As a bonus to BARPod listeners, here’s the audio of a February 20 live event at the Village Underground where Jesse interviewed Rob Henderson about his book Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class, which you should definitely buy. Enjoy!
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Ohh yeah...this book is the next one I read.
Henderson said something that really resonated with me personally, and was perhaps said best by Kathy Valentine in her memoir, All I Ever Wanted. You can't think your way into right acting, but you can act your way into right thinking. Too many people believe they can invoke some purely intellectual epiphany that will fundamentally improve them as people, and I think that's bullshit.
Want to be a more confident person? Do the things confident people do. Want greater intimacy with the people in your life? Give them the intimacy you want to receive. Want to be better respected? Act like a respectable person. It might feel false at first, but after awhile these things will come more naturally. Fake it until you make it works.
(I'm not knocking therapy, mind you; I'm thinking more of these self-purification notions of, say, flogging racism from your heart before you can do any good in the world.)
This changed my life so don’t let the nay sayers get you down.
Agree with this strategy. A curious sort of alchemy takes place after you've forced yourself to "put on a good act"---your thinking actually changes.
I have found it so. And it's not that people can talk themselves out of mental illness, but acting the way you want to eventually be certainly helps you deal with it.
"It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me."
"Are you depressed? Why, then, just stop being depressed! Are you an introvert? Well, get out there and start being gregarious, for heaven's sake!"
Hmm...that's a radical reinterpretation of the statement, but whatever blows your skirt up.
I dunno. Seems neither radical nor re- to me, but a relatively fair interpretation from the POV of someone who might struggle w this sort of “therapy.”
Yeah but it works.
As someone who has suffered depression, this remains good advice. It can be hard to find the motivation to do it, but it remains valuable to be encouraged to do it.
So disappointed at the lack of cargo shorts.
I don’t care if it’s winter. Suck it up, Singal.
I was deeply disappointed by the fact Jesse wasn't wearing cargo shorts at my local Barpod meetup. I feel we have been sold a lie.
Do we have proof the cargo shorts even exist?
Is he wearing yoga pants?
Jesse looks adorable in this pic. It has to be said.
You’re joining the #cargocult
Love Rob Henderson’s observation that people who don’t believe in trickle-down economics, somehow still believe in trickle-down diversity. Thus they champion Claudine Gay in the name of racial justice. Brilliant.
I liked that too. Counterpoint: the best version of the goal is to offer an example so that people are more likely to assume that they too could rise to a certain station. I think there is something to the idea that someone is more like to think a job is a viable option if they have seen people like themselves there.
However, this is not an argument for pure equity of outcome, but for actively aiming for some level of diversity in leadership.
Yeah but I’m not sure it works. I am recalling how so many black people reacted to the Obama victory. It was not proof to them that black people like them could succeed. And there was annoyance at the idea that this meant America had now transcended racism. Many black people looked at Obama and emphatically did not see themselves.
Yes, it was a great interview full of pithy insights but this was also a standout moment for me.
Really excellent episode. I relate to so much of what Rob says. While I have a college degree and come from semi-well off parents, a few twists and turns in life have landed me in a poor industrial district in Appalachia, where I live and work. I see the disparity between the assumptions of the upper classes and the reality in Appalachia every fucking day. Trying to communicate what life is like here to those who are more well off is maddening sometimes.
I grew up working class and went to elite universities and boy his insights are so familiar. I probably one of the more woke people on this sub, but I also find it frustrating how little elitist rich left people get criticized for their bullshit.
👏👏👏👏
Did Jesse just refer to Barpod as a “movement?”
We are a nation.
noooo… I thought this was the anti-movement…. 😒 goddamn it if this is another cult I have to avoid like the time I let my friend convince me to go see her crush’s breakdance show and they locked the church doors… 😅🤔😩
Oh my god this sounds like a hilarious story.
It’s a movement against movements.
It’s an anti-cult cult. THEE anti-cult cult - none other will be tolerated.
I can only assume this interview was conducted while both participants sat on porcelain thrones so we could be a part of their movement
You are either Barpod or anti-barpod
This is why the housekeeping has to start with “we are a podcast” please please please Katie don’t let Jesse take you/ us down this road.
I haven't finished the episode yet but am enjoying it so far. It was very disappointing that Jesse didn't ask anything about his time in the Air Force. The bridge from unmotivated student to getting into Yale was not discussed at all. That would have been an interesting story. Guess I need to buy the book?;-)
Yeah the ep was ok I guess but I have no idea why I would read his book, what made him worthy of having a published biography or how and why he got into Yale.
I haven’t read his book, nor have I read “the polyamory book” but opening with the knee-jerk assumption that he deserves a reading at a bookstore while she doesn’t is not a great look for someone who wants to lecture us about entitlement
I think his one-sided feud with her came up on a recent episode of Feminine Chaos--it shouldn't be a mystery why a sexy memoir about an open marriage might be attracting more interest than one about a former foster kid going to Yale and Cambridge. That's a no-brainer without needing to bring ideology in.
