
On Nerd Entitlement - davidgerard
http://www.newstatesman.com/laurie-penny/on-nerd-entitlement-rebel-alliance-empire
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snowwrestler
Inherent in the concept of "privilege" is that it is invisible to the person
who is privileged. Social privilege is an elevated norm, but since it's a
norm, it's extremely difficult for the privileged person to see it as anything
other than normal.

By analogy: A person who has grown up in Denver is 5,000 feet higher in
elevation than a person who grew up in New York. But to each person, their
subjective experience is of a relatively flat city with tall buildings; their
subjective experience is each that their city is normal. There's nothing
remarkable about things we experience every day of our life.

It's only when they travel to each other's cities that they can tell a
difference: the Denverite breathes easily in both places; but the New Yorker
might get short of breath in Denver.

Unfortunately, it's impossible to travel into each others' lives the way that
we can travel into each others' cities. So the only way we can learn about the
different norms of each life is to listen to other people talk.

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dalke
While you have good and valid points, I think some privilege is visible.
Members of royalty likely know they are privileged, and in unusual
circumstances. In a racially segregated community where white people own
things and have money while black people work as the help and are poor then
the differences in privilege are pretty visible, and part of the norm.

~~~
snowwrestler
That's a good point and I agree with you. However I think maybe such visible
privilege is a less difficult problem, because it is more visible.

In recent western cultures there's a tradition that the most obviously
privileged--like royals, national politicians, celebrities, rich CEOs--also
have an obligation. In the U.S. that often takes the form of philanthropy
(see: Bill Gates); in monarchies it takes the form of public leadership and
service.

I think the most pernicious and difficult social problems come when people are
privileged but don't realize it and/or don't believe that it's true. Thus they
feel no particular need to change anything.

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cafard
There is also the problem of the highly privileged imagining that their level
of privilege extends down to those who resemble them superficially. If the
white guy at the grocery counter wishes to lecture me, another white guy,
about white privilege, OK. If a member of the Rockefeller family wishes to, I
might well resent it.

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mbubb
Nice quote - "Finding out that you’re not the Rebel Alliance, you’re actually
part of the Empire and have been all along, is painful."

Conceptually agree but feel something is missing in the argument.

