If I were Henderson, I would counter that the elites have much more influence than one man, one vote. After all, they control almost all our institutions. So erroneous beliefs of this elite group are particularly damaging.
Exactly what I planned to comment. Another point that seems relevant on this topic is Social Desirability Bias that Bryan often discusses. I would guess among the elites, there is greater social pressure to be on board with whatever the currently "correct" views are. Low status folks may not feel the same pressure. So, it's not clear to me that many elites actually believe what they profess to believe rather than conforming to their bubble.
I wanted to say something similar Regarding "What he misses, though, is that the selfish cost of absurd political beliefs is near-zero for virtually everyone." A single vote in a ballot box might not affect a national election, but there are plenty of examples of people losing their jobs for supporting the incorrect policy or position.
Elites put a thumb on the scale for hula hoops? I still need some clarification regarding the mechanism.
In those cases (pet rock, hula hoop) a plausible alternative is that people come up with many weird ideas and some catch on. That also works as social contagion. Where does the elite aspect come in?
Yes. The people who decide what gets taught in the classroom, what ads get circulated, what shows get on tv, what news stories get covered, etc… are the elites. There isn’t any grand conspiracy or a powerful person behind the curtain pushing this stuff, it is the collective action of the highly educated class (held together by desirability bias). Social norms are driven by pop-culture which is heavily influenced by people who espouse norms that are destructive to the working class. Imagine if the NYT, sensitivity readers for books and scripts, pop magazines, etc all gradually adopted a social conservative stance: people. Just as mainstream views on gay rights/ssm evolved dramatically over the span of 20yrs, views on divorce, extramarital sex, alcohol use, porn, drug use, etc… would see major shifts.
In other words Henderson and Murray are describing different aspects of the same phenomenon. Taboos shifted and those with lower impulse control (ie the poor) suffered. The Taboos shifted because the elite established norms via the channels mentioned above that they don’t live by. They are luxury beliefs because the shift in social norms don’t harm them as much as they do the poor.
I think of ideas, cultural norms, government, memes, institutions, morals, etc. in evolutionary terms. Some gene mutations may be beneficial and thus come to dominate thru natural selection. Similarly, a cultural meme may be beneficial and spread through a group. Examples would include money, private property, trial by jury, etc. Bad memes can also spread (probably due to short term benefits and delayed costs) through groups. Nazism and communism are extreme examples. Certain memes may be bad but they are intellectually stimulating to the elite mind or serve as a status signal. If the elites don’t have to pay the costs of these ideas, then they will spread through the elite group. An economist might say that their ideas have negative externalities. Henderson calls these Luxury Beliefs. Pollution might be a better term.
Memes seem to be started by an influencer, e.g. Adam Smith, Marx, Elvis, etc. or a significant event that elevates an existing idea, e.g. defund the police.
Non-elites, really everybody, can have bad ideas. Isn’t there book called “The Madness of Crowds” that deals with mass hysteria? That’s why many fear populism.
I can’t read the minds of the elites. My guess is that they genuinely believe what they say (and sometimes do).
"Murray straightforwardly blames elites for lack of noblesse oblige."
Luxury Beliefs are beliefs that allow one to feel they are practicing noblesse oblige without having to make personal sacrifices on behalf of others (that is, actually practice noblesse oblige).
For instance, the elite could just loudly declare drug use is wrong. But this would require some of them to give up drug use. And it would require nearly all of them to have unpleasant encounters and conversations from time to time because they were "judgey". Declaring that drug use is just normal lifestyle choice (maybe even cool) and that the real problem is criminalization is a luxury belief.
It doesn't take a Milton Friedman to notice that all of East Asia has ultra harsh drug laws and doesn't have any of the supposed problems of criminalization.
But I leave the political/legal issues aside. I'm talking specifically about culture. Even if drugs were legal there is still the matter of cultural messaging and habits. Even if you think a drug should be legal, you ought not to use it yourself and to advise others against doing so. If you have a career as a cultural influencer this goes double.
A big part of the de-criminalization movements problem is that they base their messaging on the idea that drugs just aren't that harmful and/or that we should not care about other peoples self destruction. This is a terrible attitude.
I think the crux of this disagreement is the following:
Henderson sees Elite opinion as driving policy changes, while Caplan does not, calling the influence of holding an opinion ~zero.
In some sense they are both right. What if Soros had a different opinion about criminal justice? Isn't a luxury that he can afford to virtue signal to such a degree, affecting millions of lives?
I doubt that police funding really changed much during the 2019-2024 period. Yet we had a huge crime wave. Why?
Basically, the "culture" sent the signal "criminals higher status, police lower status." Police responded to this by policing less. Criminals responded by being bolder (according to Steve Sailer blacks even drove more recklessly resulting in more fatal accidents).
If elites "signal" that chastity, temperance, and all that fuddy duddy stuff is low status that is going to effect behavior whether "policy" changes at all.