Yeah, as Phoebe Maltz Bovy pointed out on her Substack, these two memoirs aren't really aimed at similar audiences.
I think you're interpreting him in the worst light possible, particularly considering you compared him to Trump in another comment. You really don't like this guy, we get it.
The same could be said for folks dumping on the polyamory author. Unlike issues around, say, compelled speech or censorship, poly should be a non-issue - even if you think it's silly, nobody is trying to make anyone else become poly. Yet a lot of folks with more socially conservative leanings (and there are a lot of these in the so-called 'heterodox' space) seem to take open identification as poly as a personal affront.
How hard is it to book a bookstore for a small event? How hard is it if you have 50,000 subscribers? It doesn't seem like an unreasonable expectation.
I thought this was a great interview! I don't agree 100% with all of Rob's assertions - for example, I think that there is an argument to be made that in certain situations maintaining a marriage can be more damaging to a child/community than an increase in neglect or poverty that a child might face in a single parent home (i.e. in case of a physically/psychologically abusive parent, especially when substances accelerate that abuse).
However, I think he really well articulates something that I've only really come to realize in the past few years about the astronomical benefits of coming from a stable home, especially when that stable home includes parents who are well-educated and/or connected.
When I was younger I fell for the promise of meritocracy hook, line, and sinker. I really thought that being smart was the only thing that mattered when I went off to university, as the first person in my family to do so. Now, my family situation wasn't as dire as Rob's sounds, but without going into detail it does appear that we share some similar experiences. That being said, I couldn't understand why so many kids at university seemed to know exactly what to do, how to act, and where they were going after they were done undergrad. I had a plan, but I didn't understand what I actually needed to do to make it happen outside of getting good grades. Networking, for instance, was completely lost on me. It's not surprise that initially didn't find my way into graduate school (in a way, this was a blessing in disguise).
The interesting thing and point of me taking a turn down memory lane was that I also bought the campus lefty belief system hook, line, and sinker. So anytime I felt uncomfortable or weirded out or out of place at a lefty event, I was made to understand that it was because of my inherent "privilege". Now I look back and I realize it was usually because my actual experience in the world was screaming out "what the fuck?". Like the time I was completely confused at how a campus group dedicated to women's rights was telling women not to call the police if they were sexually assaulted or a witness to domestic violence (because police *clap* harm *clap* community *clap*).
All of that to say, I think that a lot of people who have a gut instinct that these luxury beliefs are wrong are made to feel like that wrong feeling is coming from a defect within them rather than some real genuine insight they bring to the table, especially when this takes place at elite institutions where they are outnumbered. The Coddling of the American Mind movie that just dropped seems to portray this too with its Gen Z subjects. Interesting stuff.
I do wonder to what degree having a very stable and supportive extended family can mitigate against the negative effects of coming from a single-parent household. Rob mentioned the fact that high socioeconomic status can mitigate (when, for example, a parent can hire a good regular nanny), and my dad made a concerted effort to stay involved with me and my siblings when my parents got divorced (I don't consider myself to have been raised by a single parent). I do think framing it as "absent dad (or mom)" is possibly more accurate as well as being less stigmatizing for the involved parent who is doing their best.
I agree - the "fatherlessness" label hits a little rough considering the internet lingo of "fatherless behaviour" which has come to be a stand in for "daddy issues" (blaming the child/usually young woman for decisions made by her father, which never sat right with me), but I appreciate the spirit behind it (taking the blame off of the present parent).
I do believe that supportive family systems can be as healthy or occasionally healthier than isolated nuclear family dynamics, especially when abusive or neglectful parents are involved. I get the ethos of what Rob is saying - encouraging someone to get divorced to pursue a romantic connection or because of non-abuse related issues (i.e. your husband leaves the seat up) when someone is lower-middle class with kids and has zero family support is not a great idea. People should try to work out marriage issues if possible if they have made the decision to raise children together.
However, I do believe that these conversations in heterodox spaces can include a lot of dismissiveness about the effects of physical and psychological abuse on children. A la "I was smacked around by my dad and I turned out fine!" But it just doesn't gel with my experience. I really can't believe that having an abusive parent present in a child's life is better than the absence of that parent in most cases (unless of course the abusive parent is truly the only way for the child to have a roof over their head and enough to eat).
I think of this in terms of the fact that human children (more so than even other mammalian babies) are completely dependent on their caregivers for many years. A threat from their caregivers, sometimes at an age before they have even learned to fully distinguish themselves from their caregivers, can feel like life or death (whether or not death was imminent). And when you look at the DSM-5 Criterion A for PTSD, the stressor you look for in assessing if someone's symptoms might be the result of PTSD is exposure to death, serious injury, or sexual violence (actual or threatened for all three).
