Privileged Backlash: Myth and Reality

[Temujinn]

You're just afraid of losing your privilege.

Problematic? This hasn't been particularly bad lately on NSG, but it's here and it's present pretty much in any open forum for discussion online. I'd like to address the privilege narrative, particularly as employed both by and against conservatives; and the problems inherent in the common uses of the narrative.

First problem: We're on shaky ideological foundations in the first place with Privilege^TM.

"Privileges," plural and specific, are not a problematic conception. Some people have privileges that others do not. I have certain privileges for certain reasons. For example, I have good health insurance because I work for a university. I am not going to deny that there are certain privileges associated with memberships within certain classes.

Real privileges are always specific; and always contextual. There are, for example, a large number associated with being white in the United States. To identify whites as a generically "privileged class" in that context is not especially problematic in most contexts within the United States, because the privileges associated with being non-white are small in the US, and the disadvantages associated with being white are small in the US.

It is still fundamentally inaccurate, and there are situations in which assuming a white person is enjoying a net benefit from being white are inappropriate. It's a sloppy logic, in other words, that leads us to divide people into discrete classes and identify a privileged and an oppressed class over each dichotomous division; sloppy logic that provides a good approximation in some cases, but still sloppy logic.

This is especially problematic in the dialogue over gender, because female and male privileges are usually both non-trivial; there are few contexts in which men and women have anything resembling a unidirectional division of privilege and disadvantage. To say, generically, that someone is defending male privilege is to invoke a deliberately vague concept with minimal correspondence to anything meaningful - the difference between talking about privileges and Privilege^TM is enormous.

Second, there's the conscious/unconscious problem. Talking to someone about Privilege^TM as a subscriber to the patriarchy/privilege ideological system is a little like talking to someone about the Oedipal complex as Ziggy Freud.

I don't deny that there are specific privileges associated with class membership. Few people would deny that. I also go as far as carefully working to identify what these really are; which is something that few people do. In spite of this, I still regularly run into people on NSG claiming that I have no idea what it's like to be a woman, or am ignorant of the nature of "male privilege."

A cornerstone of the privilege/patriarchy narrative is that members of the privileged class are fundamentally incapable of understanding the plight of the oppressed class, and will deny that this "privilege" exists; and this is extended to members of the oppressed class who collaborate, with the idea that if they very consciously deny their privilege, it is because of unconscious desire to conform to the ideals of the oppressed class in order to reap material reward.

This is down-the-rabbit-hole logic when we start looking at the logic of its argumentation.

1. Assert class A is privileged.
2a. If contradicted by a member of class A, state that s/he simply cannot see the privilege.
2b. If contradicted by a non-member of class A, state that s/he is simply aping class A as a method of obedience to the hierarchy which makes A privileged.

The logic of the argument of referring to men as a privileged class can be applied equally well to women. Some MRAs are doing exactly that; asserting that men are and always have been the oppressed class; that this oppression is largely invisible to women and denied by men only in order to obey the hierarchy placing women in a superior position and insure their continued status within the current system. Sounds familiar? Some feminists have said the same thing.

It's an argument that relies fundamentally on subjective evidence, subjective reality, and asserts immunity to evidence. I've discussed this similarly with respect to blaming the patriarchy in this thread; ultimately, the assertion of and logic surrounding the "privileged/non-privileged" class dichotomy is similar. Argumentatively speaking, the claim that "you're doing this because you secretly want to defend the privileges associated with your membership in [privileged class] / want to be treated nicely by members of [privileged class] as a good little [oppressed class]" is an attack on the motives of the debater; and it's an attack that is immune, within the dichotomous "privilege" logic, to factual critique.

The appeal to motivation proffered is, in other words, utterly useless in and of itself; it does not add anything to an argument which analyzes the privileges / disadvantages associated with a class division, and it has no real weight to it without such an argument. Appeal to unconscious motivation rests entirely in the realm of cruddy arguments.

The fact of the matter is, we're all human; and if we put forth effort, we can do a pretty good job of understanding each other's problems. The problem is that most of us are unwilling to put forth the effort, and cling to our dogmas like life preservers in a storm; not that we are fundamentally unable.

That's not to say nobody is ever motivated by wanting to defend privilege.

People have been and are motivated by the prospect of losing privileges. This is quite visible. It's not some hidden unconscious motivation. This is quite simple to evaluate. You examine a specific privilege associated with the class; you see if they seek to defend that privilege; and then if they do, they're motivated by the defense of privilege.

A man worried that women getting the votes will dilute the effect of his vote - or a high-class woman worried that the entry of lower-class women would dilute her behind-the-scenes political power - is motivated by the defense of his or her privileges of political influence; a white worried about blacks "getting uppity" is worried about the loss of the white privilege of being viewed as a social superior; and a woman worried about more men getting custody of children in divorce is concerned with the loss of a female privilege.

We cannot demonstrate that anti-suffragette women were or were not motivated by an unconscious desire to be granted some measure of token benefits from men in exchange for their support for the establishment in a class struggle; but it is very easy to demonstrate that they were concerned that if women gained the vote, they would lose numerous of the special legal protections and exemptions they enjoyed as women. They wrote extensively and explicitly on the topic; it's documented.

