privilege as a meme

feel like the concept privilege is getting a lot of burn recently, fundamentally its for sure important for understanding society and so on, but particularly itt im more interested in how something gets chewed up by the internet and people, its interesting how the blog/social network era has popularized academic gender/queer/etc thinking which is for sure the pipeline that brought us privilege, as ideas spread they naturally become broader and i think at some point start to lose their power and degrade, you can see the seeds of this in totemic manner many regard privileges illuminating and deconstructive powers as well as its cut and paste employment as a societal master key

anyway what do you think

Educate yourself!

haha what

Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin privilegium law for or against a private person, from privus private + leg-, lex law

That was a joke, all of the social media social justice kids use "Educate yourself!" at least once in any sort of discussion about privilege. xp

lol i am clearly not deep enough in the privilege game, i should educate myself

it's easier to spell than kyriarchy

it's the favored term of tumblr intellectuals

It means "shut up white straight man" on ilx otherwise i got nothin

In its deference to classical Greco-Roman etymology, kyriarchy is deeply suspect as a term.

how to monetize privilege?

the word is used by too small a group of people not to have a ring of hypocrisy.

And I'm sad I wont get to see nostalgic and sentimental accounts about the hijinks of the tumblr itelligentsia in 2089. "It was a golden age."

"It was a golden age. RT if you agree!!"

"Your father and I were actually sat at computers for the great gay marriage RT of 2013."

In its deference to classical Greco-Roman etymology, kyriarchy is deeply suspect as a term.

― But I'm having so much foehn! (Michael White), Tuesday, April 9, 2013 2:40 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i get the need for the term but yeah 'rule by rulers' is p funny

It means "shut up white straight man"

*insert punchline*

as ideas spread they naturally become broader and i think at some point start to lose their power and degrade

yeah there might be some irony here when conceptual words intended to pull the reader off guard or solicit thought in a Derridean sense become catchphrases that slide across the brain with nary a quibble

so i have long thoughts on this cause i somehow found myself in a nexus of people who have a foot in both the world of radical activism ("yo white dude who keeps talking over everybody else, can you step back and let somebody else with a diff perspective get a word in") and the Tumblr Privilege Rabbit Hole ("yo check your anthropocentric privilege i can love trees carnally")

i will write them here later, prob when this thread has become a 478 post clusterfop

i think the "privilege model" of discussing inequality is important, and worth perpetuating, even if the finer nuances get ironed out with casual use

i'm sitting out of this one. i don't have enough FP's to spare.

I have seen it a lot in blog-comment clusterfucks as a kind of conversation ender/nuclear option. Recently saw it used this way against a dad blogger who was basically saying "I work very long hours and spend the rest of my time on childcare and house tasks. Why am I not referred to as a 'working dad'." And it was a pretty lighthearted, non grudgy column in tone. Somehow his "privilege" made this point invalid because working moms have it worse. Maybe it struck too close to home but I was bothered by this.

Not generally against the idea of privilege or discussing/checking privilege, just don't like it as a neutralizer.

i mean i guess in brief if you're using sociologically meaningful language that actually applies to people from communities that face unique categories of oppression, the way some people use otherkin notions to explore trans/queer identity, it's one thing. but if you're using it because you think you're a purple pony inside and why won't society stop oppressing you for being a purple pony in the body of a straight white dude, you are first against the wall. to an extent.

i think the "privilege model" of discussing inequality is important, and worth perpetuating, even if the finer nuances get ironed out with casual use

― ampersand cooper black (elmo argonaut), Tuesday, April 9, 2013 3:47 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i agree tho i didnt intend this thread as a value judgement either way particularly, maybe more privilege watching, like bird watching

hmmmm.

"I work very long hours and spend the rest of my time on childcare and house tasks. Why am I not referred to as a 'working dad'.

how about "single parent," does that cover it?

post yr privilege fb macros here

he wasn't a single parent but I don't really want to get into the argument, I just don't think a hardship is invalidated by a harder hardship

obv there are positions of privilege based on sexuality, gender, race, social class, and beyond, but it then seems hard to accept that the word is used sort of on a sliding scale by someone who faces oppression due to one of those statuses, or two of them, or whatever. i mean, when does one person safely know that they are speaking from a position of complete lack of privilege? even among the same race or sexuality somebody would probably say "well wtf would you know", wouldn't they? it seems like a quest for authenticity of oppression, not sure where that line of thinking ends.

i feel like people should be challenged to check the validity and fairness and logic of what they're arguing or what they believe, not their right to say anything at all given their background. i mean surely if someone is speaking in a way that's blinded by privilege then their views can be taken to task?

like this column i think is pretty emblematic of popular privilege discourse 2013 http://jezebel.com/5992479/if-i-admit-that-hating-men-is-a-thing-will-you-stop-turning-it-into-a-self+fulfilling-prophecy

its quite good at what it does imho and could be useful if it reached the right eyeballs in helping people understand where feminism is coming from, but on the other hand its pretty rote and doesnt particularly radiate passion for the subject matter, and this sort of thing just always rings a little hollow:

It's not easy to swallow your own privilege—to admit that you're a Fleetch—but once you do, it's addictive. It feels good to open up to perspectives that are foreign to you, accept your complicity in this shitty system, and work on making the world better for everyone instead of just defending your territory. It's something I had to do as a privileged white woman, and something I still have to work on every day, because it's right.

like every day you work on it really like a half an hour before you blog or what, theres a sense that having discovered this magic key to understanding everything you better genuflect in its presence holding your vile animal impulses deep within

I mean tbf, people do the same thing to working moms who blog about trying to balance career and parenting -- inevitably someone drops "first world problems" shtick which is the same thing.

i mean i guess in brief if you're using sociologically meaningful language that actually applies to people from communities that face unique categories of oppression, the way some people use otherkin notions to explore trans/queer identity, it's one thing. but if you're using it because you think you're a purple pony inside and why won't society stop oppressing you for being a purple pony in the body of a straight white dude, you are first against the wall. to an extent.

― hoospanic GANGSTER musician (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, April 9, 2013 2:49 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah whatever the value of the term, seeing it hijacked by deviantart brony types is pretty nauseating

sometimes its useful to remember that suffering is universal

maybe when there's loads of aging bronies still desperate for a unicornotomy we can take them serious

ha that shit is so far out

reminds me of a recent letter to dan savage scolding him for saying that being polyamorous was not a "sexuality" on par with being gay. it was an... arrangement. or a hobby. or a kink. or a need. or some other thing, he said (i forget). hoo boy were people pissed! mr "monogamy is a myth" himself! everything has to be at the level of fundaments of identity. in this way i think this intersects with american language of the rights of the self in constitutional-legal term but i haven't thought that through yet really

There was a thing maybe posted in some ILX thread about the "privilege" enjoyed by primary vs. non-primary partners (sorry if this is the incorrect term) in various kinds of polyamorous relationships. I thought this was kind of a narcissistic usage -- being a "non-primary partner" is not a trait, it's just a status in a particular arrangement.

i prefer bottom bitch

"speaking as a side piece..."

remember college when people used "privilege" as a verb all the time? I don't think I've heard that in a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pevbj2ubH50

i feel like people should be challenged to check the validity and fairness and logic of what they're arguing or what they believe, not their right to say anything at all given their background. i mean surely if someone is speaking in a way that's blinded by privilege then their views can be taken to task?

― Tioc Norris (LocalGarda), Tuesday, April 9, 2013 8:00 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

very quotatious post

also yes i feel like a heretic for hating the tone of jezebel but i hate the tone of jezebel so fucking much

yeah for sure many seek to silence rather than engage via the #privilege tag

don't out me for that i would be shunned and would have to be like 'check your jezebel-liking privilege'

haha

i like lindy west tho i can for sure see why she might grate

i like privilege as a concept insofar as it makes people self-reflect on their own circumstances, and if it makes people think more about the experiences of others, especially those of a different race/gender - i hope that ultimately it leads to empathy, which i think is what will save us all

generally i think anything that makes people self-reflect / become more self-aware is a good thing

that should be jezebel's marketing campaign

to the extent that I sometimes don't like the jezebel tone it just seems symptomatic of the larger annoyingness of that Bloggin' TM voice that I think there's a thread about.

mirrors are cool too

leave brony alone

Hah I actually used the phrase 'unexamined privilege' this morning but it was aimed at people handwaving away the reasons why people might hate Thatcher and if you can't use it THEN the word might as well be retired immediately.

she had these tweet earlier that made me think abt starting this thread

Lindy West ‏@thelindywest 1h
Not everything is fodder for your little academic thought experiments. Have some fucking perspective.

Lindy West ‏@thelindywest 1h
So tired of this internet attitude: "I'm just a liberal white guy THINKIN' about stuff! Come on, girls, you should think harder & be nicer."

cause the top one could be applied to her way of thinking about things too, theres a lot of academic influenced discourse on popular blogs these days, i tihnk they kind of fuction as a bridge for an academic approach to reach a mass audience, where in traditional media there was a fire wall there where it was understood that you abandon academia when yo graduate because academic writing is obvs the worst writing in the world

I kinda feel that people should embrace and generalize privilege more. Maybe not take it for granted but realize that working regular hours and having electricty and clean water and whatnot are, indeeed, privileges, but also privileges that we should try to make as universal as possible. Also, civility, and not shooting people too much and whatnot.

one universal constant about privilege is that people HATE being called out on it

i like privilege as a concept insofar as it makes people self-reflect on their own circumstances, and if it makes people think more about the experiences of others, especially those of a different race/gender - i hope that ultimately it leads to empathy, which i think is what will save us all

generally i think anything that makes people self-reflect / become more self-aware is a good thing

― 乒乓, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 4:16 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that for sure is the ideal outcome, but i think to some extent it can me undermined via attachment to the concept of privilege itself, like once i was talking to this girl a party about the problems of the world and she finally was just all trust me ive studied this a lot and its all the patriarchy, and i was like you are going to be very disappointed when the patriarchy is finally smashed

it is a privilege that our lord god suffers us to persist -- that we are not swept from the face of creation -- think abt it

yeah it's useful as a tool of awareness for sure. I haven't personally been involved in any conversations where I've seen it used to shut down a speaker.

On a related note, does anyone on ilx say, "check your privilege?" I think I would need an explanation of what that means.

not enough room on this plane for yr privilege

i sort of feel like logic is the weapon we should use against prejudices, because they are all entirely illogical, but that is probably a particularly privileged way of looking at things since it betrays that it's the lack of logic that annoys me as much as the hatred, since i'm not a direct victim of the latter.

rationalists def need to check their privilege

i dont feel like ive ever had accusations of privilege used as a weapon against me but i have def, on the internet of course, seen people try to use it to carry more weight than its constructed for, theres tendency just to cut and paste privilege into any old argument, which is when i think we reach memehood

i dont really believe in 'logic' unless youre talking about like first order or symbolic logic or something

i feel like people should be challenged to check the validity and fairness and logic of what they're arguing or what they believe, not their right to say anything at all given their background. i mean surely if someone is speaking in a way that's blinded by privilege then their views can be taken to task?

Isn't the idea that, being privileged, I'm listened to in ways that less privileged people are not? So, whatever the validity of what I say, I am obligated to abstain from speech if speaking right now would contribute to other voices being ignored?

It does seem to me that privilege is also frequently invoked as short-hand for a certain kind of invalidity, or just as an explanation for why a person has said something wrong. But the "right to speak" angle has some power, I think.

yeah i don't think logic is always the way to go, when you try to reason with forms of oppression that have well-rehearsed arguments you end up often as not engaging with people who are never gonna argue in good faith

it's like i've said before, people who complain about bad manners are as often as not using class/language to silence criticism

it's a great privilege indeed to speak against inequality and have your argument received on its merits, rather than its tone or its suspected motives

maybe i'm just getting on my hobby horse too much but i also like 'privilege' because it's meme-ifying right around the same time that everybody is realizing that the american dream is dead, there is no such thing as social mobility anymore

that is interesting

looking forward to that realisation sinking in over here

like... for so long the standard response to p much any questions of inequality / oppression has been, well, if u put ur head down and work hard like my father did, u can overcome it! in this land of opportunity, america

but like maybe the only real wealth engine out there that isn't lawyering/banking/medicine is like... tech startups, which tend to be dominated by people who had access to expensive computers + ungodly amounts of uninterrupted leisure time since they were small, aka privileged dudes

like on the other end of the ideological spectrum i think are randians and they should all be summarily shot and their bodies dumped into the atlantic

Isn't the idea that, being privileged, I'm listened to in ways that less privileged people are not? So, whatever the validity of what I say, I am obligated to abstain from speech if speaking right now would contribute to other voices being ignored?

this makes sense except, where does it stop? i mean given that a scale of who is less privileged would be almost endless... i don't mean to refute your point, just interested.

does privilege cut into notions of american individualism? does it actually remind people that yes, you only got where u are becaues u stood on the shoulders of giants?

i was thinking about starting a thread called 'creating a language to talk about class in america' and i think that privilege in some ways acts as a proxy for talking about class in america

they are def intimately connected concepts

the narrative i've been hearing has never been put your head down and work hard, but rather hustle and angle your way in BAMN, and by and large i think it's accurate, if not particularly palatable advice. there are barriers in front of you if you play fair, so cheat.

does privilege cut into notions of american individualism? does it actually remind people that yes, you only got where u are becaues u stood on the shoulders of giants?

― 乒乓, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 4:46 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

actually, it's funny how discussing privilege is kind of more necessary in America as an antidote to this kind of thinking. In a rigid class structure, it's hard to imagine telling the upper class "check your privilege." They'd be like "yeah no shit I'm privileged, I'm upper class." That doesn't mean you wouldn't need a language to discuss why that's unfair, but it's in America where people convince themselves they worked for everything they have.

yeah exactly

it's funny when i was in the academy... i mean college... i never took any of these social justice / race type classes, i just read books by dead white men, wasn't really alive / aware of these things. now looking abck, and in talking to friends about people we knew at college, i have realized that literally everybody i know from college came from horrendous wealth

hah

did you not recognize it because they didnt live up to your preconceptions of the super wealthy or what

they tell u that people got into yale because they r super smart, there were lots of smart ppl for sure, the other half were coached smart by expensive tutors + test prep companies

I think the use (and misuse) of 'privilege' as rhetorical device stems pretty directly from a Protestant view that whatever fate awaits you is related to your efforts to please God and God's day to day workings in the world. There's a smug (often hypocritical) self-pleased vibe out of families that have done well that they have morally deserved it so they then turn around and try and moralize or treat themselves as norms to be followed. ("If you, too, had the sense to be born a white, aristocratic, Protestant male, maybe life wouldn't be as tedious as you always describe it to me. Keep your chin up, though. Toodles.")

xp

ha, i didn't realise my family were working class until i'd been at university for a year

some of them def did feel like total aliens, there was this one guy who would just give ipod sto all his friends, like hed be hanging out with a friend and be like 'do u want this ipod' and then a few days later hed have a new one

they tell u that people got into yale because they r super smart, there were lots of smart ppl for sure, the other half were coached smart by expensive tutors + test prep companies

― 乒乓, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 5:00 PM (37 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yup, also when you grow up in that environment its just in the air

this was back when ipods were cool + expensive

how rampant was cheating in addition to tutor test/prep that you could tell?

ipods arent cool anymore how come no one told me

nb: i never hung out with this guy cuz he was a douche so i never got a free ipod =(

its a privilege to know that ipods arent cool anymore xp

giving stuff away is def in violation of all wasp codes, not sure what was up w that kid, was he a foreigner or something

check your iPrivilege

this makes sense except, where does it stop? i mean given that a scale of who is less privileged would be almost endless.

There is pretty much no point at which being asked or told to note your advantages is a bad idea? Even if at the end you still think the same thing(s) as before, it can never hurt. In this sense, the use of privilege in discourse doesn't have to have an end point, you're not arriving at something final, no one is going to "win" or "lose" if you let go of this need for certainty/a verdict.

?? Bribery is an ancient part of the WASP code!!

yeah and i will add that at least in my v limited understanding of foucault, power is relational and therefore highly context depenndent... i gotta go now but have fun ya'lll

i mean given that a scale of who is less privileged would be almost endless.

Right down the line and then, with the happy dead, it flips.

?? Bribery is an ancient part of the WASP code!!

