Book Review 
Troubled
Rob Henderson 
5/5 stars
"Introduction to the concept of 'luxury beliefs'; for me, but not for thee." 
******
This *would be* one bildungsroman among countless others, but for the fact that Henderson brings us a powerful exposition of the concept of "luxury beliefs." 

It would not be enough for him to have merely done this in a blog post, but he had to give us an entire narrative arc that took us with him on the journey before he developed this idea. 

Luxury beliefs are: ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class at very little cost, while often inflicting costs on the lower classes. 

For example: 

1. Monogamy is outdated. 
2. Drug experimentation 
3. Abolishing the police

A lot of hypocrisy and double standards here: 

1. Steve Jobs prohibited his children from using iPads; 

2. Chip and Joanna Gaines have some home improvement television show but don't allow their own kids to watch television and don't own one themselves.

Etc....

This author writes in a very straightforward, matter-of-fact, even-handed way; It probably took a lot of restraint to do that about the ridiculousness beyond words of the situation. (He puts me in mind of JD Vance, except that his was about West Coast instead of Appalachian White Trash.)

And there are a couple of other streams in his book:

1. Stability is important for raising children. 

2. The military can be a good thing because it provides that stability in formative years. 

3. People often virtue signal on behalf of people they don't even know.

4. Elites in a society are often completely out of touch with people that they claim to speak for (And this could have been a book in its own right, because I can think of examples from thousands of years ago of the identical phenomenon.)

5. Adopted children also have a lot of problems because their parents had a lot of problems. ("16% of serial killers in the United States are adoptees, which is a higher percentage than the 2–3% of the general population who are adopted." David Berkowitz (a.k.a. Son of Sam), Ted Bundy, Aileen Wuornos, Joel Rifkin, the Boston Strangler, Jeremy Strohmeyer were all adopted.)

The fact that this was his writing about his own difficult upbringing was important, because it seems like people that are self-actualization chips for Virtue Signaling Fabulous White People almost never get a chance to tell their own story. (Ibram Kendi went to an all-white school-- and it seems THAT'S where he figured out that he had to speak on behalf of black people.)

In a way, this reminds me of the rule that drug dealers have of never using their own product. It's just that here, you have Virtue Signaling Fabulous White People selling ideas that they don't actually believe.

Verdict: Recommended.

Sample quotes: 

"I did want a father figure. I just preferred to choose for myself who it would be. I'd constructed makeshift role models from fragments of pop culture and television and books. These distant idols were reliable - - there was no risk of them disappearing from my life."

"This was the first time that I had learned that the word 'work' has different meanings depending on one's perspective."

"When educated Americans discuss what's best for kids, we tend to talk about education as the be-all and end-all, when it should be seen more as the fortunate benefit of a warm and loving upbringing." 

".... when a young male has been overlooked by his parents, he will 'gravitate to the ubiquitous male peer militaristic world. He will then join this world as a child soldier, a gang member, mercenary, member of a militia, or, if he is lucky, a well-resourced military unit. '" (Joyce Benenson)

"Contrary to my belief, I learned that the military is not just a destination for poor or working-class kids who drew him because their options are limited."

"The more one has, the more one wants, since satisfactions received only stimulate instead of feeding needs." (Durkheim)

"The chief use of servants is the evidence they afford of the master's ability to pay."

"When someone uses the phrase 'cultural appropriation,' what they are really saying is 'I was educated at a top college.'"

"The poor reap what the luxury belief class sows."

"The general opinion at these schools is that the First [amendment] needs a major overhaul and the Second [amendment] should be completely dismantled. Seems like we basically got duped into believing we are upholding American values while the future ruling class are figuring out out ways to undermine them. "

"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist” (Charles Baudelaire)

"In the same way you don't notice how entrenched you are in your specific culture or nationality until you travel to another country, you also don't notice your social class until you enter another one." 

"Frankly, I found that college extends adolescence to a laughably old age."

"Restricting some freedom is essential for children to grow up, or, in the case of my enlistment, recover from the process of growing up."

"We now live in a culture where affluent, educated, and well-connected people validate and affirm the behaviors, decisions, and attitudes of marginalized and deprived kids that they would never accept for themselves or their own children. And they claim to do it in the name of compassion."

"I watched students claim that investment banks were emblematic of capitalist oppression, and then discovered that they had attended recruitment sessions for Goldman Sachs."

"Being in a bad environment doesn't eliminate all the good parts of you and being in a good environment doesn't eliminate all the bad parts of you."