George: I think one of the fundamentally difficult parts of remaining an intellectual is to learn to make intellectual responses to anti-intellectual interventions. Much as one of the hardest things about pluralism is retaining a commitment to it even in the face of anti-pluralism. So an intellectual response to an anti-intellectual dismissal requires, in my view, taking it more seriously than it takes itself. It is not as if the statement, “You are privileged and should recognize that your comment or intervention requires privilege as its necessary predicate” cannot be an intellectual statement. In fact, there’s a huge, formidable, profoundly scholarly and/or intellectual literature that makes that statement in very serious ways. So even when that statement is not offered in that spirit, an intellectual engagement ought to substitute the best possible arguments for it in order to think about how to respond.

Let’s examine how the phrase is actually used in discourse. Overwhelmingly the purpose is simple: an ad hominem rejoinder to an expression of belief or (even more troublingly) a statement of fact that the speaker does not wish to engage with. It is communicating one of two messages: 1) “You, because of your personal characteristics, cannot have a valid thing to say nor do you know anything about this subject”; 2) “The argument you are making/about to make has been made by other people who have your personal characteristics, therefore I do not need to hear it again and may dismiss it without comment.” Both are profoundly anti-intellectual positions to take.

Is it being unfair/unkind of me to say that so far, as far as I can tell, what unites your nettle-grasping posts boils down to something like this?

“Here is a possibly legitimate, possibly important way of talking and of having discussions, but I’m really worried that too many of the people talking and discussing in those ways aren’t doing so from the right motives, or with the right frame of mind, or for (a) good (set of) reasons” ?

The suggestion that it is self-evident that out-groups are incapable of discrimination in any useful sense of that word is not well-considered. It assumes that privilege in a society is monolithic, that out-groups are never, anywhere empowered, and that what might be bullying or coercive in the in-group could never possibly have such effects, but must be judged as no worse than want of politesse.

You can see why I could doubt it, and suggest that real life is less supportive of advocacy. (Real life rarely is, of any advocacy.)

To take an example that I hope is easier to discuss because it is trivial: I live in a neighborhood with a highly-valued professional class, but which is home to black people (the race is historically significant) who do most of the blue collar work.

The service I get at the local McDonald’s is often surly, from people who are cordial to black customers. When my family was on the point of bankruptcy, the manager made clear there was no question of my daughter’s getting a job there. The restaurant was built as a political service to the black community. For excellent historical reasons, many of the staff are not happy to be of service to white people. I get it. And it’s not everybody.

These are people who are generally discriminated against in the larger society. But _in that building,_ they did have the power to discriminate — to deny customary service and badly-needed employment opportunities — against the stereotypical privileged class. They had cultural support, and political power.

You may say it’s minor; in the long run, it is. I’m sure some readers will insist that 18-year-old girls are fit objects of exemplary justice — we have no common ground for discussion. But even if the situation pleases you, it is absurd to say that it is not a socially-supported use of power against a class that in that moment has less. It is too pat to say that privilege is a monolith, and minorities incapable of responsibility for exercising it. Not only does it patronize, it refutes the objectivity that claims to put the question beyond discussion.

This article has been a help to me in my thoughts about the privilege I’ve encountered against my own disabilities. I get privilege. (yeahyeahyeah) I take it seriously. I am working hard on what it means in my life. This post has been eye-opening. Truly, thank you. But I find this one thing to be against my experience, on a point where clarity is crucial.

I don’t have a lot to say on this post in particular but I wanted to see if my general impression so far is correct. It seems that in each post you think that there are people doing the ‘problem action’ (for lack of a better phrase) in a non-problematic way but that in each case the use of this action is stretched and because a go-to pattern. Always use the increment. Always attack the soft target. Always police. Always ask for privilege to be checked. When this happens a major problem arises. I wonder if you have any idea how or why such actions (tactics?) move from careful, successful use to widespread problems? Is it just the nature of successful movement to be copied in ways that are unproductive? Is it frustration? Larger structual problem in American democracy and life that lead us with few percieved alternatives? Lack of ideas/imagination on the part of those wanting to change things?

Though I guess I could ask if that is even the right question or if the pattern I sketch out is even useful.

Anyways, thanks for so, looking forward to the rest!

There is another approach, which I wrote about when I saw the 100th head-on comment thread collision about privilege-checking: http://karlamclaren.com/how-to-be-a-privilege-traitor/

The goal is not so much to actually change anything, but to self-identify as an authority over what should be changed.

Sentence that immediately rendered the rest of the post suspect. “undeniably?”

I also agree with Foster’s point, but think it doesn’t explain the difference between the tea party and leftist politics as much as I wish it did. After all, the right has also done the ‘circular firing squad’ thing – RINOs, for instance – without it affecting their popularity very much. I fear that conservatism is just plain more popular than left-wing politics, for reasons that I don’t even notice – and probably should, if I’m really interested in understanding other people’s experiences.

The facts that left-wing activism is focusing on self-purification, that I feel safer talking politics anywhere else, and that many of us have come to believe that ‘social justice’ = scolding people on the internet, while disturbing to those of us who are already lefties, probably don’t even register with most of the people who write the left wing off.

And may I add that I am appreciating this series very much. When I read the first post in it I thought ‘YES!’ because I, too, have been wondering what the point was of having a blog when I didn’t dare say what I really thought in it. I’m very glad you decided to grasp the nettle.