tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post8197677314493824849..comments2024-03-06T06:34:42.881-05:00Comments on EconoSpeak: The Problem with PrivilegeUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-73012962397027647752016-10-15T20:14:34.651-04:002016-10-15T20:14:34.651-04:00Interesting. Of all the replies, only Reason resp...Interesting. Of all the replies, only Reason responded to the OP. Here's my response to this response: as I understand it, privilege denotes exclusivity, but exclusivity does not necessarily denote privilege.<br /><br />In the case of property, if there is a positional element to ownership I think we can infer privilege, otherwise not. If I own a car, but the advantage of this ownership does not depend on the non-ownership by others of cars, then I may have a relative advantage compared to those non-owners, but the exclusivity of this ownership is not in relation to the non-owners only, but to all others. On the other hand, a landowner who possesses the majority of arable land in a region and profits from the labor on this land by the non-owners finds that its value is greater because of the availability of a landless population.<br /><br />In reply to the rest, just for clarity, I take it as given that in any unequal social situation, such as the racial hierarchies in the US, the relative disadvantage of those on the bottom is equivalent to the relative advantage of those on the top. Racism is not just about those on the short end but also those on the long. Whites need to think about this! I am concerned only with the indiscriminate use of the word "privilege". My old school attention to retaining precision in language comes from a belief that imprecise language engenders imprecise thinking. In this case, I think that imprecision leads to greater resistance to the message of anti-racists, anti-sexists, etc. Privilege may be a term of art on the part of activists to denote all types of social inequality, but the unwashed masses operate with a different meaning, and communicating to them is the point.Peter Dormanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00093399591393648071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-73784512103862681412016-10-15T10:29:37.687-04:002016-10-15T10:29:37.687-04:00In Tasmania a definition of 'oppression' i...In Tasmania a definition of 'oppression' is found in the Criminal Code of 1924:<br /><br />84. Extortion by public officers: Oppression<br />.....<br /><br />"Any public officer who, in the exercise or under colour of exercising his office, wilfully and unlawfully inflicts upon any person any bodily harm, imprisonment, or other injury is guilty of a crime."<br /><br />Oppression, here, depends upon what is (legally) allowable.<br />Myrtle Blackwoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07427043367624101075noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-518330325790814752016-10-12T19:37:29.467-04:002016-10-12T19:37:29.467-04:00Owen Paine
Great post.
"Isn't there an ...Owen Paine<br /><br />Great post.<br /><br />"Isn't there an un necessary implicit loathing in the term "white privilege "<br /><br />That is the problem. White men insisting on being offended by the words used by people they once legally owned as property is just ... not going to go down well with the people who still suffer disproportionate economic, social and physical violence as a result of that ownership and the centuries of entitlement embedded into our culture.<br /><br />These things are not yet history. Don't be surprised if the rhetoric sometimes seems angry. It's a bit rich for white men to prioritise their feelings and insist that the right words and a polite tone be deployed when we have been making these demands for 300 years now and it is still not sinking in.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-76550021258638526892016-10-12T16:59:54.142-04:002016-10-12T16:59:54.142-04:00I like that "...negation of a duty " bit...I like that "...negation of a duty " bit <br />Example<br /><br />White guy gets off without a ticket just a warning <br />Black guy gets maximum fine <br /><br />Problem<br />The stink of this label offends white guys <br /><br />Beneficiary is Unaware of. His privilege ?<br />If that's part of the term of art here used in the academy " studies " seminars on oppression <br />We are even closer to disqualifying the term <br />As suitable for common discourse <br /><br />Black oppression strikes me as adequate to the requirements of every day conversation<br /><br />Isn't there an un necessary implicit loathing <br />in the term "white privilege " <br />At least <br />When pointing toward appropriate treatment <br />That ought to be universal <br /><br /> I notice this danger <br />From just treatment <br />Those treated fairly may lack an instinct for oppression <br />As in the post 9/ 11 abridgment<br /> of civil liberties <br /><br />Too many whites have no experience of state terror <br />They have no fear of state power gaining dangerous "privileges " Owen Painehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13675803406994867138noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-71013429699996994972016-10-12T15:12:53.435-04:002016-10-12T15:12:53.435-04:00The anti-oppression meaning of privilege is much c...The anti-oppression meaning of privilege is much closer to <a href="http://www.kentlaw.edu/perritt/blog/2007/12/hohfeldian-primer.html" rel="nofollow">the legal definition from Hohfeld</a>. "A privilege is the negation of a duty: it is permission to do an act that would normally be a breach of a duty."<br /><br />A right is a claim against another person for a duty. Thus a privilege is a permitted violation of a right.Mike Hubenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01371469964446567690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-10294054063315619032016-10-12T14:02:27.778-04:002016-10-12T14:02:27.778-04:00Here's the thing: in anti-oppression work, &qu...Here's the thing: in anti-oppression work, "privilege" is a term of art, a technical term if you will, not unlike "rational" or "[Pareto] optimal" in economics. Repurposing common words as technical terms is always dicey, since those outside the field will tend to read the common meanings of the terms into discourse in which those words are present. So economists have to spend time explaining that a "rational" decision maker need not be a joyless Philistine and that a Pareto optimal solution is not, in any meaningful sense, "best." <br /><br />In the anti-oppression lingo, "privilege" does not simply denote "advantages" enjoyed by non-disadvantaged individuals; it denotes the individuals' unawareness that those advantages are not enjoyed by everyone. And that's really the point of calling what I (and people like me) tend to think of as "the expectation of basic human decency" a "privilege." <br /><br />Now, as you write, the problem with the word is that, traditionally, we seek justice by *abolishing* privilege, and that's not the case here. Nobody is seriously advocating for a world in which everyone is equally the victim of random acts of aggression, micro- or otherwise. But, as a technical term, privilege has become embedded in academic and activist literature, so we're probably stuck with it. <br />(Though things do change sometimes; in macro, we sometimes see people saying "model consistent expectations" where they once would have said "rational expectations.")<br /><br />Alas, no technical or rhetorical vocabulary is entirely free of unfortunate ambiguity; we just have to cope with the language as best we can.JEChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13107662855215626812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-21866167940087708052016-10-12T11:46:56.023-04:002016-10-12T11:46:56.023-04:00Consider the notion
