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It's frustrating though when specific factual words with meaning become redefined and the new definition is what is contentious. > "We should defund the police

It's frustrating though when specific factual words with meaning become redefined and the new definition is what is contentious. > "We should defund the police" > No, we should instead invest more in non-police social programs like mental health. > "Yes, that's what I mean when I say we should defund the police" > No, we shouldn't defund the police. How do you proceed from that? When I was a teenager 15 years ago my friend who studied Gender Studies told me about the concept of "privilege". I was livid. I understood what she was trying to say (I thought) but I was angry that she dared suggest that I had something. I was an immigrant. My family spent time on welfare. I worked super hard in school. Sure, I was white. So? How dare she? It didn't even occur to me to consider who she was comparing me against. It took me some time, I did some reading, I understood what the term meant, and I recognized some context (Yes, my parents were on Welfare for 2 months when we moved to the West. But they also had PhDs and were able to find good jobs soon after, etc) I went back to my friend and I said "look, i agree with your premise. But I still think the word privilege is too contenious. It makes people react negatively. She said, but that's the academic term. You reacted negatively because you reacted to a mischaracterization of the definition rather than what it actually meant. I thought about it and agreed. So now it's 15 years later, and I see people my own age - grown men in their 30s and older reacting to terms like privilege with the same vitreol I did as an angry teenager. At a time when there is more information than ever for people to find. The problem is not the contentious terms. The problem is some (lots) people just don't want to have a reasonable debate no matter what they say. They are entrenched in their ways, uninterested in growing, are arrogant about their beliefs, and lack the empathy to consider the feelings of others. If you discover new "non contentious" terms, they'll just find a way to make them contentious too.

