I suspect the “getting it” versus “not getting it” is largely derived from different baselines. If you choose a social-normative baseline, “privilege” makes no sense, because what you’re really talking about is a lack of handicaps, and the implication that somebody is better off because they -aren’t- handicapped, rather than because of their own efforts (which somehow always gets suggested in privilege discussions), is offensive. If you choose a lower baseline, “handicap” is just offensive, because really, people who are better off than the baseline are enjoying a special status they refuse to acknowledge.
Personally, I find it a gross misuse of the word “privilege” to begin with, and a blatant attempt at connotation mining a word which had its connotative roots in its meaning of special legal rights enjoyed by a legally superior class. Its use in a non-legal context, to describe the absence of social or physical handicaps, was initiated in a deliberate attempt at mental subversion, to bypass rationality with the emotive appeal of a word. But then, I ascribe to a higher baseline of “normal.”
The English language is not homogeneous. It’s only useful among that set of people who agree with that meaning; considering this is also the set that agrees with you about your arguments, the word has no business being in any arguments meant to convince people you’re correct.
This reads like an attempt to say “words mean what me and my friends want them to mean” as a response to “it’s technical jargon with a particular and useful meaning”. I appreciate you don’t want the term to exist, but it still does.
A response to “It’s technical jargon with a particular and useful meaning” would have been “Technical jargon shouldn’t be used in arguing with the public.” That is not, in fact, the statement which I was responding to.
This is probably the wrong place to talk about language, but I encourage you to look up how language actually works in the wild, both among small cultures and large populations. You may find that your phrase: “words mean what me and my friends want them to mean,” is a surprisingly accurate description of language.
Yes, but that doesn’t mean “and therefore not what your friends and this substantially well-documented academic usage want them to mean”. I figured that bit was implied.
I suspect the “getting it” versus “not getting it” is largely derived from different baselines. If you choose a social-normative baseline, “privilege” makes no sense, because what you’re really talking about is a lack of handicaps, and the implication that somebody is better off because they -aren’t- handicapped, rather than because of their own efforts (which somehow always gets suggested in privilege discussions), is offensive. If you choose a lower baseline, “handicap” is just offensive, because really, people who are better off than the baseline are enjoying a special status they refuse to acknowledge.
Personally, I find it a gross misuse of the word “privilege” to begin with, and a blatant attempt at connotation mining a word which had its connotative roots in its meaning of special legal rights enjoyed by a legally superior class. Its use in a non-legal context, to describe the absence of social or physical handicaps, was initiated in a deliberate attempt at mental subversion, to bypass rationality with the emotive appeal of a word. But then, I ascribe to a higher baseline of “normal.”
I fear you are too late: it’s a meaning the word has in English now, and it’s one that’s actually useful.
The English language is not homogeneous. It’s only useful among that set of people who agree with that meaning; considering this is also the set that agrees with you about your arguments, the word has no business being in any arguments meant to convince people you’re correct.
This reads like an attempt to say “words mean what me and my friends want them to mean” as a response to “it’s technical jargon with a particular and useful meaning”. I appreciate you don’t want the term to exist, but it still does.
Where did you get that from? It’s not in evidence from the point you’re replying to.
A response to “It’s technical jargon with a particular and useful meaning” would have been “Technical jargon shouldn’t be used in arguing with the public.” That is not, in fact, the statement which I was responding to.
This is probably the wrong place to talk about language, but I encourage you to look up how language actually works in the wild, both among small cultures and large populations. You may find that your phrase: “words mean what me and my friends want them to mean,” is a surprisingly accurate description of language.
Yes, but that doesn’t mean “and therefore not what your friends and this substantially well-documented academic usage want them to mean”. I figured that bit was implied.
Arguably useful, but it has such a tendency to derail that I suspect it’s much more marginal than it really ought to be.
It’s technical jargon that escaped.