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Privilege

  
  

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No star here laces
13:59 / 16.01.02
Nick, I'm sorry if you took my comments as a personal assault.

The combination of a dull-ass meeting and a couple of hours mean I can re-state my case.

I will repeat that I find it difficult to take your suggestion that I, or anyone else, who uses the phrase 'removal of privileges' is seeking to lower the expectations of society as anything other than a rhetorical device. Clearly it is better to make people all have lots of stuff than to make them all miserably poor, no one would contest this except for an ascetic.

Thus I concentrated instead on the semantics of privilege. And, you must admit, it is meaningless to talk about universal privilege as privilege is a comparative term.

You started this thread with the statement that the term privilege 'winds you up' and thereby grounded the whole discussion in your personal feelings about the word. Therefore you cannot blame me for continuing the conversation in that vein.

My basic point is that to consider privilege in a vacuum without considering the behaviour of the privileged is meaningless.

One could, in many ways, say that an individual who was born more intelligent, or even with an X-gene which gave him psychic powers, be considered privileged. No-one would argue that mere possession of these abilities constituted a trespass against those who did not have those abilities.

However, if that individual were then to use their abilities to harm others, then we might say they were abusing their privileged position.

Your original point certainly contained an element of dislike for people using the term 'privileged' to describe you. My answering point would basically be that if you are not abusing your privileges, you have no need to feel slighted if people use that term to describe you. If you are abusing your privileges you should stand up and take your punishment like a neutrally-gendered yet upstanding individual.

And I would repeat, this has nothing to do with idealism.
 
 
Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?
14:01 / 16.01.02
Anally Liberal

Liberally anal
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
14:59 / 16.01.02
Flyboy: quote:*On a related note, I also don't see quite why you think Lyra owes you an apology, Nick. There's an ad hominem element there, but not much more than occurs pretty regularly in the more spirited threads here, and certainly not enough to justify ignoring the valid points that Lyra also makes. I did not ignore Lyra's points. I answered them in good faith. For my trouble, I got called a liar. This is not grandstanding, Zenith. I'm really, really angry.

Lyra: I said the use of the term winds me up. I could have said 'usage', but I wanted a broader target. I did not object to its use to describe me except as an example of what I was talking about.

quote:I find it difficult to take your suggestion that I, or anyone else, who uses the phrase 'removal of privileges' is seeking to lower the expectations of society as anything other than a rhetorical device.It wasn't rhetorical. I was thinking that the concept of 'privilege' carries with it notions of limited resources as a 'fact of life'. I never suggested that everyone using the term was seeking to lower expectations, just that this was a possible consequence.

You came after me the first time with some comparison to use of the word 'nigger'. That was annoying, and if you want to complain about rhetoric, I advise you to begin there, but it was within the bounds of Flyboy's 'spirited debate'.

By this time equally stroppy, I tried a restatement of what was on my mind, and you met it by calling me a liar. Yes, I know, you used the word 'dissemble'. In doing so, you purported to know the 'real' reason why I was saying what I was saying, on what grounds I have no idea. Online graphology, perhaps.

And you say you're sorry if I took your comments as a personal assault? Did you imagine I'd take all that as fair theoretical criticism? Who's being disingenuous now?

I wanted to explore the possibility that the term 'privilege' carried some conceptual baggage which had possible consequences running counter to the ethos of analysis usually using the term. And until you started your Witchfinder General bullshit, that's what I was doing.
 
 
No star here laces
16:04 / 16.01.02
quote:Originally posted by Nick:
I wanted to explore the possibility that the term 'privilege' carried some conceptual baggage which had possible consequences running counter to the ethos of analysis usually using the term.

Oh right, fair enough then. I didn't realise that the main thesis here was that marxists occasionally talk a load of tripe. I'm right with you on that one...

Not sure there's much there to debate though.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
16:32 / 16.01.02
Yet you seemed perfectly content to assert that the main thrust of the argument was that I didn't want to be called a nasty privileged person because it hurt my ickle feewings.

