Seeking a better word for privilege

by Doctor Science

Last week the elder Child of Science and I were at Worldcon, about which I will have lots more to say later. Anyway, while I was there I had a very good conversation with a gracious gentleman of the Old School of SFF Fandom (Print Fanzine Division). One of his points of dismay with Fandom These Days is that many people (such as myself) don't use our legal names, so he doesn't know where we live or "where we come from", socially as well as literally.

Now, this attitude is what we call "privilege", these days: not noticing that things that aren't difficult or a problem for you may be not at all easy for other people. The communities I "grew up in", fannishly speaking, were majority female and heavily queer (LGBTA+ of all stripes). Such people cannot assume that using their legal names and revealing their physical locations is innocuous.

This is not just because of the Internet, either. When I got my first phone, back in the 1970s, I had to decide how to have my name listed in the telephone book (unlisted costs more). Being a single woman, I naturally listed myself in the form "Doe J", not "Doe Jane", to reduce the chance I'd get harassing phone calls or active stalking. That was what we all did: the expectation that you could be publicly known by your first name was a "privilege" reserved for men, or for women under cover of men -- "Doe John & Jane".

Now I've decided that I really hate calling an expectation of safety and respect "privilege", and I can see why it gets some people's back up. "Privilege" often sounds like the opposite of "right", as in "Having a phone while you're a teenager is a privilege, not a right." Yet the core part of "having privilege" is "being able to count on being treated with basic respect" -- such as not being harassed or stalked in public spaces. These things *should* be rights, given to all people as a matter of course, not "privileges" awarded to a few.

Is there another word than "privilege" to use, then, to describe things some people experience as rights and which ought to be rights, but which aren't in practice always easily available to other people? To say to someone, "No, you can't just judge by your own experience, it isn't universal -- but it should be."

Poverty and Privilege by British painter Heywood Hardy (1842). That's exactly how "privilege" sounds: snooty, elevated, and condescending even when good-hearted.

Comments

[Countme-In]

This thread needs more limericks:

https://sofarfromheaven.com/category/limericks/

[Ugh]

Anything but puns....

[Nous]

Also, McT, consider that most academics are quite capable of looking at the decisions handed down from governors in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Arizona and of deciding which political party to support based entirely on the principle of economic and academic self-preservation. Brewer, Walker, and Rauner are all playing their own version of identity politics based on their own favorite version (Carl Schmitt's political theology, not that any of them likely know who Schmitt was).

[cleek]

a ratty old man named Trump
treats the press like a bunch of chumps
though his statements, racist
and his politics, basest
when he claps, the reporters all jump

[bobbyp]

Politics is kind of perpendicular to engineering, though. It's composed mostly of opinion

Politics is all about who gets what. Now one might say who gets what is "just a matter of opinion", but you cannot deny that it is a contest that is just about always conducted with a degree of deadly (and all too frequently literal) earnestness that far surpasses any that might come up in any field of engineering.

To write it off as so much "chatter" is simply not being realistic.

[bobbyp]

oops....parens should be prior to "deadly". I blame my editor.

[liberal japonicus]

McT, a lot of water under this particular bridge, and a lot of others address your questions to me, but if you want to re-ask them so I know what is what, go ahead. I still don't think you understand anything about intersectionality, but when you go into Wikipedia carrying the burden of your own prejudices, it's not really a surprise.

I would point out that by inverting what I write in terms of time, you are implying that you are being called a racist*. At least you put a time and a date so it's pretty clear, but if it gets jumbled in your head, that's not my fault you get butthurt.

*I've said several times here that we are _all_ racist to some extent, but I'm going to have to make this to cut and paste here because it doesn't seem to get across.

[bobbyp]

Hey, McKinney,

Refer to this current academic debate found in the American Journal of Sociology.

Is it liberals vs. conservatives? Liberals playing pattycake? Meaningful? Meaningless?

If only there were as much meaningful debate in corporate boardrooms instead of discussions amongst rich people about how to screw others or screw each other.

[bobbyp]

looks like another open tag fine coming my way.

[cleek]

corporate boardrooms are all about merit.

"the academy" is a giant conspiracy to silence "conservative" voices at the altar of po-mo intersectional love-seat machine privilege plantation politics.

that's what Anne Coulter told me anyway. before she got ripped to shred by people who don't live in the wingnut bubble.

[cleek]

BOLD!

[cleek]

shred. just one shred. there's not enough intellectual meat there for more than one shred.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

I must be a really bad liberal or something, since I *still* have no idea what intersectionality is.

