Let’s play the privilege Lottery!
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“The sons of Protestant ministers . . . one recognizes by the naive certainty with which, as scholars, they take their case already to have been proven when they have merely stated it heartily and warmly; they are thoroughly used to being believed, as that was part of their father’s craft. A Jew, on the other hand, in keeping with the characteristic occupations and the past of his people, is not at all used to being believed. Consider Jewish scholars in this light: they all have a high regard for logic, that is for compelling agreement by force of reasons; they know that with logic, they are bound to win even when faced with class and race prejudices, where people do not willingly believe them. . . . Incidentally, Europe owes the Jews no small thanks for making its people more logical, for cleanlier intellectual habits . . . . Wherever Jews have gained influence, they have taught people to make finer distinctions, draw more rigorous conclusions, and to write more clearly and cleanly.”—Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1888)
We hear a great deal about privilege these days—as well we should. After all, privilege is an excellent predictor of whether or not you’re going to succeed in life, and privilege is distributed unequally in our society—indeed, increasingly so. Though no amount of privilege can guarantee that you’ll succeed, the more privileged you are, the more opportunities you get. It’s sort of like buying lottery tickets at the dépanneur. You can buy a 100,000 scratch tickets and still win nothing. But, chances are, even if you don’t win the grand prize, if you’ve got 100,000 tickets, you’ll probably win something.
At any rate, you’ll have a much higher chance of winning something than the guy who can only afford to buy 10 scratch tickets. Still, it’s important to note that strange and improbable things can happen to the underprivileged just as they can happen to the extremely privileged. For instance, just as it is possible for someone with 100,000 tickets to win nothing, it’s possible for someone with just 10 tickets to win everything. But it’s not bloody likely!
He can do everything right and yet still fail.
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George W. Bush’s circuitous path to the presidency is a case in point. Bush was a screw-up and a royal pain in his family’s ass well into his late twenties. He messed up again and again and again (e.g., with DWI charges, cocaine abuse, alcoholism, womanizing, etc.), and yet he was still able to turn things around and come out on top. By contrast, a poor kid from Baltimore—born to a teenage, drug-addicted, African-American mother—has very little privilege. He gets very few of the proverbial lottery tickets. He can do everything right and yet still fail. What’s more, if he screws up even once, he can lose everything. For instance, a major cocaine-possession charge could land him in prison for the better part of a decade. When he gets out—if he gets out—his chances of getting a decent job as an ex-con will be severely circumscribed for years to come.
Inequality is a serious problem which threatens the very fabric of our way of life. We ignore it at our peril. Even so, there are disadvantages associated with privilege, real and measurable disadvantages, which we hear about but rarely these days. A notable exception to this rule is to be found in Amy Chu and Jed Rubenfeld’s The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America (2014). Chu and Rubenfeld identify three groups—Mormons, Jews, and Chinese—that have consistently out-performed White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) in the last three decades. Their explanation is as follows: exceptionally successful groups—such as the Mormons, the Jews, and the Chinese—inculcate all three of these traits in the young: a sense of superiority, a sense of insecurity, and a well-developed capacity for impulse control.
They’re no longer taught how to control their impulses—not consistently.
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Though they get a great deal, there’s one thing that wealthy WASP men—by far the most privileged group in our society—don’t get these days: and that’s THE TRIPLE PACKAGE. Sure, they’re taught to see themselves as better than everyone else (especially if they go to private school). But they’re no longer taught how to control their impulses—not consistently, or as a matter or course. Alas, the description of the Protestant work ethic—made famous by the great sociologist Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905)—applies to precious few Protestants these days; it does, however, apply to a whole lot of Mormons, Jews, and Chinese. Still, impulse control isn’t the wealthy WASP man’s weakest suit. His lowest scores are to be found in the second category: sense of insecurity.
The wealthy WASP man has a profound sense of entitlement. He’s been brought up to believe that everything is going to come to him rather easily. He’s optimistic about his future. It’s all going to fall into place somehow, though he couldn’t really tell you specifically how or why. Truth be told, he doesn’t stress about it too much; he’s pretty chill about the whole thing. And that’s why he’s probably destined—at best—to live a lackluster life of middling mediocrity. It’s precisely here, according to Chu and Rubenfeld, that privilege ceases—to some extent—to be a privilege, because it makes you lazy, passive, arrogant, smug, sloppy, and complacent.