I am not very informed, but my strong impression was that police got top-down instruction to stop enforcing certain classes of crimes, demonstrated by graphs like "transit stops" go to ~0 in certain jurisdictions. That counts as a policy change.
I agree that the pro-criminal culture happened, but I'm dubious that was a primary driver for people to commit more crimes, outside of them correctly inferring that consequences would be less.
You can look at what cities changes police funding and what happened to crime in those cities. This is a case where we now know that policy and funding changes affect crime (as well as DAs prosecuting criminals).
Henderson’s point is that silly and destructive ideas that have roots in academia and percolate up to policy making have real negative influence, whereas holding the same stupid opinions for non-elite have zero influence in real life.
I felt like this was an unusually convoluted take from Bryan. I’m still not sure I really understand what he’s saying here.
I think I disagree because my perceptions is that Bryan is saying that everyone’s beliefs are equally unimportant and don’t cost any individual that much.
This seems to miss that elites determine what choices society even considers. Elites also enforce most policies so what they believe is especially important. If there’s pressure to be soft on crime then more prosecutors go after cops and escalate charges.
My take is that elites have a responsibility that comes with their power that they don’t seem to take seriously.
This seems like an overly academic criticism that I'm probably not smart enough to really argue against but also isn't enough for me to buy into because Henderson's core point is so important and this book has been a great engine to get legitimate elite criticism into mainstream discussion and polite society. Upper class society lives by mostly traditional conservative values, yet preach the exact opposite.
Amy Wax calls this "talking 60s but living 50s". I see it everywhere and it's important that we point it out. Henderson's term is a pretty convenient way to sum it all up.
The thing is that the elite doesn’t “live like the 50s”. If they did they wouldn’t do drugs or have pre-marital sex and they would be married by their mid 20s and cranking out 2.5+ kids.
They do live like a more high IQ and restrained version of the 1960s. And they solved the divorce problem by getting married in their 30s and having 1.5 kids (or none at all). Having fewer kids also allowed them to buy their way out of social dysfunction (build a beautiful bubble as Bryan calls it).
So if they preached what they practice it in many ways wouldnt change a thing. “Keep doing what you’re doing, but have higher iq about it” isn’t really a message.
Living 50s means one partner, have children, enjoy substances responsibly and be financially stable--but maybe they go to a festival and pretend to love drugs for 48 hours. Talking 60s is endorsing irresponsible living to a group that is completely unstable.
I am not sure I understand the argument against Henderson.
Henderson defines “luxury beliefs” as those “ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class at very little cost, while often inflicting costs on the lower classes.”
I suppose one example might be upper class voters who support the soft-on-crime, urban politicians and prosecutors who seem to be in vogue lately. These enlightened voters might be moved by the argument that too many minorities are being incarcerated and proudly get to wear that virtue on their sleeves. It is true that any upper class individual’s vote may not, in itself, mean much, but when done en masse they do. And lower classes are, as Henderson suggests, negatively impacted. This might explain why lower-class urban voters were less likely to advocate and vote for “defund the police” initiatives, i.e., because they would, in fact, impose a real cost on them.
So I agree that, on an individual level, “the probability that one individual flips an electoral outcome is roughly zero”, but when bad ideas gain sway over large swaths of well-intentioned, upper class voters, it seems they can inflict costs on lower class populations in certain instances.
What you are missing is that the same mechanism should also lead lower class voters to adopt the same ideas. Individually the odds that a single vote will flip the election is zero, so there is no reason for a lower class voter to not adopt those bad ideas as well. The odds that their vote will cause bad anti-police policies to be adopted is miniscule.
The problem is you are combining two mechanisms that don't work together. If believing a bad idea is individually rational, but collectively irrational, then whether that belief will personally harm you if implemented is irrelevant. So whether the upper class is sheltered from the effects of their votes doesn't change anything.
I agree that people don't pay a price in terms of policy for holding luxury absurd beliefs. OTOH, they will in terms of invitations to the best parties or advancement in academia. Conformism is the trait which luxury absurdities are to signal, not a prescription for some particular course of action.
And we can't signal conformism by asserting something a normy might believe.
“Like Henderson, Murray is annoyed at elites who fail to preach the bourgeois lifestyle they practice. But instead of building on the shaky foundation of luxury beliefs, Murray straightforwardly blames elites for lack of noblesse oblige.”
I usually agree with Bryan, but I’m 90% on Henderson’s side on this.
Henderson ain’t talking about votes and voters so much as he is criticizing liberal elites with mass influence. In other words, politicians, media members, Substack writers, etc. I.e. his primary criticism is double that of what you cite for Murray above: that said elites not only lack noblesse oblige, but they actively preach what is in the exact opposite interest of those they are supposedly speaking for.
So criticize his marquee label if you like, Bryan, but not only should you *not* be bashing his critique of what leftist elites (which about 90% equals simply “elites”) preach to the masses, you should be joining and echoing his critique.
Bryan had an essay about he hates “addicts” because they give recreational drug users a bad name. This is a pretty good example of the problem Murray is talking about.