― But I'm having so much foehn! (Michael White), Tuesday, April 9, 2013 5:06 PM (9 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i mean the ipod thing just doesnt feel right

an ipod is a small price to pay for admission to an ivy.

xxxp I mean I understand why it seems like a race to be the bottommost person in the pile but a) I don't think that actually happens in a well-meaning discussion where ppl want to come closer together or closer to a goal together, and b) I think that conception shows that the person characterizing it doesn't understand what intersectionality is, for one thing, or what the whole awareness-increasing work is for.

pfft they should be giving me an ipod xp

yeah i mean the ipod thing just doesnt feel right

I have known very insecure and very rich people for whom an iPod would be the equivalent of buying someone a sandwich and who would parcel out presents to pals in ways that (would) shock us. It's pretty sad for all involved.

srsly dear rich friends just take us on vacations that what we want

what is intersectionality

i have this sweet ass chrome plugin called google dictionary check it out i use it all the time

http://i.imgur.com/WGcfS5h.png

Intersectionality? I wasn't even close t'her sectionality!

Sentences just will not stop

thanks lag∞n I just thought maybe people would have insights on this thread that would be more nuanced than a dictionary definition

ha yeah i tbf that blurb didnt really help me understand what intersectionality is, but still sweet plugin

You can look it up, it'll be a more complete explan because I don't know the crit theory specifics but I understand it to be about the network of all different kinds of discrimination against the combinations of things that ppl are: non-white, non-male, non-rich, non-American, non-educated, etc. This is why it's not a hierarchy in which a person loses by being more "priviliged" than someone else. I envision intersectionality as a Tron-like grid world where everyone is at a node on intersecting lines of being a little better off here and a little worse there.

So if someone is like, I think by virtue of where your node is, you're not the person who has the most at stake here or who is the most insightful about what we're talking about, they're not accusing you of a personal failing, just chill out for a sec.

"privilege" = another piece in that Game nitsuh wrote about in that vampire wknd blog thing, basically the only people who ever use this word in earnest discussion are college ppl trying to one up each other by showing how grateful and worldly and learnéd they are in comparison to their entitled, unworthy peers.

Isn't the idea that, being privileged, I'm listened to in ways that less privileged people are not? So, whatever the validity of what I say, I am obligated to abstain from speech if speaking right now would contribute to other voices being ignored?

― lazulum, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 1:34 PM (21 minutes ago)

from, um, certain past ile discussions, i'd gathered that part of the problem (wr2 privilege and rationalism) is that fence-sitting, devil-advocating rationalism is seen as a favored stance of the privileged. this is especially true when such rationalism questions ideas and voices that actively seek to disempower privilege.

like: "if you were less privileged, you would understand more clearly the need for passionate partisanship." and/or: "...you'd see why your blithe interest in 'just exploring the idea' might be kind of offensive in itself." all of which makes sense to me.

thanks in orbit! I've seen the word used before and I figured it somehow related to the different dimensions of privilege but that gives me a much clearer picture.

Oh god I forgot non-straight and non-cis which are pretty much two of the huge ones. O well, you all get the idea.

Tbf fair, those who possess privilege and property have the most to lose from every harebrained bit of partisan passion. It's a little daft to show up at the chateau and ask the castellan to have the decency to shoot himself so you don't have to.

well sure, the privileged do have a lot to loose, are sometimes serried before pocked walls, etc. nevertheless, the basic condition of privilege exists in the casual acceptance of social power. therefore, the privileged may be given to a degree of intellectual disengagement when discussing the world's problems. whatever the situation, they've still got table service.

it's funny when i was in the academy... i mean college... i never took any of these social justice / race type classes, i just read books by dead white men, wasn't really alive / aware of these things. now looking abck, and in talking to friends about people we knew at college, i have realized that literally everybody i know from college came from horrendous wealth

― 乒乓, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 4:55 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

having gone to public middle/high school with a lot of pretty poor kids, and then a state university (and not one of the UVA/Michigan variety), I actually got the impression that my family was pretty rich. Which on world and even America terms is true I guess, but I just didn't have any sense of the kind of wealth that one would see at private colleges. I figured "I don't absolutely have to work while in school" plus "my parents bought me a six-year-old used toyota corolla" = rich. That was probably ultimately a good and healthy way to see things.

Also u were rich

fuck the rich

class anxiety about zunes

those were the best -- i want a zune tablet

I'm using a zunelet right now

yeah that for sure is the ideal outcome, but i think to some extent it can me undermined via attachment to the concept of privilege itself, like once i was talking to this girl a party about the problems of the world and she finally was just all trust me ive studied this a lot and its all the patriarchy, and i was like you are going to be very disappointed when the patriarchy is finally smashed

― lag∞n, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 4:24 PM (2 hours ago)

wow dude u have no game

Or vice-versa, maybe that was quite wise of him.

classic neg

Or genuine rebuff

So if someone is like, I think by virtue of where your node is, you're not the person who has the most at stake here or who is the most insightful about what we're talking about, they're not accusing you of a personal failing, just chill out for a sec.

― lets just remember to blame the patriarchy for (in orbit), Tuesday, April 9, 2013 5:21 PM (1 hour ago)

nabisco (RIP) used to describe something similar where straight white dudes were like the middle of a set of concentric circles and as your identity was gradually less "normal" you were represented by bigger circles

i think the privilege meme is what led me to stop reading blogs

"privilege" = another piece in that Game nitsuh wrote about in that vampire wknd blog thing, basically the only people who ever use this word in earnest discussion are college ppl trying to one up each other by showing how grateful and worldly and learnéd they are in comparison to their entitled, unworthy peers.

― sleepingbag, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 5:25 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^I think this, the most.

Like, if you are hungry, or poor, or have people depending on you, or are constantly having your life threatened, you don't have the luxury to think about what it all means, whether you are privileged or not, etc.

xp yes except exactly the opposite - what intersectionality is getting at is that there isn't ones aside of "how far from normal"

xp to Adam that's def. not my experience, most of the people I know talking about privilege are the ones who are actually feeling the negative effects of it. Obviously not a complete cross-section of them...

I will grant that if you're (not necessarily hungry or poor but) uneducated then you may not have the tools to think about it in these terms.

Mayb one of the difficulties w the privilege discourse is that the ppl equipped to discuss it are often not the most affected. That might seem like a catch 22 thing but can also be a strength if those with the tools are aware that their voices shouldn't be the loudest and can step back and support.

I'm kind of on one of these uh awareness plans to recognize my own societal advantages and curb my impulses that come from being accustomed to being heard.

fwiw yeah i specifically was referring to usage of the word "privilege" in what i was saying. clearly the systems of the world have worked to advantage and disadvantage many, which just kind of seems like too much of a truism to have to even point out, but "privilege" itself just gets pejoratively, almost exclusively by those who are themselves privileged, kind of reminiscent of "h*pster"

only one part of the problem is the people who use it all the time. i think it is actually a wrong way to analyze the universe. do i have a better idea no, but since i am privileged i am just gonna say things and not support them.

fair

It's not meant to be a way to analyse the universe, might be the problem there.

maybe the universe doesn't even exist man

" which just kind of seems like too much of a truism to have to even point out"

And yet.

so, um, what's... the point of identifying privilege?

legit question, i'm actually confused. i get the impression that the lower classes, activist types, hold the view that if people would just open their eyes to their privilege, they would throw it all away in disgust and everything would be hunky dory. but obv that's not the case. seems to me like it only just results in people becoming these smarmy self-aware vampire weekend types who use privilege awareness as a weapon and a tool to solidify their class status?

seems to me like privilege discourse ppl seem to have this intrinsic expectation that the privileged should do more than merely identify and remember their privilege... i get the impression they're expected to throw it away. which is not really possible i think?

the entire foundation of privilege discourse is flawed if you make the simple assumption that people aren't naturally inclined toward social justice, right?

oh ya, and i also had that moment where i realized i wasn't upper class. it came embarrassingly late. i figured i was upper class cuz my parents paid 10K a year for private school for me and my sis, not chump change, sure. but they like had loans and stuff for a while. when i confronted my dad in my teens with this awful truth, he gave me this hilariously "wtf" look that has stuck with me since.

my undergrad was pretty middle class but then i went to law school and was like oh, ok, so this is the upper class huh

i get the impression they're expected to throw it away. which is not really possible i think?

What makes you think that? Social attitudes can change fast.

Assumption #1: lower classes = activist types. Really, dude?

"if people would just open their eyes to their privilege, they would throw it all away in disgust and everything would be hunky dory."
Realization is the bare minimum here and yet ppl with the most advantages in the system have the most invested in even denying that there's a problem. There's a reason "fight the system" has the word "fight" in it!

it doesn't fight the system though, it's individualistic. it's focused on the behavior of individuals in conversations and stuff. i think it is good not to be an asshole every day and the privilege analysis is good for that.

But sometimes in talking about it you reach an audience of more than one. Like itt!

the word is used by too small a group of people not to have a ring of hypocrisy.

THANK YOU.

xxxxxxpost

privilege as a mame

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02221/angela3_2221072b.jpg

One place where I feel like the word is really apt is in "mansplaining" type situations, where, e.g., a woman tries to explain why it's not nice to constantly have her looks commented on, and some dude (inevitably) says "WTF are you talking about? I would love to get compliments all the time!" Well yeah, because you are in the privileged position of not having so many people objectify you by default. Same with the "if I were poor, I'd just go to the local library and read all the books about business and shine shoes for quarters blah blah" type comments. I feel like that's what the concept is good for, pointing out that sort of obliviousness. When it turns into a negation of all complaints is when it bothers me, it becomes like that grating mom who says "well children are starving in africa" as a response to everything.

Like the point of understanding one's privilege is to recognize the hidden ways it operates in your life and advantages you/disadvantages others, not to engage in denial of one's feelings.

"privilege" = another piece in that Game nitsuh wrote about in that vampire wknd blog thing, basically the only people who ever use this word in earnest discussion are college ppl trying to one up each other by showing how grateful and worldly and learnéd they are in comparison to their entitled, unworthy peers.

― sleepingbag, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 2:25 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this sums it up. I mean, I think it's okay as a personal check, kept to oneself, and the intentions of the discourse are worth considering, but whenever invoked it usually seems to be more as a power move, or as a way to take out one's frustrations over the fact that contemporary (net) culture isn't going to be as enlightened as to adopt the same sensitive jargon as college conditioned one to expect from the world, thus all the pointless language policing and 'social justice' from a confused few in tumblr-land

It's very interesting that some ppl it think talking abt privilege is so annoying and pls just keep it to yourself lest u bore us.

I didn't go to grad skool though so maybe I'm just not equipped for the discourse.

did you not recognize it because they didnt live up to your preconceptions of the super wealthy or what

― lag∞n, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 4:58 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

been thinking about this and i think that i didnt really notice this because i've never been taught what the superwealthy are.... and in college i think its a bit easier to hide the badges of yr wealth, even the rich kids can slum it. i think looking back, what gave ppl away would be how often they went out to eat, maybe, or that they would go on vacations for spring break. but by and large i think college kids wear sweats and flip flops no matter if theyre rich or poor

so, um, what's... the point of identifying privilege?

― cocktail onion (fennel cartwright)

sorting things out is intrinsically useful, i think. the discourse around "privilege" reflects attempts to parse and describe complex systems, and i think it's best to treat those attempts as sincere.

on a more personal level, i've occasionally been called out for expressing attitudes and opinions that seem to reflect my position of relative privilege. more often than not, i've found such interventions helpful (in the long run, anyway). of course, i've also been badgered by angry maniacs, but i don't hold that against either privilege as a concept or those who invoke it.

another thing i think that the ocncept of privilege is good for is... just reminding people that their own experience is not universal. so often the narrative is like - i did this, it worked for me, why can't it work for you? and if you like took just ilke even one second and placed yourself in the other perons shoes youd see why it wouldnt... but people dont even do that. its a good way for maybe making people externalize themselves from themselves

I'll check me privilege

my friend lives in this punk house where people are hyper-aware of privilege, apparently the straight white guys who live there will often preface things they say with by saying "cis-male," as in, like, "take this with a grain of salt just coming from the most privileged pov possible." that seemed pretty crazy to me

like once i was talking to this girl a party about the problems of the world and she finally was just all trust me ive studied this a lot and its all the patriarchy, and i was like you are going to be very disappointed when the patriarchy is finally smashed

lol lagoon

that seems like a pretty cool setup to me

punk house

i dont really believe in 'logic' unless youre talking about like first order or symbolic logic or something

― 乒乓, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 4:34 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, word. you can do a lot of creepy things with logic

like look in people's windows at night?

Oh whatever, god forbid straight white men acknowledge that their viewpoint might not be universal, how burdensome and ridiculous. C'mon.

Sry, out posting on phone so restricted to short asides.

yeah... flopson, speaking as an internet friend, i feel like u could do well to check yr privs a bit here on ilx

PRIVILEGE HOUSE M.D.

cold open with guy with brain thing

*massive attack song*

hospital boss: "privilege house md, you are abusing vicodin + also yr status as a mostly able-bodied educated white american male"
privilege house: "Everybody dies. is it everybody lies? dies, also i can speak british + play the piano buy my blues albium "
hospital: "i love you privilege house"

Also u were rich

― rust in pieces (darraghmac), Tuesday, April 9, 2013 6:34 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well yeah, in the broadest sense, that was my point. At the same time, I didn't and couldn't do the kinds of things I later learned were common at private colleges -- travel abroad, skiing, golf, tennis, expensive shopping, cocaine, high-end clubs. I rented a $300/month room in a house, wore thrift shop clothing, mostly relied on campus activities for recreation, worked summers and odd extra hours for spending money, etc. Someone like me could go to a private college and feel very ordinary and middle class, and you hear exactly those kinds of claims from people who do. I'm saying that because I didn't, I actually understood that I was pretty privileged.

"privilege" = another piece in that Game nitsuh wrote about in that vampire wknd blog thing, basically the only people who ever use this word in earnest discussion are college ppl trying to one up each other by showing how grateful and worldly and learnéd they are in comparison to their entitled, unworthy peers.

― sleepingbag, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 5:25 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^I think this, the most.

Like, if you are hungry, or poor, or have people depending on you, or are constantly having your life threatened, you don't have the luxury to think about what it all means, whether you are privileged or not, etc.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, April 9, 2013 7:50 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

literal lols at these posts btw. if this is what u think privilege is about, then idk, maybe go post on reddit or something

Oh whatever, god forbid straight white men acknowledge that their viewpoint might not be universal, how burdensome and ridiculous. C'mon.

Sry, out posting on phone so restricted to short asides.

― lets just remember to blame the patriarchy for (in orbit), Tuesday, April 9, 2013 10:25 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i've never experienced it firsthand so idk maybe they pull it off it but it just seems awkward. i guess "crazy" was an exaggeration. i'm obviously not against the idea of acknowledging privileged viewpoints etc, just like to think there are a more elegant ways of expressing it than /!\ disclaimer: white man talkin here /!\

"I'm too busy starving to think about privilege"

yeah, really skewered the concept there

I feel like negotiating privilege so as not to "____splain" is more about listening, and making sure that whatever you have to say is based on testimony from people actually living the issue. The "take this with a grain of salt" thing sounds really tedious and stultifying.

xp - yeah, the whole "lol, this is something only a few relatively privileged college students talk about" angle seems awfully myopic. all it really communicates is a limited range of experience.

basically the only people who ever use this word in earnest discussion are college ppl trying to one up each other by showing how grateful and worldly and learnéd they are in comparison to their entitled, unworthy peers.

― sleepingbag, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 5:25 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is unfortunate if true, but i suspect it's not. well, maybe it's true on blogs or on the internet. or at college. but i *do* think you have to be pretty humble about it when u do get called. like, i think there's more than a little victimization in the mix if your reaction to being called out on your privilege is "you're just trying to one-up me & show off how grateful & worldly you are."

