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Understanding "privilege"

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  • #16
    Originally posted by Starlight View Post
    Um... wanting more education for more people is like, one of the major policies of the progressive movement. So your claim that progressives don't want that seems kind of blatantly empirically false.
    Come, Starlight, surely you're not so naive to think that people necessarily believe what they claim they do?

    The resolution is very simple. Progressives are fine with high school schooling for all. At a pinch they might include community colleges as well, but to let the unwashed masses into the hallowed halls of their elite universities? Perish the thought!

    An education teaches both knowledge and thinking skills. Its primary purpose is not as a status badge.
    Come now, we agree that it shouldn't but it clearly does all across the world.

    I'll grant that progressives to tend to respect the opinions of educated experts... that's because we know how much of a difference education and expertise make.

    But it is certainly a reasonable question why the conservative Christian parts / red states of the US are so... unusual... in their views compared to the rest of the Western world. Part of the answer indeed appears to be that the people in those areas are substantially less educated.
    There's not really that much difference between unquestioning lapping of what one's pastors or professors say, given that most education has sadly lapsed to rote learning without any critical thinking to speak of. The distinction is that the uneducated (ie. not college-educated) lack the arrogance common to the progressive scholar class.
    Last edited by Paprika; 05-31-2015, 07:09 AM.

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    • #17
      I am all for disadvantaged people being given a leg up. What I am not for is people of the likes of Starlight identifying who is 'privileged' and who isn't since many of these liberals are themselves over-privileged and have no concept of real life and the complexities which disadvantage people. Also helping someone improve themself is not achieved through disadvantaging another (identified as 'privileged') to 'level' the playing field. Liberals are just reverse-sexists and reverse-racists reverse-heterosexual reverse-conservative ideology. I don't know about the USA but here in UK they are over represented in education and public office and often their talk of helping the underdog is just a guise to eliminate their ideological opponents and dispossess their children in favour of those they wish to use as tools for implementing their own vision of cultural change.

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      • #18
        Is anyone else reminded of Obama herp-derping about the problems caused by the rich sending their children to private schools while doing exactly what he condemns?

        Comment


        • #19
          Originally posted by Starlight View Post
          The other half of the issue of privilege is the tendency of those who have had social factors working in their favor (or, at least, not working against them) to attribute 100% of their success to their own hard work, and none of it to their social circumstances. In the cartoon, the privileged boy, Richard, who has had quite a number of different social and family factors working in his favor, thinks his success is primarily because of him when in reality almost none of it is. When I saw that cartoon, I thought of you, Cow Poke, because I've seen you equally declare in these forums that you feel your own success at life can be attributed to your own hard work, without any apparent acknowledgement on your part that any kind of social circumstances whatsoever may have helped you along the way. Whereas other people can find themselves in circumstances that make their success very difficult, no matter how hardworking and determined they are as a person.
          The flip side of that is that there are people who aren't being 'successful' in life, and who blame all of it on their underprivileged background. They feel that, since the odds are 'stacked against them', there is nothing they can do, and all their problems are the result of some nebulous group 'keeping them down'. Various social programs, while intended to help such people, can actually feed their sense of entitlement and injustice.

          You'd think those two wouldn't go together, but for too many, they do. They feel entitled to advantages others don't get, to government handouts, to opportunities for education and employment based not on merit, but on their social or ethnic background. They feel entitled to act in ways that most people wouldn't dream of - to 'punch up', to be racist, to discriminate against and prejudge others based on their skin colour. Yet, at the same time, they expect to be given taxpayer's money for merely existing, to be rewarded not for effort or achievement, but for an accident of birth.

          The same people often complain of the injustices they face, of being deprived, of being discriminated against, of what happened to their now-distant ancestors, of micro-aggressions, of lack of opportunities.


          Bottom line: Life isn't fair, for anyone. Deal with it.

          The world doesn't owe anyone fulfillment and the achievement of all their dreams, at little to no personal cost or effort. If there is no God, then life is just what happens, and when you die, rich or poor, success or failure, that's it.
          ...>>> Witty remark or snarky quote of another poster goes here <<<...

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          • #20
            Originally posted by MaxVel View Post
            The flip side of that is that there are people who aren't being 'successful' in life, and who blame all of it on their underprivileged background. They feel that, since the odds are 'stacked against them', there is nothing they can do, and all their problems are the result of some nebulous group 'keeping them down'. Various social programs, while intended to help such people, can actually feed their sense of entitlement and injustice.

            You'd think those two wouldn't go together, but for too many, they do. They feel entitled to advantages others don't get, to government handouts, to opportunities for education and employment based not on merit, but on their social or ethnic background. They feel entitled to act in ways that most people wouldn't dream of - to 'punch up', to be racist, to discriminate against and prejudge others based on their skin colour. Yet, at the same time, they expect to be given taxpayer's money for merely existing, to be rewarded not for effort or achievement, but for an accident of birth.

            The same people often complain of the injustices they face, of being deprived, of being discriminated against, of what happened to their now-distant ancestors, of micro-aggressions, of lack of opportunities.


