00:00:00
okay um well buckle your seat belt um
00:00:04
because I think this next thing is
00:00:06
probably going to shake some of your
00:00:08
thinking um if you guys have want to be
00:00:12
uh provoked one of the most provocative
00:00:14
books you can
00:00:16
read uh is by a gentleman by the name of
00:00:19
Charles Murley called uh I think it's
00:00:21
called breaking apart anyways it's it's
00:00:23
basically a study on
00:00:25
sociology and uh there's a guy a younger
00:00:29
version named Rob Henderson who I
00:00:31
randomly met on the internet a few years
00:00:33
ago and Rob's story is pretty incredible
00:00:36
this is a guy that had a drug addicted
00:00:38
mother he bounced around foster care his
00:00:41
whole life he uh dropped out of high
00:00:45
school I think he joined the Air Force
00:00:46
left the Air Force and then went to Yale
00:00:49
and then got a PhD from Cambridge um but
00:00:53
he has had an incredibly hard life but
00:00:56
is an incredibly happy kind thoughtful
00:01:00
human who's prettyy introspective about
00:01:04
um just society and sociology and people
00:01:07
um if you don't have a chance to follow
00:01:09
Rob on Twitter I highly encourage you to
00:01:11
do it he's got an incredible um
00:01:13
newsletter um it's just fascinating
00:01:17
stuff about human psychology and uh he's
00:01:19
going to give us a little presentation
00:01:21
then we're going to have a conversation
00:01:22
so Rob Henderson
00:01:23
[Applause]
00:01:26
everybody let your winners ride
00:01:30
rman
00:01:31
[Music]
00:01:34
David and instead we open source it to
00:01:36
the fans and they've just gone crazy
00:01:38
with
00:01:39
[Music]
00:01:45
love I did graduate high school uh 2.2
00:01:48
GPA bottom third of my class uh so I've
00:01:52
uh I've been developing this framework
00:01:54
of luxury beliefs for uh a couple of
00:01:56
years now uh so we'll just jump right in
00:01:58
we'll start with a with a puzzle what do
00:02:01
top hats have in common with defunding
00:02:04
the police or romanticizing unmarried
00:02:06
parenting or divorce or promoting
00:02:09
careerism over attentive care for
00:02:12
children and family uh before we get
00:02:14
into it chth told you a bit about my
00:02:16
unusual background I was born here in
00:02:18
Los Angeles I grew up in foster homes
00:02:21
here in LA and all around California uh
00:02:23
I fled as soon as I could uh enlisting
00:02:26
in the military when I was 17 and then
00:02:28
later attended Yale on the GI Bill and
00:02:30
and a PhD from University of
00:02:32
Cambridge and throughout uh well well
00:02:35
Yale was a very different environment
00:02:36
for me I learned at Yale that there are
00:02:38
more uh students from families in the
00:02:40
top 1% of the income scale than the
00:02:42
entire bottom 60% and some of those
00:02:44
personal experiences along with my sort
00:02:46
of academic research uh led me to a
00:02:49
discovery which is that luxury beliefs
00:02:52
uh have to a large extent uh replaced
00:02:55
luxury goods luxury beliefs are ideas
00:02:58
and opinions that conf first status on
00:03:00
the upper class while often inflicting
00:03:02
costs on the lower classes now to be
00:03:04
clear I'm not saying that luxury goods
00:03:05
no longer signify status uh rather are
00:03:08
making the point that luxury goods have
00:03:09
become a noisier indicator of status uh
00:03:12
and as a result luxury beliefs have uh
00:03:15
Arisen and as we as we'll see later uh a
00:03:17
core feature of a luxury belief is that
00:03:19
the believer is Comfortably insulated
00:03:21
from the consequences of his or her
00:03:25
belief so there are multiple components
00:03:27
to this luxury belief idea but it starts
00:03:29
with uh Vin he was an economist and
00:03:31
sociologist in the late 19th century and
00:03:34
in 1899 he published a book called the
00:03:36
theory of the Leisure Class uh and one
00:03:38
of the core insights of this book is
00:03:41
that because we can't be certain about
00:03:43
the financial status of other people a
00:03:46
good way to size up their means is to
00:03:47
see whether they could afford uh
00:03:50
expensive uh and costly Goods so in
00:03:52
Bin's day these were things like Tuxedos
00:03:55
and top hats and evening gowns pocket
00:03:57
watches and monal uh partaking in
00:03:59
expensive leisurely activities like golf
00:04:01
or beagling uh attending uh expensive
00:04:04
and and lavish events kind of like oh
00:04:09
um so there's
00:04:12
[Applause]
00:04:14
a there's a great uh line in this book
00:04:17
uh uh Vin uh somewhat tongue-in-cheek uh
00:04:20
suggests that even even Butlers are
00:04:21
status symbols he writes that the the
00:04:23
chief use of servants is the evidence
00:04:25
they afford of the Master's ability to
00:04:26
pay um so these findings were later
00:04:29
echoed a few decades later uh by the
00:04:32
French sociologist Pierre bdue uh in a
00:04:34
classic uh work in sociology called
00:04:37
distinction of social critique of the
00:04:38
Judgment of taste and this uh in this
00:04:40
book Pier berue coined this term
00:04:42
cultural capital uh and the idea was
00:04:44
