120 - Rob Henderson - Family Dysfunction, Victimhood and Luxury Beliefs

Two for Tea Podcast

General Discover Rob’s writing, interviews, and other work on his website: https://www.robkhenderson.com/ Follow Rob on Twitter: https://twitter.com/robkhenderson References Rob’s essay ‘America's Lost Boys and Me’: https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/americas-lost-boys-and-me Rob’s essay ‘Elite universities should stop prizing victimhood’: https://unherd.com/thepost/elites-universities-should-stop-prizing-victimhood/ Timestamps 00.00 Opening and introduction. 1:45 Rob’s difficult upbringing and background: foster care, adoption, drugs, and alcohol. 6:59 Why social, emotional, and cultural variables matter enormously for kids’ life outcomes—it’s not all about economics. 16:00 More on Rob’s personal background and how it has informed his views; Iona reads from Rob’s article ‘America's Lost Boys and Me’. 24:47 What were the “lingering effects” of his upbringing on Rob? How his military experience helped him. 28:05 Iona’s “more common or garden unhappy childhood” as related to Rob’s upbringing and its effects on him. Some experiences and feelings in common, 32:18 Iona and Rob’s very different experiences of university life. Plus: the ‘controversy’ around one of Rob’s teachers, Erika Christakis, and the origin of his concept of “luxury beliefs.” 41:53 Rob explains his concept of “luxury beliefs.” Signalling one’s status as an elite: one can afford to worry about relatively trivial transgressions and impose such taboos on poorer people; their jobs are less worthy of concern than sticking to the elite’s ever-changing taboos. Storms over “cultural appropriation”, use of the n-word, and using the OK hand symbol. Why cancel culture is real for blue-collar people. Middle-class ignorance of working-class people and the classism of cancel culture and luxury beliefs. 56:32 Rob’s examples of luxury belief: all family structures are equal, downplaying the value of hard work and agency. Is being anti-vax a luxury belief? 1:03:13 Iona on the flip-side to downplaying hard luck: some successful people won’t admit to the role of luck in their success and some hard work is thwarted by bad luck. Further discussion. 1:08:24 Discussion of the stable two-parent family structure as an ideal and why that idea receives pushback (and how such pushback is akin to arguments over ‘fatphobia’). Discussion of Iona’s caveats about the desirability of the stable two-parent family structure: stability isn’t everything (consider a stable but miserable situation). 1:15:47 Has Rob noticed different atmospheres in the U.K. vs. the U.S. regarding wokeness and luxury beliefs in university culture? What is the future of wokeness? The case of Jordan Peterson and Cambridge. 1:22:05 Rob’s article ‘Elite universities should top prizing victimhood’ and the case of Mackenzie Fierceton. Victimhood, disadvantage, and suffering as cultural currency in higher education. Plus: Iona and Rob’s experiences and views of the university admissions process. 1:33:32 Iona’s experiences of being accused of having had a privileged upbringing. A discussion of the narrowness of the concept of privilege as it is usually used today. How most people can frame their life stories either as ones of privilege or suffering. How prizing victimhood creates perverse incentives: the Mackenzie Fierceton story. 1:39:06 Race, victimhood, woke gatekeeping/race games, and gaming the system. 1:43:36 Last words and outro.