You may have seen or heard the word privilege come up
frequently. Since this word has reached common usage it is worth taking a look
at what it really means and what its use entails.
A Google search of the word privilege brings up this
definition “A special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only
to a particular person or group of people.”
This is the common usage that I think most everyone can
agree on and the one that will be used going forward.
Check Your Privilege
We rarely see or hear the word privilege on its own. Instead
it is often coupled with a descriptive word, such as male privilege or white
privilege.
This type of usage changes the meaning of the word in a very
dramatic way. Privilege in this context is a pejorative designed to make you
feel shame for enjoying a perceived advantage, special right, or immunity.
The subtext is that the only reason you have this privilege
is because of the descriptive characteristic attached to the word. So when you
are told that you have white privilege, what is truly being said is that you
are enjoying or have been granted a special right, advantage or immunity simply
because of the color of your skin. Of course this removes or diminishes
individual agency, or as former President Barak Obama would say “you didn’t
build that.”
This privilege is not granted to you through biology, though
it does depend on the biological element of your skin color. Instead society
has be built to produce these exclusive benefit to people who have this
biological element. Underneath this reasoning is a social constructionist view
of the world* which is embedded deeply within the philosophy of Marxism.
Socialist
Substructure
As we determined earlier privilege coupled with a descriptor
is used as a pejorative. It is not a positive to be privileged in this way because
your privilege was not earned. Rather it was given to you by a racistly
constructed society.
If you have a privilege based on a certain characteristic,
such as your gender, than those who lack that characteristic also lack that
privilege. The word privilege creates two groups, those with it and those
without. A group that has and a group that has not.
It is simply a rewording of bourgeois and proletariat that
replaces wealth (capital) with societal advantages. Professor Jordan Peterson
describes this change as a philosophical sleight of hand.
A sleight of hand that simultaneously removes the stigma of
socialism due to the human atrocities committed in places like the Soviet Union
and China while cloaking it in the language of empathy and classical
liberalism.
Your Tribe
Another effect of attaching privilege to a descriptive word
is that it creates a group based on that descriptor. If male privilege exist
than it applies to everyone who is male. This creates the category of male
identity while at the same time creating the family that category falls under.
Gender identity would be the family of identities and within that family you
have male, female, Trans and whatever gender flavor of the month that is useful
in placing people into categories.
The concept of privilege is used to divide people into
numerous categories and makes the claim that certain categories have more
advantages than others. For convenience sake I am going to refer to these
categories as tribes.
By splitting people into these tribes and assigning them
certain characteristics (both beneficial and disadvantageous) you diminish the
individual by placing the tribe in the place of primacy. The alienation of the
individual in this manner will cause people to gravitate toward these tribes.
Once broken into tribes it does not take much to point out
that one tribe has more privileges than another tribe. From there it is only a
small step to thinking that the only reason they have more privileges is
because they took them from you or are actively preventing you from gaining
them.
At that point you will see conflict between tribes. A real
world modern example of this is when a BLM group tried to shut
down a pride parade in DC in 2017 and before that in 2015 in Chicago when
they organized using #Blackoutpride.
The Poisoned Word
Privilege is used to attack and shame people in an attempt
to divide them and place them into tribes. These tribes have conflict with
other tribes built-in, ready to be exploited by anyone who is willing and capable.
The biggest tragedy is the assault on the concept of the
individual. An offensive that includes removing individual agency by
subscribing to the idea that any privilege you have is unearned and is only a
product of a society built to benefit you based on immutable characteristics.
It seeks to remove individual identity by placing you into a tribe with
preassigned characteristics.
On the surface the word privilege seems fairly harmless,
which makes it a perfect vessel for the poison of Marxism to slowly work its
way into the culture. The words we use matter.
You would do yourself a service by actually looking at Marx's critique of Capitalism. The bourgeoisie class consists of those that own the means of production (capital), not those that have privilege (although they certainly do). The proletariat class then, is those that do not. You are comparing American liberalism and social justice movements to Marxist thought when they are two different things. Liberalism is the ideology of Capitalism. Leftists do not like Liberals (American Democrats).
ReplyDeleteI also find it interesting how easily you attribute the "humanitarian atrocities" of the USSR and China (under Mao, presumably) to socialism but at the same time you make no mention of Hitler, Mussolini, American colonialism, etc. which have committed far worse atrocities while falling under the economic system of Capitalism. Atrocities in history serve as a lesson from which to learn. The world today is far different from the economic and political climate that existed when the revolutions happened in Russia and China. The fact of the matter is that Socialism improved the lives of many people in those countries. Chinese people suffered from many famines prior to Mao. There are books written about both of these places that actually take a critical look at their economic success and the reasons for their ultimate failure. I suggest you do some more research before just writing them off.
So called "white privilege" does in fact exist, but the choosing of the word white is probably a huge mistake. It alienates many white people who aren't members of the Bourgeoisie class and pushes them to hold similar values to you. In all reality, privilege DOES exist. You cannot deny the economic advantages bestowed upon people by their ancestors and the history of how they acquired that advantage (through murder, exploitation, etc.). To pretend this has no effect on an individuals economic status is naive.