that uh the upper segment of society
00:04:47
would convert their material resources
00:04:49
into uh uh uh Avenues to express and and
00:04:53
perform uh social class through what he
00:04:56
called the dispositions of Mind and Body
00:04:58
uh uh developing intricate and expensive
00:05:00
tastes uh knowledge of of uh wine and
00:05:04
art and other rarified cultural domains
00:05:06
uh taste Customs opinions habits he used
00:05:09
this term distance from necessity uh in
00:05:12
other words only people who did not work
00:05:15
bluecollar jobs manual labor could
00:05:18
afford to invest the time and the
00:05:19
resources uh into performing uh uh the
00:05:23
class mannerisms of that top
00:05:25
segment so one of the points that be uh
00:05:28
pier bdue and Bin made was that in order
00:05:30
for a symbol a status symbol to signify
00:05:34
status uh it has to be rare it has to be
00:05:36
exclusive difficult to obtain costly to
00:05:39
purchase once a status symbol is freely
00:05:41
available to the masses uh the elites
00:05:43
will subsequently abandon it so there
00:05:44
are historical examples of this uh one
00:05:47
that I like uh here the in the Middle
00:05:48
Ages in Europe SP spices were difficult
00:05:51
to obtain and costly to purchase only
00:05:53
the elites could afford them but as
00:05:55
European societies colonized India and
00:05:58
the Americas and other regions of the
00:05:59
globe Globe the cost of spices
00:06:01
subsequently declined and uh the mass
00:06:03
public commoners in Europe were able to
00:06:05
obtain spices and in response many
00:06:07
European Elites decided that spices were
00:06:09
vulgar and um under the reign of Louis
00:06:12
the 14th Court chefs banned Sugar and
00:06:14
Spice from all meals except for desserts
00:06:18
um there's another example here uh
00:06:20
dueling in the American colony so
00:06:21
dueling was initially uh a practice
00:06:24
primarily engaged in by Aristocrats it
00:06:26
was you know it was something that only
00:06:28
gentlemen partook for Honor uh famously
00:06:31
one of America's founding fathers
00:06:33
Alexander Hamilton was killed in a duel
00:06:35
against Aaron Burr uh but gradually this
00:06:38
practice that was initially confined to
00:06:39
the elite spread uh throughout the
00:06:41
colonies and as a result uh the elites
00:06:45
abandoned this practice and then it was
00:06:46
subsequently outlawed in the late 19th
00:06:48
century so distinction uh is the key
00:06:51
motive here now A couple of years ago
00:06:54
there was a great book uh by the author
00:06:56
Michael Knox Baron called wasps the
00:06:58
splendors and miseries of an American
00:07:00
aristocracy and in this book Baron
00:07:02
writes about white Anglo-Saxon
00:07:04
Protestants so this was the American
00:07:06
ruling class from roughly the mid 19th
00:07:08
to the mid 20th centuries and baron
00:07:10
points out that wasps had mixed feelings
00:07:13
about their fellow Americans uh he
00:07:15
writes that many wasps viewed ordinary
00:07:17
Americans as sunk in moronic darkness
00:07:20
and he writes that it is a question
00:07:21
whether a high wasp ever supported a
00:07:23
fashionable cause without some secret
00:07:25
knowledge that the cause was abored by
00:07:26
the bulgarians uh in other words many
00:07:29
wasp would support certain movements and
00:07:31
causes and express certain beliefs uh
00:07:33
because they were so at odds with
00:07:34
conventional opinion and it made them
00:07:36
look sophisticated and interesting and
00:07:38
it allowed them to distance themselves
00:07:40
from the
00:07:41
commoners um and so sometimes when I
00:07:43
talk about luxury beliefs when I talk
00:07:45
about status people will say Rob is it
00:07:47
really true that Elites care so much
00:07:48
about status is it really something
00:07:49
that's so important to them and the
00:07:51
answer is yes um the sociologist Emil
00:07:54
durkheim understood this when he wrote
00:07:56
the more one has the more one wants
00:07:58
since satisf actions received only
00:08:00
stimulate instead of filling needs and
00:08:03
this is supported by two recent studies
00:08:05
both published in 2020 by two
00:08:07
independent groups of researchers this
00:08:08
is a replicated finding uh the result
00:08:10
was that relative to lower status
00:08:13
individuals higher status individuals
00:08:14
have the strongest desire for wealth and
00:08:16
Status so these researchers collected uh
00:08:19
objective measures of status things like
00:08:21
uh socioeconomic status level of income
00:08:23
occupational Prestige uh educational
00:08:26
attainment and found that people who are
00:08:28
at or near the top of these measures
00:08:30
were the most likely to agree with
00:08:31
statements like it would please me to be
00:08:33
in a position of power over others I
00:08:35
enjoy having influence over those around
00:08:37
me and similar uh statements involving
00:08:40
wealth as well so this is something uh
00:08:43
that that's important to understand the
00:08:44
strong desire for status the strong
00:08:45
desire for distinction so that's one
00:08:47
component of luxury beliefs the other is