How interesting. Have I done something to deserve your contempt, then? Or did you just feel like dishing out some abuse?
 
 
Vadrice
17:01 / 16.01.02
While we're all getting pissed at each other for our (completly justified) envious reasons... I have to ask.
Are we discussing Yvonne Reiner here, or am I the only one that's seen the film?
 
 
Bill Posters
14:33 / 30.01.02
Privilage is the new Original Sin.

Discuss?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:39 / 30.01.02
You'll have to explain what on earth you mean first, otherwise I'll just say "no".
 
 
Polly Trotsky
18:50 / 30.01.02
Figures you'd draw me out.

quote:OP by Nick
My discomfort comes with what I see as an implied assertion in the term that the proper remedy is a leveling-down, rather than a leveling-up. The suggestion appears to me to be not that this is the only way, but that it is the right way to deal with the situation.

Hey, Nick. I haven't been around much lately, but in what situation did you happen to discover this implication versus, say, its reverse (which you advocate)?

quote:This bit from the row with Lyra
Getting us to accept that it's a zero-sum game, that someone has to lose...that's a great bonus if you're at the top. And I mean the real top, not the chianti classes.

Bonus in the sense that it reifies the power/privilege distinctions of have/havenot and ties them to capital/political possibility? If so, sure. On the other hand, regardless of whether we have resources now or not, their use/abuse is a zero-sum game. Otherwise, we have all the time in the world to wait for things to even out... you know, 'cause ethat what markets do, right? Sure they do.

Which I think sorta explores this:
quote:Perhaps it's trivial, but I want to be able to think of broadening what is called 'privilege', not restricting it so that everyone is equally at a disadvantage.

How would you articulate this broadening? Good topic, but the thesis sans body levaes the field open for bitchfesting.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
20:14 / 30.01.02
Oh, you sod. I swore off this topic in blood...good to have you back around.

I'll look again tomorrow when I'm sober and elaborate. Although I have to warn you, it was more of a trial balloon than a coherent idea in the first place - it only got heated when I felt I was under personal attack.

Briefly, regarding the zero-sum stuff and reification, yes, you've got it...the rest soon...
 
 
Bill Posters
21:23 / 30.01.02
Bill > Vadrice: Sorry, don't follow, so I guess I haven't seen dat film.

Bill > Fly: I was just throwing it out; I don't quite know what I mean I'm afraid. Er, possibly something along the lines of quasi-religious cognitions underpinning certain supposedly secular political lines of thought? Who knows, I'm too hungover to cope with it right now.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
10:07 / 31.01.02
Okay, I thought you might mean something like that, and I think you're right in smelling a quasi-religious mentality on the part of many lefty activist types (not necessarily a bad thing).

Main difference in this case though: original sin is a myth, privilege can be clearly demonstrated to exist. If you're just talking about people who post here, then I guess there is an analogy in that we all have some kind of privilege by definition... I don't think it's a very helpful comparison, though.
 
 
Ethan Hawke
11:06 / 31.01.02
Privilege is like the concept of Original Sin in that:

(a) It is largely an accident of where, when and to whom you were born. (in other words, you can't become "privileged," the way I understand the word, through personal actions)

(b) Privilege, like original sin, is seen as something that is impossible to divest oneself of on one's own. Even if one gives up all one's worldly possessions, and moves to Africa to help starving refugees, one still may be privileged because of education, social connections, skin color, and numerous other factors.

(c) This feature of privilege, this impossibility of ridding oneself of the stink of it, as it were, leads those who think about the concept to guilt about their supposed privilege. Guilt is an intrinsic component of all systems of sin.

(d) One who feels guilty about this original sin attempts to cleanse oneself of it, usually through association with charitable groups and communities. These groups, like the church, have the power to remove the guilt associated with privilege through ceremony (for example, building Habitat for Humanity Homes, etc.).