forgotmypw17 6y ago
"The best move..."
edbob 6y ago
"Privilege" is an everyday word with established meanings. If academics want to redefine it to serve their political goals, the burden is on them to make their case to the people. We don't have to accept that a word means something different than what it's always meant before just because some ivory tower elitists said so. When someone wants to introduce a term to clarify meaning, they generally put two or three words together and create a unique term. When someone with a political agenda wants to create confusion and division, they choose common terms and give them new, contentious meanings. A sibling has a better approach for this particular term: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26247166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26247166
- deanCommie 6y ago
  > a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group. The Google definition is the same definition that academics use. Exactly the same. The sibling you references is correct - "privilege already had widely used emotional connotations that made it an insult to call someone privileged." but it's not academics that implied that meaning onto it. Also, can we have a discussion about these academic concepts without immediately ascribing "political goals"? We're talking about specific sociological concepts. Can we stick to that instead of ascribing subjective "goals" to people's research or ideas?
  - edbob 6y ago
    I'm trying to find a way to give a meaningful reply, but I honestly get stuck on this part about academia's supposed neutrality. I don't believe for a second that sociologists are somehow blissfully unaware of the way their work is used to shape policy, to shape debate, and even to shape the language itself, nor that they are somehow angels who can't have impure motives. In addition, it's common knowledge that petty political in-fighting is the rule in academia. There's no reason at all to think that academics are neutral in any way, but plenty of reasons not to.
    - deanCommie 6y ago
      Does the work of open source maintainers and technologists shape policy, debate, and language itself? By some definition no one is truly neutral. Everyone has some ideas and motives, and goals. The problem is when technologists look at those in the humanities and ascribe THEIR goals as "impure" or "political", and therefore somehow a class worthy of derision and dismissal. Don't you see that?
      - edbob 6y ago
        I think it's a different situation because no one is citing open-source maintainers in their studies, and they have very little influence in policy. I do see your point about everyone having bias, and it's not fair to stereotype one group as being especially biased. I apologize for showing undue bias myself.
bhawks 6y ago
It is a bit ironic to take issue with folks not respecting the authoritative, objective definition of privilege as decided upon by academic hierarchy. I say this because the concept of privilege is deeply entwined with postmodernist philosophy which strongly believes in the subjectivity of the meaning through ones own lived experience and the rejection of hierarchial social structure attempts to assert ownership of meaning. The word privilege has strong connotations of undeserved luxury which can be personally insulting to individuals that legitimately feel their own personal sufferings and hardships are being trivialized by the other party. Now do some folks really have undeserved amounts of personal luxury, yes of course, but luxury is by definition available to only a few. So why make it so essential to the word being used for the concept? The real interesting talking point behind privilege is that you are arbitrarily spared from a set of societal injustices that other people are exposed to by virtue of arbitrary identity attributes. With only moderate amounts of reflection it is easy for most folks to buy into this idea and take some action in their life to reduce the negative effects of this phenomenon. The cynic in me feels that the word privilege is used precisely to illicit defense responses from a subset of the population. Creating an irredeemable other and deepening division is never going to build a better society. What that does do is make the practitioner receive dopamine hits from their perceived moral and intellectual superiority. Sadly, self dosing dopamine will not bring about improvement to society at large. If you're looking to have dialogues that have some chance of making all the participants better people than they were before, the tough work of going past charged language, being empathetic and assuming good intent are table stakes. Otherwise you're just fishing for dopamine hits.
- deanCommie 6y ago
  > The word privilege has strong connotations of undeserved luxury Taking your point further, the crazy thing is that this part also fits! If you take academics at face value about the concepts of white privilege (and you don't have to agree with it, we're just discussing the terminology) in western society, then one aspect of it might be: "As a white person, you have the privilege not to be assaulted indiscriminately by the police." Is that a Luxury? Well, compared to the alternative, not being beaten by the cops is damn luxurious compared to being beaten. And it's completely undeserved! You did nothing to earn this except be born white. Now, here, I acknowledge is where Academics made a huge mistake. The key is that the people advocating for social justice say that "EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE THIS LUXURY." The idea of acknowledging privilege isn't to then follow up "and you should give it away", but instead "and you should make sure that EVERYONE is afforded the same privilege." But the thing is, the end result is the same. Once a just society is achieved (hypothetically) and police treat all races the same (for example), then there is no more advantage to being one race or another. So in essence, the point IS to give up the privilege by ensuring it becomes a non-entity. > The cynic in me feels that the word privilege is used precisely to illicit defense responses from a subset of the population. Depending on who you ask, humans are either social/collaborative/altruistic, or individualistic/selfish/xenophobic. This spans race, culture, and class lines. Those that are in power and also in the second group seek out likeminded folks in the lower classes and preach to them that their life isn't so bad so long as they are better off than <insert other race here>. Can every human being be convinced into seeking the common good? Can every human be assumed to have good intent? I don't know. You say you're cynical but you're more optimistic than me. I never thought of this language being an INTENTIONAL divisive force, but in some sense as a way to identify those allied with you, and those who would fight against you it's not awful. Like i said at the beginning - I do remember having an angry response at the first mention of this concept. But I realized in time that was my own immaturity and lack of empathy for others. Ironically it's the same privilege of being sufficiently well off and having my foundational needs being met that allowed me the space to start thinking of others. I acknowledge others may not be so lucky. If you are a coal miner out of work in West Virginia, the plight of black folks in inner city Minneapolis is hardly a concern. And if we were talking about reaching THOSE people, I would agree with you. Every tactic and skillful negotiation idea should be on the table. But a bunch of (privileged) well educated technologists on hacker news? I do expect a little more from them to do the bare minimum of reading a couple wikipedia pages before freaking out that someone is claiming they have some undeserved luxury.

forgotmypw17 6y ago

"The best move..."

edbob 6y ago

"Privilege" is an everyday word with established meanings. If academics want to redefine it to serve their political goals, the burden is on them to make their case to the people. We don't have to accept that a word means something different than what it's always meant before just because some ivory tower elitists said so. When someone wants to introduce a term to clarify meaning, they generally put two or three words together and create a unique term. When someone with a political agenda wants to create confusion and division, they choose common terms and give them new, contentious meanings. A sibling has a better approach for this particular term: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26247166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26247166

deanCommie 6y ago
> a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group. The Google definition is the same definition that academics use. Exactly the same. The sibling you references is correct - "privilege already had widely used emotional connotations that made it an insult to call someone privileged." but it's not academics that implied that meaning onto it. Also, can we have a discussion about these academic concepts without immediately ascribing "political goals"? We're talking about specific sociological concepts. Can we stick to that instead of ascribing subjective "goals" to people's research or ideas?
- edbob 6y ago
  I'm trying to find a way to give a meaningful reply, but I honestly get stuck on this part about academia's supposed neutrality. I don't believe for a second that sociologists are somehow blissfully unaware of the way their work is used to shape policy, to shape debate, and even to shape the language itself, nor that they are somehow angels who can't have impure motives. In addition, it's common knowledge that petty political in-fighting is the rule in academia. There's no reason at all to think that academics are neutral in any way, but plenty of reasons not to.
  - deanCommie 6y ago
    Does the work of open source maintainers and technologists shape policy, debate, and language itself? By some definition no one is truly neutral. Everyone has some ideas and motives, and goals. The problem is when technologists look at those in the humanities and ascribe THEIR goals as "impure" or "political", and therefore somehow a class worthy of derision and dismissal. Don't you see that?
    - edbob 6y ago
      I think it's a different situation because no one is citing open-source maintainers in their studies, and they have very little influence in policy. I do see your point about everyone having bias, and it's not fair to stereotype one group as being especially biased. I apologize for showing undue bias myself.