00:08:50
that this top segment of society also
00:08:52
wields disproportionate influence over
00:08:54
culture and over policy there was a
00:08:56
study in 2014 that received a lot of
00:08:58
attention which found that strong
00:08:59
support from high-income Americans
00:09:01
doubles the likelihood that a policy
00:09:02
will be adopted so these are Americans
00:09:04
in the top income desile roughly people
00:09:07
who ear in $177,000 or more per year uh
00:09:10
this group wields a lot of influence but
00:09:12
it's important to understand that this
00:09:14
group um is often insulated from uh the
00:09:17
detrimental effects of some of their
00:09:18
policy preferences if the outcomes uh do
00:09:21
not are not favorable um so this is
00:09:23
important too they're insulated from
00:09:24
from the consequences of their
00:09:26
preferences so what is an example of a
00:09:28
luxury belief well in 2020 the defund of
00:09:32
the police movement gained a lot of
00:09:34
momentum uh and in early 2021 yugov uh
00:09:38
ran a survey they collected data from a
00:09:40
representative sample of Americans and
00:09:42
found that the well they found overall
00:09:44
Americans were very much against
00:09:46
defunding the police but when they broke
00:09:48
down the results by income category they
00:09:50
found that the highest income Americans
00:09:51
were by far the most supportive of
00:09:53
defunding the police there was another
00:09:55
survey of of just Democratic voters and
00:09:57
found that white Democrats were far more
00:09:58
supportive of defunding the police than
00:10:00
Black and Hispanic Democrats uh and so
00:10:03
as a result despite the fact that most
00:10:04
people didn't want this uh many cities
00:10:06
across the US subsequently reduced
00:10:08
spending for police departments uh here
00:10:10
in LA in New York Chicago Seattle and
00:10:12
and many other cities as well and this
00:10:14
has contributed to the violent crime
00:10:16
wave that we've seen over the last
00:10:17
couple of years so these are figures
00:10:20
from the US Census P Bureau before 2020
00:10:23
um which helps to understand who are the
00:10:27
primary victims of crime so so in the US
00:10:30
relative to those who earn $775,000 or
00:10:31
more per year the poorest Americans are
00:10:34
seven times more likely to be victims of
00:10:35
robbery seven times more likely to be
00:10:36
victims of aggravated assault and 20
00:10:38
times more likely to be victims of
00:10:40
sexual assault um and again this is
00:10:43
before 2020 if anything these
00:10:44
differences are probably more pronounced
00:10:47
uh so it's important here to understand
00:10:48
that uh that that to not stop crime is
00:10:51
to actually victimize uh the poor this
00:10:53
is luxury belief here's another luxury
00:10:56
belief torching your own social capital
00:10:59
over the last couple of years it's
00:11:01
become trendy among cultural Elites to
00:11:04
uh uh promote this idea of Burning
00:11:07
Bridges social ties over disagreements
00:11:09
over social or political views and if
00:11:12
you're an upper upper middle class
00:11:13
person if you're Highly Educated uh
00:11:16
geographically mobile uh in all
00:11:18
likelihood you can probably afford to
00:11:21
burn a lot of social Bridges and in all
00:11:22
likelihood you'll be just fine but if
00:11:24
you're a person who lives at or near the
00:11:25
margins of society uh it would be uh
00:11:29
unwise to burn your relationships with
00:11:32
friends families employers colleagues
00:11:34
neighbors and so on and so expressing
00:11:37
this luxury belief may make you look
00:11:39
dedicated to your cause of choice uh but
00:11:42
if this belief uh spreads throughout
00:11:44
Society um this would this would uh have
00:11:47
detrimental effects for uh people who
00:11:48
are less fortunate but for me the luxury
00:11:52
belief that has had the most wide
00:11:54
ranging uh societal consequences uh has
00:11:57
been uh the denigration of the two
00:12:00
parent family so here a couple of
00:12:02
headlines uh let's Call the Whole Thing
00:12:04
Off the author is ending her marriage
00:12:05
isn't it time you did the same uh and
00:12:07
the nuclear family is no longer the norm
00:12:09
good by the way I I don't mean to pick
00:12:11
on the New York Times here I've written
00:12:12
there and I've had friends who' have
00:12:13
written there but but these are
00:12:14
headlines that many cultural Elites
00:12:16
these are ideas that cultural Elites
00:12:17
believe should be introduced into
00:12:19
society among the educated public uh to
00:12:21
be implemented uh into culture and into
00:12:24
policy so the erosion of the family
00:12:26
structure so in N uh in 1960
00:12:29
95% of American children regardless of
00:12:32
social class were uh raised by both of
00:12:34
their parents uh and for the upper class
00:12:38
for the upper 20% of Americans uh it
00:12:41
dropped slightly by 2005 to 85% so it
00:12:43
was 95% dropped slightly to 85% for poor
00:12:46
and working-class Americans those in the
00:12:48
bottom 30% it was 95% in 1960 and it
00:12:51
plummeted to 30%
00:12:53
