It seems more accurate to say "... people aren't using it to make your life worse."
Being yourself isn't a problem unless someone else decides to make it one.
this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2025
445 points (89.2% liked)
Flippanarchy
1035 readers
35 users here now
Flippant Anarchism. A lighter take on social criticism with the aim of agitation.
Post humorous takes on capitalism and the states which prop it up. Memes, shitposting, screenshots of humorous good takes, discussions making fun of some reactionary online, it all works.
This community is anarchist-flavored. Reactionary takes won't be tolerated.
Don't take yourselves too seriously. Serious posts go to !anarchism@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Rules
-
If you post images with text, endeavour to provide the alt-text
-
If the image is a crosspost from an OP, Provide the source.
-
Absolutely no right-wing jokes. This includes "Anarcho"-Capitalist concepts.
-
Absolutely no redfash jokes. This includes anything that props up the capitalist ruling classes pretending to be communists.
-
No bigotry whatsoever. See instance rules.
-
This is an anarchist comm. You don't have to be an anarchist to post, but you should at least understand what anarchism actually is. We're not here to educate you.
Join the matrix room for some real-time discussion.
founded 11 months ago
MODERATORS
True mostly, although some things may occur regardless of how other people treat you, like feelings of dysphoria from being transgender, since it's based on your own perception of yourself.
Of course, other people can certainly make it even worse.
This is a motte-and-bailey argument, in which one term has two definitions. You have the definition in the OP which gets brought out whenever someone argues against the idea of "privilege". It's designed to be hard to disagree with and so it just states the obvious. However, it's not the definition that people who talk about privilege actually use in any other context. Otherwise why would they talk about dismantling privilege? Or refuse to talk about the privilege of of anyone except straight/white/cis people (usually men)?
I don't like it when people make a controversial claim and then pretend that they aren't doing that if anyone challenges them, rather than defending the claim.
This is really the only definition I’m aware of. What do you imagine these other people mean then?
I think that in other contexts, they present privilege as a property of groups rather than of individuals. So, for example, white people as a whole have white privilege and so any particular white person has it because of his race, not because of anything he personally has or has not experienced.
They also present it as something that the privileged groups have unfairly, at the expense of other groups. "When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression." If privilege is simply the state of not having your life made worse, why would it feel different from equality? Why would anyone want to dismantle it?
I don’t really understand how these ideas are in conflict with the meme here. You could be living a perfect life in a material sense but still be miserable if you are clinically depressed.
Privilege takes many forms. Some are just not being subject to oppression or violence that these other groups face, but some can also be benefiting from the oppression of those groups.
For example, having class privilege can mean benefiting from cheap labor to fulfill your desires. If a billionaire was deprived of all or most of the labor of the people who support their lavish lifestyle, I have to imagine this could cause them considerable distress, at least temporarily. In that case, I think it’s fairly easy to see how equality could feel like oppression.
Another example is that some people just like having a higher social status in society. It feels natural and empowering for them to be “above” other people in some sense. When this is upended, it feels bad.
But again, none of this implies that these people are living good lives in the current system. It just means they either benefit from it or aren’t harmed by it in some way, small or large. For most people, I think the benefits are small and may even be outweighed by other benefits they would receive in a more equal society. But there are those who would lose more, and they tend to be the loudest opponents of equality. They also tend to be wealthy and influential in the media and they influence many other people to adopt their viewpoints, even when those viewpoints aren’t in those people’s best interests.
All that said, this seems to be a common and recurring issue, so it may be that the concept of privilege needs reframing to avoid triggering people who don’t understand what it means. I am open to suggestions but we also need to be careful not to minimize or erase the struggles of oppressed people in our language.
load more comments
(1 replies)
And none of that holds a candle to privalige of being rich.
I mean, you've got the OJ paradox.
Did he get away with murder by throwing money at an army of top lawyers? Absolutely.
Did he get singled out by the LAPD and dragged through what was supposed to be a kangaroo court run by literal Hitler worshipping fascists? Also Absolutely.
Wealth doesn't completely immunize you against bigotry, particularly from the vile views of other richer people.
I remember one time I'd been doing yard work and had my hair wrapped up to keep dirt and some sweat out of it. I got in the car and went off to my (now) ex's house. The road ran past that country ass courthouse in the northern part of the county and I got pulled over just in front of it after going through a stoplight that I'd been stopped at so I couldn't possibly have been speeding. I was like 20 with the life experience of a fundie kid who was discouraged from leaving the house until 18 and stupid as FUCK and for some stupid fucking reason thought it would be cute and / or funny to lean out the drivers window and yell "what could I possibly have done???" The officer literally started stuttering and apologizing and told me "you just went around the corner a little too fast sorry maam drive safe" and got back in his car and sped off. I was so confused. Later it occurred to me that he suddenly realized I was white (I was also really cute to the extent that I'm kind of enjoying the reduction in attention now I've gotten older).
When I tell this story to other white people I say that I don't think I should've gotten my ass beat and honestly I probably shouldn't have gotten pulled over. But I was also being a little bit of a 20 year old little shit. And the moral of the story is that I think everybody should have the right to be a 20 year old li'l shit (just a little, obvs. There's limits). There are so many times in my life that I have just gotten through by sheer luck because someone gave me the benefit of the doubt. Somebody looked at me and saw a dumb kid fucking up and said,"look, that was kinda shitty of you, here's how you're supposed to handle that." It's literally saved my life multiple times over. I got my ass beat by the cops during a mental health crisis where somebody who wasn't some cute little white chick would've just got shot. I would not be living the life I'm living now if people hadn't been so kind to me (or at least gone easier on me than they might've otherwise).
And honestly I just think everybody deserves the benefit of the doubt at least most of the time. And it's not being ungrateful for what I have to say that (because that's usually how this conversation comes up). In fact, I think a lot of people are really ungrateful for how many times in their lives that someone looked at them and saw someone who needed help when something as small as a darker shade of skin could've meant they saw someone malicious.
Anyway that's my soapbox.
I really like the moral argument that everyone should be treated like a cute little white girl. It's perhaps a little sad to see that it's the straightest line between two points, so to speak.
Yeah. I know my audience. I've got a couple of innate qualities that kind of person listens to (although I actually got rid of the couple you're probably thinking of) and when you phrase it as humility and gratitude sometimes you can activate that little shred of goodness they learned in Sunday School at eight years old.
Hearing it like that makes it even sadder, because it shows in an easy way that people discriminate against each other without even being good off themselves.
One of the biggest scams liberalism pulled on us is to convince us that we exist in societies where we actually have "rights" and "freedoms."
In reality, we exist in a society that is hierarchically based on privilege.