This will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the works of Nassim Nicholas Taleb. In Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (2014), Taleb argues that living things (biological systems) don’t just tolerate stress; they actually need it just to maintain the status quo. For instance, as N.A.S.A. discovered a few years ago, much to their chagrin, the bones of astronauts in a space station quickly degenerate when they’re deprived of the regular stress provided by the Earth’s gravitational field. Likewise, my friend’s muscles atrophied rather severely whilst she was recovering from surgery. Three months on a hospital bed—with very little movement—caused the muscles in her legs to degenerate so much that this former marathon runner could barely walk when she was discharged from the hospital. I remember it vividly: we had to practically carry her to the car.
Self-satisfied elites become, well, beach bums.
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If it’s true that we need a certain amount of stress merely to maintain the strength that we presently possess, it’s equally true that we need to increase the amount of stress on a biological system if we want it to get stronger (e.g., by lifting weights). What’s more, as Taleb puts it, society’s winners (the rich and powerful) are often “punished by privilege and comfort”—viz., by depriving “the most privileged people in the world” of necessary stressors we inadvertently harm them. Alas, muscles that are unused atrophy, bones that are unused become brittle, underutilized immune systems grow weak, and self-satisfied elites become, well, beach bums.
—John Faithful Hamer, From Here (2015)
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Feature image courtesy of the author’s BuzzFeed quiz result
I agree with John. We have some of the best opportunities to anyone in this country. Many like yo fall back in victim hood rather than try and prove themselves to be a failure. Working hard is important but working smarter is what gets you ahead. I have always felt bad about folks who never really pay their debts to society after they complete their sentence. Its changing but it’s slow.
Those who reject the notion of differential privilege often do so because they (correctly) observe that many privileged people are miserable and/or unsuccessful. But this is to miss the point entirely: life sucks for everyone, more or less, regardless of how much privilege you have. We all have to deal with our own mortality; death is coming for us all, and it’s coming for everyone we love too. We’ll have to deal with the death of many of the people we love the most; we’ll have to come to terms with boatloads of loss and all sorts of suffering. That’s… Read more »
@ John Faithful Hame I disagree. “privilege” theory has been around for quite a long time. In the old days, privilege used to be called blessings. People were called to help those less fortunate than themselves (check your privilege) out of duty to God and your fellow human beings. Now it’s to atone for the past sins of your ancestors or Y chromosome. Blessings where looked at from the place of the person who had them. Privilege is looked at from the standpoint of the person who doesn’t. That’s why I believe there is a dearth of compassion for people… Read more »
“Funny thing about “privilege” is that we could point to many minority, low income, men who have gotten many chances to succeed. (high school, college, and pro athletes) after having messed up” It is a lot harder these days to succeed when you get mess up. Due to harsh laws being passed due to the war on drug, 9/11, and increase police misuse of these laws, it is impossible to get rid of your criminal record and start fresh plus employers taking the jobs overseas or importing workers. It is easier for a poor Swede to climb up the economic,… Read more »
It’s somewhat amusing when people who talk about privilege try to explain away the instances when white, male, cis, people don’t succeed. The answer you always get is well they didn’t work hard. When people who don’t have privilege succeed, the answer always is they worked hard. Kind of like the acupuncturist who told people that acupuncture could help you lose weight and suggested a regiment of acupuncture and diet to his customers. Sometimes the answer is a lot less complicated. Funny thing about “privilege” is that we could point to many minority, low income, men who have gotten many… Read more »
Whenever I hear someone say, “Check your privilege”, I ask how that actually helps people as opposed to doing tangible things like giving blood, volunteering, or donating to a food bank. Saying it may feel good, or stroke your own ego, but that is all it does. George Bush is a perfect example of the Peter Principle of rising to your own level of incompetence.
It helps by asking people to be conscious and aware of what is going on around them.
and don’t forget that your free blood is the #1 money maker for the Red Cross, it is a big business 🙂
Unlike “check your privilege”, giving blood can save someone’s life. Deeds, not words.
I really want to believe that there are people who use check your privilege in that manner but frankly I think those numbers are dwindling. These days its pretty much a proxy for, “Your opinions, experiences, etc…. are different from mine. You are blinded by SOMETHING that keeps you from realizing that your opinions, experiences, etc… are wrong and mine are right.”
Its not being used to encourage people to stop and think about others Its largely used to shut down the conversation and declare oneself the “winner”.