by5 uh now if you visit working class
00:12:56
Blue Collar communities in the US it is
00:12:58
an anomal to see children raised by both
00:13:01
of their parents um where I grew up I
00:13:03
had five close friends in high school
00:13:05
and of the six of us none of us were
00:13:07
raised by both of our parents there was
00:13:08
me raised in foster homes I had two
00:13:10
friends raised by single moms one friend
00:13:12
raised by a single dad I had another
00:13:14
friend who was raised by his grandmother
00:13:15
because his mom was addicted to drugs
00:13:17
and his dad was in prison that is a
00:13:19
pretty common snapshot of like what uh
00:13:21
neighborhoods look like uh in poror and
00:13:23
workingclass communities now now there's
00:13:26
an element of duplicity here for this
00:13:28
luxury belief in and some others as well
00:13:30
which is when you ask college graduates
00:13:32
about their opinions on family formation
00:13:34
and family structure um only a minority
00:13:37
only 25% of college graduates think
00:13:39
couples should be married before having
00:13:40
kids that's what they say um in other
00:13:43
words 75% of college graduates either
00:13:46
hold a neutral position or think that uh
00:13:48
maybe they shouldn't be married before
00:13:49
having kids but then what do they
00:13:51
actually do well the vast majority of
00:13:53
children born to college graduates are
00:13:54
raised uh by two married parents uh only
00:13:57
about one in 10 children uh born to a
00:14:00
college educated mother is born out of
00:14:01
wedlock uh so there's this mismatch
00:14:03
between words and
00:14:05
deeds and here you can see uh the sort
00:14:08
of shocking rise and out of weblock
00:14:09
births and this is primarily
00:14:11
concentrated again among the poor and
00:14:12
the working class it continues to rise
00:14:14
so up until about 1920 it was below 5%
00:14:16
it skyrocketed since 1960 it continues
00:14:18
to climb so we're we're in unforeseen
00:14:21
territory now where children in
00:14:23
impoverished environments who could
00:14:24
stand to benefit the most from two
00:14:27
attentive parents are the least likely
00:14:29
uh to have them and sometimes when I
00:14:31
talk about the issue of the family
00:14:33
people want to discuss the economics of
00:14:35
this uh there was a study a few years
00:14:37
ago which found that if you wanted to
00:14:38
equalize life outcomes for children
00:14:40
raised in single parent homes uh this uh
00:14:42
would require a dist a redistribution of
00:14:44
$59,000 a year to single parents to
00:14:46
equalize educational and occupational
00:14:48
outcomes for uh children to match those
00:14:51
of of two parent uh families and I think
00:14:53
this is an interesting study and I think
00:14:55
uh economics shouldn't be downplayed but
00:14:58
I think it does do uh highlight the sort
00:15:01
of narrow way that many Elites think
00:15:03
about family um one way to think about
00:15:06
this is if you were to ask a child who
00:15:08
has two attentive parents hey we're
00:15:10
going to take one of your parents away
00:15:11
but it's okay because we're going to
00:15:12
give you $59,000 a year I think very few
00:15:15
kids would accept that deal um there's
00:15:18
more to life than just educational
00:15:19
occupational outcomes uh there's a
00:15:22
there's a sort of a blind spot here
00:15:23
about the social and emotional penalties
00:15:25
children receive when they don't have uh
00:15:27
two parents available um so wrapping up
00:15:30
here um luxury beliefs are the new
00:15:33
status symbols ideas movements causes um
00:15:36
P Board do in another one of his great
00:15:37
books the forms of capital wrote the
00:15:39
best measure of cultural capital is
00:15:40
undoubtedly the amount of time devoted
00:15:42
to acquiring it uh so only through the
00:15:45
the process of going to an expensive
00:15:47
University Len listening to the right
00:15:49
podcasts reading the right books being
00:15:50
immersed in the right environments
00:15:52
knowing that you're supposed to say
00:15:53
unhoused instead of homeless you know
00:15:54
the updating your vocabulary these are
00:15:56
ways for you to signify I'm a member of
00:15:58
this upper segment of uh Society um in
00:16:02
an interview a couple of years ago the
00:16:03
NYU Professor Scott Galloway uh said the
00:16:05
strongest brand in the world is not
00:16:07
Apple the strongest brands are MIT
00:16:08
Oxford and Stanford academics decided we
00:16:10
no longer public servants were luxury
00:16:11
goods these are the places where luxury
00:16:13
beliefs are birthed people pay money
00:16:15
they they convert their economic capital
00:16:16
into cultural capital they learn the
00:16:18
right opinions to express in these
00:16:19
institutions uh but again luxury belief
00:16:23
holders are often insulated from the
00:16:25
consequences of their beliefs so as
00:16:28
costly as these beliefs are to obtain
00:16:30
for the affluent in terms of Downstream
00:16:32
consequences they're even more costly
00:16:33
for everyone else and I'll leave it at
00:16:36
that pre-order my book thank
00:16:37
[Applause]
00:16:48