Thank you for the comment. I have read some of Marx’s work and I know he was talking about the bourgeoisie and not people with privilege. As I described there was a change to the Marxist doctrine, carried out mostly by the French intellectuals (such as Derrida) in the 1960’s when it became evident that the Soviet Union was not the utopian society that it was claimed to be. I would suggest you take a look at the Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
DeleteI agree that Liberalism and Marxism are two totally different and opposing systems. Yet the left in America today (American Democrats) have been co-opted by Marxists and socialists. Now not all Democrat are this way but a significant portion of the party subscribes to these neo-Marxist ideas which are wrapped up in the framework of identity politics.
I make no mention of Hitler or Mussolini because they are commonly known as Fascists, though they subscribed to the Socialist doctrines as well just on a national level. I could have included them here and will consider it in future posts. Hitler and Mussolini were not capitalist, they were nationalist socialist. They believe that the power of the state should be used to plan a better economy at all levels, while capitalism leave it to the individual to determine the best plan for themselves.
Even if your statement about Socialism improving the lives of the people in the countries it was implemented was true (and it’s not), the cost in human lives in doing so far outweighed any gains made. In the Soviet Union the government had starving people shot for picking up seeds that were left after the harvest unless they immediately turned them in to the authorities. They even had to issue orders telling people not to eat each other because of mass starvation. This was in the Ukraine under Soviet rule, which the Ukraine was for a long time a major producer of grain for all of Europe, but under socialism rapidly feel into mass starvation and death.
The difference between socialism and capitalism when it comes to atrocities is that, as you stated, capitalism is only an economic system. Socialism on the other hand seeks to plan and control not only the economic system but the social, political, moral, and philosophical systems as well. Yes bad things have happened under both Socialism and Capitalism, the key difference is that under Socialism the bad things were planned and carried out through the supreme power of the state.
I would agree that privilege does exist but it is not exclusive to white people or men, but can only be accurately identified on an individual level. Yet even if someone is privileged, regardless of how their ancestors came to possess whatever ‘advantage’ they passed along, it does not mean they should be punished or held in contempt for that privilege. You cannot punish the son for the sins of the father. I am not denying the fact that history has an impact, it most certainly does, but not as much of an impact as you seem to think. History is just one of many factors that can determine ‘advantage’ in people. Geography, genetics, and time are just a few of the known factors, not to mention the plethora of unknown factors (such as illness and accidents), that can contribute to advantage and disadvantage in life.
Yeah, because the state under Capitalism is just totally free from any guilt whatsoever. Claiming that Hitler was somehow Socialist, what a joke. Tell me how you will defend Churchill, then? The Vietnam War? The Korean War? The growing number of dictatorships propped up by the U.S. around the globe? The "War on Terror"? African American Slavery (and subsequently the "war on drugs")? The U.S. economy is propped up by oppressed people around the globe who are kept in turmoil to provide cheap labor for corporations. People who have been oppressed by colonialism and white supremacy. That's why they call it white privilege.
ReplyDeleteThe Gulag Archipelago is a work of fiction, not history. Jordan Peterson is a psychologist, not the end all be all of social/economic/political thought.
The individual has no freedom to determine what is the best plan for themselves under Capitalism. Work for what the Borugeoisie are willing to pay (as little as the possibly can) or starve. That is not freedom. Socialists seek to have democracy in the workplace. The only poison here is your beliefs.
Capitalism is not a form of government, the types of government that are typically found with Capitalism are Democracy and Republics. Capitalism does not direct nor plan government or collective action. Instead it promotes individual action with fair rules that apply to everyone equally. Hitler was a National Socialist, which makes him a right wing authoritarian because of his focus on conserving the German People and nationalism.
DeleteAs for defending Churchill, you are going to need to be more specific. He is a human and not perfect but despite his imperfections he was the right person for the job of defending England and Liberalism against the unrelenting onslaught of the Nazi’s. As for the Vietnam War, Korean War, dictatorships, the War on Terror, and everything else, they are all complex problems we would have to take one at a time.
The Gulag Archipelago is not a work of fiction, it is an collection of direct accounts from people who were victims of the Gulag system in the Soviet Union. Jordan Peterson has studied authoritarianism for over 30 years. He is not, nor have I ever said, he is the end all be all of social/economic/political thought. If you want to know a few more of the social/economic/political thinkers that I like you can check out F.A. Hayek, Thomas Sowell, Jonathan Haidt, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Aldous Huxley, and Milton Freedman to name a few.
Under Capitalism the individual could live on a farm and grow their own food or seek any job they want. They can also leave that job, ask for higher wages, or start their own business. Under Capitalism you can have a democratic work place, no one is going to stop you, and the only thing that would stop you is if that system is effective enough to compete with other similar businesses. Yes under Capitalism you have to work to survive, but that is true under all systems ever, it is part of life that you have to work to live. The freedom comes from being able to choose what you want to do with the caveat that the other people that make up society have to find value in what you do.