Is privilege something we should be fighting against?

[Arganis]

'Privilege' to me is when people have a statistical advantage due to traits they are born with and have no influence on.

I don't think that is bad.
I don't think we can fix that.
But I do think it's something we should acknowledge and try to understand.
It's nothing more than a number, a statistic. That's it!

Glad there's some sanity left on this forum.

As a rule only those with some kind of privilege think the privilege they have is not important. The rich exploit the poor, that's the way it's always been and will always be but in modern society it would be nice if it didn't go so far as to force people to lead unnecessarily miserable lives just to increase already obscene profit margins by 0.1%.

[turboether]

Do you think it's right or desirable that people treat you better or worse just because of your skin color or sex or gender or whatever?

It seems quite racist toward white people and condescending toward people who aren't white to insinuate white people are born superior.

[Graeham]

All this ranting about SJW's and far left... But it's clear who the whining unreasonable folks are
So far all the "left" people here have been behaving quite good.

You're being willingly dense and biased if you honestly believe that to be the case. You also have a habit of assuming that many of the people who express different views to you are on the 'Far Right' side of the political spectrum even if they aren't, though. Both extremes are equally as bad as each other.

[zenkai]

That is pretty far removed from both the concept of privilege and anything I said in my post.

You can blame SJW for that, they have turned the word privilege to a slang word that's racist towards whites lol Check your privilege bra!

[Simulacrum]

Do you think it's right or desirable that people treat you better or worse just because of your skin color or sex or gender or whatever?

Sure, that can be right and desirable.

For example, I'm only interested in sleeping with women, so I will treat women differently in situations where I think I might be able to sleep with a person.

That's far from the only example I can think of, but it's probably the most socially acceptable one.

Though I've seen some people call that a bad thing as well...

[Dug]

You can blame SJW for that, they have turned the word privilege to a slang word that's racist towards whites lol Check your privilege bra!

I mean, you're the one bringing it up right now so...

[Sharein]

Everyone has probably noticed the recent trend of demonizing privilege and those who are privileged. Many people seem to have embraced the premise that privilege is an inherently negative force, even if they disagree with the rhetoric commonly used by activists. At first, I was one of those people who tended to agree that privilege is an inherently useless manifestation if inequality at best, and actively destructive at worst.

But I think there's more to the argument than this one-dimensional view. Privilege doesn't simply manifest from nowhere; it is generally passed down from parents to their children, both through genes and socioeconomic status. Somewhere, an ancestor of yours was successful; and while that doesn't mean you are automatically as intelligent or hardworking as that ancestor, success is at least partly founded on genes and culture, both of which can be (and usually are) passed through lineages.

So what do you think, MMO-Champ? Is privilege an unwarranted evil? Is it something we're stuck with either way, due to the genetic component (lots of interesting ethical questions here with genome editing)? Is it a positive force that encourages the selection of beneficial cultural traits?

People are different. Live with it.

[Ornerybear]

so the entitled are saying that the privileged owe them something...anyone else see the insanity in this notion??

I just don't worry about it. all a bunch of whiny bullshit. I'm going to go ahead and continue believing that i'm to blame for everything that has happened in my life since i was able to make my own decisions, which amorphously happened some time in my early teens, maybe before that. and go on being self sufficient and not relying on anyone or any government to take care of me and my family. life is much simpler when you take responsibility for yourself.

(i understand there are outside forces in my life that i have no control over, i just choose not to worry about them and only worry about what i have control over)

[GodlyBob]

I am a rich white heterosexual conservative capitalist male. I was also raised Lutheran.

Give me your hatred!!

Hating on your kind is the only privilege I enjoy!

[maomoa]

You should never be ashamed of your privilege. You've got it and there's not a lot you can do about it for you and you shouldn't care to try and get rid of it. People who say things like "check your privilege" are a bunch of assholes and are just putting out the wrong idea or way to get out the message.

The idea is that other people should also have your privilege. For example, I can go to my car if I leave my keys in it and not worry that some cop is thinking I'm casing out the car while a black guy who loses his keys in his car is going to get full cop mode on them (what if im drunk and just looking to get something out of it or need my keys to get inside my house? Cop just passes me by, but the black dude gets a drunk in public ticket. That's a privilege). The same thing with going to a bar. Most likely I won't have to worry about getting ruffied (depends on the bar), but women have to worry about that shit all the time.

Privilege is also misunderstood. Some white guy having trouble making ends meet looks at it like, "Where the fuck is all my privilege. I'm broke, and underemployed, what the fuck are you talking about," instead of thinking at it like, "Well, I'm broke and poor, but at least I can walk down the street and not have a cop pat me down for 'safety reasons.'"