you you ended with something that um is
00:16:52
is something that's very important to me
00:16:54
that I that I talked to you about before
00:16:55
which is um the destruction of the nule
00:16:59
your family and the impact that has had
00:17:01
on us Society um I think it's important
00:17:05
to just expand a little bit more and
00:17:07
I'll give you this provocative lead in
00:17:09
which is talk about you know maybe LBJ
00:17:11
and the Great Society and the war on
00:17:13
poverty and you know there's a very
00:17:14
famous website what the [ __ ] happened in
00:17:16
1971. comom like all of this stuff just
00:17:19
just discuss that again maybe in a
00:17:21
little bit more detail for us well yeah
00:17:23
I mean there has been a sort of this
00:17:25
this backfiring effect I think um we we
00:17:28
dis we we focus a lot we concentrate a
00:17:30
lot on the economic circumstances of of
00:17:33
families and how this may contribute to
00:17:35
deprivation dysfunction negative
00:17:36
outcomes for kids but um one thing that
00:17:40
I've learned through reading a lot of
00:17:43
Developmental and evolutionary
00:17:44
psychology research some of the things
00:17:45
that I write about is that childhood
00:17:47
instability is is worse uh than
00:17:50
childhood poverty for uh uh future
00:17:52
outcomes uh so in terms of criminality
00:17:55
or educational attainment um growing up
00:17:58
in a very unstable environment is
00:18:00
actually worse uh than than um uh
00:18:02
impoverishment and even when you control
00:18:04
for income um instability is still
00:18:07
strongly associated with negative
00:18:09
outcomes for kids in other words a kid
00:18:10
who's raised uh by uh a rich family but
00:18:13
say there's a lot of divorce and
00:18:14
addiction and a lot of uh uh trauma in
00:18:17
in that family environment that kid will
00:18:19
grow up to most likely have worse
00:18:21
outcomes than a kid who's raised in a
00:18:23
poor family with two parents who uh
00:18:25
prioritize attentive care and stability
00:18:27
uh and so I think we yeah we Retreat to
00:18:29
discussions of Economics because no one
00:18:30
wants to talk about values no one wants
00:18:31
to talk about family anymore I think the
00:18:33
Great Society was kind of an example of
00:18:35
this of oh we're going to solve this all
00:18:36
through economics it's this kind of
00:18:37
vulgar materialism uh when you know now
00:18:40
we're seeing the the sort of uh
00:18:42
Downstream consequences since since the
00:18:43
late 60s yeah I mean the the data point
00:18:46
that that may be shocking for some
00:18:48
people is in you know black families as
00:18:50
an example the economic incentive to not
00:18:52
get married um on uh you know today
00:18:56
dollar adjusted basis was like 92 ,000
00:18:59
to a black woman to not get married and
00:19:00
have a child um explain what that means
00:19:03
how that meaning like you know Lynden
00:19:05
Johnson's welfare movement was about
00:19:06
uplifting a lot of people but
00:19:08
unfortunately it created these uh deep
00:19:11
negative consequences that took years to
00:19:12
build up through economics through
00:19:15
economic incentives it was paying you to
00:19:17
not be married and so what what happened
00:19:20
people didn't get married and so it
00:19:22
started to create these effects that
00:19:23
have been compounding and and again in
00:19:26
this weird way in which we work if you
00:19:28
you have the right label you know like
00:19:31
for example freeberg has made this
00:19:32
statement but like you know we can't
00:19:34
talk about how bad the inflation
00:19:35
reduction Act is it's because it's
00:19:36
called the inflation reduction act same
00:19:39
way at LBJ you know it was this was the
00:19:41
war on poverty and so all of a sudden
00:19:43
you sounded like some you know um
00:19:45
insensitive LTE if you're like well I'm
00:19:47
against the war on poverty well no
00:19:49
you're not who would be against that so
00:19:51
we never really had a chance to talk
00:19:52
about it um you know graem Allison
00:19:54
actually had some points about this
00:19:55
yesterday as well when we were talking
00:19:57
the one we've talked about about Rob
00:19:59
um the framing of um people who are
00:20:03
homeless versus people who are addicted
00:20:06
to drugs you know and this sort of why
00:20:11
would you arrest somebody who is
00:20:13
homeless and who is and they actually
00:20:15
have a home and they're choosing to live
00:20:17
on the street and and they have
00:20:18
resources and we pay for this in San
00:20:20
Francisco and the the issue here I think
00:20:22
is in Framing and incentives because you
00:20:24
actually get paid to come to San
00:20:27
Francisco where we also have the lowest
00:20:29
cost of deadly fentanyl I think there
00:20:32
there's kind of a misunderstanding of
00:20:34
how uh relationships and and societies
00:20:37
often work often material Prosperity
00:20:38
coincides with no longer needing to
00:20:40
build relationships anymore or it uh
00:20:43
sort of redirects uh the incentive
00:20:45
structure such that you you no longer
00:20:47
want to work or do certain things
