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Privilege is a really dumb term that should never have been coined. Like, men being privileged over women and whites being privileged over non-whites is a really dumb oversimplification if you really want to talk about the scale of "privilege" that goes on in the world. Why don't female non-whites living below the poverty line in the west walk around all day musing on the privilege they experience over the genitally mutilated 10 year old 3rd world child who is already being weaned onto drugs and is being trafficked for sex. There's always someone who has it worse. I would argue, actually, that the gap in privilege between men and women and whites and non-whites in our society, is far far smaller than the gap in privilege between those same repressed demographics and people suffering in other parts of the world. Privilege is a diagnoses of irrelevance. And even if we all accepted the notion, how is it actionable? What do you do with privilege exactly? Those who have it have to help more than those who don't? I don't think we should tell anyone what they ought or ought not to do based solely on the circumstances of their birth.
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Jan 1, 2017 15:31
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I'm not outraged and it doesn't hurt my feelings. And I do understand what it is that's being described Mr. Belding. We have reached the same conclusions but I think you're content at the result and I'm not. quote:And even if we all accepted the notion, how is it actionable? What do you do with privilege exactly? Those who have it have to help more than those who don't? I don't think we should tell anyone what they ought or ought not to do based solely on the circumstances of their birth. quote:Is it in some ways a simplification? Of course. All mental models are simplifications. Is it accurate enough to be useful? Absolutely. Even if the only the use is that in McIntosh's words, "Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable." Accountable how? I've never heard anyone strongly married to this idea of privilege actually come up with a thing that they want their newly woke white friend to do now that he knows he's privileged, to rectify the situation. In privilege speak, even if he gave away all his worldly possessions to the poorest minorities in society and lived as a hermit he is still more privileged because he's still white and therefore still has more potential social/economical power than the repressed/minorities. Normally when you hold someone to account for something, you follow it up with something they can do to rectify the situation or whatever, but in this situation it is impossible. He is accountable because he is white and only being dead or having been born as not-white would make him less accountable. Society is a bit broken, however, and unactionable and unsaleable ideas like these do more to stop people taking the liberal left seriously than they do helping with the actual issues. It is totally possible to understand everything behind the notion of "privilege" in society, and not be right wing, and still not be content with its use as a catchphrase or the inferences it makes about hereditary guilt/accountability/responsibility.
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Jan 1, 2017 16:38
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:But I am 100% sure if someone in 1970 had called it "squigglysquink" or whatever you'd both have that thing people do with gender science where they dismiss it with "now they are making up words! see how fake this is!". This is actually probably true for all sciences, not just gender science. Gender science is pretty privileged compared to the history of gawking that other fields of study and discourse has had to put up with over the centuries. Is it any more intolerable in this case?
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Jan 1, 2017 17:08
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This is like a kind of Poe's law of politic speak. An unsaleable and unactionable idea, however good, is indistinguishable from no idea at all. In many cases you're preaching to people (and rather incessantly) who already know they have it better than others and find it patronizing that you had to coin a catchword in order to explain it to them. In other cases you're telling people who don't give a drat. In what's left, you're preaching to the choir. quote:Okay, but if you find labels antagonizing why specifically should your group get to avoid them and it should fall on the other groups to have them? If you find it harmful or upsetting to have labels why should you get to be the only group that is free of them? So much of the tone of this betrays the kind of vengeful spite that people who hate the word privilege imagine it is being used with. Tic for tac nonsense. Responses in this thread about the topic show that some more liberally bent posters are deliberately obfuscating that catchwords like these are used a lot by people (usually college students) who bandwagon on the moral outrage train at every opportunity, with no ability to pick what is and is not a smart hill to die on, politically. It is possible to agree with this kind of language in principle but also find it inexpedient or even counter-intuitive to progress. Rakosi fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Jan 2, 2017 |
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Jan 2, 2017 00:55
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OwlFancier posted:I see no reason to moderate my language into meaninglessness because you're too emotionally delicate to deal with the slightest criticism of your beliefs. Are you seeing NO irony at all, here? ITT: Liberal taps into the same frustrations that drive the alt-right Rakosi fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Jan 2, 2017 |
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Jan 2, 2017 01:03
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OwlFancier posted:Or, possibly, understanding that not everybody has the same default experience and complaining about terminology because it does not mesh with your default experience, particularly as someone not on the receiving end of these injustices, is extremely counterproductive to discussing them. You keep making a point of asking why you should moderate your language, but I ask you why you don't. What is it you think the word gets across that cannot possibly conveyed in a less antagonistic or patronizing sense? Effective language, and all.
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Jan 2, 2017 01:21
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OwlFancier posted:Because "privilege" being an antagonizing word is primarily because people don't like the concept it conveys. Any word which effectively conveys that concept would become "antagonizing" in short order, because the concept is what people are objecting to. This is actually a really good point, but as I said earlier, this is like a kind of Poe's law of politic speak. An unsaleable and unactionable idea, however good, is indistinguishable from no idea at all. Feminism works because it already has traction. Privilege has the unfortunate rhetorical associations of A) being very recent and B) internet liberalism, and it's the latter connection which totally abuses the concept, and makes it a weak spot to target for the right. You also underestimate, I think, the time it naturally takes for concepts to become mainstream, and your impatience is not sufficient to indict your opposition as racists or whatever else. Progress cannot be forced, as the Trump and Brexit backlash attest.