I get that the internet discourse around trauma is incredibly annoying and inaccurate, with people labelling everything from syllabus content to television shows as "sources of trauma" and PTSD just becoming another label someone can throw on their IG profile for clout. But I do think that children (I would say under the age of 10, but with the way children are infantilized now into their teen years who knows) are at higher risk to develop PTSD than adults because they are so vulnerable and dependent. Of course, development of PTSD or trauma always depends on circumstance as well as inborn temperament, but a child fearing physical retribution or other threats from a parent is just a whole different ball game than an adult getting into a physical altercation with an adult.
All of this to say, I don't think Rob necessarily has a "stay together for the kids no matter what" mentality, this is more just a general response to some more flippant attitudes I've seen in other places about this subject.
"People should try to work out marriage issues if possible if they have made the decision to raise children together."
This attitude on Rob's part (not yours, Ladygal) gives me a huge amount of pause, because people DO try to work out marriage issues if possible if they have made the decision to raise children together. I have never met a divorced person who was flippant about this.
It gives me pause too. As I mentioned above, I worry that people in heterodox spaces sometimes over-correct because the "everything is trauma!" narrative has become so pervasive. I get it, but also having frightening/unpredictable primary caregivers can still really hurt children.
What you said above about divorce making your ex-husband a better father really resonates with me. Maintaining family dynamics that permit someone to continue being abusive doesn't help anyone in that dynamic, including the person being abusive. Sometimes these things can be mended while maintaining the family unit, and sometimes they cannot. I'm glad you made the best decision for you and your children!
Thank you, Ladygal. I can't be unbiased about this issue because I've lived it, but before I lived it, I would have 100% agreed with Rob, and I wonder if he's capable of seeing the other perspective without experiencing it himself:
You fall in love. You get married. You and your spouse are completely committed to each other. You have some kids. The kids reach school age. Your spouse starts abusing you badly enough to make you hate your life but not badly enough to involve the authorities. You ask him to stop. He does not stop. Your spouse begins to abuse your children, badly enough to cause them to grow up @#*$ed in the head, but not badly enough to involve the authorities. You ask him to stop. He indicates that he plans to continue.
Rob. THIS IS WHAT DIVORCE IS FOR. Do you really think that it takes a life-threatening level of abuse to be worse for kids than growing up with two parents who don't live together? Do you really think that abusers will stop abusing if you ask them nicely? And do you really think you can tell, without ever having raised children with somebody, what raising children with somebody is going to be like, before you make the decision to do it?
You can't. There are some things you just don't know about without experiencing them--but if you have enough empathy, you can at least understand that there are situations that call for less-than-perfect solutions. I am OUT of heterodox spaces if being heterodox means thinking there is no middle ground between "abusive enough to go to jail" and "a safe and healthy environment for children."
I think getting divorced made my ex-husband a better father, I really do. I think if I had put up with the amount of psychological abuse he was leveling at us, it would have caused a lot more damage than getting my kids the heck out of there half the time. He's still got them the other half of the time and I think he got the message I sent about not being allowed to get up in their faces and sneer at them.
How many people are really out there saying that everyone should be polyamorous? I more often hear (with perhaps a whiff of superiority) that it's "not for everyone".
It reminds me of that other stock character, the sanctimonious vegan. I've met a few people like that, but I've met a lot more vegans who are nothing like that, and carnivores who go out of their way to tell you how much they hate vegans.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of reasons to find poly people annoying or cringe, but the specific idea that it's a luxury belief doesn't track for me, and connecting it to single parenting in low income communities is a real stretch. Most poly people are going to pair off by the time they have kids, but that doesn't make it hypocritical or a luxury belief. It's very reasonable that relationship structures would change with other life goals and circumstances. It's no more hypocritical than anyone else who sleeps around and then settles down.
I've not given the poly stories much attention but I got the idea that the ones getting traction were about married couples with kids.
I thought the whole basis of calling it a luxury belief is that elites are supposedly trying to undermine the nuclear family in public while practicing it themselves.
It made sense to me because it can be seen as a way of destabilizing the nuclear family. Again, though, I heard it with my assumption that the poly news of late has been focusing on married couples with children going poly. (Could not agree more with your point about the sanctimonious vegan. Not my experience at all.)
I have real life experience with sanctimonious vegans. Trust me; they are out there.
The sanctimonious vegans are online personas imo. I’ve never met a single one irl but on social media you can’t spit without hitting a dozen.
So "pescetarian" is a real thing? I thought it was something my little sister made up. Now I won't mock her (as much).
It is. I think it's awkward as well, because to me it sounds like someone who *exclusively* eats fish, but the alternative is "vegetarian except for fish," which is a mouthful. Even worse is "flexitarian," which just means "not vegetarian but I try to eat less meat," or "I'm amenable to vegetarian dishes."