Some SJW's have turned it into a shit show. Privilege is something ingrained into society, and god forbid someone not understand that. You're not going to fix all of it overnight, but the expectation is you're a fucking monster if you are not inherently aware of all the things you might benefit from with it, or if you don't understand it right now. Instead of just being someone who is unaware, they immediately become some kind of sexist/racist pariah. And instead of trying to explain it in terms someone can understand, they just dismiss them for not immediately recognizing it. If I ask why someone keeps a napkin on their drink at all time, I'm the asshole for not understanding the intricacies of getting ruffied.

In the end, we shouldn't be fighting against it, we should be fighting for others to share in it, and we should do it with a little common sense which is not what is being done now.

[Damajin]

Legislated privilege like Corporate Welfare definitely. Familial privilege no.

[Simulacrum]

Not really what I was talking about.

No, you wanted a less socially acceptable example.

The reasoning is still the same in all cases, though.

This is just the sexist/racist/whatever reasoning leading to a currently socially acceptable outcome.

[Fasc]

'Privilege' to me is when people have a statistical advantage due to traits they are born with and have no influence on.

I don't think that is bad.
I don't think we can fix that.
But I do think it's something we should acknowledge and try to understand.
It's nothing more than a number, a statistic. That's it!

Statistics without meaning, without real context, are to be utterly ignored as they have no value. Something can't merely be a number and simultaneously be something we try to understand because that inherently gives it value/worth.

That being said, privilege extends well beyond mere birth circumstances and continues onward until death. Every environmental influence, be it your home and family, your school, your job conditions, your education opportunities, your timing with various markets, the people you know, the people you don't know but still impacted your life, etc etc all contribute to the nebulous web of "privilege" as well as the equally nebulous web of "oppression" that we have a fancy word for:

LIFE

Some of these oppressive and privileging factors can and should be rectified based upon essential human needs and rights; however, beyond that you actually strip agency away from individuals by constantly pointing out all the things that made their lives grand (or terrible) that they had no control over. Perhaps we can be ultra cynical about it all and go with the idea that we're all just very complex manifestations of our environments with next to no actual free will... but I'd rather not go down that rabbit hole of philosophy. Instead I'd like to focus on why we consider any number of people actually worthy of remembering in the history books: their ability to overcome and/or achieve things despite adversity and shortcoming. A normal out of shape person like myself exercising to the point I can run a marathon is a nice story... someone who was sentenced to a life in a wheelchair recuperating to the point that they RUN the same marathon is an inspirational movie. Not that anyone should wish crippling injury or soul crushing circumstances upon people, but the whole testament of human perseverance is predicated upon bad crap happening or existing first, and the general truth of the matter that future creativity and growth will ALSO be predicated upon existing and future struggles.

Easing struggle for the sake of easing them ignores the entire benefit of trial/error living and conflict. Not all friction is negative and the concept of "check your privilege" seems to utterly ignore that.

[Independent voter]

As a voting member of the Patriarchy I have a lot of privilege. I don't recommend trying to fight us.

[Reeve]

Privilege is something we should be aware of, but not ashamed of. Take the advantages you can get, but be aware that not everyone has those advantages.

[turboether]

That is pretty far removed from both the concept of privilege and anything I said in my post.

Considering the 'concept of privilege' in this context are generalizations based on skin colour and/or sex/sexual orientation that specifically define a hierarchy of who is better or worse off by those traits alone, I would respectfully disagree.

[Draco-Onis]

Privilege like most things is only negative when used to oppress and discriminate against others, there's nothing wrong with having things handed to you since that's what all good parents strive for to leave something to their kids can build on.

[taliey]

Sometimes, I have to wonder how ideas spread - supporting it or hating on it? I call it the Bieber Theory.

[Deleted]

I don't get how some people in this thread can claim that privilege just isn't a thing and it's just a buzzword made up by SJWs. Like, would you not consider someone who is born into a wealthy family to be privileged? They've done nothing to earn that wealth, they just happened to be born into it. That doesn't make them evil, but privileged people should be aware of and grateful for what they have and hopefully should try to reduce the gap.

[Deleted]

Privilege theory is nonsense spouted by dumb people doing fluffy gender studies courses with insecurities and the pathological need to compartmentalise people according to variables like gender/race/orientation.

In other words, racists/sexists who in a different era would be into astrology and religion, and who don't understand what it is to simply see the world as individuals rather than groups.