Poll: Privilege
- Thread starter CpT_x_Killsteal
- Start date
People who use the word "privilege" the most are used to using word with strong psychological impact on common human claiming it has different meaning. And, in my opinion, this is really cleverly calculated move. It has the effect of pushing their agenda in extreme manners while they can claim that they didn't mean any such thing. Privilege is just another example of it.Senare said:
Jack having public health insurance is not a privilege where I live, it's a right.
Mack not having public health insurance is disadvantaged because his right to have it has been denied.
However since Jack can go to the doctors office ignoring the existing waiting line without having an emergency he is priviledged.
Difference being that public health insurance (access to public health institutions) is considered to be human right and cutting the line isn't.
I agree, as a straight white male nobody is helping me to suceed in life, I still need to work hard and im on my own. The only difference is there is nobody shitting on me.
Think of it this way:slo said:
What you define as 0 is down to your personal opinion and situation.
Someone starving in a African village will have a completely different 0 to the CEO of a major corporation.
As such there is no objective "0" only comparisons. Which still means the argument is the difference between "You've got 4 less than me." "No! You've got 4 more than me."
Let's pretend that it would not be a privilege for the privileged to use a different word for privilege that makes the privileged more comfortable.
What word should be used instead?
What word should be used instead?
Sorry to get dictionary-y at you, but Merriam-Webster defines a "right" as "a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way."
White people (for example) aren't morally or legally entitled to be treated a certain way- at least, not on the officially, in America, any more. (Your mileage may vary depending on your country and the way you view de facto treatment's contrast with official policy.)
I think I understand the OP's underlying point that it might be more effective to try to bring people up rather than to go into ever-ongoing harangues about "privilege", especially as it has a tendency to trivialize many issues and create an atmosphere where only certain people are allowed the floor, possibly even creating a sense of a "race for the bottom"- after all, every person typing on a keyboard is, in a sense, privileged, as is everyone who knows where their next meal is coming from, and everyone who doesn't fear for their lives on a daily basis.
But sometimes, to really understand what others lack, we first need to understand what we have and take for granted.
White people (for example) aren't morally or legally entitled to be treated a certain way- at least, not on the officially, in America, any more. (Your mileage may vary depending on your country and the way you view de facto treatment's contrast with official policy.)
I think I understand the OP's underlying point that it might be more effective to try to bring people up rather than to go into ever-ongoing harangues about "privilege", especially as it has a tendency to trivialize many issues and create an atmosphere where only certain people are allowed the floor, possibly even creating a sense of a "race for the bottom"- after all, every person typing on a keyboard is, in a sense, privileged, as is everyone who knows where their next meal is coming from, and everyone who doesn't fear for their lives on a daily basis.
But sometimes, to really understand what others lack, we first need to understand what we have and take for granted.
I know I said I could not reexplain with out coming off rude to CpT x Killsteal. I appreciate (you) someone else trying. And what you said was certainly a part necessary for the explanation, part of which that was getting rude on my part when typing out an explanation before giving up last night.DataSnake said:
I do have to say that your analogy while necessary, more applies to a word like right more so than privilege. Right as a word like log, has different meanings completely separate from each other. Where as the word privilege, has a more complex relation with it's definitions.
While contextualized privilege can mean different things. The definitions of privilege offer refined context to the first definition. Unlike log or right, that mean two different things entirely. Therefore the use of privilege even if contextualized to mean a more specific aspect of Privilege, does not disregard the other definitions, as does log and log (tree partition)-right and right (side).
A more accurate way of demonstrating meaning of privilege actually can be applied to the word right.
Right as applied to a moral, ethical, or legal principle considered as an underlying cause of truth, justice, morality, or ethics. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rights definition 22.
Like privilege http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/privilege?s=t definition 1, right has three aspects of refinement.
Right: Moral, ethical, or legal
Privilege: Right, immunity, and benefit
From here a person refines the aspect of context but keeps intact the concept of definition.
The problem with the original post is that the argument has been refined for one aspect contextualized in three aspects and used to negate one aspect of the definition.
Meanings of words lose other definitions when it is a different concept, not because it is a refined aspect. A person can disregard aspects through context, provided he/she does not mix aspects.
