Part memoir, part polemic, this story of 's childhood in the foster care system had me up until 11pm (very very late for me) reading it last night. I have been a long time fan of his substack, and after a friend from lab, who had had vaguely analogous experiences as an adolescent to Henderson, recommended me the book, I thought I would take the plunge.

As someone who grew up in what I now recognize as extremely affluent circumstances, Henderson's portrayal of what life is like for your average lower class American was pretty horrifying, and I was deeply impressed that he was able to make to the place that he is in now, as well as to find some semblance of a loving family.

Although much of the work is just autobiographical (and thus doesn't have a thesis "per-see") Henderson does try to relate his experiences to the idea of luxury beliefs: opinions of the upper class that are held as a status marker, but never followed. Sometimes this works and sometimes this doesn't. The loosened rules of sexual promiscuity certainly played a role in Henderson's chaotic family life (although an underclass without stable pairings has sort of always existed in urban society): he was a child born out of wedlock, and had to deal with not one, but two divorces/separations in his adopted family. We know divorce is awful for children: it should not be as easy as it is.

Similarly, permissive drug and alcohol use play a huge roll in Rob's adolescence. It is frankly a miracle he never was charged with a DUI, nor did hard drugs. Again, though drug and alcohol (ab)use have always been a thing in urban societies, it is undeniable that American culture has become far more lax about it in the past century. The temperance movement was strong enough at one point to get prohibition through congress, and before the 1960s, marijuana and hard drug use (outside of stimulants) was very rare. However, I would hesitate to call this a luxury belief, as substance addiction has real consequences for even members of the upper and middle classes (although the effect is undoubtedly worse for the lower classes that don't have support networks to fall back on).

Finally Henderson touches a little bit on "wokeness" once he gets to Yale, but the racial angle that most of the hyperliberals at universities1 focus on is, perhaps surprisingly, absent from most of Henderson's narrative. It seems like, at least in practice, the multiculturalism that these kind of people claim to long for is most alive and well in the part of America that has much larger problems to worry about than the color of their neighbor’s skin. Yet some of the criticisms in the section also fall flat here too. Henderson criticizes affirmative action (and similar policies) for impoverishing communities by sucking up all potential talent and concentrating it in big hub cities where the universities are. Yet this is exactly the trajectory that he was very happy to take: I don't think he'll be spending much time in Red Bluff for the rest of his life, and I don't blame him at all.

This problem, as well as many others in the book, run a lot deeper than simple "wokeness", or luxury beliefs. Divorce, drug use, and identitarian atomization are all signs of a decaying social contract due to oligarchic centralization (which we see countless times throughout history). Working hard and cultivating discipline only can get you so far when capital has a better return than labor. Due to his naturally conservative bend, and positive reinforcement from cultivating good habits, I feel that Henderson misses these more systemic factors that are behind the issues he talks about. Then again, fixing those isn't very actionable, but being a solid reliable figure that your family can rely on is, so what do I know.

Henderson is a fantastic writer, and I cannot recommend the book enough, despite my minor disagreements with its message. You can also find him here on substack.

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Both Hopkins and MIT were quite similar to Yale in this regard. The intellectual straight-jacket was and is oppressive.