Bizarre that the norm is meat in every meal, to the point where people who are even open to vegetarian dishes need a special label!
This matches my experience as well.
The luxury belief idea sounds interesting, but more for the dorm room discussion. To be blunt it sounds like a half baked idea dresses up in academic sounding language. The tendency of heterdox folks to take a fairly anodyne point, but then constantly make it sound unspeakable and dress it up in academic sounding language annoys me. Rob doesn't come across as the worst offender of this but it does remind me of worse offenders, not dissimilar to Jordan Peterson. It sounds like it blurs lines between this is my opinion based on personal accounts and this is my professional opinion backed by rigorous research. Does he have a body of research on luxury beliefs? Or is just i am credentialed, so i am going to speak on this very broad topic with authority and sprinkle data like polls saying black people don't support abolishing police. I wouldn't care that much if it was the latter, but during the discussion it feels like it lacks transparency. And then he goes the extra step by claiming luxury beliefs are causing real world harms and even seems to advocate policy, while also claiming he is not interested politics. That annoys me. What makes the topic controversial is claiming you have a way to address poverty through advocating personal responsibility, which is a conservativeargument and not a new idea. It is fine if you want to make that argument, I might even agree with you on it, but don't pretend that is not what you're saying. And don't claim that you are just arguing against the elite class but then every example is just arguing against progressive political stances. The elite vs non elite are such ambiguous categories and every time I hear it have to think what is this person getting actually pointing to. Is it the rich? The jews? The progressives? There stance usually become pretty obvious when you discover the person Marxist, a right winger, heterodox or a conspiracies or whatever. It just away calling out people in power that you disagree with.
Thank you for saying all this so succinctly! Kind of disappointed so many media people I respect seem to have fallen for this. I suspect there's some element of class guilt among a number of them playing a role.
I agree, I think class guilt probably does play role for a lot them. I also think some of it is that these people run in similar circles and are friendly, so they tend to be less critical of each other's views.
Yes! I agree with all of this. What Rob is saying isn't particularly novel....and ultimately his recipe for success is a pretty common conservative one (and one that I don't particularly disagree with either!!) I don't see any particularly new insights from him or policy ideas or really anything interesting. I do agree that his childhood and background is interesting and I can see how it would make for an interesting memoir! I would read it and can see myself enjoying it too....but the Rob Henderson social media personality leaves me cold.
LOLLLLED when he says apropos of nothing that the DJ came up to him and told him that was the best wedding speech he ever heard… DJT vibes BIGLY
I’ve read what he writes of his sister. It’s very moving. I’m glad I’m not so cynical I can’t enjoy things.
Sometimes I wonder if we’re all even listening to / reading the same thing. I get nothing but good vibes and hope from Rob. He is a statistical miracle and he gives me a lot of hope for children like he was - if anyone could shut up for five minutes and actually listen to him.
Yeah, I didn’t detect any smugness or self-congratulatory attitude in that anecdote about the wedding. It’s baffling how someone could compare that to a bombastic Trump speech.
Hi Molly! I’m sure he has a lovely relationship with his sister. My comment was rather about the need to tack on the DJ’s assessment to the anecdote.(Ps I enjoy plenty. But thanks for your concern. ❤️)
And then followed by the lady who wanted to hold him in his arms… yep, I had to turn it off… cue a good old fashioned Liz Lemon shut it down folks
I think you’re reading way too much into a nice lady, who’s a mother, feeling basic empathy when reading a story about a disadvantaged and neglected boy.
I felt the same way. But thrn I work with neglected and abused kids every day. I am hoping he has found a way to make peace as well.
That was...something.
I can see why an endorsement by Jordan Peterson and JD Vance would give a bookstore pause. The fact he refers to Charles Murray in a positive way suggests that pause is justified.
A bookstore should freeze out Rob Henderson because, having been asked about an idea of Charles Murray's that's similar to the subject of his book, he responded to the actual question he was asked instead of going off on a tangent about Murray's more controversial writings on a different topic?
You can disagree with Murray but the wholesale condemnation has always been over the top. His views aren't anywhere as bad as his critics pretend.
Bookstores are for ideas, my man.
He’s right about luxury beliefs, though
He came up with the name, which is a nice, catchy, adaptation of Veblen, but I'm not sure it's a particularly original thought. And he has a very interesting life story. But I'm not sure I've heard anything else original from him since he's been a public person.
An endorsement by Jordan Peterson and JD Vance should have given Jesse Singal pause. It certainly gives me pause. Peterson is a dysfunctional and borderline abusive dad figure and unhinged in just about every other respect these days. Vance is either mad or hopelessly cynical and will say anything to attract or appease the base.
Calling out this criticism as guilt by association is a thought-ending tactic that has the effect of shaming critics into silence.
I hope Jesse dealt with this on the podcast.
