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‘Luxury Beliefs’ That Only the Privileged Can Afford
The Wall Street Journal via MSN ^ | 2/10/24 | Rob Henderson

Posted on 02/11/2024 7:14:08 PM PST by Uncle Miltie

In the same way that you don’t notice the specifics of your own culture until you travel elsewhere, you don’t really notice your social class until you enter another one. As an undergraduate at Yale a decade ago, I came to see that my peers had experienced a totally different social reality than me. I had grown up poor, a biracial product of family dysfunction, foster care and military service. Suddenly ensconced in affluence at an elite university—more Yale students come from families in the top 1% of income than from the bottom 60%—I found myself thinking a lot about class divides and social hierarchies.

I’d thought that by entering a place like Yale, we were being given a privilege as well as a duty to improve the lives of those less fortunate than ourselves. Instead, I often found among my fellow students what I call “luxury beliefs”—ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class but often inflict real costs on the lower classes. For example, a classmate told me “monogamy is kind of outdated” and not good for society. I asked her what her background was and if she planned to marry. She said she came from an affluent, stable, two-parent home—just like most of our classmates. She added that, yes, she personally planned to have a monogamous marriage, but quickly insisted that traditional families are old-fashioned and that society should “evolve” beyond them.

My classmate’s promotion of one ideal (“monogamy is outdated”) while living by another (“I plan to get married”) was echoed by other students in different ways. Some would, for instance, tell me about the admiration they had for the military, or how trade schools were just as respectable as college, or how college was not necessary to be successful....

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: academia; cluelesselites; codevilla; culture; education; elitists; luxurybeliefs; rulingclass
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More at source.

Important article for your consideration.

1 posted on 02/11/2024 7:14:08 PM PST by Uncle Miltie
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To: Uncle Miltie
My classmate’s promotion of one ideal (“monogamy is outdated”) while living by another (“I plan to get married”) was echoed by other students in different ways.

Many young men are aware of the strategy of:

Marrying the guy.
Cheating on the guy.
Filing for divorce.
Getting half his stuff in the settlement.
Moving on to someone "better".
Repeating the process.

Hypergamy is all the rage.

2 posted on 02/11/2024 7:23:15 PM PST by ClearCase_guy
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To: Uncle Miltie

“To avoid misery, I believe we have to admit that certain actions and choices, including single parenthood, substance abuse and crime, are actually in and of themselves undesirable and not simply in need of normalization. Indeed, it’s cruel to validate decisions that inflict harm. And it’s a true luxury to be ignorant of these consequences.”


3 posted on 02/11/2024 7:24:19 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (Objective: Permanently break the will of the population to ever wage war again.)
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To: Uncle Miltie

“Continue reading in the app”

Nope.


4 posted on 02/11/2024 7:24:24 PM PST by MeganC (Ruzzians aren't people. )
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To: MeganC

You can also “Expand the Article”, and read in your browser without the app.


5 posted on 02/11/2024 7:26:09 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (Objective: Permanently break the will of the population to ever wage war again.)
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To: Uncle Miltie

A concept so simple that no Libtard can understand that it is fact, not racism.


6 posted on 02/11/2024 7:40:56 PM PST by Vigilanteman (The politicized state destroys aspects of civil society, human kindness and private charity.)
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To: Uncle Miltie

Thank you.

Interesting commentary on status symbols and elite language/vocabulary.

I’ve run into that nonsense in Jackson Hole when I would work there.


7 posted on 02/11/2024 7:41:35 PM PST by MeganC (Ruzzians aren't people. )
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To: Uncle Miltie

https://energiesnet.com/luxury-beliefs-that-only-the-privileged-can-afford-rob-henderson-wsj/


8 posted on 02/11/2024 8:08:21 PM PST by coloradan (They're not the mainstream media, they're the gaslight media. It's what they do. )
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To: ClearCase_guy
That is NOT what the upper middle/upper class thinks/intends at all.

You just gave away your own class.

Yes, there really IS a class system in America and it ALWAYS has been present; though some of that has changed through the centuries and yes, even decades.

9 posted on 02/11/2024 8:19:25 PM PST by nopardons
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To: Uncle Miltie

At least half of the WSJ editorial staff are enemies of MAGA.
They’ve been sucking us into a neocon hell hole for decades.


10 posted on 02/11/2024 8:31:18 PM PST by Bullish (...And just like that, I was dropped from the ping-list)
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To: Bullish

Agree.

Paul Gigot sucks.

Robert Bartley was solid.


11 posted on 02/11/2024 8:36:35 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (Objective: Permanently break the will of the population to ever wage war again.)
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To: ClearCase_guy
Hypergamy is all the rage.

Aka "serial monogamy".

12 posted on 02/11/2024 8:38:20 PM PST by lightman (I am a binary Trinitarian. Deal with it!)
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To: Uncle Miltie

bump


13 posted on 02/11/2024 8:52:53 PM PST by Albion Wilde (Either ‘the Deep State destroys America, or we destroy the Deep State.’ --Donald Trump)
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To: ClearCase_guy

I’m starting to sympathize with all those MGTOW folks.


14 posted on 02/11/2024 8:54:37 PM PST by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: Uncle Miltie
Luxury ideas are nothing new. Thorstein Veblen described the phenomenom ii The Theory of the Leisure Class." Veblen was also a Yale graduate.
15 posted on 02/12/2024 3:40:29 AM PST by Lonesome in Massachussets (Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead!)
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To: Uncle Miltie

“my peers had experienced a totally different social reality than me.”

Went to Yale and doesn’t know how to use “me” vs “I” correctly?


16 posted on 02/12/2024 3:47:38 AM PST by MayflowerMadam (Fraud vitiates everything." - SCOTUS)
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To: Uncle Miltie

See tagline!


17 posted on 02/12/2024 4:22:08 AM PST by Aevery_Freeman (Wish I was rich enough to believe Leftist BS!)
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To: Uncle Miltie

Excellent read.


18 posted on 02/12/2024 4:32:47 AM PST by MeanWestTexan (Sometimes There Is No Lesser Of Two Evils)
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To: ClearCase_guy

One key point I think would tell young men about hypergamy:

It is instinctive.

Imho many women do not consciously know it is their strategy.

They do it on autopilot.

That is why it is so easy for them to lie about it—to themselves and others.

That is also why it can be hard to detect for young men.


19 posted on 02/12/2024 4:45:21 AM PST by cgbg ("Our democracy" = Their Kleptocracy)
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To: Lonesome in Massachussets

Veblen was a very smart guy.

One of his classic concepts—applies to things like Super Bowl tickets:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

Another important concept is “status seeking” behavior.

We recently received a wedding invitation from a relative. We had never discussed politics with him—never came up....

The invitation talked about how the couple met and what they had in common and specifically mentioned “progressive politics”.

Conservatives just don’t talk about politics in wedding invitations.

But—leftists might? Why? Because they view “progressive politics” as a sign that they have now have status, that they share the ideals of the wealthy and powerful, that they have now “made it”.

It is totally disgusting.

As one blogger recently said: “They think they are the revolution but in fact they are the Empire.”


20 posted on 02/12/2024 4:51:03 AM PST by cgbg ("Our democracy" = Their Kleptocracy)
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