I hate the word “privilege” used in this context. Words have connotations, and “privilege” conjures up images of playing polo at the country club with the upper crust of one’s community, then going back to the office to work as executive vice president of the company your father founded. Yet, the people concerned about social justice seem unreasonably attached to their particular jargon, even if it gets in the way of communication. Over the past 15 years or so, I’ve seen a handful of people get it when it’s explained to them as, “imagine you grew up hardscrabble dirt poor, but also had to deal with racism.” But mostly, the online discussions devolve into a fight over the definition of the word privilege. C’mon, let’s just ditch the word, ferchrissakes! Keep the concept, call it something more relatable!
Same with “toxic masculinity.” Yes, I get it, the “toxic” adjective is a modifier to talk about a particular type of masculinity, but the people who hear it as “masculinity is toxic” have a point, too. People use adjectives as intensifiers. I guarantee that the people talking about “evil homosexuals” aren’t adding “evil” to distinguish from the good ones.
I also hate the term privilege because it implies those people have something they shouldn’t have, i.e. they need to be brought down, when really it’s that other people have a disadvantage. This makes the ones labeled privileged defensive because it seems like an attack instead of a call for help.
Everyone should be at least at the same level as the “privileged” ones.
Edit: it seems I might not have been clear as the discussion below seems to perfectly encapsulate why I personally dislike the term privilege because of how it frames things. The majority of privileged people aren’t getting a leg up, they just don’t have the things dragging them down that underprivileged people do. Maybe an analogy will help:
Imagine a grueling and difficult race everyone is forced to run. The actual distance is arbitrary and doesn’t matter, you just need to complete it. The starting line is a staggered mess with people starting forward and backwards from each other to varying degrees. Many of the people in the race rightly point out this is not fair and want the starting lines to at least be the same for everyone. Now, which do you think is more beneficial to having everyone agree/work to move the starting positions; saying the people in front need to move back, or that the people further back should be moved forward?
I think you’re running into a little cognitive dissonance. In this scenario, the privilege is what is causing the disadvantage in the first place. You cannot be privileged in a truly equal society, therefore you can’t elevate everyone to a privileged class, you can only equal the playing field.
I was with you most of the way but you lost me here. Some of the biggest privileges for cis straight white males is that they don’t have to deal with racism, sexism, and bigotry over who they are and who they love. That’s not a zero sum game. We can all have that privilege. That privilege isn’t what causes bigotry.
There are some privileges that would be lost, like being preferentially hired by racists. But for the most part we’re fighting in large part for equal good treatment. It’s not a zero sum game.
cis straight white males is that they don’t have to deal with racism, sexism, and bigotry over who they are and who they love
How does that racism materially present itself? With racism it’s by decades of economic support and government programs aimed at creating wealth for a certain ethnicity over another. With sex it’s decades of reinforcing gender roles and denying educational opportunities for women. Rules about race mixing were created to deny a dilution of the ethnic collective of political power.
That’s not a zero sum game. We can all have that privilege. That privilege isn’t what causes bigotry.
I would argue that it shouldn’t be a privilege, but a universal right.
But for the most part we’re fighting in large part for equal good treatment. It’s not a zero sum game.
I think you might want to look up the definition of privilege. You can’t be privileged unless someone is being disadvantaged. If you want to get rid of privilege then what you’re saying is you want everyone to be treated the same.
I’ve tried to bring this up before, but I personally don’t believe everyone should be treated the same.
In an ideal world where we had an objective way to measure this, I would prefer that we lived in an absolute meritocracy.
Some people are a better fit for a particular purpose than other people due to racial advantage, gender advantage, physical advantage, age advantage, or any other number of advantages that they have been gifted by the miracle of life and talent, or that they have earned from dedication and struggle.
In my ideal world, if you remove all of the things that are not important to the task at hand, and only judge based on who is most fit for the task at hand, then the people who are the best fit would get the most appropriate reward for their capacity.
As a nonwhite male IT worker, my ability to lift heavy objects is secondary to my ability to fix a printer. If a female can fix printers better than I can, she’s more than welcome to have the job at the same pay they would have paid me for it.
Imo an absolute meritocracy would first require a society of absolute equity. Otherwise how would you know if someone is actually more inherently better at something or if they just had more opportunity?
I think meritocracies are a nice idea, but they’ve mostly been supported by societal elites throughout history because they know it’s easy to score when you’re born on third base.
A society of absolute equity is impossible. Some people will be taller, faster, smarter, more charismatic, dumber or any other adjective you wanna name. Trying to decrease that variance by limiting systemic advantages is one thing. But, it will never lead to truly equal opportunity and/or outcome for everyone. Thats a type of optimism that requires a high level of ignoring the objective reality of the world. Relationship based opportunity availability will also always be a thing. Limiting it via legislative action could curb it to a degree but never completely. Thats just not a realistic ideal. You could implement some Harrison Bergeron esq limiters but at that point I wouldn’t want to live in that world. My sole non trolling response so far.
