The term "luxury beliefs" has gained quite a lot of traction since it was coined in 2019, and especially since 2022, by Rob Henderson. Per Wikipedia:
A luxury belief is an idea or opinion that confers status on members of the upper class at little cost, while inflicting costs on persons in lower classes. The term is often applied to privileged individuals who are seen as disconnected from the lived experiences of impoverished and marginalized people. Such individuals supposedly hold political and social beliefs that signal their elite status, yet which are alleged to have negative impacts on those with the least influence. Exactly what counts as a luxury belief is not always consistent and may vary from person to person, and the term in general is considered to be controversial.
Make no mistake, it is typically only (social) conservatives that have been using the term in recent years to describe their opponents' views on various hot-button issues (bail reform, criminal justice, policing, MMT, immigration, net zero, environmentalism, marriage and family, sexual freedom, reproductive rights, drug legalization and decriminalization, etc.). Occasionally the left and center-left have used the term (much more accurately, we would argue) to describe conservative beliefs like "supply-side economics", "trickle-down theory", austerity, artificial scarcity, weak or nonexistent social safety nets, and stuff like that, but the use of the term on the left in that context is relatively rare.
On the right, and even somewhat on the "third way" neoliberal left since President Clinton, there seems to be this specious idea that too much personal liberty is somehow apocalyptically worse than too little, particularly for the poor, downtrodden, and vulnerable members of society, and especially for racialized minorities (who says conservatives don't "play the race card" when it's convenient?). We argue that this is a patronizing and paternalistic attitude towards people that the talking heads (consciously or unconsciously) feel smugly superior to, and it essentially robs such people of agency. And to be blunt about it, as the saying goes, "crap always rolls downhill". That is, granted, ANY policy can have unintended consequences per Murphy's Law, and as a well-known corollary, those negative consequences tend to accrue disproportionately to those who lack the means to insulate themselves from such consequences, particularly those at the bottom of the socioeconomic hierarchy. For example, in that regard, we can call the War on (people who use a few particular) Drugs just as much if not more of a "luxury belief" as full drug legalization would be in practice, as the adverse consequences (which are not entirely unintended!) fall disproportionately on poor people and/or racialized minorities.
As Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) famously said, "you can get over an addiction, but you will never get over a conviction". And that clearly applies tenfold to the poor as it does to the rich.
The real problem is systemic, as must any real solution be. But liberty per se is not the problem. While the utterly patronizing and paternalistic protectionism and "tyranny of the weaker brother" is the real luxury belief here, as are the economic ones like "trickle-down theory", austerity, and neoliberalism. ("Catch and release" and "defund the police" are the only ones that Henderson mentions that even come close in that regard.)
The TSAP supports liberty and justice for all, in contrast to liberty for "just us", NOT all. To quote Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies (sic) attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it". Truer words have never been spoken indeed.
(Mic drop)
No comments:
Post a Comment