This piece does not really touch on the many confounding variables that are found when examining the correlation between esoteric beliefs and social status. Level of education, for instance, is a biggie, even when accounting for the perceived prestige of where one goes to school.

The author dismisses some concepts, like cultural appropriation, by saying that the working-class people he grew up with not only didn't trouble themselves with it but didn't even realize that it was a concept.

But just because someone with low education and/or low status doesn't know about or understand a topic doesn't make that topic merely a status symbol, any more than it makes calculus a status symbol.

I agree, in part, with the author that certain pockets of higher education can veer into navel gazing and ivory-tower perspectives, and it can lead students to adopt distorted views of the world. But I don't think it can be said that just because a point of view is more prevalent among higher-educated people (who may indeed have higher status) that means the idea is bunk.