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17 Aug, 5 tweets, 2 min read
"Umm this article is from 2015"

"Why are you posting an article from 2011?"

"Lol this was written in 2017"

=

"I make sure my mental software programming is always up to date"
Implicit in these comments is the fear of being "out of the loop."

Upper middle class people have apps on their phones that deliver bite-sized news items. They listen to the right podcasts and read the right periodicals, so they always know the talking points of the day
In the season 7 premiere of Mad Men, Freddy Rumsen pitches a TV ad of a young businessman who wears an expensive watch, and suddenly becomes the most interesting person in the room

Freddy says the tagline, “Accutron: It’s not a time piece, it’s a conversation piece.”
Freddy (and Don) pitched that ad in the late 1960s. Times have changed.

Now how do corporations tell people how they can be the most interesting person in the room? By keeping abreast of the latest talking points and parroting them

Luxury beliefs have replaced luxury goods
Much more to say about this in my upcoming newsletter this Sunday.

Sign up here: eepurl.com/gNOyq5

-Social class and luxury beliefs
-Prestigious newspapers and cultural tastes
-Much more I can't post about on Twitter

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More from @robkhenderson

Rob Henderson Profile picture
29 Aug
Mao enacted a campaign called "Recalling Bitterness" to battle "lukewarm attitudes" about the socialist revolution

The regime forced people into rituals describing how bad life was before they had been "liberated," aim was to reshape memories of the past
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.11…
The communist regime appointed writers and artists to retell stories about class struggle "to suit the needs of different political agendas"

Officials of the state would often manipulate these stories, "there was a gradual blurring of the boundary between history and fiction"
Lin Biao (Minister of Defense) stated that "If the past bitterness is not understood, the present sweetness will be unknown. Some might regard today's sweetness as bitterness." The regime aimed to energize grievances to ensure revolutionary fervor did not die
Read 11 tweets
Rob Henderson Profile picture
26 Aug
To exempt themselves from the demands of adulthood, children of the WASP elite claimed to have "neurasthenia," a "neurotic despair" with symptoms like insomnia, irritability, anxiety, fear of responsibility, lethargy, an inability to make decisions amzn.to/3Dm3Fjx ImageImageImageImage
Theodore Roosevelt suffered from neurasthenia as a young boy, "with the makings of a full-fledged neurotic." He ridiculed the softness of the upper class and overcame his fears by lifting heavy weights, boxing, rowing, mountain climbing, cowboying, and leading men into war Image
Women from rich WASP families were taught at colleges that they had undeserved privilege, and felt a "desperate wish" to atone and "do violence" to themselves to repent. They aimed to blend Christianity with Socialism & "delighted in the vast Russian experiment" in Communism ImageImageImageImage
Read 5 tweets
Rob Henderson Profile picture
23 Aug
The upper class is perfectly okay with casting judgment on cigarette smoking and encouraging ppl to stop because it’s unhealthy

But they are unwilling to encourage marriage before having kids, even though single parenthood is also associated with detrimental health outcomes
Interesting that the upper class is okay with condemning cigarette smoking due to health risk but are reluctant to judge obesity. Moral fashions come and go
In the 1960s, 45% of Americans smoked and 10% were obese

Today, 16% of Americans smoke and 45% are obese
Read 4 tweets
Rob Henderson Profile picture
28 Jul
Compared to kids living with their married birth parents, adopted kids are

-Twice as likely to have their parents contacted for schoolwork problems

-3 times more likely to be suspended or expelled from school

-4 times more likely to repeat a grade

ifstudies.org/blog/the-adopt…
I was suspended, didn't do homework, detention, etc. Never had to repeat a grade, but I probably should have given how little effort I put in nypost.com/2020/02/08/how…
"one might expect that adopted children would do well in school...adoptive families tend to be better off financially than other families with children. This is partly due to self-selection and partly to the screening that adoptive parents must go through" ifstudies.org/blog/the-adopt…
Read 5 tweets
Rob Henderson Profile picture
21 Jul
“Beginning in the late sixties, Helmut Kentler, one of the most influential sexologists in Germany, placed neglected children in foster homes run by pedophiles. The experiment was authorized and financially supported by the government.” newyorker.com/magazine/2021/…
“Kentler was inspired by the Marxist psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, who had argued that the free flow of sexual energy was essential to building a new kind of society…Kentler came to believe that sexual repression was key to understanding the Fascist consciousness.”
“these foster homes were run by sometimes powerful men who lived alone and who were given this power by academia, research institutions and other pedagogical environments that accepted, supported or even lived out pedophile stances”
Read 4 tweets
Rob Henderson Profile picture
15 Jul
“the disintegration of the Soviet Union was one of the most astonishing events in modern history…The largest and most threatening empire in the world, with 5 million soldiers in Soviet garrisons from Budapest to Vladivostok, fell apart in just 6 years” nytimes.com/2002/01/20/boo…
Read 5 tweets

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