Christian Privilege

[GrandizerII]

Privilege is a sociological term that shouldn't be dismissed just because it annoys you. And one doesn't have to be Christian in order to have a bias against the concept of privilege in general.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege_(sociology)

Awareness of privilege

Some academics highlight a pattern where those who benefit from a type of privilege are unwilling to acknowledge it. American sociologist Michael Kimmel describes the state of having privilege as being "like running with the wind at your back", unaware of invisible sustenance, support and propulsion. The argument may follow that such a denial constitutes a further injustice against those who do not benefit from the same form of privilege. One writer has referred to such denial as a form of "microaggression" or microinvalidation that negates the experiences of people who don't have privilege and minimizes the impediments they face.

McIntosh wrote that most people are reluctant to acknowledge their privilege, and instead look for ways to justify or minimize the effects of privilege stating that their privilege was fully earned. They justify this by acknowledging the acts of individuals of unearned dominance, but deny that privilege is institutionalized as well as embedded throughout our society. She wrote that those who believe privilege is systemic may nonetheless deny having personally benefited from it, and may oppose efforts to dismantle it. According to researchers, privileged individuals resist acknowledging their privileges because doing so would require them to acknowledge that whatever success they have achieved did not result solely through their own efforts. Instead it was partly due to a system that has developed to support them. The concept of privilege calls into question the idea that society is a meritocracy, which researchers have argued is particularly unsettling for Americans for whom belief that they live in a meritocracy is a deeply held cultural value, and one that researchers commonly characterize as a myth.

In The Gendered Society, Michael Kimmel wrote that when privileged people do not feel personally powerful, arguments that they have benefited from unearned advantages seem unpersuasive.

[paulpablo]

Muslims getting away with shit if non muslims couldn't get away with in a local bakery is by definition an example of a specific group being privileged in that bakery.  That is the definition of privilege, a specific group of people which have an advantage/immunity available to them.

The subject and definition of privilege being used..is, again, not an issue of what happens at the local bakery.  It doesn't matter whether or not muslims are somehow privileged at a muslim bakery.  

I didn't say that the subject and definition of privilege being used is an issue of what happens at a local bakery.  What happens at a local bakery won't change the definition or subject of privilege.

I said the Muslims at the local bakery are by definition privileged if they're privileged.  And by definition they would be privileged if given an immunity that non Muslims don't have.

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Muslims getting away with shit if non muslims couldn't get away with in a local bakery is by definition an example of a specific group being privileged in that bakery.  That is the definition of privilege, a specific group of people which have an advantage/immunity available to them.

The concept of privilege is not a comment on whether or not someone has it better than someone else at a specific bakery.  It's the fact that my expectations for a broad range of scenarios outside of some bakery where they like me can be derived from my possessing the privileged attribute....or being perceived as possessing it.  I am perceived as a white christian male in a country with white privilege male privilege and christian privilege.  I get the benefits of the parts that don't accurately describe me anyway.

Concepts aren't comments on anything, they're abstract ideas.

The idea is that some people have immunities or advantages that another group doesn't have.  Again to repeat myself, that definition does fit perfectly well with people who have advantages over other groups in a bakery.  There's no geographical extent mentioned in the definition of a privilege.  It can be within a household, a country, or a bakery.

[henryp]

Being in a majority usually has privileges. There are plenty of exceptions, I'm sure. But I think as a generality, it's true.

[paulpablo]

Privilege is a sociological term that shouldn't be dismissed just because it annoys you. And one doesn't have to be Christian in order to have a bias against the concept of privilege in general.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege_(sociology)

Awareness of privilege

Some academics highlight a pattern where those who benefit from a type of privilege are unwilling to acknowledge it. American sociologist Michael Kimmel describes the state of having privilege as being "like running with the wind at your back", unaware of invisible sustenance, support and propulsion. The argument may follow that such a denial constitutes a further injustice against those who do not benefit from the same form of privilege. One writer has referred to such denial as a form of "microaggression" or microinvalidation that negates the experiences of people who don't have privilege and minimizes the impediments they face.

