he was known in his community (are we really so naive as to think that race played no role in his soft treatment by law enforcement?); he had an opportunity to see a world beyond the narrow world of despair and self-destructiveness that he was raised in; and he had self-discipline, a sense of right and wrong, hope, and the inner strength to persevere in spite of setbacks. Note that none of these supports or buffers has anything to do with the luxury beliefs of people he has never interacted with. The most powerful and politically astute moment in "Troubled," is when Henderson encounters a text by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin on the two concepts of liberty. [https://cactus.utahtech.edu/green/B_Readings/I_Berlin%20Two%20Concpets%20of%20Liberty.pdf]. After reading Berlin, Henderson remarks that his whole upbringing had been about the negative idea of freedom whereas in college he learned about positive freedom, the freedom to imagine and to act intentionally. Yet when Henderson sees his fellow students asserting their freedom to act or test their ideas, he dismisses these beliefs as unserious luxuries.