For City Journal, Kay S. Hymowitz reviews a new book Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class authored by Rob Henderson. He is the creator of the term "luxury beliefs." "It was coined to describe a modern trend among affluent Americans to use their beliefs as a way to display their social status," according to Wikipedia. Henderson asserts:
[High status individuals believe] to acknowledge the benefits of two-parent families and the stability that they are more likely to confer is to be insensitive to less fortunate families with different family structures. This attitude gets things backward, Henderson writes: “It’s cruel to validate decisions that inflict harm, especially on those who had no hand in the decision—like young children.” Luxury believers pay no price for ignoring the harms they endorse. In fact, it’s the opposite—they gain social currency at places like Yale. “The poor reap what the luxury belief class sows,” Henderson said.
Social class, one of the great explainers of social behavior. This review will not find a warm reception in Red Bluff, CA.
Afterthought: It is important to point out that the holders of luxury beliefs allowing wide behavioral latitude to others typically do not grant themselves that latitude and continue to conform to older, more structured behavioral standards. They are, for example more likely to marry and remain married.
