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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.
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 privilege in form of capital and limits access of workers to it 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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