I had the opposite experience: I was bullied, traumatized and neglected at my elite Connecticut boarding school and then suffered culture shock when I attended my back-up school, Northwestern, which in the mid-70s was anything but a preppie magnet. I wasn't used to being around guys who ran around in bell-bottoms and t-shirts and who'd dated and worked in high school. Their interests ran the full gamut from beer to baseball, they had their prom photos on their desks until they put them away and they went to Daytona Beach for spring break instead of somewhere in the Caribbean. What???
And no, I'm not going to write a book about it.
I very much enjoyed JD Vance’s book.
I’ll bet Hitler enjoyed Shakespeare’s love sonnets.
What a facile criticism.
I liked Vance's book, too, but I don't like what he's doing now.
Same!
Ditto
Cool. Did ya read the book tho?
Now all these years later, those fellow students at Northwestern are voting for Trump and have read Peterson and Vance.
It doesn't sound like you've read the Daily Northwestern recently. Those kids really know how to woke:
Asian Pacific American Coalition hosts dialogue on reparations for Japanese Americans
February 26, 2024
Following the Day of Remembrance for Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II, more than a dozen Northwestern students gathered in Kresge Hall on Friday afternoon to examine the impact of reparations.
Feb. 19, the Day of Remembrance, commemorates the day former President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the imprisonment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps in 1942. This led to the removal of over 120,000 people of Japanese descent from their homes for being deemed a threat to “national security.”
Japanese Americans received about $37 million in reparations from the Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act of 1948, and over 82,000 surviving citizens who were incarcerated received $20,000 each from the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.
At Friday’s event, hosted by NU’s Asian Pacific American Coalition, students discussed the importance of reparations and reflecting on their Japanese American identities.
SESP senior and APAC Communications Co-Chair Lily Ng led the dialogue with Weinberg sophomore and APAC Treasurer Brandon Takahashi. Ng said it is important to remember Japanese Americans’ courage and the strength of their activism both during and after the incarceration period.
“Framing that in a way of a celebration of the strength of our identity helps me look at the event as something that I can draw from to continue to speak out for others, as opposed to something that’s shameful,” she said.
Emphasizing the importance of language, Ng said it is important to refer to Japanese Americans’ imprisonment as “incarceration,” rather than “internment.”
She said the term “internment” suggests someone is at fault for their imprisonment, while the term “incarceration” more closely describes the injustice of the situation.
A clause in the 1988 Civil Liberties Act stipulates that only surviving formerly incarcerated Japanese Americans can receive reparations. Takahashi said this sets a dangerous precedent for other marginalized groups seeking reparations. As an example, he said this “survival clause” would make it “impossible” for Black Americans to receive federal reparations for slavery.
During the dialogue, attendees discussed the ways in which Japanese American culture was suppressed by mass incarceration, the need for more education on this topic in American schools, and various examples of reparations programs.
“You need to have multiple systems, multiple policies, and you really need them to go into the social fabric of the society and really address that as well,” SESP junior Sophia Chang said. “The community aspect as well, not just solely monetary compensation, is necessary.”
Chang said opponents of reparations for Black Americans often argue that society does not know what reparations would look like, but she pointed to the reparations given to Japanese Americans as historical evidence that reparations can be implemented successfully.
She discussed how Asian Americans hold a precarious position in the American racial hierarchy that discourages them from getting involved in politics. She said Asian Americans are often categorized as a “model minority,” but that they face distinct challenges due to a feeling of perpetual “foreignness.”
Medill senior and APAC Co-President April Li, a former Daily staffer, said it is important to represent the diverse needs of the Asian American Pacific Islander community in American society.
“AAPI is such a broad term that encompasses so many different communities,” Li said. “Even between Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, there are so many differences in our histories, our communities and what we look for. I think a starting point is centering everyone’s voices.”
https://dailynorthwestern.com/2024/02/26/lateststories/asian-pacific-american-coalition-hosts-dialogue-on-reparations-for-japanese-americans/
I am not referring to today’s kids but the ones you were with in the 70’s.
Thanks for the clarification!
This describes the prevailing ethos among the people I was around:
"I think the conviviality was fueled by booze, pot, and various other controlled substances and, quite simply, you weren’t one to get smashed. A guy who joins a fraternity and doesn't drink is like someone who joins a monastery and doesn’t like praying and making brandy. He’s going to feel like he doesn't fit in--unless he learns to like praying and brandy-making."
So yeah, they probably are voting for Trump and have read Peterson and Vance.
Those 70’s kids you were with are now Trump MAGA senior citizens now. Those preppie types have raised the woke generation.
I listened to his interview on Meghan Daum's pod (not always a fan of hers), but I couldn't get through this one. I kept thinking of how the author of this hilarious (https://thenewinquiry.com/an-american-education-notes-from-uatx/) piece called Henderson "a would-be Jordan Peterson" and once I got to that joke he made about Bill Nye not being able to read, I had to turn it off (yes, I know I'm on the more left-of-center side of BARpoders).
