4 ms·

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 th

by 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.

by bhawks 6y ago

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.