“Privilege” as cudgel in private conversation

[Caracal]

Since we don't know this person and weren't in on the conversation it is impossible to say for sure how or what "privilege" is supposed to mean in this circumstance or the tone in which it was uttered.

I will say that I have been very well aware of how privileged my wife and I are in these circumstances.  Certainly we would be making a great deal more money had we each pursued our first careers, but we have had a very comfortable but disappointing summer (our travel plans quashed and my resulting deep homesickness) and I am aware that our "woes" are very first-world-problem-y.

That said, we both worked very hard to get to where we are, including hitting the eject button on our last university employer, which is now seeing some economic warning signs, to land in our current situation which is stable even during the pandemic.  And I think so often this perspective is lost.  Sure, both my wife and I are products of stable middle-class upbringings with access to education etc.  And then we made basically good decisions on top of this.  Am I supposed to feel bad about what we've done even as I feel empathy for those folks who cannot pay their rent?  Should TH be ashamed of learning Spanish because hu is lucky enough to not be starving?

It is a mark of our zeitgeist held over, I believe, from the turbulent '70s that we feel we must remind people constantly of their luck in an aggressive and confrontational manner.

We live in confrontational times in which we belittle anyone, no matter why or how, with cultural ideology.  Polly, you just typically enacted this very thing.

If you take out all of the overuse and the feelings about the concept of privilege, the point is that it is useful for people to be aware of the ways in which lots of us have advantages we didn't earn. That's it. It doesn't really mean all of the other things that get lumped in with it. Just because you have one advantage, obviously doesn't mean everything is easy, or that you didn't have other sorts of disadvantages, or that you didn't deserve anything good that happened to you.

I don't like the term particularly, I think it is overused and easily misunderstood, both by people who use the term and people who hate it.

There's also no reason to tie it into feeling bad about everything. I'm a white, straight, married guy with a kid. That ends up meaning that, in most circumstances, I don't have to worry about how people might react to my presence. It doesn't do any good for me to sit around feeling bad about that. There is value in me being aware that other people experience the world in very different ways than I do, instead of just assuming that my experience must be universal.

[sprout]

It sounds like your friend was frustrated with you, didn't really know how to articulate it, and ended up grabbing for something that doesn't really fit.

I think I can understand what your friend might have been feeling. I have very good friends I've know for a long time who also seem to be doing pretty well with all of this and I've also found myself pretty frustrated with them at times. It isn't that I'm having a particularly acute crisis, or am in a particularly bad situation. I'm managing, but I'm not seeing a lot of positives. That can make it a little jarring when someone else is doing just fine. One of the weirdest things about this is that everyone is dealing with the same event, but it effects people in dramatically different ways. That often leads to me feeling like people are judging me, either about how I'm handling things, or which considered risks I'm taking.

My guess is that your friend felt judged. She feels cooped up, is acutely missing the routine social interactions that used to be an important part of her day, and probably doesn't feel very productive. I'm sure you weren't judging her, or trying to seem disapproving, but if that's how she was feeling, it isn't going to feel great to hear that someone else is doing just great and using this as a chance to do "useful" and productive things.

I'm inclined to agree with Caracal's assessment, for what it's worth.  I acknowledge that I'm in a very privileged situation right now: my finances are stable, my living situation is stable, I don't have kids (definitely a privilege in these times), I'm healthy...  But an area I do not have privilege in is time. Remember back in April/May, when all those memes were going around that said something like "If you don't come out of this time learning a new skill you have to admit to yourself that time was never the problem..."  As I was chained to my computer 12 hours a day, and 10 on weekends, prepping and grading and answering e-mails, those memes made me livid. If one of my friends had said to me then something like what Treehugger shared, I might very well have snapped at them on a bad day.

If your friend was already feeling frustrated and stressed and judged for feeling frustrated and stressed, I think it's understandable that they may have replied less-than-charitably to your joy in learning a new language.  You're not wrong for doing it, and for being somewhat upset at their response, but if you value their friendship, it's worth considering what they might be going through emotionally.

[Caracal]

Of course I am not enjoying the fact that a lot of people are suffering and dying and even more are suffering emotional and financial insecurity because of it. However, this is an unique time and there are indeed aspects of it that are very enjoyable for some people.

I agree that it would be absolutely tone-deaf to come out with ("I'm loving the lockdown") in a public situation or at a large private gathering where you didn't know the life circumstances of everyone there. But it was just the two of us and I know my friend really pretty well. The great thing about privacy is that you can say things that might be interpreted as politically incorrect and get away with it (although in this situation, I didn't even think I was crossing a line).

I don't think you did anything wrong. Again, I think there's something particularly weird about the same thing being a dominant factor in almost everyone's lives right now. If you had broken your leg and were telling your friend that actually it had been sort of nice to get a chance to learn Spanish and relax, she wouldn't feel threatened or judged by that, because it would just be you talking about how you were reacting to this thing that had happened in your life. However, this is something happening to her too, so that can make it easy to hear judgement or criticism where it wasn't intended. She probably feels stuck and at loose ends and part of her feels like she ought to be doing useful self improvement projects too.

