Comment on How possibly?
usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 19 hours agoI also hate the term privilege because it implies those people have something they shouldn’t have, i.e. they need to be brought down, when really it’s that other people have a disadvantage. This makes the ones labeled privileged defensive because it seems like an attack instead of a call for help.
Everyone should be at least at the same level as the “privileged” ones.
I think you’re running into a little cognitive dissonance. In this scenario, the privilege is what is causing the disadvantage in the first place. You cannot be privileged in a truly equal society, therefore you can’t elevate everyone to a privileged class, you can only equal the playing field.
It’s a zero sum game.
I was with you most of the way but you lost me here. Some of the biggest privileges for cis straight white males is that they don’t have to deal with racism, sexism, and bigotry over who they are and who they love. That’s not a zero sum game. We can all have that privilege. That privilege isn’t what causes bigotry.
There are some privileges that would be lost, like being preferentially hired by racists. But for the most part we’re fighting in large part for equal good treatment. It’s not a zero sum game.
cis straight white males is that they don’t have to deal with racism, sexism, and bigotry over who they are and who they love
How does that racism materially present itself? With racism it’s by decades of economic support and government programs aimed at creating wealth for a certain ethnicity over another. With sex it’s decades of reinforcing gender roles and denying educational opportunities for women. Rules about race mixing were created to deny a dilution of the ethnic collective of political power.
That’s not a zero sum game. We can all have that privilege. That privilege isn’t what causes bigotry.
I would argue that it shouldn’t be a privilege, but a universal right.
But for the most part we’re fighting in large part for equal good treatment. It’s not a zero sum game.
I think you might want to look up the definition of privilege. You can’t be privileged unless someone is being disadvantaged. If you want to get rid of privilege then what you’re saying is you want everyone to be treated the same.
I’ve tried to bring this up before, but I personally don’t believe everyone should be treated the same.
In an ideal world where we had an objective way to measure this, I would prefer that we lived in an absolute meritocracy.
Some people are a better fit for a particular purpose than other people due to racial advantage, gender advantage, physical advantage, age advantage, or any other number of advantages that they have been gifted by the miracle of life and talent, or that they have earned from dedication and struggle.
In my ideal world, if you remove all of the things that are not important to the task at hand, and only judge based on who is most fit for the task at hand, then the people who are the best fit would get the most appropriate reward for their capacity.
As a nonwhite male IT worker, my ability to lift heavy objects is secondary to my ability to fix a printer. If a female can fix printers better than I can, she’s more than welcome to have the job at the same pay they would have paid me for it.
Godeeem
guy@piefed.social 18 hours ago
Yes, and that’s the point with male privilege? It’s an advantage without any other reason than the holder being male.
Raising women to hold the same privilege is the same as removing it for men, if everyone has it it’s not a privilege.
I think this is why the equality in society moves forward too slowly, not necessarily because men don’t want women to have equal rights and opportunities, but as you said the privileged are defensive because they don’t want to lose their privileges.
LurkingLuddite@piefed.social 17 hours ago
Stop argum’ing semmantics and understand what they’re saying! This is about communication, not being technically correct.
FFS, your post is exactly portraying the problem.
You even use a much better word: equality. Yet argue in favor of using a less effective word… Truly sad.
Lemmynated@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
Stop arguing semantics and accept their argument of semantics!
FFS the cognitive dissonance is dizzying.
Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
This is about being technically correct
guy@piefed.social 14 hours ago
Semantics are important and I do understand what they are saying. Did you read my comment?
This for example. Male privilege is something men shouldn’t have since it’s based entirely on gender. So the privilege teeds to be abolished for equality to happen.
And as I said, of course men gets defensive when its problematized and put in the spotlight, you may support equality but who wants to lose their advantages? 🤷
Ironically enough your comment also focused on the semantics instead of the issue at hand.. :)
LurkingLuddite@piefed.social 8 hours ago
No, it’s really not a privilege, espwcially for any non-rich, not cleaned up white man. It’s what should be the minimum respect people are given for being conscious beings.