If you want to find bad faith theatrics and unshakeable idiocy presented as virtue, head for the Clown Quarter of the nearest university. It’s where you’re most likely to find the word “privilege” deployed as an ad hominem device. A way of saying, “Your opinion doesn’t count (or doesn’t count as much as mine) because you have a certain level of melanin, or a penis, or the wrong kind of upbringing, or an insufficient number of hang-ups and fashionable pretensions.” Think of it as a kind of Maoist snobbery, in which, as Jesse Walker notes, the unwary are denounced for the rhetorical equivalent of using the wrong cutlery.
In my experience, the personalities to which such things appeal aren’t terribly interested in civility or justice, “social” or otherwise. What they seem to be interested in is opportunist scolding and one-upmanship, that all-important social positioning. And so what you see, and see quite often, isn’t concern for the supposedly vulnerable; it’s an assertion of status and a pay-off for all that wound-up dogmatism. It’s how professed egalitarians let us know they’re better than us.
Because they really do have to let us know.
The university is the monkey house of the zoo.
How do you tell a vegan at dinner?
Don’t have to. They will tell you
“Privilege” as a legal maxim denotes a separate or private law which benefits the principle. I’m sure the Marxist zombies who pimp this toxic duplicity haven’t thought that deeply about it, but if they are saying that people without colored skin are privileged and others not, they ought to have proof to back it up.
As one of their alleged targets of privilege I demand that I get what has been ascribed to me – where the hell is my privilege. I want my perks and entitlements and insulation from the bitter realities of the world. Fetch ’em up now! I seem to be missing them.
To date the only social privilege I have experienced is to be the slave laborer of the nanny state who funds all its liabilities and welfare clients without any benefit to myself. I get to pick up the tab for everything and then endure the name-calling of unproductive Marxist drones who float on sinecure I fund.
These universities and collages have become nothing but indoctrination centers run by leftists academics whos favorite book are THE COMMUNISTS MANIFESTO and DAS KAPITAL
[McMurphy:] “Is this the usual pro-cedure for these Group Ther’py shindigs? Bunch of chickens at a peckin’ party?”
[Harding:]”A ‘pecking party’? I fear your quaint down-home speech is wasted on me, my friend. I have not the slightest inclination what you’re talking about.”
“Why then, I’ll just explain it to you.” McMurphy raises his voice; though he doesn’t look at the other Acutes listening behind him, it’s them he’s talking to. “The flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and they all go to peckin’ at it, see, till they rip the chicken to shreds, blood and bones and feathers. But usually a couple of the flock gets spotted in the fracas, then it’s their turn. And a few more gets spots and gets pecked to death, and more and more. Oh, a peckin’ party can wipe out the whole flock in a matter of a few hours, buddy, I seen it. A mighty awesome sight. The only way to prevent it-with chickens-is to clip blinders on them. So’s they can’t see.”
(from “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”)
It’s the new social justice economy! It’s the scale according to which goods will be “exchanged” in our bright and justice-seeking future. Let’s call it “the victimhood-privilege scale”. Here’s how it works:
Everyone has a place on the scale, according to how much of the social goods—wealth, power, respect—s/he has. In general, those who lie towards the left on the scale are society’s victim; those to the right are its oppressors. Those to the right got there by oppressing those to their left. How else could they have acquired more stuff? Those to the left got there because someone to their right victimized them. How else to explain their impoverishment?
Anyone who lies to your right on the scale is your oppressor because they have more stuff than you. They are therefore more evil than you, and much more evil than those who lie to you left. You, in turn, are more moral than your neighbors to your right, and infinitely better than those on the far right. But, precious as you may be, you are not as good as those who lie to your left. Those who occupy the ghettoes on the far left are angels!
Now, it is easy to see the incentive to establish your position as far to the left as possible. Your position on the scale will determine whether you are a net receiver of goods, or a net provider. In the new economy, everyone to your right owes you, just as you owe everyone to your left. This explains that new SJW parlor game we have all seen in which contestants compete for those coveted spots on the extreme left. (“I’m a transgendered black woman trapped in a white male body!” “Oh, you think that’s bad? I’m a left-handed Tibetan brown dwarf ex-lesbian questioner, trapped in the body of an American male one-percenter! And it’s your fault!”)
The scale applies to persons, groups, and nations. The UN Olympics will soon include competitions for the best victim in each category.
The end-state of the social justice economy is one in which everyone occupies the same position on the scale. That will be justice. Unfortunately, justice will bring an end to the entertainment—the self-mutilation, the sackcloth and ashes costumes, the sheer idiocy—of the competition for the position of best victim.
To me, “check your privilege” is synonymous with blurting out “Hitler” or “Nazi” during a debate. Both earn nothing from me but scorn and instant dismissal. Well…….more scorn and dismissal than usual when debating with leftards.
“…What they seem to be interested in is opportunist scolding and one-upmanship, that all-important social positioning. And so what you see, and see quite often, isn’t concern for the supposedly vulnerable; it’s an assertion of status and a pay-off for all that wound-up dogmatism. It’s how professed egalitarians let us know they’re better than us.”
No one exemplified that disdainful, screeching arrogance better than Ruth Greer, one of Bob Rae’s pretend socialists.
Since I cannot fully appreciate the hardships of the unprivileged due to my own privilege, why do I have to listen to anyone other than my own class? After all, using their criteria, their hectoring is just lost on a privileged soul such as mine.
If they tell me that I am incapable of sympathy, then why waste their time or my own?
…explains why the current President and First Lady of the USA consistently label themselves as victims, by virtue of their skin colour (“people who look like us”) and self-described lack of privilege/money while growing up. TO THIS DAY, they milk that routine.
Can’t think of a better way to describe it. Good one.
This explains this element’s impassioned objection to LCC.
Projection..
“Check your privilege” is nothing more or less than an attack on the most basic tenet of Western Civilization, equality. The people who spew such things are functionally identical to Nazis or the KKK, and should be treated as such.
If somebody called me a “dirty n*gg*r lover” I’d probably maim them, or at least have a good try at it. “Check your privilege” should elicit the same response, for the same reason. Its poisonous.