            Bottom line: Life isn't fair, for anyone. Deal with it.

            The world doesn't owe anyone fulfillment and the achievement of all their dreams, at little to no personal cost or effort. If there is no God, then life is just what happens, and when you die, rich or poor, success or failure, that's it.
            But Abraham stood before the LORD. And Abraham drew near and said, "Will you also destroy the righteous with the wicked?" If there are fifty righteous within the city, will you also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? Far be it from you to do this, to slay the righteous with the wicked...Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

            And the LORD said:

            "Life isn't fair, for anyone. Deal with it."


            Yeah...no. Life isn't fair, true. But I've always believed that ought to motivate us to try to make it fair, not just sit back and say "LOL people are being discriminated against and oppressed but who cares life isn't fair just deal with it."

            Of course no one wants people to use a position of disadvantage as an excuse to not work hard or try at all. No one is condoning that. But you and others in this thread act as if every person in a disadvantaged position does that, and that simply isn't true. There are plenty of people who work themselves half to death trying to get ahead but are unable to succeed due primarily to the disadvantages that they face. And as for people who do "quit" or "feel entitled"...it's an inevitable part of human nature that some people will respond to hardship by mentally giving up at the obstacles. Therefore, if some particular groups of people are disproportionately likely to face hardships and disadvantages, it logically follows that a disproportionate amount of them might take the route that involves quitting. So if you belong to a group that is not disproportionately likely to face disadvantage, there's a strong element of riding a moral high horse if you look down upon people who did quit, since you might not have faced the obstacles that inevitably would mentally defeat some people here and there.

            Also, consider this: if you signed up to run in a track race that promised to make everyone follow the same set of rules and give everyone an equal opportunity to win, but upon arriving at the track you found that some runners had been allowed to take certain performance-boosting supplements/drugs that you were forbidden to take, and some runners were allowed to wear the finest running shoes while you had to run in your bare feet, and the other runners were allowed to start running before the starting gun while you had to wait until after the starting gun...would you really just shrug your shoulders and say "Oh well, life isn't fair. I'll just have to deal with it?" Or might you protest that the race committee has lied and has failed to live up to the standards that it promised, and demand change? Even if you chose the first option, could you at least see that the second option might be a perfectly legitimate choice?
            Last edited by fm93; 05-31-2015, 11:53 AM.
            Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.--Isaiah 1:17

            I don't think that all forms o[f] slavery are inherently immoral.--seer

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by fm93 View Post
              But Abraham stood before the LORD. And Abraham drew near and said, "Will you also destroy the righteous with the wicked?" If there are fifty righteous within the city, will you also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? Far be it from you to do this, to slay the righteous with the wicked...Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

              And the LORD said:

              "Life isn't fair, for anyone. Deal with it."


              Yeah...no. Life isn't fair, true. But I've always believed that ought to motivate us to try to make it fair, not just sit back and say "LOL people are being discriminated against and oppressed but who cares life isn't fair just deal with it."

              Of course no one wants people to use a position of disadvantage as an excuse to not work hard or try at all. No one is condoning that. But you and others in this thread act as if every person in a disadvantaged position does that

              You can stop right there. That is not what I said, and it is not what I believe, nor what I do.


              I've gone well out of my 'comfort zone' in life to help disadvantaged people, including choosing to work in lower-paid positions because I could help disadvantaged students by doing so. So don't dump your prejudices on me.
              ...>>> Witty remark or snarky quote of another poster goes here <<<...

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              • #22
                Originally posted by MaxVel View Post
                You can stop right there. That is not what I said, and it is not what I believe, nor what I do.


                I've gone well out of my 'comfort zone' in life to help disadvantaged people, including choosing to work in lower-paid positions because I could help disadvantaged students by doing so. So don't dump your prejudices on me.
                I believe you. But nevertheless, that is how you came across, with your line of "Life isn't fair for anyone. Deal with it," as well as painting this picture of disadvantaged folks acting entitled and hypocritical.
                Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.--Isaiah 1:17

                I don't think that all forms o[f] slavery are inherently immoral.--seer

                Comment


                • #23
                  Originally posted by Paprika View Post
                  Come, Starlight, surely you're not so naive to think that people necessarily believe what they claim they do?

                  The resolution is very simple. Progressives are fine with high school schooling for all. At a pinch they might include community colleges as well, but to let the unwashed masses into the hallowed halls of their elite universities? Perish the thought!
                  Before about 60 years ago the blacks were excluded from most of the 'privileged' educational system of the USA. Who was responsible for taking away much of the 'privileged' glass ceiling that allowed black to move up in a more integrated educational system?

                  There's not really that much difference between unquestioning lapping of what one's pastors or professors say, given that most education has sadly lapsed to rote learning without any critical thinking to speak of. The distinction is that the uneducated (ie. not college-educated) lack the arrogance common to the progressive scholar class.
                  Elitist hogwash!
                  Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                  Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                  But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                  go with the flow the river knows . . .