*called out

yeah... flopson, speaking as an internet friend, i feel like u could do well to check yr privs a bit here on ilx

― 乒乓, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 10:27 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not sure if this is a joke but if not i'd be curious to know what this is in ref to. it's been a while since the last time i've fp'd frogbs, tbh

well im mainly thinking about the time u defended that sexist complex article that was 'does your girl listen to too much rap' and u were all like 'lol guys its just joeks bruvs'

ah right, k. iirc i found like 6/10 of those to be pretty horrendous tbf

but ya i admit my post in the thread was a cop out. rap blogs were really annoying that week/month with all the chief keef stuff, think i was just p exasperated with all the self-righteous indignation, and putting that kind of energy into a complex listicle is such a scraping the bottle of the barrel

ah ok almost didn't post cos i doubt i have anything at all to gain here but wth
just know i am definitely not doing the whole long internet argument thing

literal lols at these posts btw. if this is what u think privilege is about, then idk, maybe go post on reddit or something

― 乒乓, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 8:35 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if that is not what every discussion about privilege on ilx, including this one, has boiled down to, i will eat my (v. fancy) hat.

i don't disagree with many/any of the underlying ideas of talking about privilege -- essentially no, life isn't fair; one certainly can have many more or better opportunities depending on who, what gender, what color, what class, etc., as well as where they are; people have vastly different experiences, and so on; it's specifically the framing of it as a contest and the way the word is deployed, woo let's identify who is privileged/more privileged so we can tell them so, that i think drives all these conversations to shit. i mean, look, no doubt i take it personally + take offense to the way this word gets thrown around b/c i definitely identify with 'the privileged' (despite my many complexities :) ), as apparently a bunch of other people here do, i've been successfully labeled, and it seems to be a problematic and pejorative label... so now what? what do i do? what are the 'privileged' actually being told by that label? i'm not sure why part of this is that it is assumed that i am not aware of how lucky i am and need a word/label to tell me. i am pretty well aware, and definitely very grateful to be who i am all in all. so what else?

long story short, i guess if i feel privileged enough then maybe i have nothing useful to add in this sphere and i should just not read privilege threads? i'm definitely never going to reddit, but i'd be happy to not participate if the whole point of identifying privilege is to say that voices like mine have been too loud in the culture -- is that the point?

"privileged" is only a problematic/pejorative label if you... idk, have that coming? liek no one ever says "you're privileged and you should feel like shit about it, i just felt like saying that carry on", in almost every context i've ever seen ppl have used some variation of "check yr privilege" in response to someone who is acting in a way that makes them appear dickishly unaware of it

when you're being a shithead idk maybe ppl are giving you the benefit of the doubt by assuming you're simply unaware, the point is if you're already well aware then you wouldn't have done something to invoke that dreaded word anyway, but idk you're talking like you just walk down the street and ppl yell "PRIVILEGED" at you all the time

History of this phrase's use on ILX is surprisingly scant: Marc Loi was there first in 2009, in the last line of his his mindblowing "Can't Rape the Willing" essay ("check your privilege, because it may not always be what it seems," ominous), then two years pass with no uses before zachylon employs it to bitch about the 99% / Occupy movement and the rest is history.

please let's bring that back

brb leaving forever

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%2C%20%22check%20your%20privilege%22&cmpt=q

i definitely identify with 'the privileged' (despite my many complexities :) ), as apparently a bunch of other people here do, i've been successfully labeled, and it seems to be a problematic and pejorative label... so now what? what do i do? what are the 'privileged' actually being told by that label?

i think you're missing the substance of the discussion in reducing it so entirely to the act of labeling people. sure, "privileged" sometimes gets used that way, as a cheap dismissal of unwelcome voices. that's the point at which further discussion becomes all but impossible, and it sucks. but good ideas always get put to bad use somewhere, and i think "privilege" remains a good idea. it's often invoked when discussing the ways in which our basic assumptions can reflect our cultural position, perhaps in ways we don't realize. i find that useful, though i don't always immediately welcome the criticism.

you ask "what do i do?" the only answer i can give is "think about it some." it's best not to dwell defensively on the idea that you've been labeled pejoratively. it's been pointed out that you're speaking and thinking from a position of relative privilege. no more, no less. if social justice matters to you, you might want to spend some time thinking about the implications.

ime "check your privilege" has usually been used as a sort of "the first step is admitting you have a problem" thing

also ime no one in the world says "check your privilege" anymore with any sincerity, once it caught on and became a joke buzzword (the big bump in H2's graph up there has to be like at least 70% ironic usage) ppl abandoned it, ppl i follow anyway, and this sentence is prob more relevant to the thread at hand than the first one

my friend lives in this punk house where people are hyper-aware of privilege, apparently the straight white guys who live there will often preface things they say with by saying "cis-male," as in, like, "take this with a grain of salt just coming from the most privileged pov possible." that seemed pretty crazy to me

― flopson, Tuesday, April 9, 2013 10:11 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol portlandia

Assumption #1: lower classes = activist types. Really, dude?

sorry, this wasn't clear - i was speaking from personal experience coming up with a bunch of activist type people in undergrad, who were mostly lower-middle class.

i think it is good not to be an asshole every day and the privilege analysis is good for that.

this, but. i think that while it's helpful to understand what privilege is, it's myopic to focus in on it to the point where you're prefacing your statements with "cis-male:" like who cares!

the problem to me is people thinking of their real personal relationships through various types of abstract structural lenses - of which "privilege" is the latest and greatest. prefacing your communication with superfluous acknowledgements and concessions like "cis-male says:" doesn't do anything to affect the actual content coming out of your mouth. much like how we know the "no offence" preface doesn't salvage an offensive statement, prefacing a privileged comment with "i'm privileged, but" doesn't help any either.

consciously choosing to ignore privilege for whatever reason is problematic. and sure, it's silly to say "privilege doesn't matter" cuz of course it does. to me, it's a little like the old "i don't see color" idiocy. me personally, i see color, lots, but i don't really care too much about it when it comes down to actual human beings i actually interact with. to me that's the important part?

this is a good thread i read the first thread of and i fully support lagoon in all endeavors. fin

i mean the end the end

i love laggoons here is one

this thread is a lagoon of privilege

*laps*

the problem to me is people thinking of their real personal relationships through various types of abstract structural lenses - of which "privilege" is the latest and greatest.

Right, but you do get that seeing it as 'abstract' is a form of privilege, right?

xp - yeah, the whole "lol, this is something only a few relatively privileged college students talk about" angle seems awfully myopic. all it really communicates is a limited range of experience.

I see your point if you mean that ideas or issues of privilege are a wide concern, but the word itself is really only used in the way we discuss here by a very small group of people.

It seems contradictory to the entire point of the concept to say "well x amount of underprivileged people may not use that word but we speak for them when we do."

the word itself is really only used in the way we discuss here by a very small group of people

this isn't true tho

maybe here on ilx yeah, but that's mostly bc that's the general population of ilx? and ppl here hardly even use it

the word itself is really only used in the way we discuss here by a very small group of people.

I'm tempted to say "But really that's not the case", and see how far we can go with a reality chain - but, is it the number or the composition of people using this that you think is the problem?

Just out of interest, whose experience is universal? Is that the person to whom we all ought to be deferring on message boards?

Yes, that is what anyone here is saying.

Lol i wish you'd put me on killfile, take me out of your misery

it has nothing to do with universality, at least i don't think anyone is suggesting it is

i think one of the big causes of confusion is that people tend to think it's supposed to be used sort of as a sum, like in that (fake) privilege calculator thing, or like it's a sliding scale. types of oppression are separate but they intersect -- it's more like, on issues of racism you 'defer' to someone who experiences racism, on issues of homophobia you 'defer' etc etc. on issues that involve the intersection of one or more oppression, the words of someone who experiences that intersection holds more weight than mine. i could read all the memoirs in the world and still not know what it's like to live life as a victim of oppressive institutions as much the people who do.

basically the idea seems to be "experience matters, refer to it"

Seems fair! maybe that's a better phrase than a jargon term like 'privilege' as it's used.

maybe jargon deserves its own thread but jargon words tend to evolve for useful reasons i think, e.g. they can save time rehashing concepts that people understand and agree on. like all words they can be used for stupid, but i wouldn't blame the words.

i think one of the big causes of confusion is that people tend to think it's supposed to be used sort of as a sum, like in that (fake) privilege calculator thing, or like it's a sliding scale. types of oppression are separate but they intersect -- it's more like, on issues of racism you 'defer' to someone who experiences racism, on issues of homophobia you 'defer' etc etc. on issues that involve the intersection of one or more oppression, the words of someone who experiences that intersection holds more weight than mine. i could read all the memoirs in the world and still not know what it's like to live life as a victim of oppressive institutions as much the people who do.

i agree entirely with this. but ime it's not used in the polite way you suggest.

I'm tempted to say "But really that's not the case", and see how far we can go with a reality chain - but, is it the number or the composition of people using this that you think is the problem?

the number and the composition. i've never heard the term used irl, ever. never heard it said. i live in one of the most underprivileged areas of london and i imagine if those around me are thinking negatively of me they'd probably think "posh cunt" rather than "privileged".

zach- thanks for the rundown, btw

i've never heard the term used irl, ever

Seriously?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn0hFnOGnq4

I mean the memeification of the word is dreadful and most of the people in the western world are privileged in some way but its use is hardly confined to an elite. Tony Pulis dropped it the other day.

sorry, of course i've heard it, i just mean irl you don't hear it often and not as a pejorative in the same way.

I mean the memeification of the word is dreadful and most of the people in the western world are privileged in some way but its use is hardly confined to an elite.

in terms of class i'd say it is confined to an elite.

i've read the tony pulis piece you're referring to matt. he's using the word privilege, you'd be using a shoehorn to make it the term used on ilx as i've seen it.

In a half time team-talk Pulis bawled out his team for their heteronormative cisgendered male privilege and pointed out that not everyone in the Arsenal team could share that.

ha

basically the idea seems to be "experience matters, refer to it"

― infirm neophytic child (zachlyon), Wednesday, April 10, 2013 1:30 AM (2 hours ago)

zachylon otm. that's a big part of what i get from it, anyway. it's perhaps tempting to think that intellect, logic and common sense working in concert enable anyone to render their own verdict on any subject, so long as they're willing to put in some information-gathering time. when it comes to certain subjects, however, it may be best to render less and listen more - especially when talking to actual people about their actual experiences.

^ ...to the extent that we recognizes our own privilege and the way it shapes our perceptions. but also good advice in general.

There's a lot of point-missing going on here.

I, of course, blame the patriarchy.

Anyone who tries to tell me to check anything is going to have another kind of check coming to them, if you take my meaning, which if you're priviledged, you probably will.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ4UFZmeenE

There's a lot of point-missing going on here.

if you disagree with people you should be specific.

I'm confused by who some of you are hanging out with who deploy "privilege" so relentlessly that you can't get a word in edgewise until you've built up this resentment of it for keeping you down and un-listened-to.

Oh LG, please. This is turning into every thread about gender ever, in which dudes demand to have it proven to their satisfaction that the thing you're talking about even exists while they deny it and try to argue you away.

i don't think that's fair really. saying that the word "privilege" is used mainly by a select few is not akin to saying that privilege itself does not exist.

Yes but what you end up with is, it's okay when it's really necessary but *I* get to decide when that is. If it doesn't bore me, if it's not too obtrusive, if it's used by the right people, if it's against an injustice that seems egregious *to me*, if it's not "taken too far" (whatever that means). The fact that a person with lots of kinds of advantages DOESN'T GET TO DECIDE THOSE THINGS is the point? Not that someone who knows a fancy theory term speaks for everyone, which I don't even know where you got.

could you elaborate more about this privilege cabal, LG

xpost when you quote "taken too far" are you just telling someone they said that or did someone actually say it?

could you elaborate more about this privilege cabal, LG

i don't think it's a cabal, i just think it's used mainly by relatively well-educated people to attack each other.

OESN'T GET TO DECIDE THOSE THINGS

there is no deciding going on whatsoever. i'm just curious about the use of this specific word, not questioning the need for people's views to be questioned or the prevalence of ignorance from people in positions of privilege.

Yes but what you end up with is, it's okay when it's really necessary but *I* get to decide when that is. If it doesn't bore me, if it's not too obtrusive, if it's used by the right people, if it's against an injustice that seems egregious *to me*, if it's not "taken too far" (whatever that means).

happy enough with this. what criteria do you use yourself? we've all got our own backgrounds/experience that feed into what we think, do and say.

i don't think it's a cabal, i just think it's used mainly by relatively well-educated people to attack each other.

― Tioc Norris (LocalGarda), Wednesday, April 10, 2013 8:18 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

are you saying that "well-educated" people dont get to invoke privilege? why not?

i'm actually questioning the validity of people invoking it when to me i don't think its use in this way exists for the most underprivileged in society...

at the very least surely that means it's not a particularly effective word? i'm not against the concept itself at all, feel like that's been attributed to me but it's not what i'm saying.

i just sort of feel "privilege" is too vague to actually have real power - i completely agree with orbit's earlier post:

I mean I understand why it seems like a race to be the bottommost person in the pile but a) I don't think that actually happens in a well-meaning discussion where ppl want to come closer together or closer to a goal together, and b) I think that conception shows that the person characterizing it doesn't understand what intersectionality is, for one thing, or what the whole awareness-increasing work is for.

isn't this kind of a problem with the word itself? i mean doesn't this mean words like "racist" or "sexist" or "prejudice" are more effective in specifically targeting somebody's views or what they say and why it's misguided or based on their own blind spots?

dayo on fire itt, a few others otm too, other than that reading this was the usual dispiriting experience of str8 white dudes acting wilfully disingenuously and trying to pick apart what is a very basic and useful concept w/pedantry, attacks on the more egregiously obnoxious people who use it etc in order to avoid actually saying that they find acknowledging it uncomfortable because it would shake how they act in the world or because they're stuck on privilege as a thing that leads to someone "losing" or "winning"

""racist" or "sexist" or "prejudice""

hahahah you think that discussions would be more productive if people dropped these words instead?

like, the quickest way to shut down a discussion is exactly to start talking about racism and sexism and watch people head for the exits

of course they wouldn't be more productive but it would be a more accurate way criticising, wouldn't it? "prejudice" isn't quite as incendiary.

xpost i see that point, but do you think that's why we need the word "privilege" - cos as i see it it'd spark discussion but surely it leads to more confused discussion.

i'm genuinely curious about the case for it - cos it does seem really problematic when everyone has a different set or lack of privileges

it does seem really problematic when everyone has a different set or lack of privileges

this is why it's HELPFUL

for starters i think you're working off a concept of privilege that's really... limited? correct me if i'm wrong, but you seem to be thinking solely in terms of material privilege, money, access to resources?

i guess what i'm getting at is the confidence to use the word - when can someone feel safe doing so?

i don't mean that i intend to start employing it myself, just like - surely invoking "privilege" risks all sorts of assumptions about somebody else, you'd maybe need to know them quite well or their background?

for starters i think you're working off a concept of privilege that's really... limited? correct me if i'm wrong, but you seem to be thinking solely in terms of material privilege, money, access to resources?

not at all.

if you disagree with people you should be specific.

― Tioc Norris (LocalGarda), Wednesday, April 10, 2013 8:01 AM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark

why would anyone not be able to use the word? it's a pretty simple concept.

http://smartassradio.com/wp-content/gallery/site-images/checkyourhead.jpg

why would anyone not be able to use the word? it's a pretty simple concept.

well, if you're a white straight male for instance...

dayo, race, sexuality, gender, social class, religion, upbringing, schooling, i'm sure there are plenty other reasons somebody can be privileged over another person. i'm trying not to be restrictive about my definition at all.

that's sort of my point above, you can't know many of these things about people instantly, and there are probably other privileges that are invisible at face value - it does seem hard to be totally confident then in using it to assess people, perhaps not just for white straight people?

when people seem so fixated on dismissing the usefulness of the word "privilege" i am reminded of committed anti-feminists are among the creepiest people alive imo

well, if you're a white straight male for instance...

what about this prevents you from being able to eg acknowledge your privilege, or discuss it in relation to others?

what about this prevents you from being able to eg acknowledge your privilege, or discuss it in relation to others?

i meant that i would not use the word to denounce others because i'm obv privileged.

this is sort of what i'm querying - who has the right to use the word "privileged" - it's a lot more complicated than "racist" or "sexist" in this regard. i don't know the answer there, i'm just interested to hear what people think.

Hahaha who has the right to use it? Hopefully everyone, while they give it some careful consideration?

i don't think the right to use a word comes into this, it's a way of getting people to look at the underlying prejudices they bring to a conversation - we all bring underlying prejudices - and recognizing that beliefs and ways of thinking about the world aren't natural or inevitable but a product of who we are, and that these differences make us less qualified to talk about some forms of oppression, no matter how important we think our opinions might be - e.g. i will never experience racial prejudice so my opinions on it are kind of limited

it reminds me of my old man's endless "i'm entitled to my opinion" mantra - well yeah sure dad as long as you realize that means not much

Everyone can use it. It depends on the context of the situation. LG could legitimately question the privilege of a British person who dismisses the reality of prejudice against Irish people, for example.