Of course, as pointed out above, this cleansing can last only so long as one remains oblivious to the deeper privileges one has. Then the cycle of cleansing begins again, and/or the party feeling guilt attempts to explain away the sin of privilege by claiming (a) that it doesn't really exist or (b) that if it does exist, it would be a good thing if recognized, then universalized. Respectively, the Atheist and
Satanist responses to Original Sin. (in other words "none of us are guilty" or "If we all become guilty, that's a Good Thing")
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
21:37 / 25.11.04
Thinking about it, there are surely only two positions one can hold if one opposes the redistribution of wealth in principle:

a) Material inequality does not currently exist in the world to any serious extent.

OR

b) The material inequality that exists in the world today is on balance a good thing.

The first position regards a wilful disregard for the facts; I confess I find that slightly more forgiveable than any mentality that gives rise to the second position.
 
 
No star here laces
07:25 / 26.11.04
Naah, people who actually do think redistribution of wealth is a bad thing would argue something completely different i.e.

#>) Redistribution of wealth prevents the generation of wealth, so that although wealth may be more equally distributed throughout society, society as a whole will be poorer.

As an argument, it has its merits, particularly if you are talking about a country such as the Philippines where the GDP per head is tiny, so even if you were to redistribute the wealth of the appallingly rich evenly throughout the whole country, everybody would still be barely above the poverty line.

Of cource, in a place like the US or the UK this does not apply - the proportion of the population who are desperately poor is much much smaller, so redistributing the wealth of the super-rich might actually do some good.

As to whether redistribution actually prevents wealth generation, it is extremely hard to tell whether this is actually the case in reality. Mostly because redistribution of wealth has historically gone hand in hand with a basket of other broadly socialist policies whose cumulative effect on wealth generation has often (but not always) been negative.

Clearly the economic holy grail is wealth redistribution and wealth generation. Unfortunately nobody appears to have any practical, testable ideas as to how to make this happen.

(And yeah, parecon and stuff is a really nice idea, but people are never going to vote for it...)
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
10:01 / 26.11.04
Since we're talking about redistribution of wealth - and it would need to be on a global level, presumably - how would it be done?

I should also apologise to all of you for a really ropey first post on this topic. I wanted to get the discussion going and it looks in retrospect as if my theoretical lightbulb moment was utter nonsense. Still, the questions raised are interesting...
 
 
Sax
14:39 / 29.11.04
Thinking about it, there are surely only two positions one can hold if one opposes the redistribution of wealth in principle:

a) Material inequality does not currently exist in the world to any serious extent.

OR

b) The material inequality that exists in the world today is on balance a good thing.

Wouldn't there also be a c) I worked hard for what I've got and no bastard's taking it off me. Everyone else can have as much or little as they like, I don't particularly care, so long as they don't try to get any of mine.

Which I would argue is perhaps the default setting for most people who would oppose redistribution of wealth.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:15 / 30.11.04
That's the same as b), really, isn't it?
 
 
Sax
14:59 / 30.11.04
Is it, though? Can't you think that material inequality is not necessarily a good thing, but be defensive of your own pile, and thus being against the redistribution of wealth?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
17:50 / 30.11.04
Yeah, but that's just a form of disingenousness, really - that person might think that material inequality is a bad thing to a certain extent, but they're saying that that's less important than maintaining their own wealth/comfort. Well, it's not disingenous at all if they come out and say "I think inequality is bad, but not as bad as me not having my nice flat/new trainers/etc", that would be more honest than most of us. I mean at some point in these discussions someone usually points to the person taking my position and says "but you don't sleep on the streets, you have privilege which you haven't given up yet and probably never will", and to a large extent that's true - there's a horrible trade-off that we all make, day in day out, as part of capitalism.

But I do think that it's actively even worse to then take the position that the principle of redistriution of wealth is bad or, as often seems to be suggested, dangerous. It's essentially a true conservative (small 'c') position - that things the way they are, while not ideal, could be a lot worse if we go about rocking the boat or doing anything crazy. That position makes a lot of sense if those of us who *are* privileged think about nobody's lot but our own, because the way things are, we don't have it so bad. But if I can cite that Antonio Gramsci line that China Mieville likes, "The fact that there is no need for people to die of starvation and that people are dying of starvation is a fact of some importance one would think."
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:15 / 30.11.04
I don't know about starvation, but we need people to be poor to keep inflation down.

