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Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

robkhenderson.com

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Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#361

Post by littlestymaar »

mech987987 wrote: post #261
littlestymaar wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are the one missing the point: it's not that this post has a conservative bias (every text necessarily has these kinds of bias, and that's fine). The problem with this post is that it is only here as an argument against liberal ideas that he doesn't like, and as such it's entirely driven by bad faith. Then sure there may be some elements of truth sprinkled every now and then, but every piece of propaganda…

I would suggest the following explanation: You could break people up into political and wealth-based quadrants: 1. Conservative and rich 2. Conservative and poor 3. Liberal and rich 4. Liberal and poor Consider the typical expressed beliefs of quadrants 1 and 2. Both advocate that individualism and an internal locus of control can help you succeed in life. The difference is whether they have "succeeded in life" (by s…

Where is there a cognitive dissonance?

I'm relatively affluent and I know that it's mostly the product of luck, I have no problem admitting that and that my salary is outrageous compared to the amount of work it requires (and required over my lifetime). I am also actively a militant in favor of an increase in taxes for the guys like me. I'd give away 80% of my capital instantly if it made all of my social class to the same because I know it would make life way better for most of us.

How am I suffering from cognitive dissonance?

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#362

Post by JanSt »

8note wrote: post #302
JanSt wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, the european/my german perspective does not see this - at least what I have learned. An essential motive of colonialism was the missionization and education of the "primitive, uncivilized race". The Germans saw it as their task to civilize the colonial population by introducing them to German culture and the Christian religion. Other colonial powers, such as Great Britain or France, also followed this ideo…

For the food context, it'd be you opening an African food restaurant, that all the white people go to instead of an African food restaurant run by somebody from Africa. Meanwhile, Africans would be looked down on for making and eating said African food when they're supposed to be "integrating" to the local German food. You're stripping the value of African food from African people, the same as colonialism stripped th…

To me, this argument makes no sense at all.

Opening restaurants with food from your culture is pretty much the standard way of doing it and certainly not looked down upon.

All of this sounds racist to me. People are now forbidden to do things if they have the wrong skin color.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#363

Post by Mezzie »

notfromhere wrote: post #311
junofan wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, I read it apolitically. Normal working-class people don’t give a shit about any of this stuff, and as soon as they do, it’ll become unfashionable, and we’ll move on to the next thing.

White working class people don’t, others definitely do. You can’t just generalize like that. Working class people aren’t even inherently apolitical, they just don’t vote and aren’t taught that voting changes things like middle and upper class folks are

It's true that white working class people are the most likely to non engage politically for a variety of reasons, but it's also generalizing to say that working class PoC inherently care or adopt the same political ideas as the professional classes. Even among Black Southerners (who are very politically organized), whether someone agrees with modern social justice/intersectional frameworks is going to depend highly on other factors such as age and level of religiosity.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#364

Post by MisterBastahrd »

achenatx wrote: post #355
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/16/health/abortion-texas-sepsis/... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/17/health/abortion-miscarria... https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/west-texas-county-ba... . Come again? The only way you could fail to know about these things or read about them is if you willfully choose to ignore them.

none of your links give any cases where a woman was prosecuted or jailed for a failed pregnancy. The links did cite cases where medical practitioners did not do their job because they were worried about the government. Texas law specifically states that abortions in the case of risk to the mother are ok and the medical practitioners felt the language wasnt clear enough.

Texas law is specifically vague for a reason.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#365

Post by eschaton »

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #241
boppo1 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>cultural appropriation As I remember it, this really took off in popular culture after native americans got sick of dude-bros/girls wearing war bonnets to music festivals. Around 2012-2014 it was a hugely popular piece. When 'cultural appropriation' came up then I mildly agreed with the sentiment because the look was pretty openly disrespectful. And then it expanded like kudzu until digital hairstyles became off-lim…

as a native american myself, I have no recollection of anyone I know ever taking issue with this. I don't doubt there was someone somewhere complaining, but similar to the rename of the washington redkins, most of us didn't give a shit. The most grumbling I've ever heard around this is complaints that pow-wow's are too commercialized but, if anything, that was criticizing our own tribes.

