Some of you have FAR too much time in your hands. I cannot believe this thread is at 48 pages long. Some of these replies are like damn essays!!
"but in your 4th sentence you specifically mentioned the word psychotic and my nan once had a change of mind therefore I take offence!!"
Yar.
What kind of cynical sophistry is it that has you painting the victims in a humanitarian catastrophe as having an advantage over people with the highest standards of living in history? It looks like nothing more than hair-splitting pedantry in service of assuaging your own feelings of guilt.In what context? What measure? Whose holistic measure?
There are absolutely cultural frames of references that many people have in which being a Syrian refugee (or rather, a certain sort of Syrian refugee) is 'better' than being a decadent westerner.
Oh you poor, poor thing. The existential burden of people knowing that you are better off than almost everyone else in the history of the world must be terrible to bear. Those slackers in the DRC just don't appreciate how lucky they are not to face the terrible cruelty of other people saying things that make them feel kinda bad.Because of how it often gets used as assign moral blame and responsibility onto people for things they didn't do, and the guilt of which is used as leverage to emotionally push people to do what other people want them to do.
I did and I do.You posted something you presumably thought was witty and accurate enough to be relevant.
Recognition of broader trends does not automatically equate to "ignoring the individual." I can acknowledge climate change and work to attempt to ameliorate it while still recognizing that it's cold out today. A university can make diversity a factor in admissions decisions while still treating each applicant individually. I can see and apply statistical data on population groups without stereotyping. I can see a forest without losing the ability to see trees.Personally I was raised and taught that ignoring the individual in favor of group stereotyping
It is a metaphor for the broad social impact conferred by "race" in America. It assumes the audience is informed and aware (and honest) enough to appreciate the advantages without a dissertation on racial inequality.The privilege comic isn't about putting people on the same platform. It doesn't even make any case as to why 'the platform' is even desirable.
What kind of cynical sophistry is it that has you painting the victims in a humanitarian catastrophe as having an advantage over people with the highest standards of living in history?
The kind spends a considerable amount of time working with a focus on working to understand people with significantly different cultural viewpoints than my own.
Start with a ideology that condemns pretty much all technological and social advancement since the seventh century, factor in religious dogmas that focus on religious purity and hate the outsider, consider the heavenly rewards of being a good victim rather than an evil apostate, and you can find too many people who would consider a 'good muslim' victim in a humanitarian catastrophe a better person with better (afterlife) prospects than people with the highest standards of living in history.
Because, you know, they don't care about standards of living. Not in the way you do. Which is what is important when it comes to 'privilege' comparisons, because the privilege paradigm is an inherently comparative dynamic with no objective criteria of what is more or less important to the parties involved. Your description was greatly emphasizing the role of standards of living... but made not a mention of the eternity of the afterlife.
You, presumably, either don't care about that at all or don't put much weight on it. Others disagree, to the point that they'll kill tens of thousands of people without the correct sort of privilege. Your privilege comparison assessment is going to differ from theirs, and isn't particularly useful to understanding or addressing them.
I don't share such an ideology, and I had hoped it wouldn't be necessary to make that caveat, but I can recognize it's existence. The many different cultural viewpoints and priorities is an area I don't think privilege-theory is competent at capturing.
It looks like nothing more than hair-splitting pedantry in service of assuaging your own feelings of guilt.
Why on Earth would I feel guilty about other people killing other people when it is not only beyond my group's ability to resolve the conflict, but an intervention could quite easily make it even worse and lead to even more suffering?
The Ebola crisis in Africa is a much greater issue to feel guilt over than the wars in the middle east.
Oh you poor, poor thing. The existential burden of people knowing that you are better off than almost everyone else in the history of the world must be terrible to bear. Those slackers in the DRC just don't appreciate how lucky they are not to face the terrible cruelty of other people saying things that make them feel kinda bad.
Huzzah what?
I realize I'm not exactly showing your viewpoint of the world the deference you think it deserves, but this is just bazaar. And unreleated to the context of what you quoted.
As far as reducto ad absurdem's go, this is a great example. Past that, merely surprising in how hard you're missing the point of often widely differing evaluations of what is or is not what degree of privilege.
