HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: ‘Social justice’ majors, courses, events are new norm on college campuses.

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“CLARENCE THOMAS AND THE LOST CONSTITUTION”:  Written by Myron Magnet.  Reviewed by Peter Wood.

THIS EXPLAINS A LOT: ‘Luxury beliefs’ are the latest status symbol for rich Americans.

A former classmate from Yale recently told me “monogamy is kind of outdated” and not good for society. So I asked her what her background is and if she planned to marry.

She said she comes from an affluent family and works at a well-known technology company. Yes, she personally intends to have a monogamous marriage — but quickly added that marriage shouldn’t have to be for everyone.

She was raised by a traditional family. She planned on having a traditional family. But she maintained that traditional families are old-fashioned and society should “evolve” beyond them.

What could explain this?

In the past, upper-class Americans used to display their social status with luxury goods. Today, they do it with luxury beliefs.

People care a lot about social status. In fact, research indicates that respect and admiration from our peers are even more important than money for our sense of well-being.

We feel pressure to display our status in new ways. This is why fashionable clothing always changes. But as trendy clothes and other products become more accessible and affordable, there is increasingly less status attached to luxury goods.

The upper classes have found a clever solution to this problem: luxury beliefs. These are ideas and opinions that confer status on the rich at very little cost, while taking a toll on the lower class. . . .

In other words, upper-class whites gain status by talking about their high status. When laws are enacted to combat white privilege, it won’t be the privileged whites who are harmed. Poor whites will bear the brunt.

It’s possible that affluent whites don’t always agree with their own luxury beliefs, or at least have doubts. Maybe they don’t like the ideological fur coat they’re wearing. But if their peers punish them for not sporting it all over town, they will never leave the house without it again.

Because, like with diamond rings or designer clothes of old, upper-class people don a luxury belief to separate themselves from the lower class. These beliefs, in turn, produce real, tangible consequences for disadvantaged people, further widening the divide.

Well put.

ROGER KIMBALL ON TRUMP AND TONE: “At any rate, the situation in China reminds me of one of the political philosopher James Burnham’s famous political laws: Where there is no alternative there is no problem. What’s the alternative to Donald Trump on any of these issues? Joe Biden? Elizabeth Warren? Bernie Sanders? To ask the question is to answer it.”

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): What’s funny to me about China is that the same people who were saying that Trump would blunder into a war with some thoughtless angry tweet are now dumping on Trump for not interrupting his delicate negotiations to call the Chinese murderers.

WHICH IS SAYING SOMETHING: Gov. Gavin Newsom’s claim about the homeless was so absurd even Politifact couldn’t spin it.

USA TODAY: The Southern Poverty Law Center is a hate-based scam that nearly caused me to be murdered.

LOG CABIN REPUBLICANS: Trump Met His Committments To LGBTQ Americans. He Has Our Endorsement.

IS THAT EVEN ALLOWED? Janet Albrechtsen: Let us now praise masculine men.

On Tuesday afternoon a handful of men ran into the face of danger. Going about their business only seconds before, they confronted a man brandishing a bloody knife, pinning him down in the middle of a bustling Sydney street. The men who stopped further bloodshed have been called heroes, and they will be recognised for their courage. In passing, can we praise masculinity too? Or is that too controversial in an age when masculinity is raised only to condemn what is wrong with men and to preach how to change them.

Today, any celebration of masculinity is limited to praising men who do more housework and get involved with their kids, men who are able to cry, empathise with women and express their feelings. All very important stuff. But none of that would have restrained a crazed man who was threatening more violent carnage in Sydney’s CBD. Can we praise men who do both please?

Lawyer John Bamford picked up a wicker chair from the cafe he was in, raced outside and chased the attacker, 21-year-old Mert Ney, who was bloodied, jumping on a car bonnet while wielding his knife and screaming at passers-by. Ney was jammed to the ground by men using a milk crate and two chairs. Bamford returned the chair to the cafe and ordered a pie.

Traffic controller Steven Georgiadis tried to tackle Ney to the ground. “As soon as I saw the knife I moved to the side so I could crash tackle him sideways so he wouldn’t stab me,” said Georgiadis, who managed to stand on the bloody knife.

From their office window, brothers Luke and Paul O’Shaughnessy saw the mayhem unfolding in the street below and raced down to help. They followed a trail of blood to the man who is alleged to have murdered one woman and stabbed another. “(We) were like ‘Right, where is he? Where is he?’ … I’m shouting, because I’m a bit more risk-averse than Luke, (who is) straight in there.”

NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller described these men as heroes of the highest order. It is also true that the heroes were all men exhibiting traits now routinely derided as part of traditional masculinity — brute force and ­aggression, taking charge, adrenalin pumping, taking risks.

Do we fear praising masculinity in case it leads to a scolding for encouraging toxic masculinity?

It’s not an unreasonable fear because the conflation of masculinity with toxic masculinity, to use the phrase favoured by the roving gender police, has become routine. This common sleight of hand to use gender to confect some crudely defined phenomenon stokes pointless gender wars and risks harming both men and women. . . .

Perhaps Gillette’s next foray into “The Best Men Can Be” will include some vision of those brave men saving Sydneysiders from further violence earlier this week. It does no one any favours when gender is used as a cheap weapon, a stunt for ulterior motives.

I remember when people used to say with a straight face that feminism isn’t about hating men.

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POST-CHRISTIANITY: Methodist University Hires a Muslim Chaplain.

OPEN THREAD: Saturday night’s all right for threading, get a little word play in.

I THINK HE OWES FRANK J. A ROYALTY: Elon Musk Floats ‘Nuke Mars’ Idea Again (He Has T-Shirts).

COLLEGE FIX:  UVA receives an award for increasing its diversity in its engineering school, but won’t clarify how ….  Alas, we can guess.

DISPLAYING ADAPTABILITY: Marines Use Armored Vehicle to Defend Navy Ship from Small Boats off Iranian Coast.

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