00:20:48
anymore um I mean it's funny when I when
00:20:51
I talk to sort of more aflan Americans
00:20:53
and and you know talk to them about
00:20:55
what's going on with uh the the sort of
00:20:58
what the underclass in in the US they'll
00:21:01
suggest that a lot of these uh problems
00:21:03
a lot of these communities are afflicted
00:21:04
by by poverty but then when I travel to
00:21:07
developing countries uh
00:21:08
non-industrialized countries poor
00:21:10
countries and and I talk to them about
00:21:11
what's going on in the states they say
00:21:13
that it's because America is too rich
00:21:14
that's the problem you know you don't
00:21:15
need to build relationships anymore I
00:21:17
mean often if you visit I mean I was in
00:21:18
I was in Malaysia recently and the you
00:21:21
know the the poor neighborhoods there
00:21:23
are you know they're far different than
00:21:24
the poor neighborhoods that that I grew
00:21:26
up in in terms of just sort of material
00:21:28
uh um uh scarcity and yet um people know
00:21:32
their neighbors they get married they
00:21:34
take care of their family and their
00:21:36
friends and a lot of this is because uh
00:21:38
you know in America even if you're poor
00:21:40
you're the material Prosperity is
00:21:42
relatively higher than a lot of other
00:21:43
countries and therefore you no longer
00:21:44
need to build relationships quite as
00:21:46
much as as you used to um there was a
00:21:49
line in the New Yorker a couple of years
00:21:50
ago uh sort of this this is a profile
00:21:52
piece on poverty in America but one line
00:21:54
that stood out to me was that um know
00:21:56
before the Great Society being poor
00:21:57
meant being hungry and now being poor
00:21:59
means being on food stamps which isn't a
00:22:01
pleasant thing to be on food stamps but
00:22:02
it no longer means that you're actually
00:22:03
starving the way that you would in the
00:22:05
past so material prosperity and
00:22:07
inequality mean something different now
00:22:09
where does society go at the limit of
00:22:12
all of
00:22:13
this yeah I think one thing that we
00:22:15
could do is um so so Melissa Kierney
00:22:19
she's a professor of Economics at the
00:22:20
University of Maryland she just released
00:22:22
a book called the two parent privilege
00:22:24
and she points out a lot of the sort of
00:22:25
the economic issues and I think that's
00:22:27
you know it's it's fine but I again I
00:22:29
think that's kind of a narrow-minded way
00:22:30
of looking at this but one thing that
00:22:31
she points out that I really like is
00:22:32
that Elites could do sort of more to to
00:22:34
promote values to sort of what uh uh
00:22:36
preach what you practice uh there are
00:22:38
ways that we could just speak more about
00:22:40
this I think a lot of a lot of people
00:22:42
who agree with a lot of my writing and
00:22:44
the things that I say their reluctance
00:22:45
to express this publicly it's kind of
00:22:46
you know one reason why they like me is
00:22:47
because I'll say it but I think uh you
00:22:50
one one sort of obligation or Duty you
00:22:52
have if you are a fortunate member of
00:22:54
society is to accept that you may take
00:22:57
some slings and arrows for values that
00:22:59
you know are good um you know if you've
00:23:00
lived a fortunate life
00:23:05
um that yeah there's there's that kind
00:23:08
of niis ble that I think that we've
00:23:09
we've lost if there's a message to folks
00:23:11
here about how we should be
00:23:13
telling other people what some of those
00:23:16
High Lev values are what would you tell
00:23:18
us to be promoting more that we don't I
00:23:20
mean I think yeah the marriage attentive
00:23:22
care for for children um I think that
00:23:24
that is that is a big one um I mean it's
00:23:26
really interesting when I talk about uh
00:23:28
marriage a lot of people immediately
00:23:30
pivot and they say well are you saying
00:23:32
that it's bad to be a single parent are
00:23:34
you trying to what denigrate single moms
00:23:37
and this seems to be the only domain
00:23:38
where people make this suggestion if if
00:23:40
you say we should we should applaud
00:23:41
college graduates no one ever says oh
00:23:42
does that mean we're insulting people
00:23:44
who didn't go to college is that what
00:23:45
you're saying and no that's not what
00:23:46
we're saying you can you can praise one
00:23:48
thing and confer status on on an
00:23:49
activity and that doesn't necessarily
00:23:51
imply that you're trying to denigrate
00:23:53
everyone else um so I think this is
00:23:55
something that we could do focus more on
00:23:56
sort of family uh uh early
00:23:59
uh development issues uh for for young
00:24:01
kids um again childhood instability is a
00:24:03
far greater predictor than poverty and
00:24:04
yet we we spend so much time talking
00:24:05
about
00:24:07
economics
00:24:09
um where do you put some of these social
00:24:13
movements that you know um now take up
00:24:18
and occupy a lot of space in society um
00:24:22
where do those fit in in this construct
00:24:24
of yours yeah a lot of the movement
00:24:26