If your a high iq person with good impulse control that could manage to do drugs in moderation…don’t. Just don’t. Don’t for yourself, even if you can manage it without ending up in the gutter it’s probably not good for you. Don’t do it because it sets a bad example and fuels a market that you know harms others. And don’t advocate for it culturally just because it’s an indulgence you would like or even worse that you don’t like but you simply want to avoid the unpleasantness of “judging” others.
Agreed. Also, I know plenty of high IQ people who are alcoholics. I have seen no studies correlating IQ with the ability to be addicted (or not) to substances, but rather IQ is correlated with lots of other positive attributes that give people more chances to get out of bad situations.
I like the example, but Bryan’s there is not a “luxury belief”, it is, I acknowledge, a decent if imperfect case where you are suggesting Bryan lacks “noblesse oblige”.
But even if you disagree with Bryan’s position on alcohol, it’s not correct to call that a Henderson “luxury belief” because a) the he is not telling the masses to do something he doesn’t, and b) it’s not something that harms the lower classes en masses. The best you can say is that rich people can handle the problem if they become an alcoholic on average better that poor people can.
So I agree that Bryan lacks noblesse oblige by (presumably) indulging in recreational drugs, but he would only be guilty of a luxury belief if he proclaimed his (clearly libertarian) defense of the legality of recreational drugs on the one hand, while forbidding his children from using them on the other.
Only exceptional individuals may influence policy on a federal levels, but more average people can change politics on a local level. E.g, a single dedicated activist might be able to make their local small town school board more/less woke. If Henderson's theory is true, we should see the wealthy activists try to advocate for stuff like minimal punishments and discipline in their rich schools where students don't misbehave anyway, and their kids aren't actually any worse off regardless. And we should also see poor activists who have more skin in the game push their local schools for stricter punishments and more discipline (unless perhaps it's their children who commit the problems that need to be disciplined).
In recent memory there was a wave of school board and district attorney elections that were influenced by George soros backed funding. My own jurisdiction was affected. Soros candidates were hard left woke and made a lot of bad changes to local policy.
"it’s easy to conclude that Henderson is just reinventing (or relabeling) my notion of “rational irrationality” -- your notion. I know Bryan isn't a philosopher so perhaps he isn't aware that this idea has been around for a long time. Here are some examples including Derek Parfit whose book inspired my doctoral dissertation.
“Rational Irrationality,” or Could It Be Rational to Cause Oneself to Act Irrationally? Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Harvard University Press 1960/1980): pp.16-19 only.
Parfit, “Could It Be Rational to Cause Oneself to Act Irrationally?” Section 5 of his Reasons and Persons (Oxford University Press, 1984): pp.12-13 only.
Gauthier, “Rationality and the Rational Aim,” in Dancy (ed.) Reading Parfit (Blackwell 1997).
Parfit, “Rational Irrationality and Gauthier’s Theory.” Appendix B of his On What Matters, vol.1 (Oxford University Press 2011): 433-447.
Those papers are not describing the same concept Bryan is. Bryan's concept of "rational irrationality" is the idea that it's individually rational to believe irrational things if doing so has no significant consequences in your daily life. It treats much irrationality in society like littering, something that is individually rational, but harmful if everyone does it. This is because irrational views that have no impact on you personally if you believe them have bad consequences if everyone collectively votes for a politician who then implements them.
Schelling and Parfit, by contrast, are describing instances where a rational actor precommits to actions that might not always be rational in order to win in game theory situations. A classic example is sabotaging your steering wheel when playing a game of chicken in order to force your opponent to be the one who turns their car. Normally sabotaging your steering wheel is irrational, but in that circumstance it allows you to win.
Fair enough. Thanks for clarifying. Not all discussions in philosophy relate to strategic commitments. The granddaddy example is probably Pascal's Wager which seems close to Bryan's version. Irrationally choosing to believe in case it saves you from eternal punishment will have negative consequences for your own life as well as others if you restrict other people based on the accompanying moral views. But Bryan's view has more of an economist's angle to it.
Caplan’s theory doesn’t so much address irrational actions as irrational beliefs. That is the distinction between him and Schelling as I recall. Not sure about the others but they seem similar in being focused on action not belief.
I’m going to argue that there really are such things as “luxury beliefs,” but that they’re not activities to which Henderson applies the label. Remembering that a luxury item is something that the wealthy can afford and the poor cannot, there are actually behaviors that fit - the classic case is that of a wealthy single woman choosing to have a child out-of-wedlock, knowing that she can dispense with the things a husband would supply, because she can afford to hire people to replace him. Further, doing it publicly can lead those who cannot really afford it to try - and get poor results.
