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I didn't read it that way. My take on privilege is "currently being in a fortunate state". Doesn't imply you didn't earn it. I consider myself privileged. Simi

by cko 6y ago

I didn't read it that way. My take on privilege is "currently being in a fortunate state". Doesn't imply you didn't earn it. I consider myself privileged. Similar story with parents except I was raised by my aunt and uncle who were penniless immigrants to the US. They had their own kids to worry about so I was low priority. Half my clothes came from flea market bins. No tutoring, extracurriculars, etc. I was jealous of kids who could 'afford' $1.25 school lunches. I would even say that I was privileged at the time that I wasn't raised by abusive alcoholics and that at least my adoptive family valued education. And I never had to worry about starving. This led to the virtuous cycle where I have a lot of free time today. I live in Romania now and when people say I'm privileged I agree.

xyzelement 6y ago
Gotcha - I agree with that, and the term I would use is "virtuous cycle" because at least to my ear, that motivates one to take action that creates such cycles (eg: I am going to save a dollar now because over months and years it puts me in a financially better position, I am going to watch a video about programming instead of a gamer stream because it builds up my skills base, etc.) Privilege on the other hand reads like "something you have and I don't and therefore I can never catch up" - which in turn leads one to be passive and not believe that their actions can alter what kind of cycle they are in. Maybe it's linguistic nuance that not everyone sees the same way (eg: you see it differently) but it seems to me that most discourse on "privilege" has to do with "how do we take it away from others / use it to justify our own relative lack of success" rather than "ok I get the concept, what opportunities to I have to build up such 'privilege' for myself and my family?"
- concreteblock 6y ago
  That's a good point about the linguisitic connotations. faitswulff's comment reads so much better to me when you just replace the word 'privilege' with 'virtuous cycle' or 'snowball effect'.

by cko 6y ago

xyzelement 6y ago

Gotcha - I agree with that, and the term I would use is "virtuous cycle" because at least to my ear, that motivates one to take action that creates such cycles (eg: I am going to save a dollar now because over months and years it puts me in a financially better position, I am going to watch a video about programming instead of a gamer stream because it builds up my skills base, etc.) Privilege on the other hand reads like "something you have and I don't and therefore I can never catch up" - which in turn leads one to be passive and not believe that their actions can alter what kind of cycle they are in. Maybe it's linguistic nuance that not everyone sees the same way (eg: you see it differently) but it seems to me that most discourse on "privilege" has to do with "how do we take it away from others / use it to justify our own relative lack of success" rather than "ok I get the concept, what opportunities to I have to build up such 'privilege' for myself and my family?"

concreteblock 6y ago
That's a good point about the linguisitic connotations. faitswulff's comment reads so much better to me when you just replace the word 'privilege' with 'virtuous cycle' or 'snowball effect'.