That article had the potential to be really good - the part about Harlan Crow funding this thing is particular important - but then it devolved into essentially, “These people I disagree with are transphobic and racist and nothing more than the respectable face of the far right,” which is disappointing. It had far more smugness to its tone than anything Henderson says in this interview. The author never delves into WHY he’d compare Henderson to Peterson so it just seems like a cheap shot. Oh, and the whole implying Bari Weiss is responsible for Refaat Alareer being killed thing, which was a topic of an entire BARpod episode - that’s just lazy.
You're not the only one. I'm struggling to see the "there" there.
It makes me think, “Was there nobody else you could get to endorse this? Nobody? Really?” I get it, you have to sell books, controvery sells books, but…there was no other option?
He doesn’t come from money. He needs to move paper.
This book has been so hyped up that it would sell even without those endorsements.
No one buys books. He needs all the help he can get.
A polarizing endorsement can easily lose you readers just as much as it can bring you readers. If you want to show people on the left how their attitudes and beliefs are actually hurting the people they think they’re helping, then this isn’t a useful way of getting them to pick up the book.
Idk if I want to support a "movement", if this all ends with a BARPod kool aid luau in Guyana I will feel guilty
It was Flavor Aid.
Fun discussion and an interesting and important issue. Some similarity to FdB's "How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement" and similar accusations of hypocrisy as came out around Melissa S. Kearney's Two Parent Privilege (also mentioned by Dr. Henderson). But here is my serious and seriously creepy question - who exactly are these supposed elites who are espousing (or perhaps just not contradicting) "luxury beliefs." I think there was an example of some public school teachers and administrators doing something crazy based on their luxury beliefs, but does anyone really think that teachers and administrators are elite? Other than a few teach for America types slumming, those educators, while in the 30-40% with a college degree are neither educationally nor economically elite.
Maybe I am just too old 60+ but while I wouldn't say something mean to someone having a child before getting married, I would think it. I would certainly disagree with anyone who said that we should abolish or "defund" the police. I am even very cautious about the idea that mental health specialists can do a better job with emergency calls about people experiencing extreme emotional disturbance, until I see more evidence. I think there were also some examples of college kids in Dr. Henderson's past espousing luxury beliefs, but why would anyone listen to college kids anyway? College kids have always had a bunch of stupid ideas that go away pretty quickly when they finish growing up. My kids marched and protested in 2020 but while they are the children of the elite, they are still more children than actual elites. It certainly doesn't feel worth arguing with them, especially as I feel reasonably certain that in a few years, they will come to see reason.
>but does anyone really think that teachers and administrators are elite
I mean they easily can be. In my borderline upper middle class circles a lot of the most "woke" parents are middle aged white teacher ladies (often hot) with more centrist husbands who have actually remunerative careers.
Meanwhile they teach for a couple years, then take a couple years off to work on their novel, then go to an expensive writers workshop on the other side of the country, then maybe dabble in teaching again. Often they went to like a third tier elite school (Brown or Columbia or something).
Anyway, that is a type of person I literally know multiple copies off. And they have A LOT of luxury beliefs.
And lets not even get into the non-profit world where every third person's father is a surgeon or the richest farmer in Iowa or something.
Maybe in nice parts of suburbia or at private schools you find."elites" working in elementary or high schools - but i would be very surprised if there were many in Chicago, Atlanta, or. New York City's public schools. But I guess its an empirical question.
That’s why they just do a couple year stints, but yeah typically the first stint is a matter mission and then the second time around is something easier.
Just finished Rob’s book tonight, and I really enjoyed it. It’s inspired me to review my opinions for any “luxury beliefs” (I’ve generally been supportive of drug legalization, so that’s one according to Rob).
Me too. I’m rethinking that one.
Based on all the weird new negative commenters, I would like to use my position as the King of America to offer Rob Henderson a knighthood. He will be anointed in high fructose corn syrup and I will tap him on each shoulder with the tape measure my grandfather gave to me. Then be charged to go forth and sigh a lot at rich people.
Troubled: A Memoir is gonna have to wait, I still have 36h 48m left of My Name Is Barbra
I think it's generous to assume that elites don't deliberately enforce ideas that minimise socioeconomic class as a factor in oppression. They may be doing it subconsciously but I don't think it's a coincidence that the thing that has probably the greatest bearing on whether you will have a positive or a negative outcome in life is now the one that universities, media outlets and corporations seem the least interested in discussing.
I think on the individual level, people are aware how lucky they are to be wealthy and educated and want to obscure that fact from a place of guilt or shame. Or, at least, that is my experience dealing with rich hipsters who pretend they are poor.