A classic example is shown by the 1992 controversy around the sitcom “Murphy Brown,” in which the title character, played by Candice Bergen, decided to just have a baby while unmarried. Then Vice-President called out the show, warning that it was helping to popularize the idea of single women choosing to have children, for which he was much mocked by the Left. Twenty years on, liberal organizations such as the Brookings Institute are saying that he was right:
"Twenty years later, Quayle’s words seem less controversial than prophetic. The number of single parents in America has increased dramatically: The proportion of children born outside marriage has risen from roughly 30 percent in 1992 to 41 percent in 2009. For women under age 30, more than half of babies are born out of wedlock. A lifestyle once associated with poverty has become mainstream. The only group of parents for whom marriage continues to be the norm is the college-educated.”
As Henderson note, the college-educated largely have not joined in this trend, but many others have, to their detriment.
This is not the phenomenon he calls “luxury beliefs,” though. That is mostly people refusing to condemn behaviors that they themselves would never do. And I suspect that is more about a fear of being seen as judgemental, especially against minorities, who are now doing those things. Such condemnations are apt to be denounced, nowadays, as racism.
I think the "your vote doesn't matter anyway" style argument is overthinking it. People can virtue signal and vote for things that they don't actually think will come to pass. I think the rich do this all the time. Besides that, I always took "luxury beliefs" to be mostly represented by advocacy for expensive policies that are costly for everyone but that the rich are willing to pay for. The classic example is green policies, electric car mandates, over the top safety regulations and the like. The rich can't image anyone not wanting to pay for these, while the poor would rather keep their money.
Murray described the effect of the end of noblesse oblige among the elite. Henderson describes the mechanism.
In times past, elites publicly subscribed to high standards of conduct, though often failing to live up to them. The failures were relatively private. Now they publicly subscribe to Alternative Lifestyles, while privately behaving more sensibly.
This encourages self destructive behavior by the lower classes.
Imagine the reaction from non-elites, though, if they publicly trumpeted their virtues and loudly scorned the lower classes for not following their word. That would make lower class conservatives even madder at liberal snobs
Sure, I don’t disagree. But I’m trying to highlight a dissonance between some conservatives bemoaning “luxury beliefs” and the frustration that many liberal elites do not practice what they preach (even though in these cases what they practice is on average more beneficial), when at the same time they get upset about liberals being too “preachy” about values.
For example, Michelle Obama’s healthy lunch campaigns were welcomed with less than open arms from the right despite being a good example of a time when elites tried to impose (in my opinion) the positive value of healthy eating and anti-obesity from the top down
I like that description, though it makes me wonder if their beliefs as professed match beliefs as actually held, which is a different problem than holding bad beliefs alone.
It seems to me that elites have switched from playing positive-sum games to zero-sum. Judging by outcomes, they may even be playing negative-sum games, which is just stupidly destructive.
Thank you for your very thoughtful Substack article. While you and Charles Murray focus on promoting values and virtues rooted in individual agency and responsibility, which may be universally adopted through effective social policy, Rob Henderson emphasises the structural and social barriers that hinder true equality of opportunity. Henderson directly addresses these issues, highlighting the complexities of social dynamics and the impact of class on access to elite status and opportunities.
Henderson's "luxury beliefs" concept explains how the upper class uses certain beliefs and behaviours to signal status, reinforcing class distinctions. He is explicit about the barriers those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds face, acknowledging how wealth and social capital create advantages that are difficult to overcome through individual effort alone. Recognising these "elephants in the room" is crucial for developing a more comprehensive understanding of economic inequality and social mobility, particularly the role of wealth and social capital in maintaining class distinctions.
Separately, regarding your “rational, irrational” framework, could we interpret the argument that individual political influence is negligible as aligning with the Marxian critique that "democracy is the sock puppet of the plutocrats"? This perspective suggests that the democratic process is dominated by wealthy elites, rendering the political power of average individuals minimal. If so, does this mean there is no difference in the outcome of rational versus irrational political beliefs for voters?
Extrapolating all of the above, could the negligible impact of individual political action explain the political apathy and disengagement among the general populace, as observed in US voting patterns and in the sentiment expressed by Charlamagne tha God, who recently said that the 2024 election would be a choice between three options: the Crooks (Republicans), the Cowards (Democrats), and the Couch (non-participation). [I would redesignate this as "Couch" and "Other" for our discussion]
Thank you for considering these perspectives. I look forward to your thoughts. And say hi to Robin.
If I were Henderson, I would counter that the elites have much more influence than one man, one vote. After all, they control almost all our institutions. So erroneous beliefs of this elite group are particularly damaging.
Exactly what I planned to comment. Another point that seems relevant on this topic is Social Desirability Bias that Bryan often discusses. I would guess among the elites, there is greater social pressure to be on board with whatever the currently "correct" views are. Low status folks may not feel the same pressure. So, it's not clear to me that many elites actually believe what they profess to believe rather than conforming to their bubble.
I wanted to say something similar Regarding "What he misses, though, is that the selfish cost of absurd political beliefs is near-zero for virtually everyone." A single vote in a ballot box might not affect a national election, but there are plenty of examples of people losing their jobs for supporting the incorrect policy or position.
Agreed. I think this is a rare case where Bryan missed the main point.
> After all, they control almost all our institutions.
