He knows this, because it is where he had his beginnings – stultifying, bourgeois, affluent life.

stultifying (n) 1: to make foolish; to make a fool of; as, to stultify one by imposition; to stultify one’s self by silly reasoning or conduct 2: to regard as a fool, or as foolish 3: (Law) to allege or prove to be of unsound mind, so that the performance of some act may be avoided – source: The benign catastrophist