McIntosh wrote that most people are reluctant to acknowledge their privilege, and instead look for ways to justify or minimize the effects of privilege stating that their privilege was fully earned. They justify this by acknowledging the acts of individuals of unearned dominance, but deny that privilege is institutionalized as well as embedded throughout our society. She wrote that those who believe privilege is systemic may nonetheless deny having personally benefited from it, and may oppose efforts to dismantle it. According to researchers, privileged individuals resist acknowledging their privileges because doing so would require them to acknowledge that whatever success they have achieved did not result solely through their own efforts. Instead it was partly due to a system that has developed to support them. The concept of privilege calls into question the idea that society is a meritocracy, which researchers have argued is particularly unsettling for Americans for whom belief that they live in a meritocracy is a deeply held cultural value, and one that researchers commonly characterize as a myth.

In The Gendered Society, Michael Kimmel wrote that when privileged people do not feel personally powerful, arguments that they have benefited from unearned advantages seem unpersuasive.

It's really the opposite case with me.  I believe that unearned advantages are so abundant that it's mostly over simplistic to attach some adjectives to the word privilege and make a phrase up.

The average person you talk to in day to day life didn't earn having a functional brain, their height, attractiveness, lung capacity, healthy bones, a lack of countless terminal diseases and cancers, their parents, their birth place, their race, their hair, their metabolism, eyesight, the time in history they're born, their voice, body proportions, body fat percentage, fast twitch muscles, financial inheritance, the list goes on....

I am very very privileged. Even if I have a terminal illness I'm not aware of or something that will kill me in the next month or so, I still have the privilege of having lived to be 33 and that's a longer lifespan than I imagine the majority of humanity has had so far. In terms of happiness being an advantage I'm probably parts of thousands of groups/demographics you could slot me into who have had an advantage in achieving being happy. Being alive in a western country, with money, in the year 2018 is pretty good. I've had all kinds of sex, all kinds of drugs, and I can watch netflix while sitting at my desk in work.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I once tried to take advantage of Irish Privilege, then found out there was no such thing.  To whom can I write to correct this hideous injustice?

Boru

[GrandizerII]

Privilege is a sociological term that shouldn't be dismissed just because it annoys you. And one doesn't have to be Christian in order to have a bias against the concept of privilege in general.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege_(sociology)

It's really the opposite case with me.  I believe that unearned advantages are so abundant that it's mostly over simplistic to attach some adjectives to the word privilege and make a phrase up.

The average person you talk to in day to day life didn't earn having a functional brain, their height, attractiveness, lung capacity, healthy bones, a lack of countless terminal diseases and cancers, their parents, their birth place, their race, their hair, their metabolism, eyesight, the time in history they're born, their voice, body proportions, body fat percentage, fast twitch muscles, financial inheritance, the list goes on....

I am very very privileged.  Even if I have a terminal illness I'm not aware of or something that will kill me in the next month or so, I still have the privilege of having lived to be 33 and that's a longer lifespan than I imagine the majority of humanity has had so far.  In terms of happiness being an advantage I'm probably parts of thousands of groups/demographics you could slot me into who have had an advantage in achieving being happy.  Being alive in a western country, with money, in the year 2018 is pretty good. I've had all kinds of sex, all kinds of drugs, and I can watch netflix while sitting at my desk in work.

Yet, it seems to me that this is just a different way of denying the existence of privilege by saying almost everyone is privileged anyway in some way, so what's the fuss? Well, the fuss is it's very dismissive and doesn't acknowledge that certain groups of people are systemically disadvantaged across various domains due to lack of privilege.

[paulpablo]

It's really the opposite case with me.  I believe that unearned advantages are so abundant that it's mostly over simplistic to attach some adjectives to the word privilege and make a phrase up.

