And then there are privileged people who read alot and become allies.
Even the privileged have trials and tribulations. Crazy to see how few think 'if that was hard for me, just imagine how it is for those without my privilege ’
Unfortunately a tiny minority
I am privileged and haven’t had any real suffering, but still turned out fucked up. I can’t even imagine how hard people have it, so I will always be an ally.
‘Privileged’ isn’t something that you either are or aren’t, and it’s not productive to blanket state some are privileged and some aren’t.
Example: I’m queer and white. I have white privilege, but some people have straight privilege over me.
Every human suffers. Some people who objectively have more privilege than most will read something like this and think they can’t be part of ‘the privileged’ because they’ve suffered or they’ve had to work for things others were just handed, so therefore, they’re ‘the non-privileged’, and if they can handle it, the other non-privileged can, too.
Take, for example, many non-college-educated people in their 50s or 60s who managed to safe up for a house through hard work, and now think the young or immigrants are lazy because ‘if I managed it through hard work, why can’t they?’
The way the last comment frames it as ‘the privileged’ precisely plays into the problem it’s addressing.
I hate the term privilege because it sounds like you have something that other people don’t have. When in reality privilege is the lack of things.
White privilege means a person doesn’t have to worry nearly as much about police. Straight privilege means a person doesn’t have to defend their right to get married. Male privilege means a person doesn’t have to survive earning 30% less money for no reason.
Example: I’m queer and white. I have white privilege, but some people have straight privilege over me.
But then privilege is a consequence of the society, not the individual. You can be in a community that doesn’t discriminate, at which point neither applies. You can be in a community that overvalues queerness or undervalues whiteness.
The way the last comment frames it as ‘the privileged’ precisely plays into the problem it’s addressing.
People who bought homes in the 90s, when real estate was more in line with wages, benefited from the historical moment. You can call that privileged.
And people inherit property from family. That’s definitely a privilege.
But it all overlooks a broader system of cheap lending for mega-rich financial institutions, which allow groups like Blackrock and Berkshire Hathaway to become some of the largest landlords in the country.
Talking about “white privilege” or “millennial privilege” or “native born privilege” in the face of a historic real estate consolidation at the hands of a tiny aristocratic elite seems trite and misplaced.
You are commenting on Yann’s “third category” from the twitter image. It’s something of a satellite to the main point, which is that the major groups of people are divided by how they feel about others’ suffering. How do you feel about that?
Those who have suffered and decided that others must suffer too because “they turned out OK” or to “toughen them up” were broken by their suffering and that’s just deeply sad.
- (-) luck, (+) empathy
- (-) luck, (-) empathy
- (+) luck, (-) empathy
- Fayettistes
That last one is called a Class Traitor
Every revolution has a few.
And finally there’s “I think only people like me suffer so I want people who aren’t like me to suffer, for the sake of justice”
Don’t forget the “People suffering get attention so, IM SUFFERING!!!” group.
Fourth school: “All your social theory does is rationalize taking away my stuff, and I want to keep my stuff, so fuck you.”
The people who don’t want to acknowledge that the system causes suffering don’t want to do it precisely because they have suffered and continue to suffer, and seeing how big the fountain of suffering is would be too painful. It doesn’t make it past their brain’s guard dog.
The replier fails to see that suffering because they’re numbing their own suffering by hating people richer than them, and if they stopped, they’d have to deal with something they might not be ready for. It doesn’t make it past their brain’s guard dog.
Mine is I haven’t really suffered and I don’t believe others should either.
Although in truth my suffering is seeing all the other suffering, not that its even close to the same.
Fourth:
I’m winning the game, and because you’re not, sucks to be you.
that’s mostly category 2.
You achieved your winning by some amount of perceived suffering, you want others to suffer too in order to reach this winning state.
that goes in the third category, Pretending how others suffering is their own fault always since it couldnt possibly be caused by anything else.
Combine it with pulling up the ladder. Extra degree of active selfishness and exclusion.