Invoking racism or sexism is necessary at times but privilege as a concept has a wider and, to some extent, less confrontational use. You don't have to be racist or sexist to hold problematic or controversial ideas that have been shaped by the advantage your social or personal status brings. Interrogating the source of those ideas is important.

yeah it's not about the right to use it because it's not supposed to be a pointed takedown, but is better standing as a demand for self-critique from every individual within a group.

if you think its use is a tool of denunciation you really, really, fundamentally don't understand the concept

(obviously there are people who DO use it aggressively, as there are everywhere)

some ppl even used gender/racial terms like str8 white dudes as denunciations, lex, it's a strange and ever-shifting world out there huh

yeah it's not about the right to use it because it's not supposed to be a pointed takedown, but is better standing as a demand for self-critique from every individual within a group.

I agree with this, but this is often how it's employed, that was sort of my initial point. this goes on lex's xpost too, i agree, lex, i'm not trying to antagonise here, i do think that misuse is quite common though and is damaging.

Everyone can use it. It depends on the context of the situation. LG could legitimately question the privilege of a British person who dismisses the reality of prejudice against Irish people, for example.

Of course, but these contexts aren't always clear, and it's used online quite a lot which seems even more risky.

Also it seems hard to put all prejudices together under one banner of "privilege" - surely the reasons for these prejudices or views are all potentially quite different?

yeah it's not about the right to use it because it's not supposed to be a pointed takedown, but is better standing as a demand for self-critique from every individual within a group.

This is the most succinct and best way of putting it that I've seen so far.

if this usage has academic roots i would say that's at least in part a result of more diversity within Higher Education, i.e. non white middle class dudes having to challenge long-ingrained modes of thought/speech

Also it seems hard to put all prejudices together under one banner of "privilege"

because privilege isn't so much a thing as a relation. it comes directly out of the work of people like Foucault arguing that power relationships are never monolothic but always the product of these sliding scales.

i guess that's always going to be vulnerable to simplification because real life is v. complex whereas pontificating on Facebook is pretty simple

^ (re: foucault)

isn't this kind of a problem with the word itself? i mean doesn't this mean words like "racist" or "sexist" or "prejudice" are more effective in specifically targeting somebody's views or what they say and why it's misguided or based on their own blind spots?

― Tioc Norris (LocalGarda), Wednesday, April 10, 2013 5:36 AM (1 minute ago)

i think privilege does have the kind of specificity you ascribe to words like "racist" and "sexist". it just describes a somewhat different thing. i mean, one of the most insidious forms of privilege is that which considers itself not special, but normal - the privilege to see one's own culture and views as ordinary to the point of universality, and to see any deviation from that as notable "difference". this encourages a sort of blindness among those so privileged, a blindness to the limited (and rather special) circumstances that shape their perceptions and understandings. it may be useful to call attention to this when the privileged seem to forget that they can't really speak for "people in general".

also, privilege is frequently expressed in a sense of entitlement. in conversation, the privileged often feel entitled to chip in with their two cents, even when they have much less actual experience with the issue in question than others. they are reassured by their privilege (and the license it so often grants them) that their ideas will be useful and should be heard. it may be useful to check this tendency, especially when certain voices threaten to drown out all others.

Also it seems hard to put all prejudices together under one banner of "privilege" - surely the reasons for these prejudices or views are all potentially quite different?

― Tioc Norris (LocalGarda), Wednesday, April 10, 2013 9:09 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

privilege more describes how power is always relational and context dependent based on the parties. privilege describes the differentials inherent in relationships between people

I remember in college I had to take a race and feminism class to get my degree and it was pretty eye opening. I always thought I was a good progressive liberal, but never really thought hard about what life was like for people not white or male. It wasn't really built around "white privilege" though, more like, here's how life can be different for other people in our society.

I feel like pointing fingers at people for being priveleged isn't really all that helpful, as in people generally don't like being made into some sort of "booger man" for all the ills in society when the privileges they do have is as much an uncontrollable circumstance of birth as being discriminated against. It's hard to figure out without talking to people (pretty intimately) about how their lives are different, and those types of conversations don't happen all that often. Screaming PRIVILEGED! kills an important potential dialogue imo.

Of course, but these contexts aren't always clear, and it's used online quite a lot which seems even more risky.

― Tioc Norris (LocalGarda), Wednesday, April 10, 2013 9:09 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

i don't think it's as risky as you make it out to be, frankly! especially on a place like ilx where it's a core of posters who do share a lot from their personal lives and about whom we all know a great deal. but even outside of ilx, i think you can glean a lot about a person posting on the internet just by the /way/ they're framing something, the language they use, the hidden assumptions present in their text

"booger man"

Okay, I was waiting for something worth saving to come out of this thread. Thank you, Spectrum.

i remember when you could kick a ball in the street without having anyone call attention to your position of relative privilege

i don't think it's as risky as you make it out to be, frankly! especially on a place like ilx where it's a core of posters who do share a lot from their personal lives and about whom we all know a great deal. but even outside of ilx, i think you can glean a lot about a person posting on the internet just by the /way/ they're framing something, the language they use, the hidden assumptions present in their text

yeah fair enough, perhaps i'm projecting my own unease onto others.

xpost no need to be personal about it, i'm not trying to defend any positions of privilege.

i remember when you could kick a ball in the street without having anyone call attention to your position of your booger

you'd be using a shoehorn to make it the term used on ilx as i've seen it.

Hold up here now - I am prepared to believe that lag8n's being straight forward with the initial question, that there are places where privilege functions as a straightforward "I Win". Maybe I've been lucky, I've only seen that a few times, far less than I've seen people yammering about how privilege is used as a putdown. My advice is not to read these blogs.

But if there are these places, ILX is surely to god not one of them - the very last thing that happens when someone calls out privilege here is that anyone goes "ah no fair point I'll switch to listening mode"

Also it seems hard to put all prejudices together under one banner of "privilege" - surely the reasons for these prejudices or views are all potentially quite different?

Well yeah - again perhaps a sheltered life, but I've never seen anyone get called out for unmodified privilege, it's always along a specific axis.

But if there are these places, ILX is surely to god not one of them - the very last thing that happens when someone calls out privilege here is that anyone goes "ah no fair point I'll switch to listening mode"

heh that's a very fair point!

even outside of ilx, i think you can glean a lot about a person posting on the internet just by the /way/ they're framing something, the language they use, the hidden assumptions present in their text

i did make the point that things like religion/sexuality/background etc, these just aren't on view, especially IRL.

Well yeah - again perhaps a sheltered life, but I've never seen anyone get called out for unmodified privilege, it's always along a specific axis.

it's usually unmodified ime.

also as an aside, isn't it possible people behave in a way that transcends their background, positively or negatively?

You are calling for ppl to do exactly what the exercise of "checking [your] privilege" is designed to do. You just don't want to call it that, for...some reason?

Because IME I've only seen it used as an inflammatory pejorative, and not for that purpose at all.

My experience is that (done right, and someone will always be doing it wrong somewhere on the internet), discussing privilege can go softer than sexism and racism - even if you start with "that's racist" it turns into "You're racist" and then it's all about the sacred mysteries of their inner soul; "You're displaying white privilege" can be taken as a criticism of the circumstances that have shaped the target, and gives them an out for acknowledging it and deflecting away from themselves.

Not that making someone saying dumb things on the internet comfortable is necessarily society's greatest purpose, of course.

"You're displaying white privilege" is an appallingly smug and counterproductive way of making a point.

It would genuinely be less insulting to call someone a racist.

seems fine to me. more specific.

no way is that more insulting than calling someone a racist.

Yeah I was joking about that bit, but I still think "white privilege" is an unhelpful way of putting it.

Oh for real? Do you suggest that the exact same point just be made with different words?

i'm gonna attribute that to a difference across the pond xp

dayo, race, sexuality, gender, social class, religion, upbringing, schooling, i'm sure there are plenty other reasons somebody can be privileged over another person. i'm trying not to be restrictive about my definition at all.

i am decidedly non-dayo privileged :(

Because IME I've only seen it used as an inflammatory pejorative, and not for that purpose at all.

― Tioc Norris (LocalGarda), Wednesday, April 10, 2013 6:38 AM (11 seconds ago)

here on ILX, i've occasionally had my privilege called out. the context of the usage has ranged from enlightening engagement (nitsuh, surprise) to vitriolic bullying (ahem...), but i chalk that up more to vagaries of character than any basic deficiency in the world or concept. some people will abuse any tool you give them.

Oh for real? Do you suggest that the exact same point just be made with different words?

Yes, basically. If you want someone to take your point on board it's better to make it in a way that isn't immediately going to put them on the defensive.

some tools are also easier to abuse, surely? xpost

But as soon as those words become identified as being commonly used to make this same unwelcome (to the listener) point, they'll be stigmatized too. Do we then change to a new set of terms?

I mean this isn't even an argument, this is people saying, the point that these words are used to make is unwelcome.

Okay, fine, "Do you think you might be showing some white privilege?" vs "Do you think that might be a bit racist?". There's ways to make the same point which are even gentler, but again there's a balance between that and "how much time do I want to spending considering the feelings of the guy defending the golliwog he had as a kid?"

this is the thread of missing ahem...

i think there's a problem in assuming any given word or phrase has the power to make a person think the way you want them to think. you can't, even when it's something important at stake like having equal rights. all you can do is put yourself out there and hope people will listen. the listener is one the making the choice to listen, and if you act like that's not the case then you're going to get push back.

all i want to know is, if i do the dishes and take out the trash all week, can i borrow the car on Friday night?

this thread is pretty depressing and dumm tbh

despite my internet glibness i'm pretty aware of my privilege and actually use the term about myself all the time irl. it's obviously a vital lens to see the world through and understanding that your experiences and perspectives aren't universal is pretty crucial to civilized conversation with anyone smart who's out of undergrad. i m/l agree with the good guys/gals itt

the only time i *rme* a little at "privilege" is when it's used (exclusively on the internet ime, which i guess is why noted anti-feminist lagoon started this thread) not as an eye-opener but as a trump card, later in the conversation rather than earlier. i completely acknowledge that this is *plays world's smallest violin* but sometimes people who are privileged and are aware of their privilege and have made that known might come to a different good-faith conclusion, after careful consideration, than someone else. and that's OK sometimes as long as you keep in mind that your privilege may have influenced your thinking; it doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong or that your perspective is automatically invalid - its context and how it came to be just have to be understood

ok, this thread.

that's what I'm sayin

so just for the record i don't think "misuse is common", it's not an epidemic or anything and i don't feel oppressed

i mean

tbh this is the sort of thread that makes me realise why some people on the ~social justice internet~ are assholes about the word, it's borne out of pure frustration

you explain what privilege is, you explain that it's quite simple and it's not designed to be an insult, and that it's rooted in power relations not a judgment on you personally, and yet people - usually pretty privileged people - just go on and on and on trying to discredit the entire concept. and it's like y'know what fuck you it's not actually up to you to hijack or dismiss this concept.

and it's totally okay for people to be a bit "huh, what" when they first come across ideas like intersectionality and privilege etc etc because guess what that's our educational privilege that enables us to throw them around like they're nothing, but the pig-headed insistence that they're fundamentally unhelpful concepts deserves absolutely nothing more than an eyeroll

^ gets it

ok, this thread.

― ampersand cooper black (elmo argonaut), Wednesday, April 10, 2013 2:07 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's like...EXACTLY like every other thread where str8 white men (ALWAYS str8 white men, sometimes str8 white women) are faced with the concept of privilege and realise their assumptions might be a tiny bit challenged or that they might have to SIT THE FUCK DOWN for once

wait stop you're blowing my straight white mind, I might have to sit down

checking one's privilege is REALLY EASY to do and not a thing that should make you feel oppressed. it's like, idk, proof-reading to check that something you've written makes logical sense.

pretty sure lag**n orchestrated this thread as some kind of performative commentary of privilege in action

http://i.istockimg.com/file_thumbview_approve/4067210/2/stock-photo-4067210-red-and-white-checked-pattern.jpg

every time I open this thread I want to make a pun

I'm white btw

i'm white too btw

it's like...EXACTLY like every other thread where str8 white men (ALWAYS str8 white men, sometimes str8 white women) are faced with the concept of privilege and realise their assumptions might be a tiny bit challenged or that they might have to SIT THE FUCK DOWN for once

if you mean me with these few posts i don't think it's particularly fair. many people make assumptions or lack self-awareness, a difficult point to be righteous about.

when people say "check your privilege" do they mean it like "spot check" or like "coat check"? honest q.

the very last thing that happens when someone calls out privilege here is that anyone goes "ah no fair point I'll switch to listening mode"

Exhibits A - ZZ enclosed.

pretty sure that does happen, obv not with everyone on every thread and it's the people who keep yelling who control the discourse & memory of it.

when people say "check your privilege" do they mean it like "spot check" or like "coat check"? honest q.

obv it's the former -- like, "take a step back & look at who you are and your place in the greater universe vs. the people around you" -- but based on the reactions itt I think a lot of people are taking it as the latter

wait I think I just horribly botched the meaning of "spot check," what am I doing itt & in life

how would you even coat check your privilege

"I grant my social perks and boons to you, poor disadvantaged soul, for the duration of this conversation; if you return them unscathed there may be a tip"

Isn't that basically the plot of Trading Places?

I'll get me privilege

I made that pun already

how would you even coat check your privilege

by taking off your privilege and leaving it in a closet near the door.

LOL at Dan. "Here's a shiny quarter, young rapscallion, now run along!"

http://ted.coe.wayne.edu/ele3600/mcintosh.html

founding document iirc

lex i think the thread creators are not questioning that (straight, white, w/e) privilege is a thing, rather that the angle should be pointed inward rather than outward. beam, mote, etc.

go lex

i mean, self-examination is great and all, but sometimes people just have to be told a thing. this can be true even when they don't particularly want to hear it.

sometimes you tell people a thing and it doesnt do anything idk

i mean, self-examination is great and all, but sometimes people just have to be told a thing. this can be true even when they don't particularly want to hear it.

sounds in the spirit of the concept.

xp - well sure. no guarantee that pointing out privilege is going to accomplish any actual good. it probably makes some people more defiant and aggrieved.

but i'm not gonna suggest that the world should just shut up about privilege and allow all us good, nice, liberal, well-intentioned straight white men (speaking for myself) come to enlightenment in our own time, through unmolested introspection.

^ to

makes me think of some study i read about recently where they found that challenging peoples views actually made them harden their position, but im kind suspicious of that result cause i think its just measuring the initial reaction, and im sure we all have personal experiences of being confronted about being wrong by someone and getting embarrassed and mad and doubling down, and then later we lowkey change our opinion lol

but i'm not gonna suggest that the world should just shut up about privilege and allow all us good, nice, liberal, well-intentioned straight white men (speaking for myself) come to enlightenment in our own time, through unmolested introspection.

nobody is arguing this...

http://ted.coe.wayne.edu/ele3600/mcintosh.html

founding document iirc

― rather ugged man (zvookster), Wednesday, April 10, 2013 10:55 AM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark

i had seen this piece referenced in other stuff i've been reading but never tracked down the original. ty for this!

nobody is arguing this...

troo, i was strawmanning p hard there. nevertheless, i think that the discussion of privilege provides us with a nice opportunity to, you know, keep our privilege in check.

"the music of my race"

new album in the works

thanks for linking the mcintoch essay, zvooks

i'll throw up some choice quotes from the essay

Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there is most likely a phenomenon of white privilege that was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.

I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege.

...

My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, or as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed the pattern my colleague Elizabeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow them to be more like us.

i'm glad to see that essay here

One factor seems clear about all of the interlocking oppressions. They take both active forms, which we can see, and embedded forms, which as a member of the dominant groups one is taught not to see. In my class and place, I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.

Disapproving of the system won't be enough to change them. I was taught to think that racism could end if white individuals changed their attitude. But a "white" skin in the United States opens many doors for whites whether or not we approve of the way dominance has been conferred on us. Individual acts can palliate but cannot end, these problems.

To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences and denials surrounding privilege are the key political tool here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and conferred dominance by making these subject taboo. Most talk by whites about equal opportunity seems to me now to be about equal opportunity to try to get into a position of dominance while denying that systems of dominance exist.

