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Notes -
Privilege Theory
A Privilege is an unearned advantage according to this theory, and if you are born into a position of privilege, you dont know what its like to live without it. I think this idea has many flaws, but I'll let the author go more indepth:
I can't be the only one who dislikes the accusatory structure of Privilege to begin with? It kind of leads to the concrete argument inherently. Privilege is applied to the group that, by definition, lacks the disadvantage. Wouldn't a more productive conversation be around how to fix the disadvantages of others? If I say someone has Male Privilege, what is that meant to do? I cant say I've ever seen this used very productively. It just feels more like a bludgeoning fist than a helping hand.
Perhaps another argument could be that those with this advantage have an obligation to help others without it, but Its not like a lack of disadvantage is the same as being in a position to do anything, and its not automatically the case that the disadvantage have no power either. Maybe those with wealth privilege could give money to the poor, but that might not affect much if the reasons someone is poor is structural/government policy reasons, or due to their own personal failings. And some one who is poor could very well change their circumstances to become middle class if they work hard and stay in school. Yes this obviously has its limits, but it'll still put you in a better spot than doing nothing. Same with thing with male privilege: I can't stop other men from raping women and using money & power to get away with it unless I possessed a similar level of wealth and power. The fact that I am less likely to experience rape myself doesn't change this idea.
Its a frustrating conversation to have, because it pivots and assigns blame and responsibility to the "Privileged" group, instead putting focus on how to fix the issues of the less fortunate. It gives me the gist that many of these folk are just looking to shit on people and shut them up, rather than actually solve any real problems.
The accusatory attitude towards privledge seems to me like the crabs in a bucket mentality, jealousy, or other similar ressentiment towards towards the more powerful. I think this is what matters, as it gives you us a model for understanding the position. If we merely listen to the position explaining itself, we'll find that it breaks down completely under scrutiny. I could rip the entire concept apart with clever arguments (let me know if anyone wants to read that), but at this point it feels like we're just pointing out the obvious and agreeing with one another as a way of venting.
A better question is, will anyone here defend the idea of privilege being used like this? As you point out, it's used as a way to bring down the successful rather than as a way to help those who are unsuccessful. If you look more closely, this is a common psychological theme of losers (underprivileged, needy, use any synonym). They hate the rich but do not love the poor. They want to see evil people punished, but they don't check what happened to the victims. Psychologically speaking, hatred of X is distinct from the love of (opposite of X).
Of course the disadvantaged aren't without power. They're actually the most powerful when you consider the strength in numbers. By definition, being disadvantaged has become an advantageous position, meaning that the powerless are powerful. Think about it - if white men are being harassed, how are they privledged? There's no force more difficult to oppose than public opinion.
The so-called fight for the good is just a fight for power. Femininsm is a fight for power. Communism is a fight for power. Maybe this comment too is just an attempt to elevate myself. Maybe that's all human nature is about.
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The purpose of privilege as a concept isn't to center groups to help (which would necessitate actually identifying and helping those groups), but to center groups to hurt. The latter is much more useful for intra-elite conflicts, because one faction can deploy it against the other; and it outcompetes the idea of helping the less fortunate, because it supports the accrual of more power and resources to reproduce itself, while the concept of helping the less fortunate dissipates the power and resources of those who hold it.
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This is deliberate. Privilege is a concept evolved from the Marxian branch of Hegelian dialectic and specifically the Lord-bondsman dialectic.
Hegel's original argument is that asymmetric relations such as these are metaphysically defective and create the contradictions that lead to transcending them. Marx would later extend this as a general theory of history and politics.
From within this framework there can be no such thing as "fixing issues". The only way that history advances is through the conflicts of distinct classes that are both conscious of themselves as classes and of the other as their opponent in a conflict, such that their struggle can deduce the next stage of history.
Therefore, it is of use to create such concepts that heighten the consciousness of people as class and their sense of the conflict that opposes them to the other. For it is only this way that the inherent contradictions present in their condition can be discovered and transcended. And "Privilege" is one such concept, developed by the Marxist revolutionaries of the Weather Underground, later formally codified by academic feminists; all within the post-Soviet cultural Marxist tradition.