More generally, one might see taxation and charity as innoculations - minor instances of redistribution to check a wilder and more ravening strain. This was certainly how a number of democratic reforms were seen in the 19th and early 20th Century... created out of a fear of revolutionism, and subsequently Bolshevism. Mainly these elevated groups who, although wealthy themselves, felt less of a violent strain of antipathy to the concerns of those who were not.

However. The (c) option strikes me as something of a fear reaction, and a perfectly understandable one. The system creates inequalities which constantly endanger prosperity (what happens if your boiler explodes?), and so it is necessary to accumulate and retain capital to make living wihtin the system less terrifying. How that interacts with the system is interesting, though - retained capital keeps banks going but makes life difficult for retail sectors, so a balance needs to be struck between that and the desire for the security of personal posessions, up to the final vouchsafing of security in our society, property.
 
 
alas
23:01 / 30.11.04
Yes it's fear that's at the root of this question at some level, perhaps? It's not so much that wealth is the answer to all problems or that it magically makes fear go away, but that without some material wherewithal to survive in any society, your life will almost certainly be plagued by a paralyzing fear. True ascetics may reach a point where they can forego material security and remain placid, but I wonder how often that kind of choice can be made from a position of serious lack? For me its that a social organization should do what it can to secure a basic level of bodily integrity for all its members. If it willfully avoids efforts in this direction, it has failed. Which is all much less eloquent than China Mieville...
 
 
No star here laces
07:31 / 01.12.04
And why should a state try to ensure that basic level of support for all its citizens? To make them happy?

A sad but true fact is that it is not absolute levels of wealth that determine whether people feel satisfied, but comparative levels of wealth (once you get above the subsistence level, that is).

And this isn't just because we're all capitalist arseholes, there is strong evidence from recent work in decision theory that this is hardwired into our brains.

By and large people don't want to have a decent level of comfort. What they are looking for is an above average level of comfort.

But we can all continue to pat one another on the back and agree that wealth ought to be redistributed, or we could talk about the real debate which is: how do you actually acheive that goal without making things worse?

i.e. if equality is the objective, what's the strategy?
 
 
Sax
08:19 / 01.12.04
It rather depends on what equality means to the majority. If the huge mass of people who are managing/doing okay which sits between the fabulously wealthly and the dirt-poor find that redistribution of wealth means they lose out in the slightest, then you can forget it as a workable strategy.

Flybes said: I mean at some point in these discussions someone usually points to the person taking my position and says "but you don't sleep on the streets, you have privilege which you haven't given up yet and probably never will"

I think the only way redistribution of wealth would ever work is if the people Flyboy alludes to above - ie, me - happen to occupy the perfect centre-point, the equilibrium to which the fabulously wealthy fall and the dirt-poor rise under the redistribution strategy. Which means *everyone* gets to have an iPod and an internet collection and a spare room in their house they can fill with comics and DVDs.
 
