Measuring 'Privilege'
Who has it worse? Me or you?
Is there any way of comparing one's level of “privilege” to another? Is there a rational metric we can take to correlate the amount of obstacles historically presented to me – a heterosexual asian 2nd-generation male of average height born and raised in New Jersey raised by relatively conservative immigrant parents and exposed to several years of diverse higher education in the Northeast now living in Brooklyn – compared to a any other infinite mixture of gender, sexuality, appearance, location, ethnicity, education, upbringing, and hyper-personal experiences?
Short personal answer: I don't believe so.
Source: Credo Magazine
At least, it is much more difficult to calculate with one metric in a diverse society. Overly generalized tropes are often thrown around that immovably brand one sexuality more privileged than another or one race more so than others. I believe that this is an enormous scapegoating trap that preys on anxiety and only results in the stripping of meaningful discourse.
I – as a heterosexual asian 2nd-generation male of average height born and raised in New Jersey raised by relatively conservative immigrant parents and exposed to several years of diverse higher education in the Northeast now living in Brooklyn – have experienced moments that I probably wouldn't have if I was 'created' another way. Maybe some of those experiences were more soul-wrenching than some that you've had and maybe they were less so in some instances.
Who knows. No one can. And yet we try so hard to do just that.
Source: Indieway
Today's Metrics
Even within the debate of privilege, there are very specific elements that come to the forefront over others. The conversations rarely include regional privilege, educational privilege, intellectual privilege, cultural privilege, economic privilege, or religious/non-religious privilege. By and large, the questions and investigations of privilege concern the following -
Race – Probably the most dominating consideration of intersectional privilege. Race, or sometimes simply the shade of our skin, directly correlates to how much today's society should “feel bad” for them and acknowledge a proportional amount of oppression.
Sex – There has probably never been such a popularized divisive relationship between the 2 sexes beyond now. A woman's “equality” is probably first in line to receive action when it comes to policy and social discourse.
Gender – A more subtle but increasingly complex aspect of sex is gender and gender-identity. In New York State alone, there are around 3 dozen acknowledged gender-identities beyond male and female (the traditional “binary” options). LGBTQAA+ (or sometimes an alternative acronym list) identity is often a spotlighted group and self-reportedly exist towards the bottom end of the privilege spectrum.
What do all of these have in common?
Source: Odyssey Online
The judgement of privilege in the modern race is almost 100% dependent on how you look. There are slight exceptions (i.e. whether you “pass”) when it comes to gender, but overall the measure of privilege is a measure of your outer appearance and your supposed affiliation.
Privilege-Blind
As you can imagine, a visual reliance on privilege can cause a number of issues, most of all the skimming over real individual issues in preference for theoretically wide ones. This also endangers groups higher on the 'privilege hierarchy' as their real challenges are ignored.
Invisibly underprivileged. Source: Reddit
In my previous post of Liberty vs. Equality, I explained that equality of outcome is regularly an infringement of liberty. Measuring privilege is the pathway to equality of outcome and an attempt to weigh one's worth against another.
I'm open to all discussion about this and I'm curious to hear you thoughts and experiences. My personal belief is that operating in a society that actively seeks to identify and dismantle privilege is one of anti-liberty. From an Asian-American perspective in a country where Asians are the “model minority” with the highest median income and educational levels, I see first hand how so many 2nd-generation Asians are completely dismissed due to their supposed privilege. The same misunderstanding happens at an international scale when South Korea is seen as some privileged development with enviable resources, when upon closer inspection the country suffers from unparalleled levels of depression, suicide, and lack of personal freedom. A macro perspective is often not helpful.
*Cover Image Source: Higher Perspectives
Feminism is to blame for the oppression Olympics. I am trans, from female to male, and they loved me when I would speak of the struggle of women but the minute I started talking about how men suffer and are abused these feminists started losing their mind.
Feminism can exist without oppression but it can't exist without an oppressor. They need to blame someone, in this case they are going for rich white middle age heterosexual white men. More specifically they are going after men because at the core of feminism is the belief that men keep women down to stay on top or ahead, which is false but it's what they believe. This belief inevitably causes resentment and it is why they are obsessed with the whole privilege thing.
Beautifully put - 'can't exist without an oppressor..'. My feeling here is that there are two feminisms - one, here in the West, was largely won, like anti-racism - these are no longer officially tolerated in any way in our laws and general public ethics. Private attitudes are not, and should not be, the subject of public policy. We are emerging culturally from 10,000 plus years of rigidly defined identity roles, inherited from older and smaller societies where rigid identity structures were highly advantageous - often life and death deciding. As these rigidities have dissolved in the transformed modern age, various 'privilege' battles have been fought - and actually won - to the benefit of both men and women. So women can express their traditionally masculine energies more freely, and vice-versa. The feminist battles of equality of opportunity under the law were won two generations ago. Attitudes are a different matter - but legislation directed against attitudes is always oppressive and authoritarian, people have a right to grow up at their own pace, and punishing them into growing is ridiculous and counterproductive. Too many contemporary 'feminists' just do not grasp this - these are the second 'feminism'; they project their own shadow wounds on to the world around them, and refuse to see the obvious struggles of those they target and victimise. This makes them inherently authoritarians - ironically clammering for a freedom they imagine they (and their pet victim groups) don't have, from their position of privilege and freedom.
This statement is very very interesting and I'll be unpacking it for a while. I've always wondered what it would take for feminism and other groups that inherently incorporate victimization to achieve its "goal."
I'm super interested in learning more about your personal experiences (if that's something you're willing to do) and understanding how trans communities are actually integrating around the world. My uncle is a surgeon and performs sex-change operations in Korea and he often explains to me some of the challenges of transgendered Koreans.
Thanks for the comment @coincentrado!
Great works, I wish you success. @hansikhouse
Good post.
Really interesting topic and one that I could probably discuss for hours. I think there are many different types of privilege, but what we do with them is ultimately how we should be viewed. It is a sad state we live in when people are constantly judged on things they have no control over rather than our intellectual merits.
This is probably the most troubling part of identity-politics, that we are being compartmentalized by factors we cannot control and are implicitly/explicitly disallowed to act upon factors that we can. The same short-witted thinking that led to underlying racism in previous generations seems to be creeping back in today's discourse.
Thanks for the great comment Jason!
White straight males has had and has so much privelige we should castrate and let them die out!@!@@@@+1
That does seem to be a prevailing message these days!
really interesting topic
I always dream to be in New Jersey one day !
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Very thought provoking post! Resteeming
Nicely written and presented. I'm curious, an article on privilege - yet you don't define it? I largely agree with your conclusions, but my sense is that looking precisely at what is meant by privilege rather quickly demonstrates its conceptual weakness in praxis - it is subjectivity dressed up as objectivity, easily done precisely because it isn't defined, its meaning is just assumed - and whenever that happens (mistaking subjectivity for objectivity) in social organisation, oppression inevitably follows. Db
Oh sorry, I failed to link my previous article that does define it. Hope this helps!
Thanks, that cleared it up. I'd like you to take a side actually (I think you do, but rather claim you won't) - this is heavily politicised, and those politicising it are clearly wrong and causing significant damage, particularly to the education of impressionable students, and potentially, medium-to-long term, to our culture as a whole. They need calling out on this, until the truth drowns them out. Db
I will increasingly take a side in later posts. I wanted to start from ground to round-out the broad spectrum and also deconstruct the atmosphere that is so prevalent around me in New York City. I agree that a great deal of bad things are happening but also want to make space to try and understand why this is occurring as a vehicle for social change.
gotcha, look forward to it. Db