"Privileged majority &q...Consider the notion <br /><br />"Privileged majority " <br /><br />Not quite lapidary eh ? <br /><br />The absence of oppression is not privilege ...is it ! Owen Painehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13675803406994867138noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-39427749400848445552016-10-12T05:35:26.293-04:002016-10-12T05:35:26.293-04:00You should research the origin of terms before you...You should research the origin of terms before you try to impose your ideas on them.<br /><br />http://nationalseedproject.org/white-privilege-unpacking-the-invisible-knapsackAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-19957372067478349002016-10-12T04:51:11.934-04:002016-10-12T04:51:11.934-04:00Did you delete my response or is Blogger messing u...Did you delete my response or is Blogger messing up?WDDnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-5187979170803322292016-10-12T03:50:26.659-04:002016-10-12T03:50:26.659-04:00Not so sure that I completely agree here.
I thin...Not so sure that I completely agree here. <br /><br />I think this statement:<br /><br />"The proper goal of an egalitarian is to dissolve privileges." goes too far. Can you be an egalitarian and be comfortable with some privileges?<br /><br />Property rights are a privilege (their defining feature is their exclusivity) - and even possession rights are a privilege. Do we really want to regard it as an unacceptable level of privilege that all people are not free to walk through my living room?<br /><br />I sort of think, in general we need to be very sensitive about where we really want to draw the line between things that are matters of principle and those that are questions of degree.<br />reasonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06594313655855683716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-54938110388423307072016-10-12T02:35:11.228-04:002016-10-12T02:35:11.228-04:00WDD, I think you've missed the entire argument...WDD, I think you've missed the entire argument. It is not at all about injustice, which I think we probably agree on. It *is* about the distinction between goods (privileges) whose value depends on their exclusivity, versus potentially universalizable goods which can either be nonrival (freedom from being beaten up or killed by the cops) or made universally available at a community's given level of resources (health care). Possession of the first should trigger guilt in "normal" people under a range of circumstances; unequal possession of the second shouldn't.<br /><br />Granted my comment about the use of "privilege" in a way that elides this distinction is flat out speculation. It's quite possible that those who promulgated the language used in diversity workshops etc. were simply unaware that "privilege" had a long history of use in the way I describe. (I can remember the slogan, "Health care is a right, not a privilege!") Given the academic origins of this new usage, though, I'm more inclined to the view that it was strategic.<br /><br />Not recognizing the argument I'm making (whether you agree or not), and attributing this nonrecognition to my inability as a white male to make such an argument, is not helpful here. However, if you have a piece of writing to recommend that explains why the distinction I want to make is either untenable or inconsequential, I'd be happy to read it. If I'm convinced to change my mind, it wouldn't be the first time.Peter Dormanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00093399591393648071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-44551370285986324572016-10-12T01:37:39.112-04:002016-10-12T01:37:39.112-04:00Cops not randomly beating you up is both a right a...Cops not randomly beating you up is both a right and a de facto privilege. If you want to make this argument you need to name some rights that are still withheld from marginalised people.<br /><br />I'm not that familiar with US law but I think there are some New Deal employment laws which were not extended to ocupational groups that were primarily black? Equal marriage (and equal pension rights) still an issue. Abortion only fits into your framework in terms of wealth - rich women don't need to give a crap about the law in their state or country - but it's not a right that can be withheld from [cis] men in the same way. (Many men surely do suffer from unwanted parenthood, but not the physical risk nor usually the economic devastation that follows it for women, especially in a country like the US with weak social safety nets).<br /><br />Also, I think appealing to a sense of fairness is far less likely to cause a defensive/aggressive/denial reaction than trying to make people feel guilty for something they never chose. I don't understand this part of your argument at all. It's not a tactic, it's a useful concept. "Privilege" in this usage describes benefits which arise despite equal rights. It is invisible to those who enjoy it in any given context. Getting the structurally blind to see does not involve haranguing them for not getting treated badly - no one should get treated badly - it involves getting them to understand the things they don't experience and therefore don't know about.<br /><br />A middle class black woman is (by definition) more socioeconomically powerful than a working class white man. This is because class is the over-arching privilege which makes all the others matter as much as they do. But he is still unlikely to be handed a uniform when he tries to register for a conference; be asked to pour the coffee or take minutes when he is a senior presence in a meeting; be sat next to another white person because obviously "they" all know each other; be required to take responsibility for white supremacist violence because he's seen as part of an amorphous lump of "other" and not an actual human being.<br /><br />Sorry, but I think you got carried away with pointless semantics here. None of this article pertains to the social justice concept of privilege at all. Read some more black female writers. You can't pull this stuff out of a white male head. That's the whole point.WDDnoreply@blogger.com