The average person you talk to in day to day life didn't earn having a functional brain, their height, attractiveness, lung capacity, healthy bones, a lack of countless terminal diseases and cancers, their parents, their birth place, their race, their hair, their metabolism, eyesight, the time in history they're born, their voice, body proportions, body fat percentage, fast twitch muscles, financial inheritance, the list goes on....

I am very very privileged.  Even if I have a terminal illness I'm not aware of or something that will kill me in the next month or so, I still have the privilege of having lived to be 33 and that's a longer lifespan than I imagine the majority of humanity has had so far.  In terms of happiness being an advantage I'm probably parts of thousands of groups/demographics you could slot me into who have had an advantage in achieving being happy.  Being alive in a western country, with money, in the year 2018 is pretty good. I've had all kinds of sex, all kinds of drugs, and I can watch netflix while sitting at my desk in work.

Yet, it seems to me that this is just a different way of denying the existence of privilege by saying almost everyone is privileged anyway in some way, so what's the fuss? Well, the fuss is it's very dismissive and doesn't acknowledge that certain groups of people are systemically disadvantaged across various domains due to lack of privilege.

It seems like a conclusion based on circular logic to say people are systematically disadvantaged because of a lack of privilege.  Being disadvantaged is a lack of privilege.  Saying people are systematically disadvantaged because of a lack of privilege is kind of like making the point that people are short because of a lack of vertical height.

Saying almost everyone is privileged in some way is true, and is the exact opposite of denying privilege exists. It's the opposite of being dismissive, it's acknowledging the vast variables that privilege consists of.

Whatever fuss is made I think should be in proportion to someone's experience is in relation to a particular unjust prejudice.  No one really makes a fuss over privilege in and of itself unless the cause of it is seen to be unjustified prejudice.

It wouldn't really make much sense for me to make a fuss over Muslim privilege that happens in Muslim countries or Christian privilege that happens over in Texas.  My background is working class northern England.  Whatever religious prejudice I've encountered has been minor and very variable from situation to situation.  If they were major than those individual instances of religious prejudice is what I would make a fuss over, but not some vague overall notion of Christian privilege that has had very little if any detrimental affect on my life as an atheist.
I suppose that's very specific to my own situation, I don't have much power in terms of persuading people in other parts of the world how to act, making a fuss over the unjust privilege I see around me is pretty much the extent I can affect unjust privilege in the world.

[The Grand Nudger]

Privilege isn't reasoned into existence, circularly or otherwise.  It's observed in society.  It makes sense to "make a fuss" over privilege if or when it expresses itself as a burden, which it does, despite your insistence that you've never felt it..as hilariously ironic as that is.

[paulpablo]

Privilege isn't reasoned into existence, circularly or otherwise.  It's observed in society.  It makes sense to "make a fuss" over privilege if or when it expresses itself as a burden, which it does, despite your insistence that you've never felt it..as hilariously ironic as that is.

I didn't say it was reasoned into existence I said it's circular logic to say that people are disadvantaged because of a lack of privilege.

Saying the reason for something existing is because it exists is circular logic and doesn't come close to actually talking about the reasons behind it existing.

It's saying "People are short because they lack height"  vs "People are short for many reasons, genetic and environmental"

[The Grand Nudger]

I didn't say it was reasoned into existence I said it's circular logic to say that people are disadvantaged because of a lack of privilege.

It's a tautology.  If one group maintains a privilege then they have the advantage of that privilege.  That doesn't mean that's -why- the outgroup is disadvantaged in any larger sense, ofc not, no....but they always will be, so long as one group maintains privilege.

Saying the reason for something existing is because it exists is circular logic and doesn't come close to actually talking about the reasons behind it existing.

It's saying "People are short because they lack height"  vs "People are short for many reasons, genetic and environmental"

Paul, is it remotely possible that you're really not talking about the thing that anyone else is talking about?