“Privilege” is not really a well-defined concept, but in its most cogent and consistent version, it doesn’t really have much to do with suffering at all. It’s a rather confusing way of referring to a “biased point of view”. Saying that “Person A has privilege” wrt. some issue is a claim that A’s overall observations and experiences are unrepresentative, and so she should rely on others’ experiences as much as on her own.
It’s similar to the argument that truthful Bayesian debaters “can’t agree to disagree”, except that in the real world, humans don’t generally have a clean separation between “different priors” and “different experiences”. So, if your priors seem to be somehow different from others’, this should make you suspect that something is amiss, because we don’t really know of a good reason to reject common priors, if only as an abstract goal.
From this point of view, Scott Aaronson’s claim that “privilege” doesn’t apply to him is not very meaningful. If anything, a better argument would be that the SJWish folks who have pattern-matched his comment to “Self-proclaimed nice guy(TM) complains about ‘feminists’, reveals his boorish, entitled attitudes” are showing privilege wrt. nerdy, socially awkward straight males who are expected to navigate the not-altogether-trivial problem of how to interact with women both socially and romantically in a way that’s respectful of everyone’s autonomy.
It’s a rather confusing way of referring to a “biased point of view”. Saying that “Person A has privilege” wrt. some issue is a claim that A’s overall observations and experiences are unrepresentative, and so she should rely on others’ experiences as much as on her own.
That’s not quite correct; I think it’s best to start with the concept of systematic oppression. Suppose for the sake of argument that some group of people is systematically oppressed, that is, on account of their group identity, the system in which they find themselves denies them access to markets, or subjects them to market power or physical violence, or vilifies them in the public sphere—you can provide your own examples. The privileged group is just the set complement of the oppressed group. An analogy: systematic oppression is the subject and privilege (in the SJ jargon sense) is the negative space.
The “biased point-of-view” thing follows as a near-corollary because it’s human nature to notice one’s oppression and to take one’s absence-of-oppression for granted as a kind of natural status quo, a background assumption.
Next question: in what way did Aaronson’s so-called wealthy white male privilege actually benefit him? To answer this, all we need to do is imagine, say, a similarly terrified poor black trans nerd learning to come out of their shell. Because I’ve chosen an extreme contrast, it’s pretty clear who would have the easier time of it and why. Once you can see it in high contrast, it’s pretty easy to relax the contrast and keep track of the relative benefits that privilege conveys.
“Privilege” is [...] a rather confusing way of referring to a “biased point of view”.
It’s more than that. It refers to unearned advantages that prevent you from empathizing with other people’s experiences.
For example, you don’t usually think how special it is that you can read and have internet access, but compared to the rest of the world, it’s a privilege; acknowledging your class privilege means not forgetting about the lots of people who through no fault of their own don’t have those luxuries.
If you’re cisgendered, you have the privilege of not being constantly asked to explain your appearance and behavior to others; acknowledging your cis privilege means not forgetting that other people have it harder than you.
If you live in any part of the Americas, you benefit from the systematic displacement and extermination of Native cultures. Even if you didn’t personally steal a Native’s land, acknowledging your Western privilege means not forgetting that your current standard of life is partly dependent on a historic crime.
Even if you didn’t personally steal a Native’s land, acknowledging your Western privilege means not forgetting that your current standard of life is partly dependent on a historic crime.
No more than your existence depending on some paternal ancestor raping some maternal ancestor, which stochastically also happened. Being neither a believer in kin liability*, and skeptical at best about collective guilt (for past events, no less), why should I—or you, or anyone—feel responsible?
(As an aside, just for the hypothetical: The Natives that were displaced could well be those tribes who previously themselves successfully displaced/replaced other tribes, no? Back the guilt ball rolls, to the first microbe. At least it can’t be triggered, not having a brain and all. Then again, that’s no protection for Tumblristas either.)
* Excluding otherkin liability, because otherkin are the epitome of what’s wrong with the world. When anything wrong happens somewhere in the world, the closest otherkin should be put on a public show-trial, incarcerated and/or have his/her rotary blades removed.
True, collective guilt is a wrong idea. Acknowledging privilege is not about apologizing; it’s rather about not taking your good life for granted. You’re not supposed to feel liable for the many ancient crimes that gave you your present advantages, but you’re expected to be mindful of those who still suffer as a consequence.
You’re not supposed to feel liable for the many ancient crimes that gave you your present advantages, but you’re expected to be mindful of those who still suffer as a consequence.
What does this being mindful look like, in concrete terms?
Here is a short list of things I do and some things I have heard suggested:
Consume media created by members of disadvantaged groups
Notice when members of disadvantaged groups are absent from a particular setting. Ask yourself or others why this might be the case, and whether this serves the desired objectives, or if there’s even clarity on what the desired objectives are. (Example: holding a meeting on a college campus that lacks public parking.)
