Check Your Privilege?

[WillCameron]

I think one of the mistakes of privilege discourse is that it wrapped privilege in a normative hierarchy where it became easy to think of those with privilege as bad people, especially if they refused to acknowledge their privileges.

Part of accepting their frame means that you would be incentivized to climb the moral hierarchy by proving that you weren’t as privileged as you appeared to be, otherwise you were a bad person.

If you wanted people to acknowledge their privileges so that they would be more empathetic for those who did not have such privileges, at least enough to be willing to invest in these groups, then it completely backfired.

Again though, people were now incentivized to downplay their privileges and focus on their disprivileges as a means of demonstrating themselves a good person.

“You don’t know how hard things were for me,” became a way to demonstrate one’s virtue, which unfortunately, prevents someone from acknowledging that others might have less privileges, which in turn prevents them from empathizing in the hoped for way.

An expected rebuttal would be that privilege discourse was never about accusing people, but systems that afforded people privileges based on group identity.

Fair enough, but in practice, people have difficulty understanding issues at a systemic level, and so what people heard (and were often told) was that it was the individuals that were responsible, rather than the system itself.

Thanks for reading, in what ways could I be less wrong?

[aurum]

10 minutes ago, WillCameron said:

If you wanted people to acknowledge their privileges so that they would be more empathetic for those who did not have such privileges, at least enough to be willing to invest in these groups, then it completely backfired.

So then how do you propose that privilege should be discussed so that it wouldn’t backfire?

“Backfiring” to some degree is inevitable when there’s a huge cultural conversation. But the conversation still needs to be had.

[BlueOak]

Look to foster communal ethics rather than individual moral adjustments. Which you are moving to in this line of thinking.

1, It'll save you time. 
2, You won't get hung up on technicalities. 
3, Morality isn't superior or inferior in an absolute sense. Meaning your morals are no more right or better than anyone else's. Instead there will be things you can get others to agree on but that forms the basis of communal ethics and perhaps a social contract.
4, Individuals are the collective - The collective is the individuals. If someone is having trouble understanding this, they either see themselves as purely an individual or purely part of a collective, rather than both, or better yet understanding there is no difference ultimately.

If someone approached me and told me how hard their life was. I usually frame the discussion or answer based on resources and allocation. I recount how much houses cost now for young people compared to their income for example, while at the same time empathizing with the person's own life and situation. If you want empathy show it. Not everyone is capable of it, but a lot are when you show it to them.

 

[Jacob Morres]

Yeah I can totally see the moral judgement on people who have privilege, prevents people from actually acknowledging their privilege

The word "privileged" has too much negative weight (at least the way we use it), and people who have some privilege don't like acknowledging it because of the negative moral weight that is kept on them 

 I think that's one of the problem with the left. The left demonizes men, straight and white people and it actually hurts the cause because it paints them as evil and people get offended and defensive.

I think this is one of the main reasons why a lot of people push toward the right, because of the demonization from the left. I know it happened to Elon Musk and Joe rogan 

One of the main motivations for people that want trump or the right to win, is to 'stick it to the libs'. Which is reactionary to the left's demonization 

 i've had times of wanting to go right because of how men were being shit on and being painted as evil by the public and the left Lol. but luckily im slightly more intelligent than that. but the trap is real. i'm also brown so i know many of the social issues are legit so I can empathize 

Edited September 5 by Jacob Morres