I should never have downloaded The Guardian app

[a completely inoffensive name]

Then cut the "We are the World" BS.

When did I give that impression? I'm just pointing out the problems when you apply the idea of identity politics and the reality is that many people don't like to identify themselves by the categories they didn't choose to be in, many don't like to be categorized by anything at all. If messages are offensive based on the interpretation of the received and not on the interpretation of the sender, then it still makes no sense to argue for a blanket "privilege check" on certain groups since you are presupposing a background and characteristics of an individual based on traits that are not linked to those characteristics. That's the opposite of what the original argument was asking for in the first place.

[Husar]

It's an inherent problem of humanity I guess. Noone likes to be put into a category but everyone uses categories because that is what our brain does. I guess the biggest difference you can find is the number of categories people use.

[Montmorency]

it still makes no sense to argue for a blanket "privilege check" on certain groups since you are presupposing a background and characteristics of an individual based on traits that are not linked to those characteristics. That's the opposite of what the original argument was asking for in the first place.

You're missing my point, but I'll go ahead and address this different issue.

When SJWs are talking about privilege, they virtually never refer to individual privilege. Their notion of privilege is actually a group-based construct. So what any particular individual thinks makes no difference.

If whites are in power, and whites are the majority, and whites prefer other whites (in a broad sense) to non-whites, then there you have it: privilege. Now, as Subo liked to point out, privilege is contextual and fluctuates quite a lot

-

but that doesn't change the fact that, as an aggregate, whites have more privilege than anyone.

When you see it in those terms, this should go from objectionable and tendentious to really really obvious.

[a completely inoffensive name]

When SJWs are talking about privilege, they virtually never refer to individual privilege. Their notion of privilege is actually a group-based construct. So what any particular individual thinks makes no difference.

So we ignore the individual? We are not saying you need to be quiet because you are white, but because of whites in general?

If whites are in power, and whites are the majority, and whites prefer other whites (in a broad sense) to non-whites, then there you have it: privilege. Now, as Subo liked to point out, privilege is contextual and fluctuates quite a lot

So who is the arbiter of when and how much privilege has occurred? Is this a list that all need to satisfied, or any one condition? Non-hispanic whites are no longer a majority in the southwest. If the California State Assembly and Senate members reflected the current demographics, are California whites suddenly less privileged than the rest of American whites?

but that doesn't change the fact that, as an aggregate, whites have more privilege than anyone.
When you see it in those terms, this should go from objectionable and tendentious to really really obvious.

It is easy to recognize that whites (in America) are on average better off than the average non-white (with the possible exception of Asian-Americans). But how this necessarily leads to the policies advocated by SJW's make no sense.

[Ironside]

So we ignore the individual? We are not saying you need to be quiet because you are white, but because of whites in general?

So who is the arbiter of when and how much privilege has occurred? Is this a list that all need to satisfied, or any one condition? Non-hispanic whites are no longer a majority in the southwest. If the California State Assembly and Senate members reflected the current demographics, are California whites suddenly less privileged than the rest of American whites?

It is easy to recognize that whites (in America) are on average better off than the average non-white (with the possible exception of Asian-Americans). But how this necessarily leads to the policies advocated by SJW's make no sense.

Privilege often comes with massive blinder. If you never felt systematically negatively treated because of race/gender/sexual orientation/class, you're probably having privilege on it. Active positive treatment is more complex, since it can have different sources. The spoiled upper class is different from a woman taking advantage of flirting and courting in a place were women are rare because of general hostility.

I'm not sure were your stand on this really are, because it often end up with the "right to be rude/a jerk/an asshole without anybody complaining" and "since I don't see a problem (and most of the time aren't expected to see the problem either, since you aren't expected to be affected), there is no problem so stop talking about it, because it causes the problem".

While you do have the extreme ones that demands more, it mostly boils down to "don't be rude", "think before you speak" and "not everyone has lived like you, so they might have different experiences and thus some words are more offensive to them than to you". And the cases were some minority group are going to claim that this neutral word is now offensive is quite rare. Half to fully insulting words are way, way more common.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I don't browse the Guardian as much as I used to. I think they are trying to hard to be at the forefront as what they see as being some sort of gender revolution. Its getting a bit silly and they are starting to look like a parody of themselves. I'm sure I read titles along the lines of:

"A Feminist Perspective on the Ukraine Crisis"
"Are Gender-Specific Determinative Pronouns the Burqas of the West?"