If you attend professional conferences, ask organizers what they are doing to ensure all presentation proposals get fair consideration. (If you’re so inclined, ask what they are doing to support diversity among presenters.)
Update towards the belief that, regardless of your good intentions, members of disadvantaged groups may interpret certain things you say uncharitably. Avoid saying such things, or take pains to avoid offloading your discomfort onto them. For examples of things to watch out for, you may find it helpful to read Derailing for Dummies.
Some addenda:
If you have experiences that you feel make you better able to empathize with members of a disadvantaged group, great! When you are with members of the disadvantaged group, do not bring up these experiences unless you are specifically asked.
Do not claim to share an identity with members of the disadvantaged group unless explicitly and enthusiastically invited to do so. Even so, this dispensation is good only when you’re among the people who extended it to you. (Example: a campus LGBTQA group whose members are persistently and vocally excited about the “and allies!” bit.)
If you feel someone is stereotyping you unfairly, consider whether you are the target audience for this piece of media. Do not reply, with a possible exception being for when you are being named specifically (and not referred to by group identity.)
Carefully consider the relative magnitude of a wrong you have suffered before airing righteous indignation, even as a group bonding activity.
I’m not sure that the case for being mindful only to those who suffer because of an ancient crime from which you benefit and not towards those who suffer for other reasons is strong.
I rather focus on the people who suffer and how to alleviate suffering than go to much into the historical background of why they might suffer.
The subthread had arrived at a discussion on the definition of privilege, and that’s the context where I made those comments. That context required a focus on a specific subset of injustices. I didn’t mean or expect it to be understood as a dismissal of all other types of injustices.
Determining suffering and determining injustice are two different strategies.
I can emphatize with a person who’s suffering without going into an intellectual analysis of whether his suffering is just or injust.
If you think in terms of injustice you need to presume that you understand the plight of the other person well enough to be able to tell whether they are suffering justly.
That means you won’t emphatize with people who suffer for reasons you don’t understand.
I can see a person suffering without understanding why they are suffering. I don’t need to judge the suffering as right or wrong in oder to emphatize.
Knowing about the fact that native Americans get slaughtered hundreds of years ago doesn’t allow me to determine whether a native American I’m meeting is suffering. It’s quite irrelevant to the question of whether the specific person is suffering.
I do much better by actually engaging in empathic listening. Instead of judging a person based on what happened in the past I can interact with them in the present.
“Privilege” is not really a well-defined concept, but in its most cogent and consistent version, it doesn’t really have much to do with suffering at all. It’s a rather confusing way of referring to a “biased point of view”. Saying that “Person A has privilege” wrt. some issue is a claim that A’s overall observations and experiences are unrepresentative, and so she should rely on others’ experiences as much as on her own.
It’s similar to the argument that truthful Bayesian debaters “can’t agree to disagree”, except that in the real world, humans don’t generally have a clean separation between “different priors” and “different experiences”. So, if your priors seem to be somehow different from others’, this should make you suspect that something is amiss, because we don’t really know of a good reason to reject common priors, if only as an abstract goal.
From this point of view, Scott Aaronson’s claim that “privilege” doesn’t apply to him is not very meaningful. If anything, a better argument would be that the SJWish folks who have pattern-matched his comment to “Self-proclaimed nice guy(TM) complains about ‘feminists’, reveals his boorish, entitled attitudes” are showing privilege wrt. nerdy, socially awkward straight males who are expected to navigate the not-altogether-trivial problem of how to interact with women both socially and romantically in a way that’s respectful of everyone’s autonomy.
That’s not quite correct; I think it’s best to start with the concept of systematic oppression. Suppose for the sake of argument that some group of people is systematically oppressed, that is, on account of their group identity, the system in which they find themselves denies them access to markets, or subjects them to market power or physical violence, or vilifies them in the public sphere—you can provide your own examples. The privileged group is just the set complement of the oppressed group. An analogy: systematic oppression is the subject and privilege (in the SJ jargon sense) is the negative space.
The “biased point-of-view” thing follows as a near-corollary because it’s human nature to notice one’s oppression and to take one’s absence-of-oppression for granted as a kind of natural status quo, a background assumption.
Next question: in what way did Aaronson’s so-called wealthy white male privilege actually benefit him? To answer this, all we need to do is imagine, say, a similarly terrified poor black trans nerd learning to come out of their shell. Because I’ve chosen an extreme contrast, it’s pretty clear who would have the easier time of it and why. Once you can see it in high contrast, it’s pretty easy to relax the contrast and keep track of the relative benefits that privilege conveys.
