Luxury Beliefs

Description

1.

""Robert Pondiscio wrote about the phenomenon of “luxury beliefs,” a phenomenon coined by University of Cambridge Ph.D. Candidate Rob Henderson, which are defined as “ideas and opinions that confer status on the rich at very little cost, while taking a toll on the lower class.”

Once you become aware of the concept of luxury beliefs, their prevalence in our culture becomes all too apparent, and that “nowhere is [this] gulf between upscale ideals and everyday reality wider or more obvious than in education policy and practice.” Pondiscio says that:

Too few of us know or have personal experience walking in the shoes of the families and students we claim to serve. Instead, we opine about what’s best for other people’s children from the safety of our respective bubbles, indulging our own set of luxury beliefs."

(https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/educations-enduring-love-affair-luxury-beliefs)

2. Rob Henderson:

"Throughout my experiences traveling along the class ladder, I made a discovery:

• Luxury beliefs have, to a large extent, replaced luxury goods.

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

In 1899, the economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen published a book called The Theory of the Leisure Class.

Drawing on observations about social class in the late nineteenth century, Veblen’s key idea is that because we can’t be certain about the financial status of other people, a good way to size up their means is to see whether they can afford expensive goods and leisurely activities. This explains why status symbols are so difficult to obtain and costly to purchase.

But distinction encompasses not only clothing or food or rituals. It also extends to ideas and beliefs and causes.

Today, because material goods have become a noisier signal of one’s social position and economic resources, the affluent have decoupled social status from goods, and re-attached it to beliefs.

The upper class craves distinction."

(https://robkhenderson.substack.com/p/status-symbols-and-the-struggle-for)

Examples

Defunding the Police as a Luxury Belief

Rob Henderson:

"Class determinants and 'luxury beliefs':

"By now you probably know the answer to the question I asked at the beginning: what do top hats have in common with defunding the police.

Well, who was the most likely to support the fashionable defund the police cause in 2020 and 2021?

A survey from YouGov found that Americans in the highest income category were by far the most supportive of defunding the police.

They can afford to hold this position, because they already live in safe, often gated communities. And they can afford to hire private security. In the same way that a vulnerable gazelle can’t afford to engage in stotting because it would put them in increased danger, a vulnerable poor person in a crime-ridden neighborhood can’t afford to support defunding the police.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, compared to Americans who earn more than $75,000 a year, the poorest Americans are seven times more likely to be victims of robbery, seven times more likely to be victims of aggravated assault, and twenty times more likely to be victims of sexual assault.

Expressing a luxury belief is a manifestation of cultural capital, a signal of one’s fortunate economic circumstances.

There are other examples of luxury beliefs as well, such as the downplaying of individual agency in shaping life outcomes."

(https://robkhenderson.substack.com/p/status-symbols-and-the-struggle-for)

The sociology of Downplaying of Individual Agency in Shaping Life Outcomes

Rob Henderson:

"A 2019 study led by Joseph Daniels at Marquette University was published in the journal of Applied Economics Letters.

They found that individuals with higher income or a higher social status were the most likely to say that success results from luck and connections rather than hard work, while low-income individuals were more likely to say success comes from hard work and individual effort.

Well, which belief is more likely to be true?

Plenty of research indicates that compared with an external locus of control, an internal locus of control is associated with better academic, economic, health, and relationship outcomes. Believing you are responsible for your life’s direction rather than external forces appears to be beneficial.

Here’s the late Stanford psychology professor Albert Bandura. His vast body of research showed that belief in personal agency, or what he described as “self-efficacy,” has powerful positive effects on life outcomes.

Undermining self-efficacy will have little effect on the rich and educated, but will have pronounced effects for the less fortunate.

It’s also generally instructive to see what affluent people tell their kids. And what seems to happen is that affluent people often broadcast how they owe their success to luck. But then they tell their own children about the importance of hard work and individual effort."

(https://robkhenderson.substack.com/p/status-symbols-and-the-struggle-for)