Luxury cars, expensive hobbies, designer clothes—since the dawn of time, there have been things that only the wealthy can afford and that serve their owners not only in terms of functionality but also in terms of symbolic value. The term used for such things is ‘status symbol’, which communicates about its owner that he or she undoubtedly possesses a certain amount of capital, be it financial or social. While status symbols are more commonly known to the public as goods and services that can be bought with money, today certain beliefs have also become the privilege of a narrow elite: these are the luxury beliefs.
The term ‘luxury belief’ was coined by American psychologist Rob Henderson in the context of his sociological research. The term may sound bizarre at first, and it certainly raises the question of when beliefs received a price tag, but through Henderson’s examples, it is easy to see how certain beliefs can feel like a luxury. According to the psychologist’s definition, “luxury beliefs are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class, while often inflicting costs on the lower classes.” While the description alone is rather bookish, it is made easier to understand through certain examples: for example, it is a luxury belief to claim that legalizing certain drugs would be beneficial to society. While the idea of unrestricted drug use is easily glorified by the wealthy as a simple form of entertainment, while rehabilitation is also much more accessible to them if necessary, for the lower classes of society, narcotics are often more akin to attempted suicide, not to mention the fact that social safety nets barely cover these groups, while stigma can drive users to ever new depths.
Rob Henderson, a regular contributor to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, recently gave a lecture on luxury beliefs in Budapest, organized by the Danube Institute. Henderson began his talk by talking about his unique background and journey of extremes. The psychologist grew up in foster care in California and joined the US Air Force at the age of seventeen. After his time in the Air Force, Henderson enrolled at Yale. Not surprisingly, he said the Ivy League environment he experienced was very different from what he was used to in foster care and the military. After experiencing the extremes of the orphanage and the Ivy League university, Henderson came to the realization that the rise of certain beliefs in elite circles had to a large extent replaced the luxuries that could be bought.
In his introduction, Henderson drew parallels between certain features of the animal kingdom and social customs, citing evolutionary biologist Amotz Zahavi’s theory of ‘costly signaling’. According to this idea, certain animals engage in activities, often dangerous and in some way ‘costly’, that are intended to demonstrate their prowess and a kind of superiority. A particularly good example of this phenomenon is the peacock, which displays its impressive feathers in a seemingly self-serving manner, signaling that it is healthy and powerful. A similar example is the African gazelle, which demonstrates its prowess in the face of predators by leaping gracefully—it can afford to leave the scene with ease rather than flee madly. Humans display their material or social status in similar ways, though by different means and methods, and, like animals, they pay some ‘cost’ for the show. In the sixteenth century, for example, by being able to obtain luxury spices—but the desirability and mystique of spices in these circles only lasted until these goods became available to lower social groups. Curiously, it was precisely this event that made the rich largely uninterested in spices, which were no longer considered a status symbol. Henderson cited duelling as a similar example, since it was initially an elite activity, the mystique and appeal of which was also diminished for the rich by its spread across social classes. A status symbol, therefore, is engendered through its distinctive capacity, regardless of whether it manifests as an object, a hobby, or a belief.
In the 21st century, the social elite continues to crave distinction, whether they admit it or not, but it can also be said that while the glory of purchasable goods seems to have passed, the desire for status has not. This brings us to the notion of luxury beliefs. Henderson has presented a class example, the highly publicized ‘defund the police’ movement in the United States around 2020 and 2021, the goal of which is the name itself, i.e. to divert police resources. The movement essentially goes hand in hand with the fight against police violence and the Black Lives Matter movement and aims to shift resources from overpaying the police to alternative methods of strengthening public safety. Examples include supporting communities and reforming education. However, statistics show that the diversion of police resources is not supported by low-income groups, who are typically more vulnerable to crime and police violence, but by those with high incomes and substantial resources. According to Henderson, this can be explained by the fact that ‘defunding the police’ falls into the category of luxury. The upper classes of society can afford to live in safe neighborhoods, not use public transportation, or generally ensure their personal protection, so the weakening of the police does not carry the same weight for them as it does for the lower classes, who would in effect suffer from a lack of policing and therefore cannot afford to support the movement. Another example could be the model of a stable two-parent family: in Henderson’s experience, students from the elite classes of society often do not place much value on a stable family background, and although they have one, they do not recognize its enormous benefits from their own experience, while for hundreds of young people a stable, supportive family is just a pipe dream.
So, according to Rob Henderson, Porsche, and Louis Vuitton have been replaced (at least in part) by beliefs that allow certain members of the elite to distance themselves from everyone else—in that they can afford to believe in and demonstrate their morality through these ideas. But in most cases it is not they who have to pay for these beliefs, but the lower classes.
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