All those things are already solved on paper, in a top down approach.
The people just haven't caught on, yet.
As long as we don't actively work to revert things already achieved, it will solve itself in time.
Oh and calling people "privileged" is ironically one of the things still keeping those walls inside our heads standing. If you're being called "privileged", you either pity, or you're annoyed by a different group of people than yours. No matter if the emotion is positive or negative, it still creates a mental divide between "them" and "us".
The people just haven't caught on, yet.
As long as we don't actively work to revert things already achieved, it will solve itself in time.
Oh and calling people "privileged" is ironically one of the things still keeping those walls inside our heads standing. If you're being called "privileged", you either pity, or you're annoyed by a different group of people than yours. No matter if the emotion is positive or negative, it still creates a mental divide between "them" and "us".
See I agree mostly the problem is, more or less these groups are not necessarily privileged or disadvantaged because of their race more to education and familial bonds.CpT_x_Killsteal said:
An unpopular opinion but on my old grandfather would likely agree with, he spent a lot of his life supporting the disadvantaged and poor in Jamaica, back in the day and was able to amass money as an Indian living in the twilight days of the Britain empire.
What we need to do in America at least is to target demographics, give these people better education, free university access and the like.
It does make what colour or whatever these people are they need to have a full education and full responsibilities as human beings.
Give these people some hope, give support their family some family (trust me broken homes tend to produce messed up kids) and never let them take the easier path.
Otherwise this is just like normal, every empire have their castes inadvertently or not.
Poverty is a frankly familial trait, born poor, die poor once the aristocracy has been cemented.
This thing will pass as the old dies and the new raises itself up, again as my grandfather said, time solves all problems
Some I'm privileged because bigots like me at first glance? Is that really such a great thing?RoonMian said:
And if privilege revolves around who does and doesn't hate who, then should we really be keeping it as a concept?
Could you use an analogy with the different definitions of privilege?DataSnake said:
What if I want the percieved problem that i can't percieve explained to me logically? Because, while this is just bashing my anecdotal evidence against yours, it usually does come down to "shut the fuck up or agree with me" (though I haven't seen it on this site thankfully). And rather than "children starving in Africa", it's usually "I'm a woman/trans/gay/black/etc" and you're a white straight man". But again, this is anecdotal. So, do you think someone without the problem can or can't imagine themself in their shoes and empathise? And do you think the 'privileged' person can have a different opinion when the situation is explained to them.
The standard isn't that invisible. There are bigoted people discriminating against others, it's not hard to see it. And a lot of these things are already rights, such as being treated equally, not being shot because of skin colour, not being rejected for a job because of sexuality/gender/race etc,. slavery wasn't ended because people thought "something something privilege", but "everyone deserves the same rights". Granted it took a while for that to settle in completely, but we're there now. Most of us anyway.Senare said:
Where was I? Oh yes, this not-so-invisible, also known as a double standard, is already called bigotry.
Edit: I'd consider actual privilege to be something like being born into a rich/well-off family. Having something that isn't a right, something you haven't earned, but something given to you.
But the intentional disenfranchisement and exclusion of people of color, women, disabled folks, etc. *does* benefit white dudes like me and you - from individual situations like being considered over a better candidate for a job because he or she is black, to systematic political structures like the fact that a good third of the wealth in white communities was generated during slavery.CpT_x_Killsteal said:
I have a lot of problems with the notion of "privilege" because I think it's very individualized and doesn't really lead to anything except people feeling bad, but those in the class of "man" or "white" or whatever absolutely do have lives that are easier because people are dicks to black folks, women, etc.
This is where the immunity aspect of privilege comes in. You are immune from first glance dislike.CpT_x_Killsteal said:
Edit: NB4 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/immune?s=t definition 3. exempt or protected.
Yes. Immune from first glance dislikes from bigots. One type of arsehole won't have a knee-jerk dislike of me. I still wouldn't say that's a privilege.Itdoesthatsometimes said:
Plus if we go with this way, we're basically saying the idea of privilege revolves around bigots hating things, which becomes a 'why do the opinions of bigots matter' scenario.