Yes, this is the basic mechanism whereby it happens. I think most people do it subconsciously, but I also think those who really hold power (corporations, politicians, the mega wealthy) have cynically realised just how useful it is in deflecting attention from the fact that most inequality is caused by socioeconomic factors and not by sexual orientation/gender identity/race/religion.
Honestly, I thought this was a bit of a yawn. Jesse spruiked Henderson as someone who offered fresh analysis with a novelist's eye for color and detail, but none of that came through in the discussion. Henderson was flat and affectless (maybe his cold?), and Jesse didn't press him into interesting territory. Oh well, better luck next time, guys.
He sounded like I did when I gave an interview with a cold recently. I would love to memory hole that interview.
Really enjoyed this talk and look forward to reading the book. Younger me would have bought it 100%. I wonder if his views will change if he ever finds himself needing to get divorced in order to protect his own and/or his children's health.
Just started this and I'm hooked! (Had to pause while getting ready to drive to office.)
The fact that a pulled-myself-up-by-my-bootstraps story codes as "right wing" and no bookstore in a progressive area would host the author is a real eye-opener.
(When they say Charles Murray and JD Vance endorsed it, did they mean there's a blurb on the back cover, or did they simply indicate in a column or a talk that they liked the book?)
Vance and Peterson have blurbs on the back, but not Murray. (You can check on Amazon.)
Interesting about the testing. I have an academically exceptional child. He had a some behavioural issues (in school only, he was by far my most well behaved child at home) when he was young and was tested by an educational psychologist. They told me he was below average IQ, a result that was so demonstratably ridiculous all it did was sour me on the idea of IQ. It also made me disengage from the whole process which, with hindsight, was definitely a good thing.
He is an adult now and has excellent recall of his childhood. I am going to ask him if he remembers the test.
Razib Khan’s interview is much better, prob bc Jesse needs Katie to keep him alert
https://open.substack.com/pub/razib/p/rob-henderson-foster-kid-to-ivy-league?r=1fx0z&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
The whole luxury beliefs idea seems like a shortcut to make certain ideas seem illegitimate by claiming that their advocates have a "false consciousness." I don't believe it when Marxist say it about capitalism so I don't believe it when others say it about polyamory and drug legalization. While there are definitely status and signaling games being played among humans of all classes, it's not construed that way in their own cognition except among the few nakedly psychopathic people who consciously exploit others.
I don't think it takes psychopathy, just a bit of cowardice and self-delusion. You might privately think that defunding the police would hurt low-income and minority communities, but you know the social consequences of saying so would be severe, so you keep your mouth shut. You will probably rationalize away your doubts and avoid thinking about them. It's not conscious exploitation but neither does it let off the hook those individuals or (more importantly) the communities and institutions which let this kind of groupthink fester.
Idk, the people I know who hold these "luxury beliefs" luxuriate in them, they're not reluctantly going along. This is like assuming that Christians don't really believe that Jesus rose from the dead because c'mon, do you really think that?
Based on his comments about sociopaths in public K-12 administration (a career path we all know is absolutely strewn with get-rich-quick Gordon Gekko types), maybe he does actually think that kind of psychopathy is common.
It doesn’t have to do with money, it has to do with power. And I believe he was really referring to administrators, who do get decent money and a lot of community power.
Do you really think people implementing programs like Woke Kindergarten are doing so because they are sociopaths?
I think the person who invented woke kindergarten program is either a sociopath, a grifter, or an example of Dunning Krueger to the highest degree. She knew that these kids were lost, and we've got a limited amount of time to turn them around. Why did she think her program would do that.? As for the school board or admin who purchased this? Maybe a true believer, or a virtue signaler, or an incompetent Dunning Krueger person again. Decisions about curriculum are supposed to be data driven, and clearly this was implemented sans any evidence that it would work.
Ever since reading The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson I have been struck with the notion of how psychopaths in positions of power influence things.
Of those options, "sociopath" seems like the very least likely. Being a true believer is not incompatible with a willingness to take opportunities to make a buck, and there are plenty of people in education who strongly believe anti-oppression frameworks are important.
Sure, yeah.
This whole podcast is full of examples of pathological liars and grifters using both the relative anonymity of the internet and the language of social justice to make a quick buck off of the public. Of course there are people doing this because they've spotted there's a market for it and see it as a way to increase their social and financial capital, with little thought for the impact on those they purport to want to help.
I can't speak to sociopathy (or anti-social personality disorder) specifically, but I do think that you can find a lot of Cluster B personality disorders and people who have these traits at a subclinical level end up in jobs like these. In my experience, you also find them in hospitals and social work settings. Why? Because these positions, while not always well paid, allow you to have power and influence over someone else (often someone with not a lot of power themselves). Midwest Molly already summed it up well. It's not about the money for these personality types.
Sociopathg and cluster b personality disorders are not interchangeable. I was responding to what Rob said in the interview, which verged on the absurd.