And in turn, most of our beliefs, about "reality".
How does that work? Maybe a gatekeeper effect, where members of the elite determine the range of democratic choices? What is the mechanism?
Social contagion. Pet rocks, hula hoops, etc.
Elites put a thumb on the scale for hula hoops? I still need some clarification regarding the mechanism.
In those cases (pet rock, hula hoop) a plausible alternative is that people come up with many weird ideas and some catch on. That also works as social contagion. Where does the elite aspect come in?
Yes. The people who decide what gets taught in the classroom, what ads get circulated, what shows get on tv, what news stories get covered, etc… are the elites. There isn’t any grand conspiracy or a powerful person behind the curtain pushing this stuff, it is the collective action of the highly educated class (held together by desirability bias). Social norms are driven by pop-culture which is heavily influenced by people who espouse norms that are destructive to the working class. Imagine if the NYT, sensitivity readers for books and scripts, pop magazines, etc all gradually adopted a social conservative stance: people. Just as mainstream views on gay rights/ssm evolved dramatically over the span of 20yrs, views on divorce, extramarital sex, alcohol use, porn, drug use, etc… would see major shifts.
In other words Henderson and Murray are describing different aspects of the same phenomenon. Taboos shifted and those with lower impulse control (ie the poor) suffered. The Taboos shifted because the elite established norms via the channels mentioned above that they don’t live by. They are luxury beliefs because the shift in social norms don’t harm them as much as they do the poor.
I think of ideas, cultural norms, government, memes, institutions, morals, etc. in evolutionary terms. Some gene mutations may be beneficial and thus come to dominate thru natural selection. Similarly, a cultural meme may be beneficial and spread through a group. Examples would include money, private property, trial by jury, etc. Bad memes can also spread (probably due to short term benefits and delayed costs) through groups. Nazism and communism are extreme examples. Certain memes may be bad but they are intellectually stimulating to the elite mind or serve as a status signal. If the elites don’t have to pay the costs of these ideas, then they will spread through the elite group. An economist might say that their ideas have negative externalities. Henderson calls these Luxury Beliefs. Pollution might be a better term.
Memes seem to be started by an influencer, e.g. Adam Smith, Marx, Elvis, etc. or a significant event that elevates an existing idea, e.g. defund the police.
And presumably non-elites have no similar beliefs that misjudge cause and effect? Or they do but these beliefs get no traction?
And so the elites consciously promote misguided ideas while knowing they are misguided, or are genuinely mistaken?
Non-elites, really everybody, can have bad ideas. Isn’t there book called “The Madness of Crowds” that deals with mass hysteria? That’s why many fear populism.
I can’t read the minds of the elites. My guess is that they genuinely believe what they say (and sometimes do).
"Murray straightforwardly blames elites for lack of noblesse oblige."
Luxury Beliefs are beliefs that allow one to feel they are practicing noblesse oblige without having to make personal sacrifices on behalf of others (that is, actually practice noblesse oblige).
For instance, the elite could just loudly declare drug use is wrong. But this would require some of them to give up drug use. And it would require nearly all of them to have unpleasant encounters and conversations from time to time because they were "judgey". Declaring that drug use is just normal lifestyle choice (maybe even cool) and that the real problem is criminalization is a luxury belief.
Exactly, I was going to call it faux noblesse oblige
It doesn’t take Milton Friedman to know that criminalization has contributed to the problem.
It doesn't take a Milton Friedman to notice that all of East Asia has ultra harsh drug laws and doesn't have any of the supposed problems of criminalization.
But I leave the political/legal issues aside. I'm talking specifically about culture. Even if drugs were legal there is still the matter of cultural messaging and habits. Even if you think a drug should be legal, you ought not to use it yourself and to advise others against doing so. If you have a career as a cultural influencer this goes double.
A big part of the de-criminalization movements problem is that they base their messaging on the idea that drugs just aren't that harmful and/or that we should not care about other peoples self destruction. This is a terrible attitude.
I think the crux of this disagreement is the following:
Henderson sees Elite opinion as driving policy changes, while Caplan does not, calling the influence of holding an opinion ~zero.
In some sense they are both right. What if Soros had a different opinion about criminal justice? Isn't a luxury that he can afford to virtue signal to such a degree, affecting millions of lives?
Why does policy need to change?
I doubt that police funding really changed much during the 2019-2024 period. Yet we had a huge crime wave. Why?
Basically, the "culture" sent the signal "criminals higher status, police lower status." Police responded to this by policing less. Criminals responded by being bolder (according to Steve Sailer blacks even drove more recklessly resulting in more fatal accidents).
If elites "signal" that chastity, temperance, and all that fuddy duddy stuff is low status that is going to effect behavior whether "policy" changes at all.
I am not very informed, but my strong impression was that police got top-down instruction to stop enforcing certain classes of crimes, demonstrated by graphs like "transit stops" go to ~0 in certain jurisdictions. That counts as a policy change.