                  Frank

                  I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by Abigail View Post
                    I am all for disadvantaged people being given a leg up. What I am not for is people of the likes of Starlight identifying who is 'privileged' and who isn't since many of these liberals are themselves over-privileged and have no concept of real life and the complexities which disadvantage people. Also helping someone improve themself is not achieved through disadvantaging another (identified as 'privileged') to 'level' the playing field. Liberals are just reverse-sexists and reverse-racists reverse-heterosexual reverse-conservative ideology. I don't know about the USA but here in UK they are over represented in education and public office and often their talk of helping the underdog is just a guise to eliminate their ideological opponents and dispossess their children in favour of those they wish to use as tools for implementing their own vision of cultural change.
                    In the USA the history of voting rights, integration, and equal rights in the work place was not supported by Conservative Right Wing of America.
                    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                    But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                    go with the flow the river knows . . .

                    Frank

                    I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by fm93 View Post
                      I believe you. But nevertheless, that is how you came across, with your line of "Life isn't fair for anyone. Deal with it," as well as painting this picture of disadvantaged folks acting entitled and hypocritical.
                      (1) I was responding to Starlight, so I'm not going to appeal to a God he doesn't believe in. I'm going to point out that, if his worldview is true, life isn't fair, but a struggle for survival that ends in meaninglessness.

                      (2) Life isn't fair. Either we deal with that, move on and do the best we can to change that,or we sit on our hands and blame everyone and everything else for our problems.

                      (3) Just bringing a little balance to the thread.

                      (4) I've worked with long-term unemployed people, helping them find work, and some of them do have the attitude I described. And I've seen it to a greater or lesser degree elsewhere.

                      (5) Not every disadvantaged person is an honest, hard-working, responsible member of society, who would be able to help themselves and contribute to their community, but for the 'injustice in the system'. That's just as much a lie as the canard that every poor person just needs to work harder and be less lazy, and they wouldn't be poor. Some of the 'disadvantaged' are so because they are idle, unmotivated, and happy enough with a minimal government income and lots of free time to sleep in, watch movies, play video games and so on. I've met and worked trying to help such people, they do exist. And I suspect that a part of their problem is the belief that they are entitled to, or owed, a 'free ride' through life.
                      ...>>> Witty remark or snarky quote of another poster goes here <<<...

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by fm93 View Post
                        I believe you. But nevertheless, that is how you came across, with your line of "Life isn't fair for anyone. Deal with it," as well as painting this picture of disadvantaged folks acting entitled and hypocritical.
                        Personally, I don't think that saying "life isn't fair" is very constructive. However, I do wonder about a point: it seems to me that underlying all this talk about privilege is an implicit appeal to some obligations of the 'privileged', not merely to "check your privilege" but that certain equalities should be sought after. And I am really interested in the underlying reasoning behind such viewpoints. Now, this is not trolling, nor am I in strong rhetoric mode at the moment; I am perfectly aware that égalité has permeated recent Western discourse to become axiomatic for some, but consider this:

                        The large majority of humans that have ever lived have taken for granted one form of class system or another. Even now, I'd wager that most humans living would not share the Western ideas that certain equalities are important and why they're important (leaving aside the trivial exception of equality before the law). So how would you answer likely questions such people may ask when encountering your ideas: why should certain things be ideally equal, given that people are certainly not equal in many respects, and when society has functioned for millenia without radical Western attempts to establish égalité? Which are the inequalities that should be minimised, and why? What are the costs of correcting such inequalites (because surely there's been some reason why they exist, and not necessarily either a) tradition or b) power-gaming)?
                        Last edited by Paprika; 05-31-2015, 12:07 PM.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                          Before about 60 years ago the blacks were excluded from most of the 'privileged' educational system of the USA. Who was responsible for taking away much of the 'privileged' glass ceiling that allowed black to move up in a more integrated educational system?
                          Presumably you will inform me of the answer, as well as how this is relevant to my point which was made regarding class and not race in particular.

                          Elitist hogwash! True! (but I don't want to admit it)
                          My shunyadragon translator has corrected the wording of your comment; I'm glad you agree with me.

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Star why do I always find you arguing for giving black people an advantage and others a disadvantage?
                            "Kahahaha! Let's get lunatic!"-Add LP
                            "And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin is pride that apes humility"-Samuel Taylor Coleridge
                            Oh ye of little fiber. Do you not know what I've done for you? You will obey. ~Cerealman for Prez.

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                            • #29
                              Originally posted by Cerealman View Post
                              Star why do I always find you arguing for giving black people an advantage and others a disadvantage?
                              It makes him feel good. It's what liberals are all about.
                              The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Giving black people an advantage and kicking everyone off the cliff is not equal in any way.
                                It just proves you can't please everyone and it's silly to try.
                                "Kahahaha! Let's get lunatic!"-Add LP
                                "And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin is pride that apes humility"-Samuel Taylor Coleridge
                                Oh ye of little fiber. Do you not know what I've done for you? You will obey. ~Cerealman for Prez.

                                Comment

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