privilege as a meme

non-scientific scholarly fields rely in complicated ways on authority, which is why their entry into public spaces, or the dissemination of their works or ideas in some form or another into public spaces, is ahem 'problematic'

… which is also why the function of privilege in non-scientific academic disciplines is so much more fraught than it is in the sciences

ams: name names? that doesn't correspond to my xp at all. academics i know are more likely to express frustration at ideas being dumbed down outside of those forums

i love peer-reviewed scholarly articles and cherish my privilege of having been able to study for years to now be able to read them fairly painlessly. i love the culture of academic seminars; hearing profs rip into each other's research, exposing assumptions. but the extent to which this is done behind closed doors, in an ivory tower, by and for, experts... i think anyone who is interested should be able to experience that. imo you need to justify instances of not popularizing, rather than the other way around

argument from negative externalities, release of toxic garbage into a world unequipped to deal with it without coming to grief

non-scientific scholarly fields rely in complicated ways on authority, which is why their entry into public spaces, or the dissemination of their works or ideas in some form or another into public spaces, is ahem 'problematic'

… which is also why the function of privilege in non-scientific academic disciplines is so much more fraught than it is in the sciences

― j., Wednesday, June 3, 2015 4:39 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, totally. good point. i consider the social sciences scientific and (hope) my argument applies to them. but i really have no idea what contemp humanities even do or what popularization of the stuff you guys read would even entail. but i'd be eager to find out cause the primary texts are always inscrutable to me!

yes, i left open how a similar point would apply to the sciences because obviously the hard/soft (etc) distinctions track in different ways with the extent to which non-scholars do or should accept the deliverances of the scholars. it seems that certain amounts of authority play a role in social sciences, differently from 'pure' empirical grounding a la physics or biology, which is maybe why social scientists do not necessarily have so sweet a time with their own forays into the world.

"personally, i think it's awesome that i can explain my research to uneducated members of my family."

how uneducated? a problem with explaining research ideas in the humanities is that high school students won't get much background for these ideas. whereas in math econ basic science these students do get some background. Unless you're talking about family without high school degrees?

with high school degrees, but explained without any reference to math or anything. that was kind of a cheap shot because i have a personal preference for simplicity and "clean" research designs, and my work so far is about documenting simple facts about labor markets, which everyone has first-hand experience with. so my stuff is particularly easy to explain. aside from theorists, i'd say most of my peers' work is explainable to the same family members though.

my family members have never expressed any curiosity about my research - not when i was a mathematician and not once i became a philosopher. not even extended family including a shakespeare scholar. to them, my work is teaching, and whatever else it is i do.

I'm incredibly late to the self-conscious white male poet letter-writer, but my two cents:

There are really two main negatives to having more white male poets:
(a) Ingrained white male perspectives being written, yet again, in poetry that uphold a negative status quo
(b) white male poet gets published/publicized/space to the detriment of more diverse voices that lose out

basically the answer to (a) is to be cognizant of your own writing, and (b) is kind of addressed by attempting to publish only in forums that have a balance of diverse voices, and helping others who are not white men in your field attain success. the question comes off as kind of grating in that it seems like white male poets are the problem (I have my own opinions there but it's not relevant) but, barring a strong case of (a) where some backward-ass thinking is being professed, that's a misreading of the situation

white males aren't the prob, the lack of diverse voices and experiences is the problem. encourage those with those experiences and live amongst them, white male poet

that academic blog post is excellent, btw -- I am a strong believer that even in research you should be able to break it down to an extent where a layperson can understand the gist of what you are studying or creating, but there's no need to provide understandable results to non-experts at the individual level

math will never be explainable to family members, maybe if you're lucky there's a case of the theorem you proved simple enough to state in elementary terms. but i don't think the same discussions about popularization are happening in math. not sure how one would popularize philosophy research (whatever that even entails) but i love reading philosophers talk about stuff. like the new york times philosophy blog. just feels good to have someone go "woahwoahwoahwoah back it up--what do we mean when you say [x]?"

good post, flopson.

i must admit to coming at that post from a science perspective (astrophysics), where the idea of being smart in public is particularly seductive (people love astronomy) and where the system of knowledge required to "understand" pretty much any idea is necessarily going to elude pretty much everyone in yr audience. maybe things are different in other fields.

is totally backwards! of COURSE people believe things academics tell them they can't possibly understand. that's a GOOD thing. and it has always been so. people study engineering so that when i drive over a bridge i trust it won't collapse.

right, but he's not saying people shouldn't trust academic expertise. he seems to be be saying that having "spread ideas among an audience that cannot critically engage with them" as one of your explicit career goals (or incentivizing the people on your faculty to do so) is a problem.

coming from a workplace that does more bio-sciences, there's an entire conversation about the aims and means of what the research is about that can happen with the layperson. the actual technical stuff, I don't think I even have a strong handle on!

Follow Gabbert on twitter so been watching her interactions wiht several white males. When I looked at the piece I thought the letter was made-up - like its just the kind of thing to get certain in-house publishing issues out there in the open in a form that is more read, mainly to do with the lack of recognition for women/other backgrounds, and then to stop shit submissions from Martin Amis type wannabes.