You mean it turns a complex issue into a question of "us versus them" with broad and inaccurate assumptions? It carries the implication that "white" people only have what they have because they stepped all over black people in the process and now cruelly refuse to uplift the helpless victim. Its a self serving racial narrative that demeans both parties. That's what I see when I look at that comic.It is a metaphor for the broad social impact conferred by "race" in America. It assumes the audience is informed and aware (and honest) enough to appreciate the advantages without a dissertation on racial inequality.
Something tells me the thread is gonna get locked soon.
I did and I do.
Congrats. You have an opinion, and the privilege of living in a society where people who disagree with it can accept your right to have it.
Recognition of broader trends does not automatically equate to "ignoring the individual." I can acknowledge climate change and work to attempt to ameliorate it while still recognizing that it's cold out today. A university can make diversity a factor in admissions decisions while still treating each applicant individually. I can see and apply statistical data on population groups without stereotyping. I can see a forest without losing the ability to see trees.
If you can, you haven't demonstrated it yet.
Slapping on perceived trends on all people of a group, whether those perceived trends are true are not and whether they are applicable to the individual or not, is ignoring the individual, and mis-applying statistical data on population groups without regards to caveats or contexts is a very common form of stereotyping.
It is a metaphor for the broad social impact conferred by "race" in America. It assumes the audience is informed and aware (and honest) enough to appreciate the advantages without a dissertation on racial inequality.
It also relies on inaccurate emotional appeals that wouldn't be caught by a more informed and aware and honest audience. It's a metaphor for people informed enough to know what it's implying, but not informed enough to catch the weaknesses of the presentation.
Or, in a more paternalizing way, it's aimed at 'people smart enough to have an opinion, but too dumb to catch it's weaknesses.'
Well, that's assuming that it was intended for people who don't already agree with it. Plenty of writers preach to the choir, aiming more for people who already agree and don't bother to care about the weaknesses.
And... with that, I depart for the next two days. If you'd like to end the conversation with the last word, feel free to say so in your response and I won't pick it back up again.
In what context? What measure? Whose holistic measure?
There are absolutely cultural frames of references that many people have in which being a Syrian refugee (or rather, a certain sort of Syrian refugee) is 'better' than being a decadent westerner.
First, I didn't say "better" or "worse." I said "easier" or "harder".
Second, let everyone here understand that denying the existence of privilege leads to declaring the life of a Syrian refugee as easier than the life of an American suburban teenager.
I want everyone reading this thread to understand what you're saying, here. No word games. Easy, simple, compact, one sentence, small words. Let's just all of us think about your statement for a second.
And here we can certainly agree to disagree, because there's just no road from reason to your stance. There just isn't. Like, if you would just walk away from your computer and drop the "oh God, I've GOT to argue!" emotional adrenaline, you'd be laughing at you harder than I am laughing at you.
As far as I can tell, Dean hasn't denied the existence of privilege, only acknowledged that the standards of what constitutes "privilege" is not objective.First, I didn't say "better" or "worse." I said "easier" or "harder".
Second, let everyone here understand that denying the existence of privilege leads to declaring the life of a Syrian refugee as easier than the life of an American suburban teenager.
I want everyone reading this thread to understand what you're saying, here. No word games. Easy, simple, compact, one sentence, small words. Let's just all of us think about your statement for a second.
And here we can certainly agree to disagree, because there's just no road from reason to your stance. There just isn't. Like, if you would just walk away from your computer and drop the "oh God, I've GOT to argue!" emotional adrenaline, you'd be laughing at you harder than I am laughing at you.
Something tells me the thread is gonna get locked soon.
I sure hope so... not that it will change much, of course. These days you can't go two pages in a game forum without tripping over some idiological smart a... I mean, discussion. 
Something tells me the thread is gonna get locked soon.
I'm actually surprised it lasted this long.
As far as I can tell, Dean hasn't denied the existence of privilege, only acknowledged that the standards of what constitutes "privilege" is not objective.
Yeah, think that through for a second.
The argument that "privilege is subjective" comes from "Syrian refugee life easier than American suburban teen life."