It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already.

and im sure we all have personal experiences of being confronted about being wrong by someone and getting embarrassed and mad and doubling down, and then later we lowkey change our opinion lol

― lag∞n, Wednesday, April 10, 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have this kind of confrontation semi-regularly with my wife (over something political or whatever), and she's super-stubborn and will double down hard and I'll have to just drop the conversation because it gets to an utterly useless deadlock. But sometimes, weeks or months later, I've overheard her talking to other people about the same topic, but then using my position from the argument we had. It's heartwarming as fuck.

lol that would just make me furious

I think it's awesome. I mean, whatever. I can reconcile to having a difference of opinion with her too. It's hard to fully digest information and change your mind about something when you're in an argument. But how many times have you been mid-conversation with someone and then just stopped and said "wait, you're right and I've been wrong about everything this whole time."

ha I do that occasionally

I try to be better about it as I've gotten older, but it's still hella awkward.

It's hard to fully digest information and change your mind about something when you're in an argument.

IRL arguments are so ineffective because of this.

"I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will."

this is crucial, i think. the challenge issued to this way of thinking can be a very tough pill to swallow. no matter how sound my thinking and good my intentions, my position in the culture can make my views less useful in certain contexts than those of others, can even make them intrinsically suspect. that lesson ran counter to some of my most basic assumptions (and, not coincidentally, to the nature of privileged entitlement itself). it took me quite a while to come to terms with it. hell, i still struggle.

I don't think this is something anyone can ever "come to terms with"

yeah, probably not

RE logic. I don't think logic works the way some people think it works. If by logic you mean reasonable or thoughtful, then there is no line between logic and discussions of privilege. If you are talking about the discipline of logic, then you need to understand that logic is only good at analyzing the structural validity arguments, not ascertaining truths.

The applicability of logic is even more constrained when we don't start with objective truths. The illusion that one is an objective or neutral observer is often reinforced by privilege.

Arguments based on privilege aren't illogical, they're historical, empirical, and rational, and they are about exposing the fallacy of an objective position--an illusion that is often at the heart of what it means to be privileged.

The thing that sometimes makes me uneasy about "privilege" as a concept (I still don't understand what a meme is!) is that it seems imprecise as a way to fully describe how power and inequality operate in the world. something goole and dayo were talking about up thread seems relevant here, about how the language of privilege helps American individual rights discourse to accommodate a more structural understanding of inequality. I don't really have a better account to offer, and I've seen the concept of privilege work for people irl.

the conceit is that you can "teach someone a lesson" which basically never works.

basically lagoon otm

basically, fuck i need new words

I think I realized in high school that to counter my relative poverty and deviance with the appearance of white, male, bourgeois probity would save me from a lot of hassles, tickets, distrust, etc... from the powers that be. It can be incredibly demoralizing and alienating, especially when you're young, to hear other white guys try to 'bond' with you by talking down whatever race or gender they like to disparage or even just guys bonding over sexism or homophobia, and since I was a suspect, book-reading francophile, I was 'tested' a lot. It made me utterly unsympathetic to 'real American' masculinity (though I was sad for the individual guys who were caught in the social mechanics of the phenomenon) and later, made me realize it wasn't limited to America. I guess my privilege was that I could mutter my way out of most situations and that I found them as tedious as I found them infuriating.

Being able to dismiss that kind of unpleasantness as "beneath" you is a reflection of privilege yeah; you're not at its sharp end.

Austerity ponies otm

There's a poster itt who changed his mind after getting in countless lengthy arguments about whether or not he was arguing from a position of privilege, who doubled down and dug in his heels, and eventually came to agree with some of his critics, so idk, sometimes it works. xposts

you're not at its sharp end.

Tbf, that's why I said upthread that I'm all about expanding privilege (not unexaminedly so, however) 'cause who the fuck wants to be on the sharp end? I'm not a big fan of the expiatory or cathartic value of suffering shtick that Xtians and stoics are so enamored of.

MW, with respect, i don't think you're quite comprehending the usage of the word privilege in this specific academic context -- that is, privilege as an unearned advantage that implicates you in institutional forms of inequality

that's the definition i'm working from, so i don't know why you're proposing to "expand privilege" unless you're using a very different definition

Drawing from the McIntosh paper:

I want, then, to distinguish between earned strength and unearned power conferred systematically. Privilege can look like strength when it is in fact permission to escape or to dominate. Power from unearned privilege can look like strength when it is in fact permission to escape or to dominate. But not all of the privileges on my list are inevitably damaging. Some, like the expectation that neighbors will be decent to you, or that your race will not count against you in court, should be the norm in a just society. Others, like the privilege to ignore less powerful people, distort the humanity of the holders as well as the ignored groups.

We might at least start by distinguishing between positive advantages, which we can work to spread, and negative types of advantage, which unless rejected will always reinforce our present hierarchies. For example, the feeling that one belongs within the human circle, as Native Americans say, should not be seen as privilege for a few. Ideally it is an unearned entitlement. At present, since only a few have it, it is an unearned advantage for them. This paper results from a process of coming to see that some of the power that I originally say as attendant on being a human being in the United States consisted in unearned advantage and conferred dominance.

Maybe it makes sense to talk about positive advantages (which are benign and which we want to spread) as well as negative advantages (which require dominance and which we want to negate).

in my understanding, tho 'privilege' may have arisen in an academic context originally, it is not really used at all in gender or race studies in the academy today and is def more of a social justice/political term. << my 2cents.

this looks awesome: http://books.google.com/books?id=zZ1wcz366pkC&lpg=PP1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://images.tandf.co.uk/common/jackets/amazon/978041566/9780415669641.jpg

that is, privilege as an unearned advantage that implicates you in institutional forms of inequality

Basically what Austerity Ponies says at the end. I differ from Jefferson in thinking that we don't have inalienable rights. We have rights that we believe in and defend but they can all be lost. That said, we have rights now, considered sacred and immutable, which we didn't possess 5 or 6 generations ago. Even white males, ironically, the ones most attached in America to 'traditional American values'™ wouldn't, most of them, be able to vote in Revolutionary era America; they're too poor to hold the franchise. Sorry if this is kind of a derail, but limiting the idea of privilege to just institutional forms of inequality seems arbitrary and I'd like to consider privilege from aspirational as well as negative povs. Plus, Americans talking privilege can seem globally a little myopic

Oh yeah, communist privilege.

http://www.salpetrieredesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/druzhba-holiday-center-hall-1.jpg

Dachas, holidays on the Black Sea, food...

privileges and rights are different things, tho! such that pointing out the difference is itself something of an idiom: "it's not a right, it's a privilege"

Tanned, toned, and distributed.

xp or vice versa. i think the usefulness of the term privilege is the implication of inequality. not rights, but special rights, yes, inherited and seemingly natural, but explicitly NOT universal

What do you call it when one has better access to what ought to be universal rights because one is white, male, or heterosexual?

just dude stuff

Privilege, indeed. The privileges of the aristocrats and Church (largely wrt taxation) were a leading reason for the French Revolution

i'm not sure i know what the privilege meme is now either. i thought it was people on blogs talking about privilege and how it should be checked, not the invisible knapsack. i don't have a problem with that except like what horseshoe said, "it seems imprecise as a way to fully describe how power and inequality operate in the world," but i get that it's more of a rhetorical thing than an all-encompassing theory. but now i'm a committed anti-feminist because i have questions about its usefulness. even though my questions about it are feminist imo. i don't like discussions and i should not read these threads.

see, I could see social justicey type people saying to one another about a third party "he/she needs to check his priv." But it shouldnt be the thing a person tells another person. That needs to be way more explicatory to have any benefit.

I've definitely heard third-person accounts of other people's callousness that have caused me to change my ways/mindset so I wouldn't say there's no benefit

i...think people generally use it (the exact phrase) with people who should 'know better' anyway? it's really not that confrontational (or it shouldn't be) - it's just saying "think about why you think that way"

i can see benefits and i don't think people should have to teach every troll that comments on their blog about why their behavior is bad

There's a definite overlap btwn ppl who use 'privilege' and ppl who want to call others racist or sexist but can't quite bring themselves to ... come out and say it? So you get declarative sentences ... weakened by the pause and the high rising terminal? They don't want to be held to justifying a direct allegation, so they settle for implication instead.

See also: "It is interesting that ..." signifying "It is racist / sexist that ..."; "some people itt," passim

That was me, since yr comment seems pointed. I was trying to be calm and not attacky but show that even in a thread where
ppl are ostensibly trying to learn about privilege, there was resistance to even acknowledging the problem, or being willing to work with the solution even if they werent comfortable with the fit. And I was posting mostly from a phone where it's hard to scroll back, cut and paste, etc.

Also just fuck you. It's hard to be the only person trying to explain this shit, when dayo and others went quiet for a while.

so itt it's been decided that ppl have to be less confrontational and accusatory when they say "check your privilege" but also "check your privilege" isn't confrontational or accusatory enough

sometimes it's fun to watch strangers getting pointlessly butthurt about things

check your butthurtness privilege

sorry io ;_; i had to go work!

There's a definite overlap btwn ppl who use 'privilege' and ppl who want to call others racist or sexist but can't quite bring themselves to ... come out and say it? So you get declarative sentences ... weakened by the pause and the high rising terminal? They don't want to be held to justifying a direct allegation, so they settle for implication instead.

See also: "It is interesting that ..." signifying "It is racist / sexist that ..."; "some people itt," passim

― boxall, Wednesday, April 10, 2013 7:36 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

oh come on - people deploy the word 'privilege' because it does land a softer blow than calling someone racist or sexist, it doesn't shut the conversation down i nthe way that calling someone those terms does. lol @ holding these conversation-extending strategies as a reason that we should be suspicious of people who frame the conversation in these terms. but if you only prefer hardman trolling, if you only get off when people actually do call you a sexist or a racist, i'm more than happy to oblige

also lol @ trying to draw a direct link between 'privilege' and the very general linguistic concept of hedging; hedging is something literally everybody does, every day, in every interaction they have with other people. it's called not coming off as an imperious asshole to those around you

xxp Aw don't sweat it, boo. Sometimes I need an irl witness for this shit tho. Lagoon straight social experimenting by even creating this thread which no doubt went exactly the way he predicted.

it's been remarkably civil and sensible, all things considered

I think most contributors did a reasonable job of avoiding the more obvious trolling posts. My mental killfile is kinda working.

haha regardless of lag**n's intentions i think it's generally a good thing that this stuff gets discussed out in the open and that there's a forum for it. i feel like a lot of air has been cleared already!

Anyway, people getting defensive about privilege is pretty dumb because if they bothered to stop saying LALALALALLA for long enough to learn about it, it is basically impossible by definition for anyone in a privileged group NOT to benefit. It's academic justification for it not being any individual's fault! We should all be going gladly to that well, because it absolves us of being responsible for benefiting from the qualities we did nothing to earn, up to the point where we start to recognize them and then it IS on each person to think it over from there.

i don't know how i feel. lagøøn said but particularly itt im more interested in how something gets chewed up by the internet and people and everyone talked about what they think about privilege instead.

it's like he totally lost control of the thread, what happened

The internet is people, so are the posters posting here. We just demonstrated the chewing up part for you; you're welcome.

yessssss i just added another layer of troll his troll and it took only one minute 18 seconds

happy to help

in orbit, I really appreciate your contributions to this thread and to ILX in general, just sayin'

^^^

it's been remarkably civil and sensible, all things considered

i missed some stuff in the middle today, but yeah good thread

io is good people, dayo has been added to the good people list (probably not already there because I don't always keep track of who's who and io took me out to a punk gig the last time I was in NY #HowTheInternetWorks).

I think the thread benefitted a lot from the change of focus that harbl mentioned, so for example I agree that the use of privilege that LocalGarda describes sucks and he agrees that the usage I described makes more sense, but we've punted on which of us has the universal experience - which seems appropriate.

i guess to throw a wrench in this, i don't think it's my place to tell any person (experiencing x oppression) how they should or shouldn't use this language, how polite or impolite they should be etc... like everyone always talks about it like everyone has the same exact goal, but that isn't true, not everyone is super concerned with "winning people over to their side" or "making the world a better place for our chldren's children", some ppl are just fed up and pissed, some people actually want the conversation to end, some people just want to be able to discuss this shit freely with other ppl who are like them etc -- it's not always about trying to win you over

and apart from that some people DO respond well to being yelled at, there's not one grand method that works for everyone

Anyway, people getting defensive about privilege is pretty dumb because if they bothered to stop saying LALALALALLA for long enough to learn about it, it is basically impossible by definition for anyone in a privileged group NOT to benefit. It's academic justification for it not being any individual's fault! We should all be going gladly to that well, because it absolves us of being responsible for benefiting from the qualities we did nothing to earn, up to the point where we start to recognize them and then it IS on each person to think it over from there.

fwiw i agree with this and most of what you've said on this thread. i just think that in practice others using the word seem to work from a different definition to yours, or with a different goal.

i also think the whole "straight white dudes" as a meme isn't that helpful - not in terms of myself by any means, but in the sense that plenty of underprivileged people (at least in uk/europe) are probably straight white dudes.

it removes concern for class which seems to be a key factor that excludes people. that was part of my argument about a cabal of people using the word - i can't speak for the us but ime in the uk i don't think i've ever worked with somebody who wasn't middle class, or came from a poor background, and i've worked with people of many, many diff racial and religious backgrounds.

i'm not trying to make some hierarchy of discrimination - i just think it's a point worth discussing.

also there are things like disability... again not related to someone's race or sexual orientation but a pretty majorly misunderstood and awkward thing to have to deal with, with quite a wide group affected.

this one neat solution that bigots hate!

i also think the whole "straight white dudes" as a meme isn't that helpful - not in terms of myself by any means, but in the sense that plenty of underprivileged people (at least in uk/europe) are probably straight white dudes.

it removes concern for class which seems to be a key factor that excludes people. that was part of my argument about a cabal of people using the word - i can't speak for the us but ime in the uk i don't think i've ever worked with somebody who wasn't middle class, or came from a poor background, and i've worked with people of many, many diff racial and religious backgrounds.

i feel ya man, and like i said upthread we don't really talk about class in america, so maybe privilege is one way of getting at that. but let me point out again that even 'underprivileged straight white dudes' accrue benefits just by being a straight white dude - they don't have to think too hard about going home alone from a late-night party, for example, they can assume that the vast majority of media and advertising is aimed at them, they can shop at their local convenience store without being followed by store personnel, etc. these seem like small things, but when youre on the other side and not privy just by virtue of who you are, they can seem very big. and they dont go away even for poor straight white dudes. now, if you'll excuse me, i'm gonna be lighting a candle for underprivileged straight white dudes

they don't have to think too hard about going home alone from a late-night party, for example, they can assume that the vast majority of media and advertising is aimed at them, they can shop at their local convenience store without being followed by store personnel, etc.

in the US is there like a negative stereotype of the poor white person? cos i can imagine some underprivileged white people (or just you know, less well off people of any racial background) being singled out based on how they look or looking like a stereotypically poor person.

also they may have to worry about being beaten up or whatever, like if someone lives in a particularly dangerous area.

they can assume that the vast majority of media and advertising is aimed at them

not necessarily, if you're particularly marginalised due to how much money you have.

sorry i'm not trying to do that thing of like "refuting" you, just sort of trying to see how money factors into the argument.

well i think probably the closest thing we have to a 'chav' stereotype or w/e is 'white trash.' i can't really tell you any more about that, except that eminem was one

again... you're pointing out situations that might deterioriate the benefits that accrue to someone by their basic identity in the culture, whereas most ppl in this thread have been pointing out that those benefits accrue ipso facto of their identity. sure, some poor straight white dude might live in a dangerous area, but that's not really comparable to the threat of sexual assault that women p much have to account for at all levels of society. i don't really get your point about not having money to buy products, pretty much all straight males (me included) can count on turning on the telly and seeing lots of voluptuous women selling things, can count on the protagonists and plots of movies revolving around straight white dudes, can count on women in these same movies being 1) beautiful and 2) sexually available to these same protagonists, etc. etc. i mean obviously there are exceptions, but society has been organized around lines that sort of assume the straight white male as its default, regardless of how advantaged or disadvantaged each particular dude may be

and let me point out that money can def be a mitigating factor, but these sorts of disadvantages follow non-SWD's throughout their lives. like, hillary clinton, one of the most powerful people in the western world, still gets her gender used against her when ppl want to take her down a notch: http://i.imgur.com/vPXCPWs.jpg

henry louis gates - a harvard professor! - gets arrested for trying to get into his own house after accidentally locking himself out. forest whitaker, successful & rich black actor, gets falsely accused of shoplifting at a nyc deli... why? does that happen to tom hanks.