I agree that the pro-criminal culture happened, but I'm dubious that was a primary driver for people to commit more crimes, outside of them correctly inferring that consequences would be less.
You can look at what cities changes police funding and what happened to crime in those cities. This is a case where we now know that policy and funding changes affect crime (as well as DAs prosecuting criminals).
Henderson’s point is that silly and destructive ideas that have roots in academia and percolate up to policy making have real negative influence, whereas holding the same stupid opinions for non-elite have zero influence in real life.
I felt like this was an unusually convoluted take from Bryan. I’m still not sure I really understand what he’s saying here.
I think I disagree because my perceptions is that Bryan is saying that everyone’s beliefs are equally unimportant and don’t cost any individual that much.
This seems to miss that elites determine what choices society even considers. Elites also enforce most policies so what they believe is especially important. If there’s pressure to be soft on crime then more prosecutors go after cops and escalate charges.
My take is that elites have a responsibility that comes with their power that they don’t seem to take seriously.
This seems like an overly academic criticism that I'm probably not smart enough to really argue against but also isn't enough for me to buy into because Henderson's core point is so important and this book has been a great engine to get legitimate elite criticism into mainstream discussion and polite society. Upper class society lives by mostly traditional conservative values, yet preach the exact opposite.
Amy Wax calls this "talking 60s but living 50s". I see it everywhere and it's important that we point it out. Henderson's term is a pretty convenient way to sum it all up.
The thing is that the elite doesn’t “live like the 50s”. If they did they wouldn’t do drugs or have pre-marital sex and they would be married by their mid 20s and cranking out 2.5+ kids.
They do live like a more high IQ and restrained version of the 1960s. And they solved the divorce problem by getting married in their 30s and having 1.5 kids (or none at all). Having fewer kids also allowed them to buy their way out of social dysfunction (build a beautiful bubble as Bryan calls it).
So if they preached what they practice it in many ways wouldnt change a thing. “Keep doing what you’re doing, but have higher iq about it” isn’t really a message.
Living 50s means one partner, have children, enjoy substances responsibly and be financially stable--but maybe they go to a festival and pretend to love drugs for 48 hours. Talking 60s is endorsing irresponsible living to a group that is completely unstable.
I am not sure I understand the argument against Henderson.
Henderson defines “luxury beliefs” as those “ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class at very little cost, while often inflicting costs on the lower classes.”
I suppose one example might be upper class voters who support the soft-on-crime, urban politicians and prosecutors who seem to be in vogue lately. These enlightened voters might be moved by the argument that too many minorities are being incarcerated and proudly get to wear that virtue on their sleeves. It is true that any upper class individual’s vote may not, in itself, mean much, but when done en masse they do. And lower classes are, as Henderson suggests, negatively impacted. This might explain why lower-class urban voters were less likely to advocate and vote for “defund the police” initiatives, i.e., because they would, in fact, impose a real cost on them.
So I agree that, on an individual level, “the probability that one individual flips an electoral outcome is roughly zero”, but when bad ideas gain sway over large swaths of well-intentioned, upper class voters, it seems they can inflict costs on lower class populations in certain instances.
Am I missing something?
What you are missing is that the same mechanism should also lead lower class voters to adopt the same ideas. Individually the odds that a single vote will flip the election is zero, so there is no reason for a lower class voter to not adopt those bad ideas as well. The odds that their vote will cause bad anti-police policies to be adopted is miniscule.
The problem is you are combining two mechanisms that don't work together. If believing a bad idea is individually rational, but collectively irrational, then whether that belief will personally harm you if implemented is irrelevant. So whether the upper class is sheltered from the effects of their votes doesn't change anything.
I agree that people don't pay a price in terms of policy for holding luxury absurd beliefs. OTOH, they will in terms of invitations to the best parties or advancement in academia. Conformism is the trait which luxury absurdities are to signal, not a prescription for some particular course of action.
And we can't signal conformism by asserting something a normy might believe.
First, Henderson's book is autobiographical and is nothing like the detailed work of Murray. Can you elaborate on your points 1 and 2?
As for 3: If non-college adults remain a little more pro-marriage in theory, why are they vastly less pro-marriage in practice?
That is a factual problem, indeed.
1) the state provides equal financial benefits then a husband at lower income levels.
2) promiscuity and drug use, huge drivers of divorce, and more damaging to those with lower impulse control and resources
“Like Henderson, Murray is annoyed at elites who fail to preach the bourgeois lifestyle they practice. But instead of building on the shaky foundation of luxury beliefs, Murray straightforwardly blames elites for lack of noblesse oblige.”
I usually agree with Bryan, but I’m 90% on Henderson’s side on this.
Henderson ain’t talking about votes and voters so much as he is criticizing liberal elites with mass influence. In other words, politicians, media members, Substack writers, etc. I.e. his primary criticism is double that of what you cite for Murray above: that said elites not only lack noblesse oblige, but they actively preach what is in the exact opposite interest of those they are supposedly speaking for.
