>Sociological privilege often refers to constant and immutable characteristics that cannot be taken away, and moreover makes the value judgment that the group w

>Sociological privilege often refers to constant and immutable characteristics that cannot be taken away, and moreover makes the value judgment that the group with privilege is bad, and that said privilege must be abolished. Privilege is no more or less than a source of cognitive bias in political opinions. "I support drone assassinations because they make the world a safer place" is an understandable thing to say as a white guy in Iowa, but comes from a place of privilege: said white guy in Iowa probably does not understand or even consider the realities of living in constant fear of summary execution from the sky with no warning, has never seen a friend lose his children because they were within the blast radius of someone on the kill list. No one is suggesting that we sic the drones on white guys in Iowa too out of some ridiculous idea of fairness. What we are suggesting is that his opinion is wrong, and should be excluded from American foreign policy, because when you remove the lens of privilege, drone assassinations stop looking like a good thing. "I oppose welfare because if those poor people weren't lazy, they would have jobs" is a reasonable thing to say when the only world you know is one where your parents' friends offer you jobs and internships at dinner parties. This comes from a position of privilege: unemployment predominantly affects people of color in poor inner-city communities where people do not have such social networks, have in been deliberately excluded from those social networks, in a world where having a Black-sounding name on your resume makes you many times less likely to get the interview. (It is entirely possible to rationally oppose welfare on other grounds: poor incentive structures, support for alternatives like public works projects instead, ideological commitment to the free market, etc. But specifically the claim that poverty is a personal failure of character, unambiguously comes from privilege and is therefore not correct.) When someone makes this argument and we call them privileged, we aren't asking for them to get laid off, we're arguing that their idea of social policy is immoral and people who believe it ought not to be voted into positions of control over government budgets. tl;dr: privilege isn't why you're evil, but it is why your opinion is wrong