Academic says beliefs are now status symbols

Status symbols do change and have changed.

In the past, wealthy gentlemen wore top hats and fancy clothes. Today, you might not recognize a wealthy person by their clothing.

At one time, the Twitter blue check was a symbol of being well-known. Now the check is a sign that you are a paid user. The former status symbol users don’t like it, and they don’t want to pay. No status there.

So, what status symbols still exist?

Rob Henderson, a doctoral candidate in psychology, thinks status symbols are now opinions — “luxury beliefs” — that “confer status on the upper class, while often inflicting costs on the lower classes.”

Henderson has been in a position to observe both the upper and lower classes. Born into poverty and raised in the foster care system, he used the GI Bill to attend the prestigious universities Yale and Cambridge.

There, he saw people who held trendy beliefs that they rarely had to question since they were largely unaffected by them. A case in point is the idea of defunding the police.

“They can afford to hold this position because they already live in safe, often gated communities. And they can afford to hire private security,” Henderson writes on his Substack page.

But, he writes when those beliefs filter down to lower classes, the results can be devastating. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poorest Americans are seven times more likely to be victims of robbery and aggravated assault and 20 times more likely to be victims of sexual assault. When lower socioeconomic classes adopt anti-policing beliefs, they are likely to be the ones suffering.

Henderson’s thesis has been roundly challenged as lacking statistical data and research. In addition, critics say, his ideas are mostly applicable to left-leaning college students and are not nearly so relevant for more affluent adults.