That was kinda my point about absolute equality. There will always be people with disabilities and therefore absolute equity and absolute meritocracies are mostly utopian philosophical concepts. Plus, if we’re doing idealist delights why bother with anything but luxury space communism?
I hate the word “privilege” used in this context. Words have connotations, and “privilege” conjures up images of playing polo at the country club with the upper crust of one’s community, then going back to the office to work as executive vice president of the company your father founded. Yet, the people concerned about social justice seem unreasonably attached to their particular jargon, even if it gets in the way of communication. Over the past 15 years or so, I’ve seen a handful of people get it when it’s explained to them as, “imagine you grew up hardscrabble dirt poor, but also had to deal with racism.” But mostly, the online discussions devolve into a fight over the definition of the word privilege. C’mon, let’s just ditch the word, ferchrissakes! Keep the concept, call it something more relatable!
Same with “toxic masculinity.” Yes, I get it, the “toxic” adjective is a modifier to talk about a particular type of masculinity, but the people who hear it as “masculinity is toxic” have a point, too. People use adjectives as intensifiers. I guarantee that the people talking about “evil homosexuals” aren’t adding “evil” to distinguish from the good ones.
I also hate the term privilege because it implies those people have something they shouldn’t have, i.e. they need to be brought down, when really it’s that other people have a disadvantage. This makes the ones labeled privileged defensive because it seems like an attack instead of a call for help.
Everyone should be at least at the same level as the “privileged” ones.
Edit: it seems I might not have been clear as the discussion below seems to perfectly encapsulate why I personally dislike the term privilege because of how it frames things. The majority of privileged people aren’t getting a leg up, they just don’t have the things dragging them down that underprivileged people do. Maybe an analogy will help:
Imagine a grueling and difficult race everyone is forced to run. The actual distance is arbitrary and doesn’t matter, you just need to complete it. The starting line is a staggered mess with people starting forward and backwards from each other to varying degrees. Many of the people in the race rightly point out this is not fair and want the starting lines to at least be the same for everyone. Now, which do you think is more beneficial to having everyone agree/work to move the starting positions; saying the people in front need to move back, or that the people further back should be moved forward?
I think you’re running into a little cognitive dissonance. In this scenario, the privilege is what is causing the disadvantage in the first place. You cannot be privileged in a truly equal society, therefore you can’t elevate everyone to a privileged class, you can only equal the playing field.
It’s a zero sum game.
I was with you most of the way but you lost me here. Some of the biggest privileges for cis straight white males is that they don’t have to deal with racism, sexism, and bigotry over who they are and who they love. That’s not a zero sum game. We can all have that privilege. That privilege isn’t what causes bigotry.
There are some privileges that would be lost, like being preferentially hired by racists. But for the most part we’re fighting in large part for equal good treatment. It’s not a zero sum game.
How does that racism materially present itself? With racism it’s by decades of economic support and government programs aimed at creating wealth for a certain ethnicity over another. With sex it’s decades of reinforcing gender roles and denying educational opportunities for women. Rules about race mixing were created to deny a dilution of the ethnic collective of political power.
I would argue that it shouldn’t be a privilege, but a universal right.
I think you might want to look up the definition of privilege. You can’t be privileged unless someone is being disadvantaged. If you want to get rid of privilege then what you’re saying is you want everyone to be treated the same.
I’ve tried to bring this up before, but I personally don’t believe everyone should be treated the same.
In an ideal world where we had an objective way to measure this, I would prefer that we lived in an absolute meritocracy.
Some people are a better fit for a particular purpose than other people due to racial advantage, gender advantage, physical advantage, age advantage, or any other number of advantages that they have been gifted by the miracle of life and talent, or that they have earned from dedication and struggle.
In my ideal world, if you remove all of the things that are not important to the task at hand, and only judge based on who is most fit for the task at hand, then the people who are the best fit would get the most appropriate reward for their capacity.
As a nonwhite male IT worker, my ability to lift heavy objects is secondary to my ability to fix a printer. If a female can fix printers better than I can, she’s more than welcome to have the job at the same pay they would have paid me for it.
Imo an absolute meritocracy would first require a society of absolute equity. Otherwise how would you know if someone is actually more inherently better at something or if they just had more opportunity?
I think meritocracies are a nice idea, but they’ve mostly been supported by societal elites throughout history because they know it’s easy to score when you’re born on third base.
A society of absolute equity is impossible. Some people will be taller, faster, smarter, more charismatic, dumber or any other adjective you wanna name. Trying to decrease that variance by limiting systemic advantages is one thing. But, it will never lead to truly equal opportunity and/or outcome for everyone. Thats a type of optimism that requires a high level of ignoring the objective reality of the world. Relationship based opportunity availability will also always be a thing. Limiting it via legislative action could curb it to a degree but never completely. Thats just not a realistic ideal. You could implement some Harrison Bergeron esq limiters but at that point I wouldn’t want to live in that world. My sole non trolling response so far.
That was kinda my point about absolute equality. There will always be people with disabilities and therefore absolute equity and absolute meritocracies are mostly utopian philosophical concepts. Plus, if we’re doing idealist delights why bother with anything but luxury space communism?