Is "Affluenza" Just a Creative Way to Justify Being Mean?

Co-authored with Sampada Karandikar, a doctoral student at the University of Nevada, Reno.

The 2008 Academy Award-winning movie "Milk" dramatizes an incident that took place in the U.S. in the 1970s, in which a man named Dan White shot and killed Harvey Milk, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (a legislative body), and George Moscone, the mayor of the city. White believed that Milk had convinced Moscone to not give White back his job as a Supervisor; his lawyers argued that White was depressed, which was evident through his increased consumption of sugary foods and other changes in his diet.

The arguments were instrumental in White not being charged with voluntary manslaughter and getting a reduced sentence. This reasoning came to be known as the “Twinkie defense”—not a legally recognized term but a catchall label to indicate White’s diminished capacity (he ended up dying by suicide seven years later).

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The U.S. justice system is rife with several such instances of "offbeat" defenses for both regular and bizarre cases of criminal behavior. One such creative defense that has recently sparked a discussion among state governments is whether or not "affluenza" should be permitted as a defense in courts.

What Is Affluenza?

Affluenza was originally defined in the context of consumerism and materialism as a social condition arising from a desire for possession of more wealth and material belongings, which causes a person to consistently chase financial success and yet feel unfulfilled. Extended to broader settings, affluenza refers to entitlement among the economically wealthy as a result of their privileged socialization, which leads them to fulfill their needs through harmful means with no care about the consequences of their actions.

This defense was first used in 2012 in the case of Ethan Couch, then a teenager, who drove drunk and consequently killed and injured several people. His lawyers argued that Ethan was suffering from affluenza as a result of his privileged socialization, which did not allow him to think of the consequences of his actions or see them as harmful. Using this defense, the lawyers were able to get his sentence reduced to ten years of probation and mandatory therapy.

Is Affluenza a Real Defense?

If affluenza sounds like a creative “made-up” justification to prevent taking responsibility for one’s actions and consequences, it almost certainly is. As legal defenses go, it sounds like a self-serving way to blame nurture over nature: I was born into money and never had to consider the implications of my actions on others, so I didn’t ever learn how to!

The defense may be closely associated with the social structures within which it is applied; a study of both Yale Law School students (who either already have or are very likely to attain elite status) and average Americans found greater self-interested tendencies among the former compared to the latter. The chief implication was that tradeoffs between fairness and self-interest can spill over to career (and possibly life) choices. From a creativity point of view, affluenza might score 10/10; yet from the moral perspective of individuals working toward the common good, the score is negative.

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Although the defense has not been attempted in Indian courts, there are several cases where it could be applied. For instance, earlier this year, a 17-year-old boy killed two people in a drunken hit-and-run with his father’s Porsche. In the aftermath, the family’s driver was coerced to take the blame; the minor’s blood sample was swapped with his mother’s instead; and the minor, his father, and grandfather were all taken into custody at different points in time. It could be argued that the entire family was afflicted by affluenza—an original and harmful way to justify bad behavior.

Affluenza or Permissive Parenting?

With rising income inequality the world over, financial privileges among the uber-rich are only likely to increase. With this, immoral justifications for the actions of the ultra-wealthy may also increase.

Trying to deflect blame for one's crimes based on one’s societal, financial, or political standing can be tragic for victims. In the wake of the Couch case, several debates arose—not only on the legal front but also from a psychological and parenting perspective.

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To some, it sounded like "affluenza" was similar to run-of-the-mill permissive parenting. This occurs when parents do not set boundaries for children growing up, do not encourage them to take responsibility for their actions, and may not actively foster empathy in children. It often results in egocentric individuals with a “nothing-can-touch-me” attitude.

This brings us to the focal point of this piece: We argue that affluenza is a darkly creative defense, and just that. It is a pseudoscientific rationale for being mean, harmful, and destructive—yet as much as it pains us to admit it, it is a rather original and seemingly effective explanation.