 
Lord Morgue
09:26 / 01.12.04
Look, if I'm priveledged, I'm priveledged to work my fucking arse off, in a shitty fucking job I fucking hate, serving garbage to human garbage for a pack of corperate vampire cocksuckers, and I pay my fucking bills, while the supposedly poor cunts I know, who my soft touch wife is constantly getting ripped off by, are driving cars I can't afford to run, living in houses better than ours, and breeding children for the sake of the money the fucking government pays them to breed like vermin, and dodge their bills by reconnecting under a different name each fucking month, while real poor cunts in other countries are fucking starving to death while being worked to death, if not actively being shot to death at the same time, these maggots get a gift voucher from the Salvation Army, another from the Smith Family, one from the Department of Social Security, one from St. Vincent De Paul's, and abuse my wife when she tells them they can't use the fourth one they've brought in that week to buy cigarettes and chocolate, or Twisties because "That's all my daughter will eat", and we're attracting bludgers and scabs like flies because we're priveledged to work ourselves into an early grave, because I'm priveledged to have crawled out of the hole my family dug for me, when the best advice anyone had for me was feign mental illness and go on a pension, or burn the house and collect the insurance, well, if anyone wants to call me priveledged, they can consider themselves priveledged to cop my size ten and a half up their fucking arse, yes I have been drinking, and I will personally David Hasselhoff in each and every one of your mailboxes before I sober up. Cunts.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
10:53 / 01.12.04
However, Morque's post does provide a reason why redistribution of wealth is a difficult proposition even for those who would benefit from it - they have been trained to hate and despise others. Morque is convinced, despite not fancying a life of welfare himself for some reason, that people on welfare have luxurious lives, and as a result have ideas above their station, like trying to buy the wrong kind of food with their food stamps. In essence, he has a whole world mapped out which is constructed to the advantage of "bludgers" (blaggers, in our terms). Would Morque be happy if he got $20,000 and the bludgers on food stamps got $25,000? I imagine he would be furious.

Question, though: is this a divide and rule on the part of those with the wealth, or is it just the way people work? Is it a real problem, and if so what's to be done?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:27 / 01.12.04
It's "the way people work" in the sense that people will always feel strong negative emotions towards those who they believe are doing them wrong by cheating them out of what is rightfully theirs, forcing them to suffer discomfort (eg, forcing them to work hard for a meagre wage), living an idle life of luxury etc. It's divide and rule because the people who are actually doing all the cheating and idle living (those in power) tend to do a very good job of manufacturing scapegoats - usually the most vulnerable or already victimised sections of society (refugees, those on benefits, etc) at whom this anger can be re/misdirected.
 
 
Lurid Archive
14:57 / 01.12.04
A couple of points.

First, I think it is important to realise that those who oppose the redistribution of wealth do not always do so from a motive of greed (at least, not straightforwardly). Apart from the practicalities of reaching what some would describe as an egalitarian utopia, some people believe that the system of capitalism comes as a whole. That is, the injustice of the distribution of resources cannot be separated from the production of wealth. Obviously this isn't an absolute principle - no one thinks that personal donations to Oxfam will bankrupt the US economy, say - but should be understood as a statement about the behaviour and nature of modern economies. So, to argue for the redistribution of wealth, one should probably confront these sorts of problems.

I also want to say something about vested interests and pressure against change. So, I agree with Flyboy when he says,

people who are actually doing all the cheating and idle living (those in power) tend to do a very good job of manufacturing scapegoats

but I think the problem goes much deeper than that. Most of us posting here, say, probably have some kind of interest in maintaining the status quo. For instance, having time to spend on the internet posting to a BB is still a pretty good indicator of one's privilege, both globally and nationally. I think this kind of point is important to make because it can become too easy to see privilege as something alien with which we have no contact, applying to some "other" group which it then becomes easy to demonise. (Not that I am suggesting Flyboy was doing that, but that these discussions often take that kind of trajectory.)
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
17:50 / 01.12.04
Well yes, that's why I said this:

[A]t some point in these discussions someone usually points to the person taking my position and says "but you don't sleep on the streets, you have privilege which you haven't given up yet and probably never will", and to a large extent that's true - there's a horrible trade-off that we all make, day in day out, as part of capitalism.

But I do think that it's actively even worse to then take the position that the principle of redistriution of wealth is bad or, as often seems to be suggested, dangerous.

In other words, it's important that nobody here is blind to their own complicity or presents themself as some kind of untainted-by-capitalism saint. But it's equally true that anyone who criticises capitalism will usually be accused of denying their own complicity by capitalism's apologists... And I do believe that agreeing on some basic principles about the way things are and the way they ought to be is an important first step before we go any further, and has value in itself, right? I mean, before you can try to live a moral life you have to know what your morality is.
 
 
Lurid Archive
20:05 / 01.12.04
You are absolutely right. Is this the thread we want to do that in though? Or shall we start another, less cluttered, thread?
 