The popular phrase was “my culture is not a costume” at the time. I also remember a bit of encouragement to distinguish between native and native-inspired fashion on the one hand and mimicry and stereotyping on the other.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#366

Post by jlos »

tenacious_tuna wrote: post #350
jlos wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Religion ticks all these boxes Regular participation in religious services is of the most beneficial activities a person can do for their mental health. I'm not saying this as a platitude, but as a well documented observed phenomenom [0][1]. To the point, I regularly see studies on benefits to those who regularly attend religious services and have never seen a study showing any adverse affects from it. That is not…

I broadly agree with your statements that in general religion brings better mental health to a population and that there's a void of community in populations that aren't centered around religion. That's something I've personally felt, growing up in the Christian church and existing outside of it as an adult. I feel like saying there's never adverse effects or that "irreligiosity does not scale" misses the point in a…

> I feel like saying there's never adverse effects or that "irreligiosity does not scale" misses the point in a few ways.

I just mean irreligiosity doesn't scale as a way to provide existential value and social cohesion. This is what Henderson is getting at with Luxury Beliefs. They are beliefs that you can hold in the top, lets say, 10% of the wealth distribution. But those luxury beliefs actually damage people lower down the socio-economic ladder.

> feel like saying there's never adverse effects There's definitely adverse effects! But its opposite side of the coin of having meaningful, cohesive communities. Your own examples are perfect. Belonging to a community does a lot, but at the same time it means you have to conform to the community or lose its benefits.

Also, the examples of crusades, etc are just human nature expressed through religion. If the 20th century taught us nothing else, is that you don't need religion to have murderous ideologies. In fact, I'd take the Spanish Inquisition to the horrors of 20th century dictators any day!

> What's the alternative I mean, that's problem we're facing isn't it? Maybe there is some way to replace the social and existential value provided by religion, but I don't see it.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#367

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

eschaton wrote: post #365
PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as a native american myself, I have no recollection of anyone I know ever taking issue with this. I don't doubt there was someone somewhere complaining, but similar to the rename of the washington redkins, most of us didn't give a shit. The most grumbling I've ever heard around this is complaints that pow-wow's are too commercialized but, if anything, that was criticizing our own tribes.

The popular phrase was “my culture is not a costume” at the time. I also remember a bit of encouragement to distinguish between native and native-inspired fashion on the one hand and mimicry and stereotyping on the other.

I don't doubt there were people making noise, but I live in a state that's known for Native Americans (I'm sure you can guess) and it just wasn't a concern for anyone I know.

It's the old adage about a few loud people.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#368

Post by mock-possum »

indigo945 wrote: post #101

> When I was growing up in foster homes, or making minimum wage as a > dishwasher, or serving in the military, I never heard words like “cultural > appropriation” or “gendered” or “heteronormative.” > > Working class people could not tell you what these terms mean. But if you > visit an elite university, you’ll find plenty of affluent people who will > eagerly explain them to you. I figured out as soon as I saw the l…

Thanks for calling it out, pretty clear to me too that that’s where this article was headed. It sucks to see stuff like this posted on HN, feels like a let down.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#369

Post by mock-possum »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #320
lelanthran wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I figured out as soon as I saw the link title that the author's examples for "luxury beliefs" would just so happen to be associated with a feminist and anti-racist outlook. Isn't the author's point that the examples correlate very highly with affluence? The fact that it may/may not be correlated to something else might be relevant, but I'm not seeing the relevance.

This article might be the single most vapid thing I've read all day, and I just read a Bari Weiss article for context. Author leans in quite heavily to his own bonafides... somehow able to rise from foster homes to the military to graduate from Yale. Neato. And then he gets REALLY basic shit wrong. "Working class" does not mean "lower middle class white folks." Go ask 10 "working class" black folks whether this count…

Exactly. They certainly are not luxuries, and to some extent they’re not even beliefs - they’re acknowledgments about the way the world works, about modern systemic factors that impact the lives of historically oppressed populations.

Just because someone doesn’t recognize a word, doesn’t mean it’s some rarified hoity toity elitist folly - it’s ignorance; a lack of education or opportunity, nothing more.

Re: Luxury beliefs are status symbols (2022)

#370

Post by SergeAx »

> [Gaselles] repeatedly jump as high as they can, springing vertically into the air with all four feet raised.

> The signal this sends to predators is essentially: “I’m so fit that I can afford to expend valuable energy to show you how strong and robust I am compared with the other gazelles.”

I always thought that high jumps of savannah herbivores is meant to give them better view of predators, especially in tall vegetation.

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