See, that's why I said: let's all think about that for a second. Like, really. Take a moment to decide what you care about, here. Reason or winning forum wars.
No decision necessary, what you describe isn't reason. That only seems like an absurd comparison to you because of your criteria by which you judge ease and privilege. There are other criteria in other cultural contexts with different values and priorities, some in which that comparison is accurate. Would you argue that there is only one "correct" set of values?Yeah, think that through for a second.
The argument that "privilege is subjective" comes from "Syrian refugee life easier than American suburban teen life."
See, that's why I said: let's all think about that for a second. Like, really. Take a moment to decide what you care about, here. Reason or winning forum wars.
No decision necessary, what you describe isn't reason. That only seems like an absurd comparison to you because of your criteria by which you judge ease and privilege. There are other criteria in other cultural contexts with different values and priorities, some in which that comparison is accurate. Would you argue that there is only one "correct" set of values?
"Correct"? No. Workable in the larger context of day to day life in western society? Yea.
Some of you have FAR too much time in your hands. I cannot believe this thread is at 48 pages long. Some of these replies are like damn essays!!
"but in your 4th sentence you specifically mentioned the word psychotic and my nan once had a change of mind therefore I take offence!!"
Yar.
May the best thesaurus win! 
This threads still going? "Sera was always quite the controversial girl, her appearance divided the community."
This threads still going? "Sera was always quite the controversial girl, her appearance divided the community."
"Sera. Sera never changes."
"Correct"? No. Workable in the larger context of day to day life in western society? Yea.
I have no problem with that, as long as people realize its a subjective standard.
You are confusing having an advantage with feeling like you have an advantage.Because, you know, they don't care about standards of living. Not in the way you do.
It's not unusual for people to feel guilt when they realize that they have an unearned and undeserved advantage over others. Then it's just a matter of what you do with that. For some people the solution seems to be to fight tooth and nail to deny that they have the advantages they have and to lash out with the accusation that people pointing out inequity are just trying to blame and guilt others.Why on Earth would I feel guilty about other people killing other people when it is not only beyond my group's ability to resolve the conflict, but an intervention could quite easily make it even worse and lead to even more suffering?
I have no problem with that, as long as people realize its a subjective standard.
Course it is, how could it be anything else? That's why I always exit conversations in which people try to shut others up by pointing them at their "privilege"... it's is just as helpful as saying: Shut up 'cause you are ugly...
It's not unusual for people to feel guilt when they realize that they have an unearned and undeserved advantage over others. Then it's just a matter of what you do with that. For some people the solution seems to be to fight tooth and nail to deny that they have the advantages they have and to lash out with the accusation that people pointing out inequity are just trying to blame and guilt others.
Which they still do, don't they?
It's not unusual for people to feel guilt when they realize that they have an unearned and undeserved advantage over others. Then it's just a matter of what you do with that. For some people the solution seems to be to fight tooth and nail to deny that they have the advantages they have and to lash out with the accusation that people pointing out inequity are just trying to blame and guilt others.
Its also not unusual for people that perceive others to have an advantage to lash out and blame them for it and guilt them for all perceived inequities as if they have control over it. It might fit your narrative better for that to only be in people's heads, but it isn't.
It is a metaphor for a broad and real statistical advantage coupled with the extremely common refrain used to oppose and decry affirmative action. The assumptions, broad, inaccurate or otherwise that you are reading into it would seem to be of your own inference.You mean it turns a complex issue into a question of "us versus them" with broad and inaccurate assumptions?
I'm sure that is what you see but that doesn't mean that is what you are looking at.It carries the implication that "white" people only have what they have because they stepped all over black people in the process and now cruelly refuse to uplift the helpless victim. Its a self serving racial narrative that demeans both parties. That's what I see when I look at that comic.
"Gosh stop interpreting the comic wrong"
...emphatically not what I am suggesting, advocating, promoting or hoping for. It's a bugbear, a straw man you have invented.Slapping on perceived trends on all people of a group, whether those perceived trends are true are not and whether they are applicable to the individual or not, is ignoring the individual, and mis-applying statistical data on population groups without regards to caveats or contexts is...
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