[Wahoo Redux]

If you take out all of the overuse and the feelings about the concept of privilege, the point is that it is useful for people to be aware of the ways in which lots of us have advantages we didn't earn. That's it.

If only we could keep the concept to this definition.

I suspect Treehugger's experience is more the norm.  I am sure TH meant no offense or insensitivity, but we are a hypersensitive culture.  And this hypersensitivity has only become more acute with the current presidential administration and the constellation of right-wing media outlets competing with left-wing pundits. 

[Treehugger]

Why are you friends with someone who doesn't share your values and world view?

My world view is not one of the standard world views out there. I have literally never met someone who shares exactly my world view. My husband and I don't share the same world view and we get along great.

I do think that there may be some other elements in our friendship that are harmful and I am slowly becoming aware of them (probably because I grew up with an extremely abusive mother and, even after years of therapy, am not completely aware of various areas of dysfunction in relationships.) However, this friend does offer a lot of positives that no one else offers in my life. For one, she is the only person in my life, beside my husband, who is genuinely, literally laugh-out-loud funny. So smart, irreverent, so funny. It's just that every now and then we get into this her judging me and me defending myself dynamic. Which is not so great.

But speaking of dysfunction, I was just remembering something she said last year which I felt was really strange.

Last summer I was diagnosed with stage IIIb lung cancer (although I am never smoker and was only 55 y.o. so no "privilege" there, really). I was fortunate enough to have both good insurance and a large social support circle  (and I have a lot of supportive friends because I am lucky enough to be retired, to have lived in the same place for many years and have had lots of time to cultivate friendships), so all-in-all, going through treatment was not nearly as bad as it could have been. Anyway, each friend was supportive in their one way. Some helped take me to treatments; some cooked some dinners; some were there for me emotionally.

This one particularly friend was definitely there for me emotionally, plus she was also the only one who was truly interested in listening to me talk about all details of the disease, the various treatments, the results of the tests. In fact, she also did some research for me and shared it. (When she was in academia, she was in a medical field, so she had genuine interest and ability in the area.) She would up knowing more about my treatment in detail than anyone else in my life including my husband. And she was never, ever judgmental. Never did she even attempt to get me to choose one option over the over (where I should be treated, which radiation plan was the best for me, whether I should follow-up with immunotherapy right away or wait, etc. etc.) It was really special actually and I was grateful.

However, once when I thanked her for being so helpful, she said: "I like you better like this. I like you better with the cancer. You seem more 'real,' more grounded." And that felt really weird to me. It was almost as if she was saying: "I am more comfortable around you when you are suffering. And I feel more put off when you are happy and things are going well in your life." And just a few days ago, she seems to have reacted in a similar way. I was happy. Too happy. So she had to burst my bubble a little.


Ok, I am totally hijacking my own thread here. Sorry!

[writingprof]

Treehugger, in this instance it's not about you. Your friend has been captured by an ideology that requires her to despise herself. (I bet any amount of money that she's white.) Because self-hatred is not particularly easy in practice, she's transferring the emotion to you.

The best answer when someone calls you "privileged" is to smile, nod, and check your stock portfolio. (It's doing well!)

[polly_mer]

However, once when I thanked her for being so helpful, she said: "I like you better like this. I like you better with the cancer. You seem more 'real,' more grounded." And that felt really weird to me. It was almost as if she was saying: "I am more comfortable around you when you are suffering. And I feel more put off when you are happy and things are going well in your life." And just a few days ago, she seems to have reacted in a similar way. I was happy. Too happy. So she had to burst my bubble a little.

Someone who wants you to be weaker/unluckier/lesser than you are is not a friend.  Friends are happy when you succeed and your life is going well; friends are consoling and helpful during the rough spots.

People who prefer the weaker and unlucky may be great as support for the people who need extra care, but that means they should be looking for caretaker duties as a calling because the world is not short of people who need help.  Trying to force others into the dependent role is not right.

Having complementary worldviews works out because it's true that people are seldom identical on all factors.  "She is funny and was helpful during a time of illness" isn't really a ringing endorsement.  https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/08/dear-prudence-in-love-with-brothers-wife.html has the commentariat point out some harsh realities of helpers and the helped.

Dan Savage for romance points out the people find a more than 0.5 and round up to the one.  From your description, you might be trying to round up a 0.2 colleague to friend.

[alto_stratus]

However, once when I thanked her for being so helpful, she said: "I like you better like this. I like you better with the cancer. You seem more 'real,' more grounded." And that felt really weird to me. It was almost as if she was saying: "I am more comfortable around you when you are suffering. And I feel more put off when you are happy and things are going well in your life." And just a few days ago, she seems to have reacted in a similar way. I was happy. Too happy. So she had to burst my bubble a little.