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Jan 2, 2017 01:38
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Rush Limbo posted:Even if it were to get to the point where we have to talk in literal baby talk because the accepted, academic terms are too threatening it still won't be enough because it's not about the word, it's about the concept it conveys, and it's just tone argument ontop of tone argument, made even worse in this particular case because it's not even an inflammatory or controversial word, it's the accepted god drat academic term to describe the phenomena. Out of curiosity, how is it the accepted academic term to describe the phenomena? And what does "accepted academic term" mean in social sciences? I know lots of then "accepted academic terms" that are no longer used as social modes because they are noncontributory or latterly debunked in respect to the long term.
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Jan 2, 2017 02:09
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Who What Now posted:Then work to give that privilege to everybody. That is at odds to Dr. Fishopolis posted:White people will absolutely have to give up some privilege and control to level the playing field. Just as rich people are going to have to give up some wealth to raise the quality of life for poor people. There is no situation where you, the privileged, will not have to sacrifice something if you actually care about social, fiscal and political equality. Hmm, maybe your theory of privilege doesn't mean the same to everyone on even your side of the equation.
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Jan 2, 2017 02:25
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Nude Bog Lurker posted:It's possible that the concept privilege is a useful tool to understand society but not, actually, a particularly useful way to persuade people that you are right. Absolutely this.
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Jan 2, 2017 02:41
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Tesseraction posted:It's almost like critique is different from suggestion. You are living on a different planet if you don't think "privilege" is used as both.
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Jan 2, 2017 02:46
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Rush Limbo posted:So, once again, we should ignore the use of actual proper terms and proven, actual concepts because it would hurt people's feelings. How do you explain black people who have more than Wal-mart white people, in terms of your theory?
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Jan 2, 2017 03:23
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OwlFancier posted:Greater achievement compared to a white person in the same postion or random luck, same as anybody with more than someone else. So the white guy still has more privilege? Who has the most privilege, poor hick white dude struggling to feed his family or Bill Cosby?
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Jan 2, 2017 03:27
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OwlFancier posted:Wealth is also privilege, it is neither easy not useful to try to quantify it. You don't get points for being the most or least privileged, the term exists to identify and describe factors which influence people's lives. Answer my question. In my scenario is the white guy or the black guy more privileged? If this is such an accurate academic term it should be easy to answer this.
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Jan 2, 2017 03:30
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OwlFancier posted:You're asking me to quantify something using qualitative terms. No, I am attacking your perception of privilege as a white man thing by asking you to think about dichotomies that challenge that association. Who is more privileged, the black Kanye West or the white Alana Thompson, whose self and family has been exploited by cable networks? The concept of privilege seems great at a macrosocial level but seems to utterly break down when invoked in respect to comparisons between individuals, and it is the deliberate sidelining of individual experience that makes the alt-right target this so much. Like, can you not see how it's a broadside open to attack?
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Jan 2, 2017 03:40
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You guys might want to communicate to the alt-right that being white doesn't necessarily make you privileged anymore. Because that is actually news for probably quite a lot of them. Edit after BarbarianElephant: Scrap that, maybe it does after all! You wacky liberals.
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Jan 2, 2017 03:44
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OwlFancier posted:For fucks sake you dense motherfucker yes it does. Privilege is not an absolute quantitative term, it is qualitative. Why can't it be quantitative? Because you say so and because it would break your model? I get how you are talking about privilege qualitatively but how are you measuring it? This is an academic term that goes back to 1903 as someone said earlier in the thread. Is there any amount of privilege a black man can have (financial, familial, etc) that can ever cause him to be considered more privileged than a white man doing meth in a trailer park. If the answer is yes then it is not true that privilege is inherently white. If the answer is no, you can probably now see the reason why people get upset with the idea.
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Jan 2, 2017 03:54
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No point arguing guys, these alt-right facists have already declared:OwlFancier posted:I see no reason to moderate my language into meaninglessness because you're too emotionally delicate to deal with the slightest criticism of your beliefs. Where is the thread for discussing these progressive topics in a safer space?
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Jan 2, 2017 04:13
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OwlFancier posted:Yes because my big complaint with the alt right is that they're too harsh in their wording, not that they're nazi apologists. You realize they refuse to use preferred pronouns, for example, by using the very same sentence you typed? Dont you find it ironic that maybe you're like the weird left version of the alt-right? Uncanny valley, My racist old grandad literally talks like you when he tries to qualify his points.
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Jan 2, 2017 04:19
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Refried Hero posted:That doesn't mean it doesn't exist though. Just because your situation is lovely, doesn't mean someone else doesn't have it worse. Quite the opposite, in fact, if you are a white dude. Same can be said of most african americans compared to trafficked thai girls, they best check their privilege.
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Jan 2, 2017 04:46
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Kit Walker posted:It's unfortunate that the term "check your privilege" is so poisoned that there's no real way to use it effectively on people who aren't already convinced privilege is a real thing. It's just easier to talk about the values behind the idea instead. I agree. This might seem like semantics to some but this change in language is literally the difference between being laughed at or listened too in some cases. It's also important to make sure other liberals stop poisoning the well of these concepts to begin with, by calling them on it.
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Jan 2, 2017 14:16
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