Poll: Privilege

[DayDark]

I hate the way privilege is now used as a way of attacking someone, check your privilege! Then shut up! as if having a good life is something to be ashamed of. It puts the spotlight on the wrong thing, I shouldn't check my privilege, I should check out this groups disadvantages, this groups suffering, the problem isn't that I was born white, or in a country with free education, it's that some people was born a woman in the wrong culture, and aren't allowed to drive or get educated at all.

It's not about what I got, it's about what you lack.

 

[RedDeadFred]

It's sort of just semantics (not quite, but close), but I do like your view on this quite a bit more OP since it carries more of a connotation of needing to fix society rather than accepting where we are at.

 

[Kolyarut]

Its just a language thing.

Think of it this way - I work with a client focused on making flamingos, the two major components of which is flam and mingos. If I say "we currently have an excess of flam with respect to mingos, leading to product wastage" my implication is that we need less flam, but if I say "we currently have a shortage of mingos, resulting in flam wastage" then my implication is that we need more mingos.

In one case I am implying that we need less of something, in the other more. I think that is what the op is trying to get at anyway - calling somebody privileged (ie saying they have 4 more) implies that they should have less, while calling somebody disadvantaged (ie saying they have 4 less) implies that they should have more.

This is a glorious post!

All the talk of privilege as opposed to disadvantage all to often results in a race to the bottom, as we saw a particularly galling example of in page one of this thread. If someone's on fire, the last thing they want to hear is "yeah, you're on fire, but you could also be covered in bees", as if they're supposed to appreciate the fire more somehow. Being on fire and being covered in bees are both problems - maybe we need to be investing in fire extinguishers and bugspray rather than guilting the flammable for their lack of bees.

And frankly, once you start down that road, everyone's privileged to some degree and their opinions are therefore worthless. "Sure, you're on fire, covered in bees, have lost three kidneys and your children's lungs are infested with live cicadas, but did you consider you could also be allergic to oxygen and vomit at the sight of the colour yellow? Geez, have a little consideration for others why don't you?"

 

[Thaluikhain]

I hate the way privilege is now used as a way of attacking someone, check your privilege! Then shut up! as if having a good life is something to be ashamed of. It puts the spotlight on the wrong thing, I shouldn't check my privilege, I should check out this groups disadvantages, this groups suffering, the problem isn't that I was born white, or in a country with free education, it's that some people was born a woman in the wrong culture, and aren't allowed to drive or get educated at all.

It's not about what I got, it's about what you lack.

That's assuming that a lack of discrimination comes with a lack of bias about discrimination. Certainly, people should check out other groups disadvantages, but unfortunately, there's far too many people that assume that not suffering those disadvantages makes them more qualified to talk about it. Even with the best intentions, that is an easy mistake to make, and if that person wants to avoid repeating it, it helps if someone points it out by telling them to check their privilege.

 

[Godhead]

The common sense of the OP is oppressing me, and that's racist.

 

[Thaluikhain]

If someone's on fire, the last thing they want to hear is "yeah, you're on fire, but you could also be covered in bees", as if they're supposed to appreciate the fire more somehow. Being on fire and being covered in bees are both problems - maybe we need to be investing in fire extinguishers and bugspray rather than guilting the flammable for their lack of bees.

Sure...but the person who is on fire doesn't get to decide that being covered in bees isn't a problem, that fire extinguishers would solve everything.

And frankly, once you start down that road, everyone's privileged to some degree and their opinions are therefore worthless.

Yes. Everyone's opinions are worth less (not worthless, worth less) on some issues. If you have a straight black man and a gay white man, one of them is likely to know more about being gay, and the other about being black. A woman is likely to know more than either about being a woman.

Privilege doesn't mean your opinion is worthless, in the general sense, it means you've got a limited experience with one particular form of discrimination.

 

[verdant monkai]

I think the idea of human rights are only really applicable to an ideal world.