I don't take it so seriously as a paper anymore.

[Ironside]

I don't browse the Guardian as much as I used to. I think they are trying to hard to be at the forefront as what they see as being some sort of gender revolution. Its getting a bit silly and they are starting to look like a parody of themselves. I'm sure I read titles along the lines of:

"A Feminist Perspective on the Ukraine Crisis"
"Are Gender-Specific Determinative Pronouns the Burqas of the West?"

I don't take it so seriously as a paper anymore.

Not from the author of the original article. Which are why I'm sort of wondering. Sure some of the rhetoric needs you to know and understand things like privilege, but I'm not seeing anything extreme with the article.

[Viking]

When you see it in those terms, this should go from objectionable and tendentious to really really obvious.

One problem is that technical correctness is just one part of the equation. When talking about humans, the statement "[remember] you are dealing with a human here" is technically always correct, but that doesn't mean it is neither relevant nor meaningful to bring up for a topic.

Another problem is that in actual application, 'privilege' tends to be applied on an individual level. If you take a random individual x from a statistically privileged group X (not defined by its privilege, but by some other characteristic), there is no guarantee that the privilege this group statistically has meaningfully applies to x. Yet this exactly how 'privilege' is very often applied: group X is privileged statistically, therefore x is privileged. This is a fallacy.

Conversely, not every member y of a statistically disprivileged group Y is disprivileged, and quite a few y might even become more privileged than the average x if members of Y are given benefits that are meant to counter their disprivilege.

There are, of course, certain groups that are defined by a privilege, such the rich. But even then, as per my first paragraph, this privilege is not always relevant; and it's not hard to see how it can be used dishonestly in rhetoric.

[Montmorency]

Yet this exactly how 'privilege' is very often applied: group X is privileged statistically, therefore x is privileged. This is a fallacy.

No. There is an assumption that you're missing, that you would have to confront in order to challenge the point.

The assumption is that group identity is judged towards an individual by other individuals, not by the individual itself.

If this assumption holds, then it is tautological to say that "group X is privileged statistically, therefore x is privileged".

[Viking]

No. There is an assumption that you're missing, that you would have to confront in order to challenge the point.

The assumption is that group identity is judged towards an individual by other individuals, not by the individual itself.

If this assumption holds, then it is tautological to say that "group X is privileged statistically, therefore x is privileged".

Not sure what you are trying to say (do you mean that group membership is decided by others?).

The only assumption made is that it has not been proven that the definition of the group leads to every member of the group being privileged due to circumstances, or - leaving strict logic - at least that the probability that a random x is privileged is very high.

[Montmorency]

That is, given

group membership is decided [or minimally, confirmed] by others

then every member of a group has the same global privilege and everyone who has that global privilege is a member of that group.

Now, you could problematize that by introducing the contextual fluidity I briefly mentioned earlier, since if individuals decide group membership then it must also be the case that in a given situation a particular individual's privilege will be 'processed' given other individuals' own valuations and socializations. What this means is that privilege cannot be unmitigated or pragmatically homogeneous; furthermore, there is deep interaction between the differing privileges of group identities/statuses within a single individual. To put it succinctly, then, the consequence is that any SJW precept that all members of some group benefit or are harmed/disadvantaged in the exact same way by their privilege can't really hold.

However, it should even so be very unusual for the confluence of white malehood privilege to provide no benefit, even in a context featuring an encounter with Black Panther feminists.

Ultimately, the most useful application of the concept of "privilege" is in highlighting the difference of experiences ad valuations between groups. For instance, it might be tendentious for SJWs that whites experience racial bigotry, but not when it is acknowledged that this bigotry has very little 'sting', so to speak. The most useful way to bring it up, then, is to use it simply to point out why the grievances of other groups might not seem to make sense to them (i.e. the highest-status group-members).