It’s more than that. It refers to unearned advantages that prevent you from empathizing with other people’s experiences.
For example, you don’t usually think how special it is that you can read and have internet access, but compared to the rest of the world, it’s a privilege; acknowledging your class privilege means not forgetting about the lots of people who through no fault of their own don’t have those luxuries.
If you’re cisgendered, you have the privilege of not being constantly asked to explain your appearance and behavior to others; acknowledging your cis privilege means not forgetting that other people have it harder than you.
If you live in any part of the Americas, you benefit from the systematic displacement and extermination of Native cultures. Even if you didn’t personally steal a Native’s land, acknowledging your Western privilege means not forgetting that your current standard of life is partly dependent on a historic crime.
No more than your existence depending on some paternal ancestor raping some maternal ancestor, which stochastically also happened. Being neither a believer in kin liability*, and skeptical at best about collective guilt (for past events, no less), why should I—or you, or anyone—feel responsible?
(As an aside, just for the hypothetical: The Natives that were displaced could well be those tribes who previously themselves successfully displaced/replaced other tribes, no? Back the guilt ball rolls, to the first microbe. At least it can’t be triggered, not having a brain and all. Then again, that’s no protection for Tumblristas either.)
* Excluding otherkin liability, because otherkin are the epitome of what’s wrong with the world. When anything wrong happens somewhere in the world, the closest otherkin should be put on a public show-trial, incarcerated and/or have his/her rotary blades removed.
True, collective guilt is a wrong idea. Acknowledging privilege is not about apologizing; it’s rather about not taking your good life for granted. You’re not supposed to feel liable for the many ancient crimes that gave you your present advantages, but you’re expected to be mindful of those who still suffer as a consequence.
What does this being mindful look like, in concrete terms?
Here is a short list of things I do and some things I have heard suggested:
Consume media created by members of disadvantaged groups
Notice when members of disadvantaged groups are absent from a particular setting. Ask yourself or others why this might be the case, and whether this serves the desired objectives, or if there’s even clarity on what the desired objectives are. (Example: holding a meeting on a college campus that lacks public parking.)
If you attend professional conferences, ask organizers what they are doing to ensure all presentation proposals get fair consideration. (If you’re so inclined, ask what they are doing to support diversity among presenters.)
Update towards the belief that, regardless of your good intentions, members of disadvantaged groups may interpret certain things you say uncharitably. Avoid saying such things, or take pains to avoid offloading your discomfort onto them. For examples of things to watch out for, you may find it helpful to read Derailing for Dummies.
Some addenda:
If you have experiences that you feel make you better able to empathize with members of a disadvantaged group, great! When you are with members of the disadvantaged group, do not bring up these experiences unless you are specifically asked.
Do not claim to share an identity with members of the disadvantaged group unless explicitly and enthusiastically invited to do so. Even so, this dispensation is good only when you’re among the people who extended it to you. (Example: a campus LGBTQA group whose members are persistently and vocally excited about the “and allies!” bit.)
If you feel someone is stereotyping you unfairly, consider whether you are the target audience for this piece of media. Do not reply, with a possible exception being for when you are being named specifically (and not referred to by group identity.)
Carefully consider the relative magnitude of a wrong you have suffered before airing righteous indignation, even as a group bonding activity.
I’m not sure that the case for being mindful only to those who suffer because of an ancient crime from which you benefit and not towards those who suffer for other reasons is strong.
I rather focus on the people who suffer and how to alleviate suffering than go to much into the historical background of why they might suffer.
I didn’t say or imply that.
If you would advocate to be empathic towards everyone then why speak about those ancient crimes?
The subthread had arrived at a discussion on the definition of privilege, and that’s the context where I made those comments. That context required a focus on a specific subset of injustices. I didn’t mean or expect it to be understood as a dismissal of all other types of injustices.
Determining suffering and determining injustice are two different strategies.
I can emphatize with a person who’s suffering without going into an intellectual analysis of whether his suffering is just or injust. If you think in terms of injustice you need to presume that you understand the plight of the other person well enough to be able to tell whether they are suffering justly.
That means you won’t emphatize with people who suffer for reasons you don’t understand.
That’s part of the point I was trying to make. Privilege blinds you to the suffering of people who you may not even know are suffering.
I can see a person suffering without understanding why they are suffering. I don’t need to judge the suffering as right or wrong in oder to emphatize.
Knowing about the fact that native Americans get slaughtered hundreds of years ago doesn’t allow me to determine whether a native American I’m meeting is suffering. It’s quite irrelevant to the question of whether the specific person is suffering.
I do much better by actually engaging in empathic listening. Instead of judging a person based on what happened in the past I can interact with them in the present.
Expected by whom?
By the standards of basic decency.