As everyone says "Life isn't fair", so for example lets say everyone has a right to clean water and a job, there are people in impoverished countries where there are no jobs let alone clean water. They may have a "right" to it but it isn't there. A lot of life boils down to luck. Some people are lucky enough to be born in places where clean water and jobs are possible to obtain, but for many people they just can't have these things because they don't live near them and they physically cannot get to them. Human rights are not applicable to these people because their situation will not allow it.
As for how people treat each other, I agree thinks like rape and discrimination aren't good. But humans themselves are not capable of entirely expunging these things from our society.

What I'm saying is NO ONE has a right to any of these things. Some people are just lucky enough to have them. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try and help people less fortunate than us though.

Human rights are great but they are a bit "kumbaya lets all hold hands and come together as one people" they are unrealistic but nice if you get my meaning. I have respect for the people who strive for these ideals, however the human race just isn't going to change all that much.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I think the idea of human rights are only really applicable to an ideal world.

As everyone says "Life isn't fair", so for example lets say everyone has a right to clean water and a job, there are people in impoverished countries where there are no jobs let alone clean water. They may have a "right" to it but it isn't there. A lot of life boils down to luck. Some people are lucky enough to be born in places where clean water and jobs are possible to obtain, but for many people they just can't have these things because they don't live near them and they physically cannot get to them. Human rights are not applicable to these people because their situation will not allow it.
As for how people treat each other, I agree thinks like rape and discrimination aren't good. But humans themselves are not capable of entirely expunging these things from our society.

What I'm saying is NO ONE has a right to any of these things. Some people are just lucky enough to have them. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try and help people less fortunate than us though.

Human rights are great but they are a bit "kumbaya lets all hold hands and come together as one people" they are unrealistic but nice if you get my meaning. I have respect for the people who strive for these ideals, however the human race just isn't going to change all that much.

Well...yes, but then again, big improvements have been made. The people striving for total equality aren't likely to get it, no, but they are likely to get things better than they were, which is not to be sniffed at.

 

[DayDark]

snip

That's assuming that a lack of discrimination comes with a lack of bias about discrimination. Certainly, people should check out other groups disadvantages, but unfortunately, there's far too many people that assume that not suffering those disadvantages makes them more qualified to talk about it. Even with the best intentions, that is an easy mistake to make, and if that person wants to avoid repeating it, it helps if someone points it out by telling them to check their privilege.

I don't usually see this, at least I haven't encountered anyone thinking themselves more qualified, but truth be told I don't engage in many battles strictly discussing social issues, where I guess most of these people will be highlighted, I just know they exist. I'm guessing when this is encountered it's because they consider themselves an outside voice? and thus not coloured? I wouldn't call that more qualified, an outside can be valuable sure, but you need both views to get the bigger picture.

 

[visiblenoise]

I think you have a solid point...better, and more positive, to assume that the default state is that everyone deserves rights, as opposed to calling those that do actually have them "special/privileged". But it's still just semantics.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

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.

That's not true. The SJWs and affirmative action are constantly shitting on you.

Oh well okay maybe a few tumblr users don't like me, oh woe is me that's totally comparable to the plights of women and minorities.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

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.

That's not true. The SJWs and affirmative action are constantly shitting on you.

Oh well okay maybe a few tumblr users don't like me, oh woe is me that's totally comparable to the plights of women and minorities.

The living ones? The ones alive now, in the 21st century? Yes.
Everyone goes on about how hard it is to be a woman or minority, and yet nobody can actually point to what the oppression actually is. See, if there's a plight, you should be able to spell out exactly what that plight is, not just say there's a plight. All you really have is statistics, but see, statistics aren't oppression, laws, things that are actively being done against you, are.

When I was younger I used that very argument on this website "Sexism is over guys, you won. You can vote, you can work you have equal rights."

