privilege as a meme

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

delivery groceries are good when everyone in your household has covid and needs to eat

anyway, in my glorious communist future, we will all have delicious restaurant meals served to us by comrades talented at cooking who enjoy it

how many more times

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-prole-info-abolish-restaurants

― brimstead, Monday, 25 March 2024 15:02 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

can still have doordash without restaurants tho, needs a second "abolish grocery stores" article

anyway, in my glorious communist future, we will all have delicious restaurant meals served to us by comrades talented at cooking who enjoy it

It is new look carriage trade, so bad. Shop for your own damned groceries.

― steely flan (suzy), Monday, March 25, 2024 7:41 AM bookmarkflaglink

it's for food delivery, not merely groceries, and services like this were extremely important to my mother and I when she was home alone and couldn't leave dad in the house by himself, or when we were emotionally drained after a long day of caretaking and didn't have the energy to leave the house. I imagine there are plenty of others who use the service for similar reasons who also aren't rich.

I’m in an area where a lot of healthy, physically fit and wealthy people use our version of doordash, the rich lazy fuckers.

Anyone living with illness or a disability (or caring for others who might) isn’t catching wrath from me for using delivery services!

IDC if people use it or not as long as they tip well.

For groceries anyway. For restaurants that already have existing delivery though you're just putting money in the pocket of a big corp that could be split between you and the restaurant instead. I try to go direct for food delivery where possible.

replace this thread with claude.ai

Honestly pretty good https://t.co/GWJEESAbsC pic.twitter.com/hLzCG0NwPe

— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) March 25, 2024

_anyway, in my glorious communist future, we will all have delicious restaurant meals served to us by comrades talented at cooking who enjoy it_


It is a wonderful idea … I have friends who attempted this… the place still exists but not quite the way they had envisioned

robots, obv