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The science fiction author, blogger, and all around cool guy Jon Scalzi has written a post that is making the rounds right now on the social media, and with which I agree, "up to a point." And it's an interesting argument, albeit written for the wrong purpose, and in a context that annoys me enough that I am writing this entry.
The main point is this, with which I don't quibble overmuch:
So far so good. It's a nice analogy. Mr. Scalzi has a young daughter for whom this analogy is particularly apt, since like all kids in this cohort she's played a computer game or two, and she's playing the cynical game we all have to play in the school system right now. but that is not the reason he wrote this post. A few lines from above this paragraph:
Well, nobody has any cause to clutch his pearls over the word "privilege." In modern English usage, it's a perfectly acceptable word to describe the advantages and disadvantages we get by accident of birth. Nevertheless, Scalzi wrote this to address a set of people who don't buy this argument when dressed in other terms, and treats them like they merely don't get it. That's no way to talk to anyone.
That's part of it, anyway. The other thing is that in this analogy of life as a computer game, other things are not treated as privileges, that really ought to be. I'm of course referring to college admission, which is undoubtedly a privilege. The admissions process really does map nicely to a game, and certainly gets gamed mercilessly. It's a process by which we mark some people as eligible for a decently paying office job as opposed to those who get to do scutwork for bad wages. There is no way for a process like this to be anything but unjust and capricious, and so it's best to just tell every kid who makes into a college that he is privileged and must earn that privilege after the fact.
Of course, college freshmen are never told that. Everywhere, they're told "congratulations! you've earned this ticket" instead of being told "we've decided to wager that you'll make good use of the privilege we're giving you instead of some other kid, so don't prove us wrong." And that is why the country is full of privileged upper class straight white males who object to being called "privileged" and develop right of center leanings.
But owing to my policy of always taking every opportunity to rag on the left if it is apropos of ragging on the right wing, here's another case of people not realizing they were privileged:
"It's the dirty little secret of higher education," says Mr. Williams of the New Faculty Majority. "Many administrators are not aware of the whole extent of the problem. But all it takes is for somebody to run the numbers to see that their faculty is eligible for welfare assistance."
The people in this article are all privileged. They got into grad school (privilege). They got an opportunity to study something for its own sake (a privilege I never in my life thought I could get for myself). They're already less entitled to a good wage compared to the teenager who went and got a job straight after high school. And yet they complain. O tempora. O mores.
The main point is this, with which I don't quibble overmuch:
Dudes. Imagine life here in the US — or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world — is a massive role playing game, like World of Warcraft except appallingly mundane, where most quests involve the acquisition of money, cell phones and donuts, although not always at the same time. Let’s call it The Real World. You have installed The Real World on your computer and are about to start playing, but first you go to the settings tab to bind your keys, fiddle with your defaults, and choose the difficulty setting for the game. Got it?
Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.
So far so good. It's a nice analogy. Mr. Scalzi has a young daughter for whom this analogy is particularly apt, since like all kids in this cohort she's played a computer game or two, and she's playing the cynical game we all have to play in the school system right now. but that is not the reason he wrote this post. A few lines from above this paragraph:
I’ve been thinking of a way to explain to straight white men how life works for them, without invoking the dreaded word “privilege,” to which they react like vampires being fed a garlic tart at high noon. It’s not that the word “privilege” is incorrect, it’s that it’s not their word. When confronted with “privilege,” they fiddle with the word itself, and haul out the dictionaries and find every possible way to talk about the word but not any of the things the word signifies.
Well, nobody has any cause to clutch his pearls over the word "privilege." In modern English usage, it's a perfectly acceptable word to describe the advantages and disadvantages we get by accident of birth. Nevertheless, Scalzi wrote this to address a set of people who don't buy this argument when dressed in other terms, and treats them like they merely don't get it. That's no way to talk to anyone.
That's part of it, anyway. The other thing is that in this analogy of life as a computer game, other things are not treated as privileges, that really ought to be. I'm of course referring to college admission, which is undoubtedly a privilege. The admissions process really does map nicely to a game, and certainly gets gamed mercilessly. It's a process by which we mark some people as eligible for a decently paying office job as opposed to those who get to do scutwork for bad wages. There is no way for a process like this to be anything but unjust and capricious, and so it's best to just tell every kid who makes into a college that he is privileged and must earn that privilege after the fact.
Of course, college freshmen are never told that. Everywhere, they're told "congratulations! you've earned this ticket" instead of being told "we've decided to wager that you'll make good use of the privilege we're giving you instead of some other kid, so don't prove us wrong." And that is why the country is full of privileged upper class straight white males who object to being called "privileged" and develop right of center leanings.
But owing to my policy of always taking every opportunity to rag on the left if it is apropos of ragging on the right wing, here's another case of people not realizing they were privileged:
"It's the dirty little secret of higher education," says Mr. Williams of the New Faculty Majority. "Many administrators are not aware of the whole extent of the problem. But all it takes is for somebody to run the numbers to see that their faculty is eligible for welfare assistance."
The people in this article are all privileged. They got into grad school (privilege). They got an opportunity to study something for its own sake (a privilege I never in my life thought I could get for myself). They're already less entitled to a good wage compared to the teenager who went and got a job straight after high school. And yet they complain. O tempora. O mores.
