Source: Reason
by Katherine Mangu-Ward
“The term, coined by writer Rob Henderson, describes a set of ideas that he believes confer status on elites while imposing costs on everyone else. In his accounting, these include: academic elites advocate prison abolition while living in low-crime neighborhoods; Silicon Valley billionaires declare that college is a scam, ignoring the elite-education connections that got them their first venture capital meetings; and urban intellectuals claim homeownership is overrated — right up until they buy a brownstone in Brooklyn. While this critique is more often levied against progressives, luxury beliefs are fascinatingly transpartisan. Like ‘virtue signaling’ before it, the term is often used too loosely, simply indicating a set of beliefs with which the speaker disagrees and would like to associate with a villainous or hypocritical overdog. But what if luxury beliefs — frivolous, far-fetched, and sometimes downright wrong — actually serve a useful function?” (04/01/25)