bhawks 6y ago

It is a bit ironic to take issue with folks not respecting the authoritative, objective definition of privilege as decided upon by academic hierarchy. I say this because the concept of privilege is deeply entwined with postmodernist philosophy which strongly believes in the subjectivity of the meaning through ones own lived experience and the rejection of hierarchial social structure attempts to assert ownership of meaning. The word privilege has strong connotations of undeserved luxury which can be personally insulting to individuals that legitimately feel their own personal sufferings and hardships are being trivialized by the other party. Now do some folks really have undeserved amounts of personal luxury, yes of course, but luxury is by definition available to only a few. So why make it so essential to the word being used for the concept? The real interesting talking point behind privilege is that you are arbitrarily spared from a set of societal injustices that other people are exposed to by virtue of arbitrary identity attributes. With only moderate amounts of reflection it is easy for most folks to buy into this idea and take some action in their life to reduce the negative effects of this phenomenon. The cynic in me feels that the word privilege is used precisely to illicit defense responses from a subset of the population. Creating an irredeemable other and deepening division is never going to build a better society. What that does do is make the practitioner receive dopamine hits from their perceived moral and intellectual superiority. Sadly, self dosing dopamine will not bring about improvement to society at large. If you're looking to have dialogues that have some chance of making all the participants better people than they were before, the tough work of going past charged language, being empathetic and assuming good intent are table stakes. Otherwise you're just fishing for dopamine hits.

deanCommie 6y ago
> The word privilege has strong connotations of undeserved luxury Taking your point further, the crazy thing is that this part also fits! If you take academics at face value about the concepts of white privilege (and you don't have to agree with it, we're just discussing the terminology) in western society, then one aspect of it might be: "As a white person, you have the privilege not to be assaulted indiscriminately by the police." Is that a Luxury? Well, compared to the alternative, not being beaten by the cops is damn luxurious compared to being beaten. And it's completely undeserved! You did nothing to earn this except be born white. Now, here, I acknowledge is where Academics made a huge mistake. The key is that the people advocating for social justice say that "EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE THIS LUXURY." The idea of acknowledging privilege isn't to then follow up "and you should give it away", but instead "and you should make sure that EVERYONE is afforded the same privilege." But the thing is, the end result is the same. Once a just society is achieved (hypothetically) and police treat all races the same (for example), then there is no more advantage to being one race or another. So in essence, the point IS to give up the privilege by ensuring it becomes a non-entity. > The cynic in me feels that the word privilege is used precisely to illicit defense responses from a subset of the population. Depending on who you ask, humans are either social/collaborative/altruistic, or individualistic/selfish/xenophobic. This spans race, culture, and class lines. Those that are in power and also in the second group seek out likeminded folks in the lower classes and preach to them that their life isn't so bad so long as they are better off than <insert other race here>. Can every human being be convinced into seeking the common good? Can every human be assumed to have good intent? I don't know. You say you're cynical but you're more optimistic than me. I never thought of this language being an INTENTIONAL divisive force, but in some sense as a way to identify those allied with you, and those who would fight against you it's not awful. Like i said at the beginning - I do remember having an angry response at the first mention of this concept. But I realized in time that was my own immaturity and lack of empathy for others. Ironically it's the same privilege of being sufficiently well off and having my foundational needs being met that allowed me the space to start thinking of others. I acknowledge others may not be so lucky. If you are a coal miner out of work in West Virginia, the plight of black folks in inner city Minneapolis is hardly a concern. And if we were talking about reaching THOSE people, I would agree with you. Every tactic and skillful negotiation idea should be on the table. But a bunch of (privileged) well educated technologists on hacker news? I do expect a little more from them to do the bare minimum of reading a couple wikipedia pages before freaking out that someone is claiming they have some undeserved luxury.