cancel culture you know Etc like how do
00:24:29
you how do you how do you bucket sort
00:24:31
all that stuff I mean a lot of that is
00:24:32
those are many of them are luxury
00:24:34
beliefs um if you look at data uh in
00:24:37
terms of self-censorship is one that
00:24:40
I've that I've been been writing about
00:24:41
and concentrating on if you look at the
00:24:43
data for Americans who report
00:24:45
self-censoring for fear of uh damaging
00:24:48
their employment prospects or getting
00:24:50
fired um it actually increases the more
00:24:53
educational attainment someone has so
00:24:54
for people who uh the highest level of
00:24:57
education is a high school diploma about
00:24:59
25% of Americans say that they
00:25:01
self-censor um whereas for people with
00:25:03
college graduate or for for college
00:25:05
degree it's 33% and then for people with
00:25:07
postgraduate degrees it's 44% well
00:25:09
because they have more to lose and they
00:25:11
know and they can anticipate what's
00:25:13
going to happen right because because
00:25:15
cancel culture and all these things are
00:25:17
actually worse we had this conversation
00:25:19
with v on the podcast where I asked him
00:25:21
because he's been very outspoken about
00:25:23
his religious beliefs and I asked him a
00:25:24
two-part question do you think there's
00:25:25
anything wrong with being gay and then
00:25:28
no and then hey what do you think of
00:25:29
trans and and the fact that trans issues
00:25:32
have become such a prominent issue in
00:25:34
this election when it affects such a
00:25:37
small number of people is perplexing
00:25:40
well I think yeah moral movements often
00:25:42
become intertwined with with status so
00:25:44
for a long time there's the gay marriage
00:25:46
issue and because you know I I I I I
00:25:48
cited that the book on wasps you know if
00:25:51
if a cause is abored by the bulgarians
00:25:52
you know and and so for a long time that
00:25:54
was the case with with gay marriage but
00:25:56
then once uh um uh great you know the
00:25:58
majority of Americans supported this
00:26:00
cause I think a lot of Highly Educated
00:26:03
uh activists decided to move on to this
00:26:05
next issue and so there's there's just
00:26:06
kind of you know any any time an opinion
00:26:08
is at odds with conventional opinion it
00:26:10
becomes more enticing to to promote
00:26:12
because it signifies that you're not a
00:26:13
commoner is that because of social media
00:26:16
and is it
00:26:18
waning some of it is I think because of
00:26:20
social media um social media scales um
00:26:24
right you you know you can't uh you
00:26:27
can't punch a thousand people the face
00:26:28
at once but you can get a thousand
00:26:29
people to attack one person online all
00:26:31
at the same time and damage their
00:26:33
reputation uh so I think that does have
00:26:35
uh something to do with it so people
00:26:37
become afraid of expressing certain
00:26:39
opinions um but but is it I mean I I
00:26:43
don't think that it's going to I think
00:26:45
we're sort of we are seeing a bit of a
00:26:47
when you know some people call it the
00:26:48
vibe shift it's it's slowly changing
00:26:50
people are speaking more openly and
00:26:51
criticizing cancel culture more um but I
00:26:54
think part of the reason why it's dying
00:26:55
is because a lot of people have already
00:26:56
been cancelled uh you know well it's
00:26:58
also so exhausting you know it's like
00:27:00
really we're we're going to attack
00:27:03
another person because their beliefs are
00:27:04
slightly different and I think it's one
00:27:06
of the things we've tried to do on the
00:27:07
on the podcast is say hey let let's just
00:27:10
have a conversation about these issues
00:27:13
um and and be thoughtful about it and we
00:27:15
don't want to hurt anybody's feelings
00:27:17
but we do need to talk about some of
00:27:19
these things in an intellectually honest
00:27:21
way whether it's homeless whether it's
00:27:22
black lives matter January 6 whatever we
00:27:25
try to have an intellectually rigorous
00:27:27
open-minded discuss discuss and it feels
00:27:30
to me like that has started to tip over
00:27:32
I I I see it very distinctly that you
00:27:35
can only you know be cancelled for your
00:27:38
opinion if you allow them to cancel you
00:27:41
momentum is such that you try something
00:27:43
for long enough when it eventually
00:27:44
doesn't work you try something else I
00:27:46
think Society has a resilient way of
00:27:49
just doing that and so maybe people are
00:27:51
realizing that cancel culture will not
00:27:53
solve the problems that they care about
00:27:55
I think it's well said and there has to
00:27:57
be a different way Robin in in the
00:27:59
developed world does the rise of luxury
00:28:04
beliefs give rise to the populist
00:28:07
movements um I remember I would travel
00:28:10
in the midwest a lot I work with farmers
00:28:12
and Rural communities I would go out to
00:28:14
these rural communities I meet with
00:28:15
farmers and there was always ridicule
00:28:17
about how Californians were arguing
00:28:18
about the gender sign on bathrooms when
00:28:22