Well, my understanding is that sociopathy is a colloquial term for anti-social personality disorder, which is a Cluster B personality disorder. I can't speak to the numbers Rob pulled out though - I think he said 20% which I would hope is too high to be right.
Ah, you're right, I take it back. I still find the accusation absurd, and indicative that he really does not have any familiarity with the kind of activist spaces that produce things like Woke Kindergarten.
I don't get the false consciousness angle. False consciousness= what you think is good for you is wrong. Luxury beliefs = what you think is good for other people is wrong, and you're insulated from those impacts. And, even getting to believe them is a sign of your luxury.
That last bit probably isn't always there, but sometimes. In some groups holding crazy beliefs is a sign of belonging. True of flat Earthers - folks who approach getting into ever crazier conspiracies as a kind of badge of belonging. True of Scientologists, whose beliefs become crazier the deeper you go in, which serves a function: willingness to believe them is a commitment marker. It's not an uncommon social dynamic. Beliefs have always binded humans. Sometimes crazy beliefs bind people more.
Saying "abolish the police" is kind of a show off move. Like, "beat this!" for people who are trying to one up each other in criticizing the system.
That said, everything about his upbringing and experience at elite universities is pretty interesting and I'll probably buy his book
I like Rob and his story is compelling. I also agree with his perspective on the problem with anti-grit victim-hood culture.
But must 3 podcasts I subscribe to interview the same person during the same week? I get that he has a book out, but his ideas are not so sophisticated that I need to hear them repeated ad nauseam.
Is my belief that I am entitled to original content from my multiple heterodox podcasts a luxury belief?
I heard Henderson talk on Michael Shermer’s podcast. Interesting personal story more suited to a magazine article than a book.
Join the movement... don’t you mean cult?
Can confirm the choking game was a thing in the UK too. Slightly different variation with somebody pushing on your chest while you stand against a wall and hyperventilate.
I will confess it didn't work on my so I ended up faking fainting most of the time. I wonder if we all did?
I remember a kid trying to make it a thing at school in second year of secondary, but he held his nose to make himself faint rather than being choked. I'm pretty sure he was faking it too.
Rob should run for the house seat in CA-1.
I'm serious.
Who’s gonna tell Jesse those chis aren’t vegetarian?
Jesse is so my type
I also wonder if the idea that "the elite replicate the success sequence of marriage etc. in their kids" is engaging in the kind of mistake Thomas Sowell talks about where you assume "the elite" (people with high income) are a static group, rather than an abstraction that people enter and exit over time. Maybe the people who adopt the "elite life elements" like marriage and high educational attainment just keep moving into the high income bracket as those who don't adopt them move out of it 🤷♂️
Or to put it another way, maybe in adulthood the blue haired Yale gender studies graduate will indeed be working at a cafe where the working class kid who had two parents and got a graduate degree in hard science will move into the more rarified income brackets
Familial wealth will likely stop the Yale kids from falling too far down the social ladder - it’s the outcomes for the following generation that interest me. How long do the advantages last if they are not reinforced?
Exactly. You can't conflate personal income with familial wealth. How many kids leave selective colleges then go "backpacking in the Himalayas" while making little to no income. They take that route because family wealth allows them to. There doesnt seem to much downward mobility among wealthy in the US.
And who can afford to take the unpaid internships you need to get a leg up in so many industries? Who can focus on their studies instead of having to spend time at a work-study job? Who can live in NYC while earning $40K annually in an entry-level job at a nonprofit or in publishing? The cushions are real. It’s another form of investment. I don’t blame well-off parents for doing what they can to support their children’s dreams. But when those dreams don’t eventually turn into reality decades down the road, I wonder what happens.
This is what I mean - the person who fritters away a bunch of time with experimental lifestyles and low income prestige jobs is much less likely to end up married and having kids/replicating what their parents did for them.
We use not our Ivy League degrees, we date people who are not college-educated. That's all.
Good lord, you ARE as freakishly tall as Katie reluctantly admits!
I am such a huge fan of Rob Henderson. I got the chance to meet him in person and hear him talk about his life and how it's shaped his worldview and he is such an impressive figure for being relatively young. I also got the chance to interview him awhile back: https://open.substack.com/pub/ryanclarkself/p/all-the-memories-the-emotions-were?r=7y31d&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thank you for this and have ordered three books for my kids!
is this interview dishy and funny and full of shit talk? i’m getting that it will be sad. I don’t want sad. I don’t want to be inspired. I am sorry as i always listen to your podcasts
Before I listen, just want to say, Jesse’s face looks bigger than his head
I did that black out trick with many kids in the early 80s in junior high. We called them Vietnam hits for some reason. Kinda like doing nitris.
I was busy choking myself in eastern Canada in the 90s.
I hope the kids have stopped.
Yup, ran across it at a fly-over state college choir summer camp for high schoolers late-90s