privilege as a meme

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"