My second thought was that imago wrote it.

and then vehemently attacked it as a cover-up. the perfect crime!

you don't get past me mister.

columbo.jpg

i dare say armagnac all round while we wait for the fuzz

leave me out of this

'Proper' writers revisit our themes:

http://kierongillen.tumblr.com/post/121183178782/a-first-stab-at-a-contrarian-position

oooh

Should fewer white men aspire to be doctors? Politicians? In almost any field, it would be better if there was more diversity, and I think it's good for employers or publishers to take proactive steps to ensure this, but as for individuals you only get one life. If you want to write, write.

Another concern I have is that this sort of noblesse oblige, stepping aside to give minorities a chance, seems a bit patronizing. It's also not the kind of thing that will lead to a real solution for inequality because it depends on people voluntarily foregoing their own self interest.

I think it's a big leap to go from "my perspective is limited by my experience. I should work hard to understand the perspectives of people whose experience of this society is different from mine, especially those who experience oppression" to "my perspective has no value at all. It's totally corrupted by my own privilege; however unwittingly, my agency is always a force of oppression in some abstract way." The former I think is what Peggy McIntosh (who I met - she was v. nice) was getting at when she coined "privilege" in the way we use it now. Checking privilege for her is a way of peeling away the assumptions and arrogance that prevent understanding. It's about shutting up and listening, sure, but not shutting up forever. The latter seems like the thinking that underlies these people who say they aren't going to publish anymore. It feels less nuanced and also more cynical in terms of the level of understanding it believes is possible to accomplish.

It's just a way of psyching out the competition. "The marketplace is totally unfair to me, we can't possibly compete on a level playing field because of centuries of structural oppression, therefore you should quit."

Some of the "not publishing anymore" screeds read more like pleas for absolution, from people who want to very publicly disown their relative race-/class-/gender-based power in a fairly easy way.

It's a lot thornier and more difficult to think about ways of actually listening to/engaging with/supporting those without structural privilege, and doing so in a way that actually creates a more equitable society and isn't patronizing and belittling to voices outside of traditionally powerful groups.

It's fine if you want to make a public showing of throwing away your power, but don't confuse that with actually empowering others.

Can't throw away your power, I thought the whole thing about privilege was it's something ascribed to you that permeates your existence whether you are "one of the good ones" or not. Psyching out the competition maybe but maybe that's too cynical. It does comes across as incredibly patronizing and self-serving, not really helping anyone but the one person.

And if it actually works or means anything, then being able to easily opt out of your privilege is just another privilege.

100% agree that you can't throw away your power, should have used quotation marks on "throwing away" in my post. My point is exactly that it doesn't work--by giving up publishing your writing, you are not in any way changing the power structure of the publishing industry/society. Random white liberals opting out will have no effect on the number of PoC/women/trans writers getting publishing deals and writing opportunities.

Public opting out or hand-wringing does successfully make attempts to be an ally all about the writer and their enlightened "magnanimity" though, which, like I said easier than the work of engagement/listening/support of those without those privileges.

http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/05/hurtful-things-said-to-people-with-chronic-pain/

innocent assumptions can do a lot of unintentional damage

― j., Saturday, May 9, 2015 10:54 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark

http://inspiredbydis.com/2015/06/things-never-say-disney-bride/

“I can’t afford to come.”

on the list of things to never say to a disney bride.

fwiw i'm too drunk at present to weigh in here thoughtfully but heavens am i glad this pov is getting more measure here

drunk is the perfect time to finally explain urself

It's fine if you want to make a public showing of throwing away your power, but don't confuse that with actually empowering others.

― intheblanks, Wednesday, 10 June 2015 16:11 (Yesterday) Permalink

Wasn't this being done anonymously

I guess my objection to the logic of quitting is that nothing you do is actually "neutral" including abdication of responsibility which often merely increases strength of status quo

^^ this was the point kieron gillen made in a blog post i read today, will see if i can find it--that in essence the people who would obstain are gonna self select as actually people who have considerably more subversive (such as they are) points of view while those aligned with the status quo would continue apace.

the okay lack all conviction

That's the one I posted, Hoos (I do also have things to add, but busy during work)

oh sorry how have i managed to do that like 3 times in the last week smh

Follow-up

LOL the cherry on top of this, people writing response articles, actually now clogging the signal with noise about how they should maybe not be making noise.

Not going to read any of these out of pity for the writer.

This is like the intellectual/socially-respected equivalent of street miming.

things white men should never say to disney brides

http://www.salon.com/2015/07/08/ok_so_what_would_convince_you_that_racism_is_real/

that is the worst thing i've read all week

^

Really? I happily read it twice but that might be because I'm considering how firm to be w my boyfriend about his racist, misogynistic, homophobic cracks and how he always wants to "discuss" these things with me.

i liked the part where the white girl was like "oh so because of privilege i'm not allowed to have an opinion on anything ever" because that's pretty much how every IRL conversation i've had with a white person aboot white privilege has gone down

what's wrong with being a master p fan

The woman in the story didn't make any "racist, misogynistic, homophobic cracks."

internalized ideas about race and basing your life off those assumptions kind of harder to "debate" than outright racism though. which are already pretty fucking bad