 
Lord Morgue
06:09 / 02.12.04
Yes, well, normally I spell it correctly, but at the time I was very, very drunk, and it's a wonder I managed to find the keyboard, let alone post the fucker. Please feel free to delete the entire wad of grumpy old fart ranting. I honestly hate people who work for a living just as much, the work ethic ANTS, and I also hate retirees, the nosy old BASTARDS.
 
 
_pin
14:01 / 02.12.04
OK, points to be answered about general principles:

What are we talking about when we talk about equality? 'Laces' painting of human psychology really doesn't ring true, as I'm not convinced everyone has the same standard of what is a better-then-average life, or that everyone judges their personal success even by what they perceive to be the dominant standards. It seems much more likely, from my experience of people, that if anything they will strive for fulfilment (in the language of some parts of this thread, “happiness”).

Do we mean by equality within this understand, which would probably render our notion of privilege quantifiable by access to material resources slightly meaningless, except insofar as they relate to their appropriateness with regards to the ends to which their owner wishes to put them towards, or do we judge it by simply how much of each people own? If our new system simply results in a closing off of the option mentioned above of being a painter, and leaves us with a fight simply to see who can drink more port, then the whole thing strikes me as being a little pointless to begin with.

And how far is a policy of ringfencing-off the privileged and then attempting to extend the boundaries of this even helpful? To what extent should the freedom of the people holding the current wealth to continue to hold the current wealth be respected? While I know nothing about the employment of Lord Morgue, let’s take the anti-welfare opinions he espouses and put them in the mouth of a man who works as hard as he does in a firm that is directly or indirectly responsible for perpetuating the financial situation that pushes people to the welfare state; perhaps he is a consultant who spends his time finding ways to fire people to maximise efficiency and shareholder profits. Presumably this same person would resent rises in his food bills to pay for a fair wage for supermarket employees; surely this consumer pressure simply creates a need for a welfare state to supplement the incomes of these people simply to maintain this hypothetical construct in the style to which he has become accustomed.

I guess the above point does lead in to a question of just how far an extension of all these privileges would be sustainable, given then unsure nature of how they were achieved in the first place. It does, however, seem a little naïve to assume that they are entirely un-ill-gotten, and that they do not in some way contribute to inequality.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
11:50 / 03.12.04
The problem (or one of the many problems) is that, on some level, an astonishingly large proportion of privileged people do not care about material inequality sufficiently to do anything about it beyond a lip service to charity on occasion - and that only when they're flush enough not to miss the money. They're not asserting that material inequality doesn't exist, or that it does exist but that it's a good thing - they're ignoring it in order to continue to be comfortable.

And this 'they' I'm talking about? That's us, that is. That's our lives. We don't practice what we preach. For the truly poor, we exist within the mid-to-higher echelons of this cheating idle rich Fly refers to. We are the bad guys, who exist having taken advantage of unfair trade laws, historical oppression, etc. So, yeah, we're complicit - but it's not enough to 'recognise our complicity' in the situation many cultures, communities and individuals find themselves in. If we say that we understand our complicity but don't even attempt to make the effort to change some of what we're complicit in, we're not just complicit, we're hypocrites.

I should also point out that anyone who doesn't believe that the redistribution of wealth as a socially responsible principle is a good idea is, in my view, either wilfully ignorant or a fuck. I don't think anyone on this message board has actually said that - a few may have advised that they cannot see how it can be done in practice, but no one's actually come out in opposition to the principle. So I think discussing the principle is kind of preaching to the converted - I'm not sure there's anyone actually making the argument against here.
 
 
Lord Morgue
08:53 / 04.12.04
Any particular reason why I can't seem to get my drunken idiot rant removed? Normally the Hydra is all too willing to erase anything I post.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
11:23 / 04.12.04
Probably because, as an example of how people can be persuaded to hate those who are a little worse off than they are on the perceived grounds that they are in fact better off than they are, while ignoring the genuinely better off at the top of the heap, it has provided a discussion point, and deleting it would disrupt the sense and comprehensibility of the thread.
 
  

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