Luxury Beliefs

The general public is inundated with progressive narratives via every form of media and entertainment, and as a consequence, our society has begun to normalize fantasy thinking and embrace policies that do more harm than good.

In writing about the tragic murders of two progressive activists this week in NYC and Philadelphia, along with violent attacks on progressive politicians in Washington, DC, Rob Henderson discusses the idea of "luxury beliefs:"

... I’ve long argued that many people who hold “luxury beliefs”—ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class, while often inflicting costs on the lower classes—are oblivious to the consequences of their views. Support for defunding the police is a classic example. 

Luxury beliefs can stem from malice, good intentions, or outright naivete.

But the individuals who hold those beliefs, the people who wield the most influence in policy and culture, are often sheltered when their preferences are implemented.

In the case of the murders and violent criminal incidents noted earlier, activists and politicians who fervently argued that policing was systemically racist and advocated redirecting funding of police departments to community-based policing suffered the indirect consequences of those policies. But in the main, those consequences fall on poor people in lower social classes. Henderson continues:

But the fact remains that poor people are far more likely to be victims of violent crime. For every upper-middle-class person killed, 20 poor people you never hear about are assaulted and murdered. You just never hear about them. They don’t get identified by name in the media. Their stories don’t get told.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poorest Americans are seven times more likely to be victims of robbery, seven times more likely to be victims of aggravated assault, and twenty times more likely to be victims of sexual assault than Americans who earn more than $75,000. One 2004 study found that people in areas where over 20 percent of inhabitants live in poverty are more than 100 times more likely to be murdered than people in areas where less than 10 percent of residents live in poverty.

Expressing a luxury belief is a manifestation of cultural capital, a signal of one’s fortunate economic circumstances. And we are living with the consequences of the elite’s luxury beliefs when it comes to public safety and criminal justice. Indeed, the massive spike in violent crime across the U.S. is a reminder of the power of elite opinion.

Obviously, the proponents of criminal justice reform and better policing do not intentionally mean to harm the lower classes, but that is the unintended consequence of their advocacy. When recidivist criminals are released on no-cash bail (one of the "reform" elements that has been instituted in some major cities), they will follow their nature and do another crime and another after that. 

All of this is reality, and it conflicts directly with the luxury beliefs that are derived from fantasy thinking. As I have also noted on multiple occasions over the years,  

When fantasy collides with reality, reality wins every time.

Every time.