Your frustration is because (again from within this framework) you are a reactionary element who seeks to quell revolutionary fervor in a futile plot to stop the natural and inevitable flow of history by "solving" the "problems" of the oppressed instead of creating the conditions necessary to transcend their oppression and render their status as oppressed meaningless.
This. The thinking also created structure of universal leftist conspiracy theory. You have oppressed class Red and oppressor class Blue. Blue people have access to some specific property, they call Privilege and restrict access to this privilege to oppressed group. They also create a system that perpetuates this dynamic indefinitely, lets called it privilegeism.
In traditional Marxism you have proletariat vs bourgeoisie. Bourgeoisie has access to capital and limits access of workers to the capital by creating system of capitalism that reproduces itself over generations. In feminist theory there are men and women, men have male privilege and create system called patriarchy to restrict access to this privilege. In Critical Race Theory you have Black and white people, white people have access to whiteness and use it to create system of white supremacy. In queer theory the oppressed are Queer/LGBT+ people vs cishetero people. The cishetero people have access to "normalcy" and deny that to queer people by creating and perpetuating the system of cisheteronormativity. The same simple conspiracy then copies itself to basically all progressive thinking.
The point being that privilege has a specific meaning in leftist thinking, it does not signigy an individual thing in common parlance. It has philosophical and metaphysical meanings, exactly like capital has different meaning to somebody about to create his business vs Marxist revolutionary.
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Wow. A true Hegelian - you are quite literally the only person I have ever seen call it the Lord-Bondsman dialectic instead of the Master-Slave dialectic (following the translations of Kojeve, Lacan, etc.). Though I would say, that, at least through the prism of my Kojevean reading, any honest interpretation of this dialectic for the present has to put capitalists and workers on the same side (as the Slave) against the State.
I loathe Hegel and German Idealism as a whole, I must say. But I understand him somewhat, and his ideas are so influential it's necessary reading to even understand where half of contemporary politics even come from.
I would say you're correct in putting private citizens in opposition to the State as the most significant confrontation of our time, though I'd have perhaps a much larger conception of the State than is common in this reading, encompassing all managerial institutions and their tendrils.
In my view, we are still in a post-Burnham world. Though perhaps not for very much more time.
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No. But that is its function.
You are assuming that the stated goals and justifications of its advocates are the actual goals and justifications. You can simply look at how it is used to determine whether or not this is true, the purpose of a thing being what it does and all.
To shut them down, to denigrate their opinions, and to devalue their achievements. It is meant to serve as an I-win trump card over opponents who have the appropriate characteristics. It is Smite Evil for social justice types, that is to say, it functions as "Smite Male" or "Smite White". A superweapon that only harms the specified targets. How glorious!
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Privilege discourse always seemed exactly backwards to me. If you have two people with the same exact nature, one white and one black, who is privileged in post-1970s America? Black. Socially, they get the enormous privilege of “having overcome”, of “having been the victim”, of being a kind of token of justice, which are very advantageous social myths. Because expectations are lower for them in an unconscious way, they get the privilege of having their work more socially reinforced and teachers will be more lenient. There is also the stereotype of their being more mirthful and cool, and even the stereotype of aggression is beneficial in most social scenarios of note. Education would boost the black person, while in the justice system black jurors discriminate against white offenders and white jurors do not discriminate against black offenders.
And if privilege discourse relies on the assumption that a person is victimized when others of their race are victimized, then surely it’s also the case that people should be lauded when others of their race do something great, like end world slavery, and a person is at fault when others of their race do something bad, like be very murderous. In any case this is a very old topic, but it’s still remarkable how baseless it was; in my mind, not merely untrue, but exactly opposite of the truth. Whites reduced the sum total oppression of blacks to an infinite degree!
It’s probably correct to see the whole phenomenon as based more on conditioning, eg “if I associate X with bad stories, over time people will hate X, and the phenomenon will continue on its own”. Just an op.
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I find it interesting that Webb was not mad that he mis colored her but mad about the concept. She didn’t seem to grok that he was upset about her concept.
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