what would make anyone think that economic and social class are not vital components to discussions of "privilege"?

flagging up one set of privileges ≠ minimising other sets

yeah for sure! if the conversation happens to get aligned along economic/social lines, and youre an 'underprivileged straight white dude' whos poor talking to an heiress, feel free to point out that yer experience is different. and if it the conversation gets aligned along gender/sexual orientation lines, remind yerself that yer experience is not gonna be universal.

what would make anyone think that economic and social class are not vital components to discussions of "privilege"?

well they were largely ignored on this thread and this is the second attempt at bringing them up.

flagging up one set of privileges ≠ minimising other sets

i agree with you.

but dayo said

that's not really comparable to the threat of sexual assault that women p much have to account for at all levels of society.

i'm not really trying to compare. i don't get why we would create a hierarchy like this? we have world aids day and world diabetes day, the latter doesn't denigrate the former.

i accept most of your post as it relates to gender and race - but my point is that the "straight white dudes" thing excludes class from notions of privilege, and sexuality raises a more complicated debate.

xpost yeah that's sort of what i was getting at.

if the conversation happens to get aligned along economic/social lines, and youre an 'underprivileged straight white dude' whos poor talking to an heiress, feel free to point out that yer experience is different. and if it the conversation gets aligned along gender/sexual orientation lines

isn't it also a big problem that "underprivileged" doesn't actually have a clear meaning or a sense of identity in the way that race or sexuality does, at least relatively. the fact we have to use inverted commas kind of gets at this. like, it seems another reason why that's sort of naturally excluded from the conversation, because no group of people is saying "oh hey i represent the marginalised and this is where you're wrong", the poor just aren't involved in these discussions at all as far as i can tell.

like there's a reason it isn't "straight rich white dudes" as a shorthand

well, race/gender are inescapable and immutable and attach to people regardless of their economic situation (and of course subject to those specific circumstances you brought up). it's not that economic class is naturally excluded, its that its relevance is more bracketed than experiences tied to being of a race/gender in western society.

it seems like there's a 'privilege of the underprivileged' in even having their voices heard. there are people out there who live and die lives of quiet hell, and nobody talks about them because their grievances aren't deemed legitimate by society. which is why I think "privileged" is such an unhelpful way to frame debates like these because it's such a relative term that uses stereotypes to understand very complex issues and ends up in finger pointing, axe grinding, shaming, and guilt, all the while ignoring a multitude of nuanced issues that can only be understood through peoples' limited, individual perceptions and experiences.

so you have a woman like hillary clinton tut-tutted because she's a woman, yet was one of the most powerful women in the world. then you have millions of straight white men who don't have a chance in hell of climbing out of abject poverty. what's worse here? i think the very idea of "privelege" here is in itself a product of privlege that people are unaware of.

* not even most powerful woman in the world, but most powerful person in the world.

it seems like there's a 'privilege of the underprivileged' in even having their voices heard. there are people out there who live and die lives of quiet hell, and nobody talks about them because their grievances aren't deemed legitimate by society. which is why I think "privileged" is such an unhelpful way to frame debates like these because it's such a relative term that uses stereotypes to understand very complex issues and ends up in finger pointing, axe grinding, shaming, and guilt, all the while ignoring a multitude of nuanced issues that can only be understood through peoples' limited, individual perceptions and experiences.

i agree with this strongly.

it's not that economic class is naturally excluded, its that its relevance is more bracketed than experiences tied to being of a race/gender in western society.

it feels a bit to me like experiences of discrimination based on economic class are less uniform, and maybe suffer in being recorded, as a result.

I thought a fine example of class privilege (in the sense of privilege used here--privilege as an unequal position of safety from which to speak) was Blair chastising revelers for their celebrations over the last few days. A member of the political elite who was never in live danger of Thatcher's policies telling everyone else how disrespectful they're being.

"privilege of the underprivileged" uh oh

wish I could enjoy that one elusive privilege I'm missing

bingo

it seems like there's a 'privilege of the underprivileged' in even having their voices heard. there are people out there who live and die lives of quiet hell, and nobody talks about them because their grievances aren't deemed legitimate by society. which is why I think "privileged" is such an unhelpful way to frame debates like these because it's such a relative term that uses stereotypes to understand very complex issues and ends up in finger pointing, axe grinding, shaming, and guilt, all the while ignoring a multitude of nuanced issues that can only be understood through peoples' limited, individual perceptions and experiences.

so you have a woman like hillary clinton tut-tutted because she's a woman, yet was one of the most powerful women in the world. then you have millions of straight white men who don't have a chance in hell of climbing out of abject poverty. what's worse here? i think the very idea of "privelege" here is in itself a product of privlege that people are unaware of.

― Spectrum, Thursday, April 11, 2013 8:39 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

oh come on, this is a lame rhetorical move to pull and you know it

what's worse here?

This is a terrible question though, and 'privilege' not being well suited to answer it is a point in the word's favour.

you *might* be overestimating the extent to which the underprivileged are rewarded with the exclusive privilege of having their voices heard

millions of straight white men could be a band I guess

like there's a reason it isn't "straight rich white dudes" as a shorthand

― Tioc Norris (LocalGarda), Thursday, April 11, 2013 8:33 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark

maybe if i put it this way: there are structures of oppression in western society built around race/national origin; gender; sexual orientation. by being a straight white dude - even a poor straight white dude - a person is automatically situated as outside of those structures.

i was trying to point out how unhelpful it is to look at life through that lens because it misses so many things. it's trying to fit a complex, scattered life of amorphous values and experiences through a strict, directional binary that's based largely on the values and perceptions of the people using it, making it almost without foundation.

i'm not trying to say ignore social problems, but more like ... look at more social problems, in a more huminitarian way by opening up the debate by throwing off a very narrow and shaky concept.

maybe if i put it this way: there are structures of oppression in western society built around race/national origin; gender; sexual orientation. by being a straight white dude - even a poor straight white dude - a person is automatically situated as outside of those structures.

fair enough. but the thread in which the term crops up is about the concept of privilege.

there are structures of oppression in western society built around race/national origin; gender; sexual orientation

and there are none built around money/class?

Right but what I'm saying is that "What's worse here?" is not the question that privilege is answering - privilege isn't that lens, that binary.

i don't understand, LG, are you thinking about privilege as the accrual of various advantages with a common denominator? as if you tally your score and find your numerical score on the 'privilege' axis? it doesn't work that way!

the poor just aren't involved in these discussions at all as far as i can tell.

"the poor" is doing a bit of work here, though - the poor in Bolivia are, the poor a few decades back are - the fact that the Bethnal Green poor are largely (though not entirely) disinclined to think of things this way is more an effect of 25 years of Tory rags pitching them against "others" than anything else.

I mean, obviously one of the ways that modern capitalism works is keeping the people with the least to lose busy and hungry all the time, but that's not the fault of the conversations that they're not having.

What I guess I was asking was, "who's priveleged and who's not priveleged" to call into question the very idea of using the concept.

hillary clinton was used as an example of someone who falls under the "underpriveleged" for being a women, and based on stereotypes, straight white men are by nature more priveleged than her. but if you look at things more closely, does that really hold up? what are we even trying to get at here?

so it's like, hillary clinton, one of the most powerful people who has ever lived, has to deal with certain nuisances of being a woman. and women out there face far worse than being patronized by the media. but then you have the same priveleged straight white men who live and die miserable lives with no hope of escape because of circumstances that are generally ignored because they have priveleges, which is completely and utterly kooky to me. and I'm just taking this stuff from the debates had here. why ignore so many things about peoples' lives just to fit things into this narrative?

"privelege" here is starting to seem like to me to be a tool for interest groups to alleviate legitimate greviances particular to their interests, rather than a tool to better help and understand other human beings. which isn't wrong or anything, but there's this moral weight put behind the concept when it's really more pragmatic than that.

xpost elmo that's the point i'm making if you read the last few posts. i'm only stressing class because i'm being told "that's not comparable" which seems to suggest a system like you describe.

i'm not suggesting comparison or tallies, just that maybe in a thread about privilege we might want to discuss how class/social status affects it and how class/social status mean the shorthand of "straight white male" doesn't work particularly well as a catch all for the ignorant and powerful.

not to mention disability.

hillary clinton was used as an example of someone who falls under the "underpriveleged" for being a women, and based on stereotypes, straight white men are by nature more priveleged than her.

Dude no this is not what was happening! Hillary Clinton is obviously massively privileged in many ways - Dayo is just pointing out that even with that she still gets shit that she wouldn't if she was a man.

class and disability ARE included in discussions of privilege

not this one

the disingenuousness and pedantry on display itt is just wilful at this point and is also like EVERY OTHER DERAILMENT OF THE SUBJECT EVER, it's so fucking DONE. no wonder social justice tumblr is full of people being assholes about it. no fucking wonder.

^ showing his 'previous internet discussions of privilege' privilege imo

oddly enough i don't really consider this thread a full and thorough delineation of the entire subject of privilege, why not go read some actual material on it before you dismiss the concept based on a fucking ilx thread

it's not fair or justified to accuse people of being disingenuous or pedantic. if you can't argue a cogent point, don't. this thread is pretty civil.

xpost

oddly enough i don't really consider this thread a full and thorough delineation of the entire subject of privilege, why not go read some actual material on it before you dismiss the concept based on a fucking ilx thread

i'm actually trying to challenge my own views and in the process maybe i challenge those of others.

lol @ "IT'S NOT FAIR"

i'm not being disingenuous or pedantic

There's a pretty neat article by John Scalzi which I wish I'd brought up yesterday - I don't think it will bring peace to the tribes of LG and dayo - and which goes into the money/class thing in its response posts. It looks like it might be a US / rest of world thing whether you consider money and class to be essential attributes on the level of sex/race/sexuality?

don't rly see what your point is LG, one of the points of 'privilege' is that power imbalances are manifest in a lot of ways and intersect in a lot of ways, and honing in on any particular thread of it (e.g. 'that's racist') is going to fail to get to the heart of the power differential at work. This means that it isn't easy and people aren't always going to get it quite right, but that's not the fault of the concept, it's much more reflective of the fact that it's just something that's always going to be very difficult to deal with adequately.

there is peace as far as i'm concerned... xpost

one of the points of 'privilege' is that power imbalances are manifest in a lot of ways and intersect in a lot of ways, and honing in on any particular thread of it (e.g. 'that's racist') is going to fail to get to the heart of the power differential at work. This means that it isn't easy and people aren't always going to get it quite right, but that's not the fault of the concept, it's much more reflective of the fact that it's just something that's always going to be very difficult to deal with adequately.

i'm not sure how this contradicts what i've said. i mean, i don't even think this is some gigantically polarised me v everyone debate.

i'm actually trying to challenge my own views and in the process maybe i challenge those of others.

this is either hugely disingenuousness or ridiculously self-important, take your pick

i'm very good at grammar

you dropped in to the thread and made a point which i was actually making, not sure why you're on the insult train now.

terribly sorry, am i being UNFAIR?

just disingenuous

nah, that was just facetious.

fair enough

Oh my god, you people.

Can I just pop in and throw out the idea that it's not surprising that the privilege concept seems to revolve around the middle-class and up since they're generally the ones with the privilege of having enough education and spare time to come up with the concept? Or has someone said this already?

That was sort of my point from the off.

tbh I think that's one of the most useful aspects of the concept of privilege; the basic idea can be used to examine/interrogate itself

Good morning! Yeah, Dan, I was going to say: that's undoubtedly true but also not a count against the validity of the practice. Those who have the knowledge also have cause to use it.

LG, here's the thing: you're making it pretty clear that you think the discussion itt should follow a certain path, and you want to direct it there. fine.

the discussion is incomplete. of course. it's not a comprehensive account of the concept and as lex sort of hinted at, you could easily find plenty of thoughtful material elsewhere about the intersection of class & other sets of privileges. you could even link to those things here itt if you found them.

but the insistence that you're somehow doing us all a favor by "challenging our views" and not just grinding a rhetorical axe is just a bit too much for me to take seriously.

nobody talks about them because their grievances aren't deemed legitimate by society

People talk about the poor! This includes straight white male poor people! Your statement is flat out wrong. People work very hard every day to help straight white male poor people! Many of the people who are working hard to help straight white male poor people do not belong to all or any of those categories.

If I talk about how economically underprivileged people have roadblocks to material improvement in their lives, I'm talking about straight white males who are economically underprivileged! Clearly, they're included in that class.

Is your complaint that they're being held back because they're male, white or straight? If so, fuck you. Is your complaint that they're being held back because their born into a disadvantaged economic and social class? Then, yes we're in agreement, so what's you're beef? We're addressing the problem, which is their poverty, not their maleness, whiteness, or straightness.

I understand how reasonable people can get trapped into this weird line of thinking, but can you see how aggravating this complaint is, and how it is nearly indistinguishable from the racist resentment? Indistinguishable from the absurd complaint that the white man is being persecuted and that the minorities and women are a bunch of lucky duckies? Indistinguishable, regardless of how you arrived there, or whatever your original intent!

damn, one of my they'res became a their

I think it is interresting than in some european countries, speaking of privilege is a big social no-no. Those european countries (I'm thinking of France mainly) are known for having extensive welfare but little or no means of social elevation. It is a broad generalisation of course, but I felt that discussing other culture's view of privilege could be enlightening for this (great) conversation.

xp Holy crap! You just filled my mouth with all sorts of bullshit. I already agree with the basic ideas of privelege. I am well aware of my own privilege in these terms, I've reflected on it on my own without even being aware of the concept.

I wasn't even referring to the poor when I said "deemed legitimate by society". Maybe I'm being a little mealy mouthed here because I have my own axe to grind ... and realizing that, I think I'll exit the debate.

european countries (I'm thinking of France mainly) are known for having extensive welfare but little or no means of social elevation.

Isn't social mobility higher in France than in the US (it's certainly higher than the UK)?

it seems like there's a 'privilege of the underprivileged' in even having their voices heard. there are people out there who live and die lives of quiet hell, and nobody talks about them because their grievances aren't deemed legitimate by society. which is why I think "privileged" is such an unhelpful way to frame debates like these because it's such a relative term that uses stereotypes to understand very complex issues and ends up in finger pointing, axe grinding, shaming, and guilt, all the while ignoring a multitude of nuanced issues that can only be understood through peoples' limited, individual perceptions and experiences.

so you have a woman like hillary clinton tut-tutted because she's a woman, yet was one of the most powerful women in the world. then you have millions of straight white men who don't have a chance in hell of climbing out of abject poverty. what's worse here? i think the very idea of "privelege" here is in itself a product of privlege that people are unaware of.

― Spectrum, Thursday, April 11, 2013 7:39 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Who are the people who aren't being talked about and why aren't they being talked about? And what does this have to do with the conversation about privilege?

xposts

I hate to speak without stats backing my claims, so take it with a grain of salt: I'd say that the average frenchman lives in better conditions. However, it seems to me that a (too) little percentage of the middle and lower classes is able to work his way up in the scales, whereas in France your surname is confined to the same economic strata forever. I might be wrong.

That is beside the topic, tbf.

What I think happens in countries with a stronger welfare state is that since the privilege of one is the access to university to others, so that privilege resentment is muted by the whole idea of 'I'm paying for you'/'He's paying for me'.

(talk about walking on eggs)

I still can't get over the idea that a great advantage of being underprivileged is that you get to have your voice heard!

lol

yeah that is some nonsense. gayatri spivak to thread.

oh man, that is so far away from the point I was trying to make it's absurd. maybe I didn't express it right.

yea

Do you mean that privilege is not that straight vertical line and that the discourse about privileges should adapt to the complexities? For example, how do we frame the privilege of a homosexual kid in a very rich, religious and homophobic family?

but the insistence that you're somehow doing us all a favor by "challenging our views" and not just grinding a rhetorical axe is just a bit too much for me to take seriously.

challenge is a verb, anyone in an argument is challenging someone else's views. i never said i'm doing anyone a favour. you can read more into the word "challenge" to try and insult me but that's up to you.

it's not a comprehensive account of the concept and as lex sort of hinted at, you could easily find plenty of thoughtful material elsewhere about the intersection of class & other sets of privileges. you could even link to those things here itt if you found them.

i'm not denying that material exists, but i'm only as ignorant of it as many other people in this thread, seemingly.

and yes i brought the topic up, but a lot of my subsequent posts were simply justifying even bringing up class, including my rebuttal to you whereby you had assumed i was creating a hierarchy of discrimination when that's precisely the opposite to my entire position throughout the thread.

