It would be difficult to conjure a more exquisite contradiction than HBO’s The White Lotus—a show written, produced, and performed almost exclusively by the wealthy, which exists to mock and condemn the very lifestyles they so lavishly enjoy. Here we have a small army of high-income creatives, swaddled in designer wardrobes and filming in $4,000-a-night resorts, wagging their fingers at the corrupting influence of wealth. One is left to wonder whether the writers’ room was located before or after the infinity pool.
This is either a case of astounding self-delusion or something more strategic: a cultural sleight of hand. By performing their guilt publicly, the creators hope you won’t notice that they are, in fact, the very people they’re supposedly skewering. It’s not satire so much as insurance—an attempt to inoculate themselves against criticism by preemptively criticizing themselves, all while cashing the checks and sipping the wine.
And yet, the show has been praised—lavishly, of course—for its boldness and insight. But in truth, it is neither. The White Lotus is not a critique of power. It is a ritual of indulgence disguised as reflection, as is Succession, Palm Royale, Loot, The Menu, and others in the performative guilt genre. It is what happens when the wealthy left tries to hate itself, and, lacking self-awareness, finds that it quite likes the feeling.
This is the deeper pathology: the show is emblematic of a particular type of leftist—the sort who decries income inequality from the back seat of a chauffeured car. Being on the political left, after all, requires that one denounce the wealthy, yet the wealthy leftist cannot quite bring himself to believe that he, too, is among the damned. His politics, therefore, becomes not a vehicle for reform, but a shield—an identity that excuses his participation in the very system he claims to oppose.
This is why so many of the very rich have become progressives. It is not because they wish to divest themselves of power or wealth, but because they need a way to justify keeping it. Their ideology does not cost them anything—not materially, anyway. In fact, it buys them quite a lot: moral standing, cultural cachet, and most importantly, exemption from scrutiny. They’re not those rich people. They’re the good rich people. They voted for Hillary Clinton. They hired a DEI consultant. They shared the right hashtag during the summer of unrest. Their homes may be palatial, but their hearts are in the right place, so they can keep the Malibu mansion, the chef-prepared meals, and the custom yoga retreat in Tulum with zero guilt. Their politics purifies their privilege.
This—this is the central mechanism of modern elite liberalism: political alignment as moral laundering. Their progressivism becomes the indulgence that absolves their indulgence. They don’t need to live modestly or give up any real privilege, because they care, and that’s supposed to be enough.
It’s the spiritual equivalent of buying carbon offsets after taking a private jet to Davos.
But there is a deeper paradox at work—one that extends beyond the guilty conscience (or subconscious) of the rich liberal and into the culture that enables him. Materialism, in its modern form, breeds envy. Envy breeds hatred. And in our current moment, we worship wealth with one breath and curse the wealthy with the next. The result is not a movement toward justice, but a kind of moral schizophrenia—a society that resents what it reveres, and reveres what it resents. This contradiction is cruel enough for the average citizen, who is taught to long for luxuries he cannot afford and hate the people who can. But it becomes spiritually fatal for the elite themselves, whose self-loathing requires constant rituals of absolution. This is how we arrive at the figure of the limousine liberal—not just hypocritical, but tormented. Not content to enjoy his wealth, he must cleanse himself of it. Hence the endless cycle of televised guilt, performative activism, and cultural autoflagellation.
And still, he never gives up the keys to the Bentley.