their local conversation was can I make
00:28:24
money this year and I hate being
00:28:26
dependent on the government and I would
00:28:27
hear this everywhere I would go in rural
00:28:28
communities in the US and I was like
00:28:31
Donald Trump's going to win I mean he's
00:28:33
just he is the voice of this group um
00:28:38
but it seemed to me that that is what
00:28:40
really triggered the sentiment for
00:28:42
populism it's not just about not having
00:28:44
enough money but it's about seeing the
00:28:47
inanity in some the view the perceived
00:28:50
inanity of um these luxury beliefs uh
00:28:54
from a group that that isn't afforded
00:28:57
that luxury yeah well I think a lot of
00:28:58
workingclass people can sense that you
00:29:00
know many many members of that Elite
00:29:03
segment of society don't really have
00:29:04
their best interest in mind they can see
00:29:06
sort of it's it's not even just that
00:29:08
they don't share your values they're
00:29:09
sort of intentionally promoting values
00:29:10
that could undermine your your your
00:29:11
communities and there is that kind of
00:29:14
disain um and so yeah yeah just briefly
00:29:17
returning I think even even social media
00:29:18
may actually be contributing to some
00:29:20
extent I mean now people can go online
00:29:23
and just see how um yeah how how
00:29:27
mentally Limited a lot of Elites are uh
00:29:29
just by looking at their Twitter
00:29:31
profiles or the things that they say
00:29:32
things that they write about whatever um
00:29:35
uh Expressions that they have online and
00:29:37
I think this is also sort of uh you know
00:29:39
sort of behind the curtain moment of wow
00:29:41
exactly this is like that this is who's
00:29:43
leading the country this is uh or this
00:29:45
is who who leads the most prestigious
00:29:47
institutions uh and so yeah I think
00:29:48
there is a there there's a bit of that
00:29:50
uh as well can you talk about a little
00:29:52
bit um just back to family and marriage
00:29:55
for a second you wrote something about
00:29:57
um
00:29:58
you know large numbers of sexual
00:30:00
partners a sort of dating culture the
00:30:02
hookup culture can you just tie those
00:30:04
two things together and one observation
00:30:06
that I had and maybe it was because I
00:30:07
read your stuff I then noticed that
00:30:10
there seems to be these small green
00:30:11
shoots of people who are being
00:30:13
celebrated from getting married quite
00:30:14
early now they tend to be stars but
00:30:17
there is this interesting Trend uh and I
00:30:19
thought wow this could be one of these
00:30:21
things where you're now starting to
00:30:22
model a very different set of choices
00:30:24
when you're 23 and 24 where you know
00:30:27
nobody would have thought today you
00:30:28
would get married at and this obsession
00:30:30
with matchmaking and maybe a better way
00:30:33
than swiping right would be to be
00:30:35
thoughtful about uh the values your
00:30:37
partner has yeah yeah I think there is
00:30:39
an element of status here I mean when
00:30:40
Tinder and a lot of the dating apps took
00:30:41
off in around
00:30:43
2012 uh in 2012 most Americans didn't uh
00:30:46
have have cell phones yet or or or
00:30:48
smartphones rather uh but then now that
00:30:50
everyone has a smartphone and now that
00:30:52
everyone's on the dating apps it has
00:30:53
lost a bit of that exclusivity a lot of
00:30:55
that sort of signifier of status and I
00:30:58
think this is one reason why we're
00:30:59
seeing a lot of a lot of affluent people
00:31:00
sort of uh shift back to trying to meet
00:31:03
online um or or rather in person um to
00:31:05
meet in person um and yeah I think uh
00:31:09
promiscuity all of these things I I had
00:31:10
a friend um a couple of years ago who
00:31:14
you know he told me uh you know Rob when
00:31:16
I so so he was a student at a at an
00:31:18
elite University and he said when I set
00:31:19
my uh dating app radius to one mile just
00:31:22
right out right around the university um
00:31:24
you know most of the the female profiles
00:31:26
he saw these were fellow students and
00:31:27
and he said something like a third of
00:31:29
them in the Bios they said you know I'm
00:31:31
you know poly or or casual or not
00:31:33
looking for anything serious and then
00:31:35
when he extended the radius uh to the
00:31:37
outskirts of the University which is a
00:31:38
more sort of bluecollar area uh same age
00:31:41
range you know you know was it 20 to 24
00:31:43
year old women or something he said that
00:31:45
the majority of the women he saw were
00:31:46
single moms uh and so sexual promiscuity
00:31:49
looks very different depending on uh
00:31:51
your social class how much money you
00:31:52
come from and and so
00:31:55
on um okay uh we need to wrap you can
00:31:58
follow Rob Henderson on uh Twitter and
00:32:01
sign up to substack substack yeah well
00:32:05
done Rob all right again David thank
00:32:09
you thank
00:32:12
thank let your winners
00:32:16
[Music]
00:32:20
ride we open source it to the fans and
00:32:22
they've just gone crazy with it love you
00:32:25
queen of
00:32:29
what