I agree that the discourse about privilege shouldn't be this horrible thing that you guys have obviously experienced in some sort of cartoon hell.

some sort of cartoon hell

new ile description

yeah it's not a hierarchy - it's just that some experiences of oppression are gonna be more universal than others

I posted this Postone quote in another thread recently but I think it's relevant here too:

In Marx's mature works, then, the notion of the centrality of labor to social life is not a transhistorical proposition. It does not refer to the fact that material production is always a precondition of social life. Nor should it be taken as meaning that material production is the most essential dimension of social life in general, of even of capitalism in particular. Rather, it refers to the historically specific constitution by labor in capitalism of the social relations that fundamentally characterize that society. In other words, Marx analyzes labor in capitalism as constituting a historically determinate form of social mediation which is the ultimate social ground of the basic features of modernity -- in particular, its overarching historical dynamic. Rather than positing the social primacy of material production, Marx's mature theory seeks to show the primacy in capitalism of a form of social mediation (constituted by "abstract labor") that molds both the process of material production ("concrete labor") and consumption.

Labor in capitalism, then, is not only labor as we transhistorically and commonsensically understand it, according to Marx, but is a historically specific socially-mediating activity. Hence its products -- commodity, capital -- are both concrete labor products and objectified forms of social mediation. According to this analysis, the social relations that most basically characterize capitalist society are very different from the qualitatively specific, overt social relations -- such as kinship relations or relations of personal or direct domination -- which characterize non-capitalist societies. Although the latter kind of social relations continue to exist in capitalism, what ultimately structures that society is a new, underlying level of social relations that is constituted by labor. Those relations have a peculiar quasi-objective, formal character and are dualistic -- they are characterized by the opposition of an abstract, general, homogeneous dimension and a concrete, particular, material dimension, both of which appear to be "natural," rather than social, and condition social conceptions of natural reality.

The abstract character of the social mediation underlying capitalism is also expressed in the form of wealth dominant in that society.

Which is to say that the social relations (kinship/domination) that are most commonly associated w/ privilege are, acc to a Marxist reading of contemporary Capitalism, secondary or sublimated by this exploitive superstructure. After a long time thinking about privilege and how it's used online (particularly in the context of social justice/tumblr communities) I think that forms my main objection (tho objection is stating things a bit strongly); I don't think 'privilege' does an adequate job of exposing Capitalism (I don't even think that's really the point of the *meme*) and like most objects of resistance in society can be completely co-opted by the economic structure. I wonder if that's a major faultline in this conversation - a purer Marxist approach v. a more social justice/civil rights approach (that may be compatible w/ Capitalism - in fact, Capitalism often does a great job at erasing gender/racial divisions since those things can be obstacles to fully exploiting labor - we're all equal before Nike etc).

this mostly to local garda & spectrum:

one of the reasons that class (by which i guess american mean wealth?) has mostly remained to the side in this discussion is that wealth is widely understood to confer privilege. i mean, come on. everybody knows that rich people are privileged and that the poor are not. we even have a special word for wealth-lack: "underprivileged".

the kind of privilege we're talking about in this thread is not privilege in general, but rather the special, semi-invisible sort that is conferred by membership in a culturally dominant, supposedly "normal" group. the privilege of not being "different". the privilege of not being constantly demeaned, exploited, suspected and condescended to simply because of who you were born to be. i say "semi-invisible" because one of the most troubling characteristics of this type of privilege is how blind many of those who benefit from it are to its very existence.

of course a one-word, bullet point concept like "privilege" cannot begin to account for "a complex, scattered life of amorphous values and experiences", but it's not trying to do anything like that. it's simply attempting to call attention to and draw connections between the unearned benefits granted (in american society) to, for instance: men, white people, heterosexuals and the able-bodied. in the process, it also highlights the corollary penalization of those who don't belong to one or more of those groups. this isn't a myopic lens that ignores other realities or individual experience. it isn't a means of fudging around some other, more relevant or specific accusation. it isn't a blunt instrument for use in smacking straight white males around (though perhaps it gets put to that use sometimes). instead, it's a good, simple way to begin addressing a real, complex problem.

three paragraphs. feels good to be alive.

I would actually say that America is probably the only country on earth where "wealth = privilege" is something that people need to be reminded of.

I don't think 'privilege' does an adequate job of exposing Capitalism (I don't even think that's really the point of the *meme*) and like most objects of resistance in society can be completely co-opted by the economic structure

i think this is really v interesting and a fair point. if i understand you (bear with me) i think this might have a lot to do with e.g. the push for "marriage equality" -- that is, it's a coordinated lobbying effort using social justice & civil rights language & posture, but whose greatest benefit will be to those gay couples who already have the most economic advantages to begin with. maybe veering off topic here, idk.

that's pretty much what I was trying to get across, elmo. I'm sleep deprived so I'm sure it came out garbled.

i agree with that as well fwiw. not just saying that to feign harmony.

it's a coordinated lobbying effort using social justice & civil rights language & posture, but whose greatest benefit will be to those gay couples who already have the most economic advantages to begin with.

eee, something about this bugs me. it implies that if a measure threatens to provides too many benefits to those with some unspecified degree of "economic advantage", then any justification based in social justice or civil rights must be viewed with suspicion. i don't accept that. though some gay people may be economically advantaged, gay people as a whole are still injured by blatant prejudice of the sort that the push for marriage equality combats. straight privilege results in the disempowerment of anyone who isn't straight, and this is a real problem even if certain gay people make a lot of money.

man i'm glad i got outta here in time

Why this tension between social justice & Marxism?

"Why are we talking about race and gender when we should be talking about economic class?"

^^^why does this keep happening in conversations about race and gender?

conversation about privilege u mean

it's an easy deflection/distraction

i'd advocate abandoning "privilege" as a term for critical theory simply because it represents a lot of baggage that's best left behind (ie, the notion of "priviledge" seems to import a position of "non-privilege" which has, as it were, a privileged observational stance in regard to whichever problem/situation is being observed.

what we'd need, by contrast, is a concept that adopts something along the lines of the universality of interpretation, perspective, and most of all observational blind-spots.

"you should check your bootysmell"

now does that mean spotchecking your bootysmell or coatchecking your bootysmell

Great, now I'm imagining a bunch of people in vigorous debate stopping to hunch over and sniff between their legs.

All I know is if you're coatchecking your bootysmell, that tip had better be very generous.

what we'd need, by contrast, is a concept that adopts something along the lines of the universality of interpretation, perspective, and most of all observational blind-spots.

haha what

sorry, that's... not helpful

i remember it from my driving test but

I thought the conversation above about how it requires a certain level of educational (ahem) "privilege" to discuss privilege was interesting bc it seems to mirror the Marxist discourse about the ruling class joining + even leading the revolution:

Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the process of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole.

In social justice terms this has become the 'ally,' but whereas Marx sees the educated bourgeoisie as the necessary voice to articulating the class struggle, the privilege discourse asks him to cede his position of prominence to more marginalized voices. On one hand I kinda love that- it always bothered me that even during the revolution the former bourgeoise maintain their position of leadership (I think you could argue that they are giving up much more than they are getting by joining the revolution). On the other hand isn't this pragmatic of Marx? The ppl who can comprehend the historical movement as a whole need to speak up to organize the revolution (and this might be a huge paradox in social justice - the ppl running it are privileged, disavowing that privilege, and yet its that privilege that allows the movement to grow). Maybe.

marxist talk always makes me feel as though i'm listening to greedo

i like that way of looking at it (i also like just about everyone else's way, lots of good discussion itt) but i do wonder, and have been, how does one individual disavow their privilege?

kill yourself and hope for a less privileged reincarnation

will report back, if there are computers

disavow here means 'deny'.

What if much of your privilege is experienced passively?

haha what

if you're curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-order_cybernetics

in any case the essential problem seems to be that in order for one to say anything or observe anything one must at the same time claim privilege. my problem with marxism is that it always takes the "side" (so to speak) of totality (even if disavowing any specific articulation of it) instead of acknowledging its own partiality.

If you give it to me, I might forget I found you.

i think if you accept that the concept of "privilege" is designed as a rhetorical tool to describe the speaker/observer as contingent, limited, constructed, then you have to take the next step towards a concept that is able to in turn acknowledge its own privilege (ie, it's own contingency and limitedness). people put their privilege up front and center when speaking, and this is perhaps an honest and ethical way to go about it, but at the same time one has to be comfortable with the fact that this makes you quite vulnerable--acknowledging privilege all you want doesn't ever make your point of view have access to totality or objectivity.

haha when can one have access to totality or objectivity

Right, and the problem is most of the old categories of critical theory still claim it despite protestations otherwise.

http://www.badmovieplanet.com/unknownmovies/pictures/thunderpants2.jpg

in order for one to say anything or observe anything one must at the same time claim privilege

uh

wait, ryan, can you unpack that claim about critical theory "claiming" access to objectivity or totality? it seems to me that the main theme of critical theory -- esp. french-derived deconstruction and foucauldian power analyses -- is that there is no subject position outside the hegemonic discourse, no objective standpoint, and so resistance needs to take place within a given field of power. that is exactly what these conversations about privilege are, i think... constant pushbacks against unsubstantiated truth-claims, assertions that recognizing the limits of one's perspective does not entail that one should stop pushing forward, and questioning, and working toward the interminable goal of justice.

there is no subject position outside the hegemonic discourse, no objective standpoint, and so resistance needs to take place within a given field of power. that is exactly what these conversations about privilege are, i think.

Yeah this is true--then you gotta theorize how it's possible to say all these things without objectivity. That's the rub and that's what I mean about making yourself vulnerable as a condition of speaking.

and I'd argue that too often acknowledging one's one privilege and even the contingency of your theoretical discourse amounts to no more than a rhetorical affectation designed to accomplish the opposite of making oneself vulnerable.

sorry I meant "own privilege"

a cis-yphean task

oof

this is what I keep in my invisible knapsack

lol @ cis-yphean task. but xpost to ryan, i couldn't agree more with the fact that acknowledging one's privilege upfront can be a rhetorical sleight of hand, designed to protect oneself from certain kinds of critiques, not unlike the old "in my personal experience..." and that goes along with the idea that "privilege" as it is employed on tumblr or whatever is an abuse of critical theory. i feel like part of the reason derrida's texts are so difficult to follow is that he is trying to evade precisely that conundrum... he is always doubling back and recognizing the binary logic that is at work structuring his own arguments, which are themselves attacks on the binary logic structuring the texts he is criticizing. so, yeah, i think that critical theory in its more academic manifestations takes the problem you are mentioning seriously, even if tumblr identity politics conversations do not. the rub with that is that more sophisticated theory convos are not accessible to many people, and are themselves a discourse whose very jargon is a mark of privilege.

yeah absolutely. We could argue about better or worse ways to handle these problems (and Derrida is a good example, as is Luhmann imo) but it remains to be seen how its gonna filter into general use. For now Derrida in most people's minds seems to mean relativism full stop.

Where Derrida is invested in troubling hierarchies and showing how dichotomies participate in one another, "privilege as a meme" seems to reaffirm these modes of domination. Derrida would likely push back on the notion of 'checking your privilege' since privilege participates in the absence of privilege and vice-versa. Maybe you could ask whether your discourse is coming from a place of privilege or a place without privilege acc to Derrida, but even that seems too rigid.

i agree mordy -- talking about "privilege" as a thing one manifestly "has" is not derridean. derrida sees privilege at work on the level of discourse, with certain concepts, or values, privileged over others in a subtle, but very real way that has the effect of silencing certain kinds of voices, or rendering them unrecognizable within the terms of a given discourse. part of my issue of how "privilege" is used in Internet discussions is that it is too simplistic. that is, i agree that people think a certain way because they have certain experiences and should be aware of the limits of their own vantage, but i think it is quite another thing to, in the blunt and totalizing way I see too often, attribute one's perspective to their identity "as a man" or "as a transgendered person" or whatever. that, in fact, is a kind of thinking that works to reify these forms of identity,and it also sort of depressingly closes off the possibility for people to think creatively about themselves, their world, etc. i don't know, i'd have to think more about this.

One thing I always loved about Queer Studies in grad school was that a large part of the discipline looked to 'queer' normative experiences and demonstrate how things that seem most normative actually resisted themselves, or possessed elements that troubled their own assertions of cis-hood/straightness/etc. This is something I haven't really seen outside the academy - how language undermines its own presentation of self.

I don't know if I follow this line of critique. It seems to me that privilege is a fairly humble concept. Checking your privilege just means reminding yourself that society values and ratifies some perspectives over others. To be aware of that is to gain a small increase in objectivity. You can become self-satisfied with that awareness, or use it as moral license to cease further self-examination, or treat it as a marker of distinction, but these are all basic human failings, and you can't fault a concept for how it's misused.

otm

I think the argument point is over whether objectivity exists

Yes, but I think it's also over whether the act of assessing or identifying privilege is a move towards objectivity, and as such, what are the pitfalls of assuming greater objectivity

I haven't read through this whole thread, but one thing that has become evident is that discussing privilege requires a certain amount of it. The only sort of priv checking I ever need to remind people to do is related to educational backgrounds. I remember very clearly talking with a close friend who was poking fun at her sister in law because the SiL said she had to turn in a rough draft of a paper the next day. My friend (who is otherwise VERY aware of all of this priv checking) was like LOL who turns in rough drafts?! Who even WRITES rough drafts? And I had to be like "well, my students do."

Just an observation, carry on.

Pat and Mordy's above posts sort of remind me of the word "construction" and how it gets or used to get misused to mean something like "thing that doesn't actually exist and is just made up to oppress us."

sorry I meant to write "construct"

I think objectivity exists contrastively--one perspective can be more objective than another by virtue of being more disinterested. I don't think that total objectivity is possible. But I don't think that privilege analysis is about attaining total objectivity.

attaining some degree of objectivity requires a lot of self-knowledge, which involves brutal, soul-searing honesty and hard work, so I don't think it's out of line to just expect a lack of it in any particular debate. even the most disinterested party still has their own values, experience, and perspective to bring bias to the table.

I see talking about privilege as more of an attempt to strip away the illusion of something static, normative, and disinterested and replace it with something more dynamic and relational. By understanding that your point-of-view isn't objective, you actually move towards greater objectivity.

yeah, i definitely agree with that, it's a way of making people recognize that they are a person in society, not a disembodied consciousness. my fear is that the way it is used -- either to qualify one's own position, or to discredit someone else's -- doesn't always do much to actually counter peoples' actual perspectives, but just affects a "knowing" recognition of the perceived origin of this perspective, a "you would think that..." kind of thing. so in that way it can have the effect of erasing complexities because, for instance, it is not always the case that an institutionally privileged person will be the one, in any given debate, putting forth the privileged perspective. who people are, and what they think, are different things, and though they inform one another they do so in complex ways that are not always immediately perceptible.

or maybe a better way to put this is that i don't think it's useful for "calling out privilege" to be seen as an end in itself, but rather, as the basis for a more searching, critical discussion about how harmful race/gender/class paradigms can be overturned. jezebel sometimes just sees calling out privilege as, in itself, a worthy goal, such as when they defended this one tumblr that posted pictures of nerdy guys' okcupid profiles in order to ridicule them for the sexist logic that underlie their self-designation as "nice guys." this kind of thing doesn't strike me as advancing the cause of feminism. http://jezebel.com/5972788/no-one-is-entitled-to-sex-why-we-should-mock-the-nice-guys-of-okcupid

so to recap, calling out peoples' privilege can be a great tool but it is not itself a substitute for actual analyses of intersectionality. not that anyone here is claiming that, but i felt that it should be said anyway.

ftr nothing hugo schwyzer says ever matters

what gave you the impression that that tumblr's goal was to advance the cause of feminism

or another question, why is feminism and other "social justice" movements always seen as a single cause rather than an ideology with multiple purposes

i don't think that is the goal of the tumblr but the jezebel article strongly implied that mocking those people would help spur a conversation about privilege and entitlement. i just used that as an example of how the rhetoric of privilege can be abused to justify abject bullying. but to your second point, your right, there are many feminisms as there are many feminists and all other social justice movements are the same.

xp to myself, i should really jsut write bigger posts huh

why is it not feminist for women to enjoy those sorts of takedown exercises regardless of their global impact on women's issues, why is the individual always shunted away in favor of the movement, etc

everything being relegated to a massive "movement" just makes it that much easier for capitalist forces to swoop in and control, monetize it

i don't think that is the goal of the tumblr but the jezebel article strongly implied that mocking those people would help spur a conversation about privilege and entitlement. i just used that as an example of how the rhetoric of privilege can be abused to justify abject bullying. but to your second point, your right, there are many feminisms as there are many feminists and all other social justice movements are the same.