Phyllis Schlafly's opposition to the ERA was not framed nor visibly motivated by the desire to gain benefits from men. She was herself a greatly privileged person who had exactly the life she wanted. Instead, her primary argument were that feminism would lead to the loss of female privileges; that women, if treated equally to men, would be drafted; that bathrooms would become unisex; et cetera.

However, even when it's real, the attack on motivations usually just doesn't work out for a progressive trying to advance reforms.

It works if your opponent is honestly in favor of inequality and willing to admit it; otherwise, it's no better than any other ungrounded appeal to motive.

So; the idea of dichotomous privileged/oppressed classes is sloppy logic, though occasionally useful. Some people are motivated by the loss of privilege.

Does advancing the claim that this is the backlash of privilege advance your cause?

Let's break this into cases.

1. Unconscious/secret motivations: Non-falsifiable assaults

You don't know what someone's unconscious motivations are, since you aren't telepathic. This is only going to advance your cause if it serves your cause to have the discussion move from material discussion of the issue at hand to discussion ad hominem, where we have moved from discussing issues to discussing people, their group identifications, and what bearing those group identifications have on the visibility of privilege, and secret unconscious motives that can never be proved.

So, if your cause is fundamentally conservative - that is to say, you wish to defend the status quo in its entirety - your cause is served by this method of argument. If your cause is progressive or reactionary - even a little bit, remember, if you desire anything other than the status quo, you should wish to engage in material discussion - this is not helpful.

If we buy into the logic of a privileged/oppressed dichotomy, the status quo is oppressive, and defending the status quo wholesale is a defense of privilege. This in turn means that you are positively served if and only if you are defending privilege yourself; which in turn means you're a rank hypocrite.

2. Conscious motivations: Attacking real values

So; what happens if you're debating someone like Phyllis Schlafly? She knows she's defending gendered privileges. She knows she's defending female-specific privileges; she knows she's defending male-specific privileges.

You decide to attack her by saying "Look, you have the motivation of defending the privileged class." [Feminists and MRAs both; yes, MRAs have attacked her for defending female privilege, it's inevitable if you believe in equality that you will attack Phyllis Schafly's position.]

She now has a choice:

A. Lie about her motives; in which case she has the opportunity to derail the conversation onto the topic of who is allowed to talk about things. If she's defending the status quo, this will work in her favor.

B. Openly admit her motive is in defense of privileges belonging to certain classes of people; which will help you alienate her from audiences that favor egalitarian principles. Which, again, presents a nice way to derail the conversation, here onto the topic of whether or not we really should be treating all classes of people equally.

C. Sidestep the question and say that even if she believed in equality, she would still not favor your policy, because there's a compelling reason for treating the classes differently. In which case you now look like a shitty debater - because you are being one - and you're back right where you started.

Remember, we're not talking about making an argument for how policy X affects class Y and class Z in such a manner as to exacerbate the inequality created by a specific privilege class Y possess and class Z does not. That would be talking about privileges, specific, not Privilege^TM as a dichotomous marking of classes into privileged and oppressed.

In other words, when we consider the larger picture, employing the "privileged backlash" narrative in a debate is really only useful if you are conservative, in the very literal sense: You're perfectly happy with the status quo and are content with debate that goes nowhere, convinces nobody, and runs off the rails away from the original topic at high speed.

I would say this should be avoided.

This doesnt actually appear to be inviting a discussion, it seems more a response to other posts in other threads...which ones I have no idea.

Its a blog post, coupled with definitions.

What exactly are you suggested we discuss, because I see only an advisory on HOW these things should be brought up in other posts in other threads.

[Tahar Joblis]

This doesnt actually appear to be inviting a discussion, it seems more a response to other posts in other threads...which ones I have no idea.

Its a blog post, coupled with definitions.

What exactly are you suggested we discuss, because I see only an advisory on HOW these things should be brought up in other posts in other threads.

You can agree, disagree, bring up examples, discuss examples, go off on tangents, all the usual sorts of things ... as has been happening for the past several pages of the thread.

You can even discuss who has what privileges. For example, women have the privilege [men have the disadvantage] of it [not] being acceptable for them to complain, about their situation individually or as a class. From this particular norm, you get things like this choice comment from Neo Art:

My criticism isn't that MRA movements address issues affecting men. My criticism is that the MRA movements aren't the least bit interested in addressing those issues like adults.

We have - and nobody familiar with the real facts of the matter can contest this - valid "men's issues" that need to be addressed. We have social expectations, stereotypes, and even discrimination within the application of the law that all ought to be addressed, because they present an injustice to men.

The problem is, it's not manly to complain. So when men complain, people shut them out. This hasn't changed one bit. We train men to not show signs of weakness. This is a major obstacle to achieving full equality; more conservative men tied to traditional gender roles, which as far as I am concerned includes Neo Art, strongly object to men sounding whiny, and try to shame men for complaining. Even if the complaints are, in fact, grounded.