So criticize his marquee label if you like, Bryan, but not only should you *not* be bashing his critique of what leftist elites (which about 90% equals simply “elites”) preach to the masses, you should be joining and echoing his critique.
Bryan had an essay about he hates “addicts” because they give recreational drug users a bad name. This is a pretty good example of the problem Murray is talking about.
If your a high iq person with good impulse control that could manage to do drugs in moderation…don’t. Just don’t. Don’t for yourself, even if you can manage it without ending up in the gutter it’s probably not good for you. Don’t do it because it sets a bad example and fuels a market that you know harms others. And don’t advocate for it culturally just because it’s an indulgence you would like or even worse that you don’t like but you simply want to avoid the unpleasantness of “judging” others.
Agreed. Also, I know plenty of high IQ people who are alcoholics. I have seen no studies correlating IQ with the ability to be addicted (or not) to substances, but rather IQ is correlated with lots of other positive attributes that give people more chances to get out of bad situations.
I like the example, but Bryan’s there is not a “luxury belief”, it is, I acknowledge, a decent if imperfect case where you are suggesting Bryan lacks “noblesse oblige”.
But even if you disagree with Bryan’s position on alcohol, it’s not correct to call that a Henderson “luxury belief” because a) the he is not telling the masses to do something he doesn’t, and b) it’s not something that harms the lower classes en masses. The best you can say is that rich people can handle the problem if they become an alcoholic on average better that poor people can.
So I agree that Bryan lacks noblesse oblige by (presumably) indulging in recreational drugs, but he would only be guilty of a luxury belief if he proclaimed his (clearly libertarian) defense of the legality of recreational drugs on the one hand, while forbidding his children from using them on the other.
Only exceptional individuals may influence policy on a federal levels, but more average people can change politics on a local level. E.g, a single dedicated activist might be able to make their local small town school board more/less woke. If Henderson's theory is true, we should see the wealthy activists try to advocate for stuff like minimal punishments and discipline in their rich schools where students don't misbehave anyway, and their kids aren't actually any worse off regardless. And we should also see poor activists who have more skin in the game push their local schools for stricter punishments and more discipline (unless perhaps it's their children who commit the problems that need to be disciplined).
In recent memory there was a wave of school board and district attorney elections that were influenced by George soros backed funding. My own jurisdiction was affected. Soros candidates were hard left woke and made a lot of bad changes to local policy.
"it’s easy to conclude that Henderson is just reinventing (or relabeling) my notion of “rational irrationality” -- your notion. I know Bryan isn't a philosopher so perhaps he isn't aware that this idea has been around for a long time. Here are some examples including Derek Parfit whose book inspired my doctoral dissertation.
“Rational Irrationality,” or Could It Be Rational to Cause Oneself to Act Irrationally? Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Harvard University Press 1960/1980): pp.16-19 only.
Parfit, “Could It Be Rational to Cause Oneself to Act Irrationally?” Section 5 of his Reasons and Persons (Oxford University Press, 1984): pp.12-13 only.
Gauthier, “Rationality and the Rational Aim,” in Dancy (ed.) Reading Parfit (Blackwell 1997).
Parfit, “Rational Irrationality and Gauthier’s Theory.” Appendix B of his On What Matters, vol.1 (Oxford University Press 2011): 433-447.
Those papers are not describing the same concept Bryan is. Bryan's concept of "rational irrationality" is the idea that it's individually rational to believe irrational things if doing so has no significant consequences in your daily life. It treats much irrationality in society like littering, something that is individually rational, but harmful if everyone does it. This is because irrational views that have no impact on you personally if you believe them have bad consequences if everyone collectively votes for a politician who then implements them.
Schelling and Parfit, by contrast, are describing instances where a rational actor precommits to actions that might not always be rational in order to win in game theory situations. A classic example is sabotaging your steering wheel when playing a game of chicken in order to force your opponent to be the one who turns their car. Normally sabotaging your steering wheel is irrational, but in that circumstance it allows you to win.
They are very different concepts.
Fair enough. Thanks for clarifying. Not all discussions in philosophy relate to strategic commitments. The granddaddy example is probably Pascal's Wager which seems close to Bryan's version. Irrationally choosing to believe in case it saves you from eternal punishment will have negative consequences for your own life as well as others if you restrict other people based on the accompanying moral views. But Bryan's view has more of an economist's angle to it.
Caplan’s theory doesn’t so much address irrational actions as irrational beliefs. That is the distinction between him and Schelling as I recall. Not sure about the others but they seem similar in being focused on action not belief.
I know Bryan isn't a philosopher so perhaps he isn't aware that this idea has been around for a long time.
He is a young man whose awareness is expanding.
Is 53 young?
I’m going to argue that there really are such things as “luxury beliefs,” but that they’re not activities to which Henderson applies the label. Remembering that a luxury item is something that the wealthy can afford and the poor cannot, there are actually behaviors that fit - the classic case is that of a wealthy single woman choosing to have a child out-of-wedlock, knowing that she can dispense with the things a husband would supply, because she can afford to hire people to replace him. Further, doing it publicly can lead those who cannot really afford it to try - and get poor results.