Something to do with traffic engineering? If so, can we make left turn arrows (right turn for you, GFTNC) either twice as long, so that there's enough time to lean on the horn to wake up the idiot in front of you, so you can BOTH make it through, or MUCH shorter, so that said idiot wakes up to late, tries to make it through, and gets T-boned or ticketed or both.

[russell]

"In summary, the word Doc S is looking for is advantage. "

i think that's about right.

I'm not sure people need more justification than that to be angry.

I have no opinion about the academy or the social sciences. it's been a long time since university days, things may have changed.

what i do remember, ca. 1980, is that all of the newly minted graduates couldn't wait to put all that hippy sh*t behind them and go make some lovely green money.

it was morning in america, damn it!

i also kind of remember that the professional academics were the most astute bureaucratic infighters i'd ever seen.

"rough and tumble" doesn't even come close.

it actually put me off of academia as a career.

anyway, the social jihadis just don't keep me up at night. people grow up and their perspectives broaden and change. mine did, probably yours did too.

[cleek]

I *still* have no idea what intersectionality is.

me either. it's fun to type, though.

[Marty]

"I *still* have no idea what intersectionality is."

I always get a random view of hovering over a frog with a dull scalpel when I read it.

[Slartibartfast]

Politics is all about who gets what

It's all about who gets what issues.

Who actually gets what is territory that the government should be minimally involved in, is my preference.

Because once you give government the power to decide that, they may start making choices you are no longer quite so happy with.

Which has already happened, I would wager.

[hairshirthedonist]

It's all about who gets what issues.

What's the point of issues? Politics may not be the only thing that determines who gets what, but that doesn't mean it's not about that.

[wj]

Politics isn't the only thing that determines who gets what. And who gets what isn't the only thing that politics is about (see arguments about prayer in schools, for just one example).

Do we really need to go down this particular rabbit hole?

[Countme-In]

"Because once you give government the power to decide that, they may start making choices you are no longer quite so happy with."

That goes for whatever societal institution is left, in the absence of government, to decide who gets what. Once you remove the power of government from the process, for example property rights, the choices made by whomever is left may not be so satisfying either.

Given their druthers, without government intervention (in other words, our intervention), hospitals, or most of them, would leave uninsured and underinsured patients lying on the lawn outside the emergency room doors.

True, the entire mess is hit and miss, trial and error.

Regarding intersectionality, I think one of Diane Keaton's characters proposed the practice to one of Woody Allen's characters in one of their early movies together. Maybe it was spelled differently, but whatever followed looked like fun.

However, I'm going to put aside some time to do my due diligence on the real item cited here to learn what's up.

But I'm a little like the Three Stooges, whenever I hear someone come forth with specialized jargon, no matter the field or discipline ("Doctors, let us now resection the medulla oblongata", or "Counselors, can we agree that this is a case of actio non datur non damnificato", I go into an embarrassed display of pointless repetition of the jargon at hand and desperate gesticulation, some snapping of the fingers and the shaking of whomever's hand is available, as if I'm getting down to the task at hand, then I rush off to read the handbook.

When Barney Fife was asked if he could sing a cappella, he said, "Sure, I know that one, and launched into a finger-snapping version of "a cappela, a cappela" to the tune of "La Cucuracha".

[Countme-In]

"Do we really need to go down this particular rabbit hole?"

Lewis Carroll has already been invoked, so take this little pill and have at it.

[hairshirthedonist]

(see arguments about prayer in schools, for just one example)

Rabbit holes aside, who gets to do what and where and in what manner and whether officially sanctioned or not is part of who gets what. "What" isn't just stuff or money.

[hairshirthedonist]

Regarding intersectionality, I think one of Diane Keaton's characters proposed the practice to one of Woody Allen's characters in one of their early movies together. Maybe it was spelled differently, but whatever followed looked like fun.

Did they go into that little phone-booth thingy after playing with the orb? The intersectionalitron, was it?

[Ugh]

Politics is about who gets to decide the rules of the game.

Of course, it often boils down to the golden rule - he who has the gold makes the rules.

[Slartibartfast]

What's the point of issues?

They're hills to defend.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Hey if our RW friends want more prayer in school, I have a cunning plan:

MORE AND HARDER MATH EXAMS

Guaranteed to work. But no, with few exceptions they're too chickens!t and ideologically PC to go along with it.

[jeff]

Intersectionality: My wife asked me if it was true that blacks were left behind to fend for themselves after Katrina because they were black?
I claimed they were left behind because they were poor.

[john (not mccain)]

The poor were left to fend for themselves. The poor blacks were shot for fending.

[russell]

actually i think pretty much everyone was left to fend for themselves. some folks just had more resources to bring to the table than others.

and, the blacks were shot for fending.