But they say 1 in 4 women get raped, even if that number is an exaggeration even 1 in 10 would be terrifying. Women get paid less the world over for the same work. Those statistics do represent oppression, statistics in this case are a count of bad things being done against people, opression doesnt have to be in law form. Aborigines are here in my own country living in third world type conditions whilst I have acess to wifi and clean water and a decent house and food. Some over zealous activists who don't like me who will never meet me in real life aren't really a problem for me.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I am a straight white male who grew up ranging from poor to middle class. I had an inverse set of parents, my mother (stepmother but she raised me so she gets the title) is very successful while my father, though a great guy, took a bit longer to get his shit together and stabilize a career, and still makes way less than my Mom does. I watched my parents struggle with bills, fight a lot about money, yet they busted ass to make sure I didn't go without anything so I can say I had an advantage, in that my parents cared a lot about me and wanted to make sure I was comfortable. I don't see that as a privilege, I didn't inherit it simply for being white. They fought hard to make sure we had roof, walls, clothes and food.
They also worked so much I almost never saw them during the daytime and was defaulted to grandparent daycare, which again I was lucky t have.
Was I privileged? Or was I just part of a family that actually cared? I don't know exactly, but where I grew up many many things are a little different than they are most other places. I grew up in an environment where women were just as successful as men (Real Estate) and actually more women were top of that food chain than men (still are). I also grew up where if someone was gay it wasn't that odd of a thing, it was just something that some people were, same with racial minorities. There were poor areas but the amount of poor white folk outnumbered the poor black folk. Of course if you drove north to the bigger city, things did change but I am not talking about something that existed about an hour and a half away.
Something to be said about a small community, people are less likely to be assholes to each other, though it still happens. But I guess my hometown is just a very special place to have lived.
I'm not saying there weren't issues, sure there probably were. My point is that between family and community, I've seen a woman become one of the most successful people in her field, running two separate offices that are gender diverse and also very welcoming environments to work. Not at all as cutthroat as other real estate offices I've done PC tech work for.
I guess I've seen a model of what a decent society can be, and seen it work. Maybe though it only works in small areas and the more humans you cramp together, the worse things get.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

I think the disconnect here is that I'm arguing that me not being discriminated against by bigoted people in certain situations is a, uh, civil liberty that all should have, and having that does not make one "privileged" (adjective). The rest of my OP falls into what what you said (I think).

You can't have someone being discriminated against without someone else being discriminated for, though.

For example, let's say you have 3 people or groups, A, B and C. C is being discriminated against, time or funding or resources or whatever that they should be getting is going to A.

Now, you could argue that B isn't privileged, they are just getting an absence of discrimination, and things would be much the same whether it happened to C or not.

A, however, most definitely is. They are getting a benefit from the discrimination. It's not merely an absence of discrimination.

If someone doesn't get a job because of, say, homophobia, then that's a job that someone else gets instead. If money isn't spent in an area because of racism, it's likely to be spent somewhere else.

A better example would be:
A) Not being discriminated against
B) The bigots
C) The people the bigots are discriminating against.

Group A is being chosen over group C by the bigots. I wouldn't call that a privilege.
What is happening though, is that group C aren't getting the rights (or civil liberties) they deserve, being treated fairly regardless of race/gender/sexuality.

There hasn't been a lot of mention about the people doing the actual discriminating in this thread (well I've been harping on it to no end), and that's one of the things I'm trying to fix. People are making it sound like some force of nature, when it's actually just some sad lonely idiot blaming all his problems on black people.

 

[Alatar The Red]

Focusing on the 'western' cultures.

The problem with the internet usage of privilege is that 99% of the time people focus on race/gender/bodytype etc. while ignoring the overwhelmingly biggest contributor to the inequality thing: wealth.

Being a woman or non white means almost nothing if you have access to tons of money. And likewise being a man or white means almost nothing if you don't have access to a big pile of money. This is especially annoying when the whole concept of white/male privilege usually comes mostly from expensive american universities.

The normal internet usage of the word usually also mostly ignores non americans. I live in a certain nordic country that has equal rights for women and men except that men are forced to choose between: 6-12 months of military service / 12 months of some shit job without pay / jail time. With that huge disadvantage in mind I'd be relatively comfortable with claiming that in this culture women are more 'privileged'.