― severely depressed robots are "twee" (Pat Finn), Thursday, April 11, 2013 5:28 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well if there's one thing that's right about that idea, which isn't really that impt because schwyzer has nothing to do with the tumblr and nothing he says matters, the discussion about the very topic of "nice guys" and about okcupid harassment is near the forefront of internet feminist discussion and the tumblr serves as a store of data for that argument

whether that's the point of the tumblr or not has no bearing on the myriad other ways in which it provides value to the people who value it

i think that's true, and i think the discussion of "nice guys" is valuable in bringing to light the sexist logic lurking behind a certain cliche, but i also think the tumblr is bad because its "humor" derives from ridiculing people who, for the most part, would be ridiculed by patriarchal culture anyway. so the humor of the thing is just rooted in sadistic bullying -- calling people out for being not privileged, but grotesque -- and i think that is, in itself, immoral in a really basic sense.

i dunno imo the popular idea that ugly nerds with heaps of white/male/straight/cis/etc privilege have it just as bad or worse than people without that privilege is reason enough for blogs like that to exist

there's the common refrain that "patriarchy hurts men too" but that doesn't mean that the men affected most by it won't also hesitate to use it as a weapon just as much as the alpha betas

Alpha Betas are ok if you like sweat socks. We prefer your high IQs to their great big jocks.

hm, i don't know. the conflation of nerdiness with sexism is itself a cliche. i don't know that every straight white cis male nerd would use his privilege as a weapon when backed into a corner, the guys featured on that tumblr certainly would, but i think locating sexism in the figure of the nerd, as opposed to the alphawhatever, is equally mystificatory. and also, saying that you shouldn't be openly cruel and hostile to someone is not the same as saying that they have it "just as bad or worse than [institutionally oppressed people.]" it just means that cruelty is, in itself, bad.

yes, it's cool humiliating random people because 'some idea exists' and 'some men afflicted with awkwardness might conceivably use the patriarchy too' so fuck 'em all by default, especially these fedora dorks who we need an excuse for making fun of for being awkward and ugly.

xp

Ftr "locating" sexism is not a zero sum game--just because I identify a nexus of it in one place does not mean I'm going to run out of little colorful "sexism: u are here" info flags to use when I find it somewhere else.

yeah, being mean to weak people is a patriarchal move, so deploying patriarchy -- even against someone who might subscribe to its values -- seems problematic/a less-than-ideal feminist tactic. like, that tumblr isn't ridiculing those guys *only* from a feminist standpoint, but also from the standpoint of "they are weird and gross" and i just think its shitty.

i never said "every" -- i don't know if ppl who identify as nerds are more likely to act sexist but i certainly don't think they're less likely than any other social dude group. but the public perception of nerds = harmless innocents is still pretty huge especially within their own ranks ime. there is certainly a more specific brand of horribleness that exists in reddity places/xbox headsets and w/e and i think the discourse abt that is still pretty new

but this is sort of veering off topic, sry

xp

ok "being mean = always patriarchal" is where i peace out

I feel like one of the worst things the internet has done is to accelerate the breakdown of many people's ability to distinguish "some" from "all"

maybe that's just adulthood, though

i didn't say that you said "every" but i think, i don't know, the consolidation of the nerd stereotype with the misogynist stereotype seems to be a real thing that is happening, and it seems to be a part of the logic of that blog, i.e. "look at these kinds of people!" i don't think people have thought nerds are essentially harmless since after columbine.

Your objection to that tumblr doesn't seem different to me than some of the objection to Adria Richards' taking and posting that guy's photo, which is basically: oh noes some people who we depended on not having much power changed the playing field and now we can't be quite as sure of "winning" when we attack them.

The boys and men whose okc profiles were part of the "Nice Guys" phenom were most similar to each other in that they placed themselves there with their sexism and their willingness to show it off and claim it and call it a virtue. No one did that TO them. If some of them shared a quality of not being very highly placed in a patriarchal system, it didn't stop them from turning it on people even lower than them AND WANTING TO BE PRAISED AND REWARDED IN THE SYSTEM FOR IT.

Rewarded with access to women's bodies and sexuality, I feel that should be said right out because it's so offensive that I don't want anyone to lose sight of it.

I'm not even sure that higher/lower "in the system" is all that useful here. If a male construction worker catcalls a female corporate attorney, on one hand, the female corporate attorney is probably in the grand scheme "higher in the system" than the blue collar guy, but in that moment there's male privilege at work. In another kind of interaction between the exact same people, there could be her class privilege at work.

deploying patriarchy -- even against someone who might subscribe to its values -- seems problematic/a less-than-ideal feminist tactic. like, that tumblr isn't ridiculing those guys *only* from a feminist standpoint, but also from the standpoint of "they are weird and gross" and i just think its shitty.

yeah, that's really the side of all of this that's bothering me a bit lately, not the ideas, but how easily they often get invoked on the Internet as yet another cover for people to be really cruel, politics be damned. which I think is defended too often, seemingly out of a fear of appearing to be on the 'wrong side' or something

this thread has gotten so weird!

thanks chris. and yeah, i also agree with hurting 2: people who are underprivileged can still invoke privileges, including and especially male privilege, and they are NEVER justified in doing that. it's just that, i don't know, i want to be a person who is anti-sexism and also be a person who is anti-bullying.

what is the context for talking about "nice guys"?

Okay this is now waaaay off topic but this is why we can't have nice things: because any talk about types of privilege is clogged with people in quite privileged categories insisting that their category isn't really as privileged as everyone else seems to think, which is just a way of dismantling the conversation and invalidating the tools.

I agree w/ in orbit. They posted these things on a public website where anyone could see them. No one's privacy is being infringed upon and no one is entitled to be protected from being embarrassed by their own behavior. If anything, public mockery + censure is how we enforce cultural norms and teach people what is appropriate. Also, no one is obligated to be nice.

hl: I think they mean the trope of the forlorn "nice guy" who is resentful of women for not sleeping with him (subtext being "I don't get it, I though just by virtue of being male and not openly being a violent, hateful prick I was entitled to sex. Yet I am not easily getting laid, therefore women are (hypocrites/whores/whatever epithet)" Ironically, this of course makes them not very nice at all, just somewhat passive. There have been a lot of pretty good explanations of this phenomenon, can't find one right now.

and the corollary idea that that guy is not really "privileged" because look at what a loser he is

xp ok, i have not been saying that i am not privileged or anything like that and i am definitely not defending those people featured in the tumblr. it's possible, though, that i am (due to privilege) underestimating the necessity of public mockery and censure as a tactic because i find it distasteful.

yeah, I'm aware of the trope. thanks for the context. this thread has gotten dizzying.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/auteurs_production/images/film/revenge-of-the-nerds/w448/revenge-of-the-nerds.jpg

like, i don't want to understate how ugly and hateful their attitudes are. it's just that i wish the force of the tumblr was somehow able to more geared toward the ugly theses nerds' ideas are and not, you know, the nerds themselves.

Again, WHY are you identifying them all as nerds? Iirc there were many different types of men and boys, SOME OF THEM OBJECTIVELY QUITE GOOD LOOKING. I think the nerd similarity is your own lens here.

maybe, from what i could gather (looking briefly at the tumblr, but also mostly at the images included in the banner image of the jezebel article) the "nice guys" featured were sort of inept and lame. i mean, you would have to be to include bitter misogynist remarks in a dating profile.

this thread has gotten so weird!

i'm not in favor of bullying but tbh i don't feel a bit sorry for those guys. pretty much every woman i know who's ever had an okc profile has gotten barraged with creepy and demeaning and outright hateful messages from random strangers on a regular basis. if stuff like this discourages that behavior, more power to tumblr imo.

also, mordy + in orbit generally otm

And also again (and again, and again), singling out a category that for whatever reasons is meaningful to you and saying the whole exercise of identifying and breaking down invisible-knapsack privilege is less useful or suspect in some way because that specific category is underrepresented in the diagnosis is BAD. STOP DOING THAT. It makes the speaker seem like a blindered twit who only wants to weasel some conception of themselves out of perceived blame.

from what i remember the vast majority (if not all) of the posts on nice guys of okc were guys with "ugly ideas" over the pictures. there are other ones that do a lot of shaming but for that one the point seemed to be mostly abt highlighting the hypocrisy

i think i might be confusing this tumblr with "fedoras of okc" where the emphasis seemed to be on the pictures.

And if anyone else wants to whine that straight white men are really so much worse off than everyone who is not them thinks they are, I AM GOING TO KNIFE A BITCH TONIGHT. Shut it. I have a class at 7.30, someone else will have to take over holding this fort in my absence.

xp indeed, while there is some overlap between the fedoras & nice guys of okc, ppl are conflating them to strange effect itt

also -

"i can't speak for the us but ime in the uk i don't think i've ever worked with somebody who wasn't middle class, or came from a poor background"

this is crazy, for how many ppl is this true?

yeah, sorry, i think i definitely made that mistake. i am still uncomfortable with the idea of public shaming -- like, i wouldn't make a tumblr like that -- but i think, idk, pointing out people with sexist ideas is justified. i also want to add that i am not saying that straight white men are worse off than people say they are. that's not what i think. i think institutional privilege is weighted toward that category overwhelmingly and that dismantling the system that favors them is an important and urgent project.

I do have to take issue with this:

If some of them shared a quality of not being very highly placed in a patriarchal system

I don't really buy that hierarchies based on attractiveness, social ease, etc. are inherently "patriarchal"

otherwise agree with most of what you posted and hope i have not caused you to want to knife a bitch

"i can't speak for the us but ime in the uk i don't think i've ever worked with somebody who wasn't middle class, or came from a poor background"

That got away from me in the press but thank you for bringing it back: what LG said is completely bonkers to me. I know a signif number of ppl personally who grew up with welfare, food stamps, etc, who now are professionals, have advanced degrees, and are fully integrated into my work and social circles with everyone else. And I know there are more than a couple of ilxors who grew up poor and disadvantaged in multiple ways and yet are educated, media savvy, internet-using moderns just like everyone else. I do not recognize my own experience anywhere in his account.

public shaming can be good and can be bad. depends on who's doing it to whom, why and how, etc. for instance, i'm glad to see see bigots and bullies shamed down, but less glad to see the weak and ostracized ridiculed for being "weird". sometimes the twain meet, i suppose.

i also am kind of flabbergasted by the "never meet a poor" business. maybe america really does allow a lot more social mobility than the old world, i dunno.

it's ok guys ronan was public schooled

(he's gonna go fucking nuts when he reads that)

oi

xp to contenderizer. that is all i was saying. there was a resemblance b/w the nice guys tumblr (and to a greater extent, the fedoras tumblr, which was in the back of my mind) sort of bordered on conventional bullying. i still think the "nice guy" attitude/entitlement is a real problem, i guess i should have been clearer about that.

idk it can be tough to know you're talking/working with 'a poor person' but i do run into the odd one on the bus or street, tho obv i'd never approach the rough beast like

wtf is going on here

I want to back up this public shaming thing ("public shaming") because when a person HAS DONE A THING AND IS NOT SORRY, it is not necessarily "shaming" to just make it known that they did it and stand behind their actions. If that thing is fucking shameful then that is the consequence for them.

^xp

whenever LG talks abt poor ppl itt i imagine him thinking of like street urchins with newsy caps and typhus

Also, no one is obligated to be nice.

sure, but that argument can be made to undermine the problematization of 'privilege', or identity politics, etc, as well fwiw

would like to think that a concern for the underprivileged is not just about power dynamics, that there's maybe some level of compassion or belief in human worth in there as well. hard to ask for respect for your cause/position while also declaring your right to take pleasure in senseless dickishness (not suggesting anyone's innocent of this, don't get me wrong)

and on that note, not so sure about your defense of public ridicule/bullying - hardly that noble usually, and even when it is about 'enforcing norms', eh that's a pretty amoral and cruel process sometimes(and sometimes pretty conservative one), and hardly beyond criticism

sort of reminds me of the woody allen joke, "I'm a bigot, but for the left." but i guess from a tactical perspective, people who defend the blogs would say it is necessary to go through a cruel process of enforcing "new norms." as you can gather from my posts, i don't want to think that is necessary... i am a believer in civil discourse, and in treating everyone with dignity, even violent criminals or whatever... but i guess that is its own discussion.

xp i'll repeat what i said before: not everyone is concerned with gaining "respect for their cause", not everything a woman does is meant to reflect on "the feminism movement" on the whole, and angry catharsis can be a lifesaver

and ppl who have been systemically shat on and held down their whole lives are not obligated to have a belief in everyone's beautiful human worth, the right to anger is necessary

Going to self-defense class, sharpening knife. Behave.

and ppl who have been systemically shat on and held down their whole lives are not obligated to have a belief in everyone's beautiful human worth except nerds

- bob marley

irl lols

lol being bullied by the cool kids =/= systemic life long oppression! come on

YOU DON'T GET TO DECIDE THAT

bullying can be pretty traumatic.

but that doesn't make it an indicator of oppression

i think it is different than institutional oppression. i don't think it is worth debating whether it is more or less psychologically devastating... in most cases it probably isn't but in some cases it might be... but i think it is just a different kind of oppression, that operates differently, and has more localized consequences.

there's that sliding sale of privilege. i had a hard life so fuck you and yours. can't get behind this strategy, but hey agree to disagree

xp

(meant to put that "i had a hard life" sentence in quotations)

i'm sorry io

i have failed u

everyone has had a hard life. suffering is universal. no one "has it easy."

also, being underprivileged often makes you more likely to hold prejudiced, ignorant attitudes, not less. but that doesn't mean you aren't underprivileged, and derserving of compassion, like eveyrone is, in my view.

is that statement based on anything at all

i think it's important to keep individual experience separated from our sense of general demographic realities. the (in this case hypothetical) fact that a straight white male may have been oppressed in this or that situation doesn't take anything away from the general truth that straight white males as a group receive a great deal of unearned social privilege.

also, even if straight white males are in general highly privileged, these aren't the only privilege groups that exist. the able-bodied, the "attractive", those who haven't suffered abuse or other psychologically scarring trauma: these groups are also specially privileged.

is that statement based on anything at all

yeah, ima call bullshit on the underprivileged having some special claim on bigotry. it's everywhere. rich fuckers got it too.

i think it's important to keep individual experience separated from our sense of general demographic realities

i think it's absolutely vital to do the exact opposite.

won't everyone think of the poor maligned jerks

looooool at all of this

i wasn't saying rich people weren't bigoted but just like, i don't know, the okc tumblr sexist dudes seemed to be misogynistic because they were embittered... their sense of being underprivileged, because unattractive, made their male privilege more attractive to them, and *this* is what is kind of, er, grotesque about their attitudes.... they are reactionaries.

hmm @ darragh. hmmmmmmm.

you're messing with me, right? cuz individual experience is endlessly variable, while demographics realities are generally fixed (at any given moment, anyway).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXShit8aEi0

yeah i definitely agree with you contenderizer: it is impossible, from the outside, to say what someone's experience has been like, even if you can surmise that they have benefited from various forms of institutional privilege. that's the main thing that i have been trying, ineptly, to say on this thread.

i'm not, contends, but i spose it depends on whether we're discussing a rule for

(i) justification of behaviour we revile normally but cheer on when the target is someone we've decided (in our perfection) is an overprivileged group

or

(ii) yknow a way to behave in general

xp no one is saying that "attractive" people don't benefit from certain privileges the problem is people itt equating them to institutional oppressions that carry a history and a body count (able-bodiedness and psychological trauma are usually considered actual oppressions, not rly on the same level as "not hot" or "likes star trek too much")

capital-P Privilege vs privilege, if you will, idk

yeah, but i think it is important to note -- not that you are debating this -- the subjective pain caused by different types of experiences is impossible to quantify. so, like, some straight man's experience of being not-hot might be just absolutely devastating to them, and it might be unfair to say that that experience is invalid, or that that pain isn't as real as the pain felt by a woman, who might face more pressure from society to be hot, but is nevertheless able to deal with it much more constructively, for whatever reason.