A classic example is shown by the 1992 controversy around the sitcom “Murphy Brown,” in which the title character, played by Candice Bergen, decided to just have a baby while unmarried. Then Vice-President called out the show, warning that it was helping to popularize the idea of single women choosing to have children, for which he was much mocked by the Left. Twenty years on, liberal organizations such as the Brookings Institute are saying that he was right:
"Twenty years later, Quayle’s words seem less controversial than prophetic. The number of single parents in America has increased dramatically: The proportion of children born outside marriage has risen from roughly 30 percent in 1992 to 41 percent in 2009. For women under age 30, more than half of babies are born out of wedlock. A lifestyle once associated with poverty has become mainstream. The only group of parents for whom marriage continues to be the norm is the college-educated.”
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/twenty-years-later-it-turns-out-dan-quayle-was-right-about-murphy-brown-and-unmarried-moms/
As Henderson note, the college-educated largely have not joined in this trend, but many others have, to their detriment.
This is not the phenomenon he calls “luxury beliefs,” though. That is mostly people refusing to condemn behaviors that they themselves would never do. And I suspect that is more about a fear of being seen as judgemental, especially against minorities, who are now doing those things. Such condemnations are apt to be denounced, nowadays, as racism.
I think the "your vote doesn't matter anyway" style argument is overthinking it. People can virtue signal and vote for things that they don't actually think will come to pass. I think the rich do this all the time. Besides that, I always took "luxury beliefs" to be mostly represented by advocacy for expensive policies that are costly for everyone but that the rich are willing to pay for. The classic example is green policies, electric car mandates, over the top safety regulations and the like. The rich can't image anyone not wanting to pay for these, while the poor would rather keep their money.
Murray described the effect of the end of noblesse oblige among the elite. Henderson describes the mechanism.
In times past, elites publicly subscribed to high standards of conduct, though often failing to live up to them. The failures were relatively private. Now they publicly subscribe to Alternative Lifestyles, while privately behaving more sensibly.
This encourages self destructive behavior by the lower classes.
Imagine the reaction from non-elites, though, if they publicly trumpeted their virtues and loudly scorned the lower classes for not following their word. That would make lower class conservatives even madder at liberal snobs
Most religious rules have practical roots. Certain behavior is basically _stupid_.
I’m talking about the “kids should eat less processed food in schools” push
Sure, I don’t disagree. But I’m trying to highlight a dissonance between some conservatives bemoaning “luxury beliefs” and the frustration that many liberal elites do not practice what they preach (even though in these cases what they practice is on average more beneficial), when at the same time they get upset about liberals being too “preachy” about values.
For example, Michelle Obama’s healthy lunch campaigns were welcomed with less than open arms from the right despite being a good example of a time when elites tried to impose (in my opinion) the positive value of healthy eating and anti-obesity from the top down
The federal dietary guidelines are demonstrably _not_ healthy. Have you missed the obesity epidemic?
I like that description, though it makes me wonder if their beliefs as professed match beliefs as actually held, which is a different problem than holding bad beliefs alone.
Stated vs revealed preferences.
It seems to me that elites have switched from playing positive-sum games to zero-sum. Judging by outcomes, they may even be playing negative-sum games, which is just stupidly destructive.
Thank you for your very thoughtful Substack article. While you and Charles Murray focus on promoting values and virtues rooted in individual agency and responsibility, which may be universally adopted through effective social policy, Rob Henderson emphasises the structural and social barriers that hinder true equality of opportunity. Henderson directly addresses these issues, highlighting the complexities of social dynamics and the impact of class on access to elite status and opportunities.
Henderson's "luxury beliefs" concept explains how the upper class uses certain beliefs and behaviours to signal status, reinforcing class distinctions. He is explicit about the barriers those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds face, acknowledging how wealth and social capital create advantages that are difficult to overcome through individual effort alone. Recognising these "elephants in the room" is crucial for developing a more comprehensive understanding of economic inequality and social mobility, particularly the role of wealth and social capital in maintaining class distinctions.
Separately, regarding your “rational, irrational” framework, could we interpret the argument that individual political influence is negligible as aligning with the Marxian critique that "democracy is the sock puppet of the plutocrats"? This perspective suggests that the democratic process is dominated by wealthy elites, rendering the political power of average individuals minimal. If so, does this mean there is no difference in the outcome of rational versus irrational political beliefs for voters?
Extrapolating all of the above, could the negligible impact of individual political action explain the political apathy and disengagement among the general populace, as observed in US voting patterns and in the sentiment expressed by Charlamagne tha God, who recently said that the 2024 election would be a choice between three options: the Crooks (Republicans), the Cowards (Democrats), and the Couch (non-participation). [I would redesignate this as "Couch" and "Other" for our discussion]
Thank you for considering these perspectives. I look forward to your thoughts. And say hi to Robin.