Wow. Well, some people are good at handling different things - and maybe she feels better helping people with challenges, and so now, the relationship has lost a bit of its purpose for her. 

[downer]

I'm all in favor of a social class analysis. Isabel Wilkerson has a new book out, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, which sets out the caste system in the US, and that idea seems right to me. There's remarkably little social mobility in the US. But exactly what we should do with the political concept of privilege is not easily answered. I don't think that liberal guilt or all those "privilege quizzes" have been useful. If we were going to make the US a society of equal opportunity, things would need to change radically. Right now, the main effect of raising consciousness about class privilege is to encourage a few liberals to give some money to charity.

[writingprof]

If we were going to make the US a society of equal opportunity, things would need to change radically. Right now, the main effect of raising consciousness about class privilege is to encourage a few liberals to give some money to charity.

Yes. Every time class moves to the forefront of the conversation, someone with a race grievance has a hissy fit, and the two movements descend into argument with one another. Meanwhile, conservatives like me develop finger callouses counting all our money. Keep it up, please.

[spork]

Uh, sorry, but based on what you wrote about this person above, I'd say she's bat-shit crazy and toxic as hell.

For comparison purposes, if you don't mind gore and suspense, check out the character of Gail Brandon, Rita's mother, in the tv show Dexter (haven't read the books the series is based on, don't know if the same character appears there also).

[jerseyjay]

I am coming into this thread a bit late, so I will try to boil down my thoughts.

First, I admit to having an ambiguous view of the current situation. There are certainly good things about it. I have been able to walk more, read more, see my family more, and commute less. I have written three draft articles since March, as well as finalize a book (which I did most of the writing before January).

On the other hand, I have been unable to visit relatives (including going to the--non-Covid-related--funeral of one). I miss talking with my students and colleagues. I miss going to museums, cinemas and, for work-related stuff, archives and libraries. I do in fact miss going to my gym ($20/month).

I am very unhappy that my young child missed a half year of school and will probably miss a good chunk of another.

I am unhappy that my students are often struggling.

I am unhappy that many of the businesses shut down for good near me.

I am unhappy that I have had to take a pay cut, and even more unhappy that many people I know are unemployed.

I am unhappy that when a church nearby gives out free food, the line stretches for more than a quarter of a mile.

I am unhappy that five people in the building down the street died of Covid.

I am unhappy that for weeks the sirens never stopped as people were taken to hospital, many to die.

I am unhappy that friends in Latin America have had no food for months (subsisting only on money sent by relatives).

So while I do not like to use "privilege" I actually think it is pretty damn lucky to see this as a win-win situation. I also think it is pretty lucky to see the main downside not being able to go to the gym.

That said, I am willing to cut people slack because I think that the current situation has made all of us pretty mentally unstable.

Finally, I am not sure what is the point of only having friends who are like you. I mean, I don't want to be friends with Klan members, or made men in the mafia, or whatever. But within a certain standard deviation, it is nice to have friends who are different than you. Otherwise, why would you have friends?

[mahagonny]

Treehugger, in this instance it's not about you. Your friend has been captured by an ideology that requires her to despise herself. (I bet any amount of money that she's white.) Because self-hatred is not particularly easy in practice, she's transferring the emotion to you.

The best answer when someone calls you "privileged" is to smile, nod, and check your stock portfolio. (It's doing well!)

Treehugger, from what I've seen here recently, probably uses the moniker ironically. She is not one of the super-'woke' academics of today and is liable to identify some of the absurdity, excessive fixations on political correctness, etc. So she can easily be singled out in conversation as one who is suspected of not giving the concept of white privilege the amount of serious concern it is considered to warrant.

[kaysixteen]

There is little question but that, like it or not, anyone who has been retired on a comfy pension etc., esp  one able to be acquired in one's mid-50s, and then subsequently has been able to use the pandemic time to learn Spanish, has substantially more 'privilege' than someone who has had to spend the last six months working ringing a grocery store cash register, risking his life on a daily basis, for minimum wage.

[Treehugger]

Treehugger, in this instance it's not about you. Your friend has been captured by an ideology that requires her to despise herself. (I bet any amount of money that she's white.) Because self-hatred is not particularly easy in practice, she's transferring the emotion to you.

The best answer when someone calls you "privileged" is to smile, nod, and check your stock portfolio. (It's doing well!)

Treehugger, from what I've seen here recently, probably uses the moniker ironically. She is not one of the super-'woke' academics of today and is liable to identify some of the absurdity, excessive fixations on political correctness, etc. So she can easily be singled out in conversation as one who is suspected of not giving the concept of white privilege the amount of serious concern it is considered to warrant.

Yes, she is definitely more "woke" than I am & she knows it.

I gave myself this moniker way back in the old forum because once, in a time of great stress, when I felt my world was falling apart, I went down to the local park and literally hugged a big, old tree. I cried & hugged that tree. It was very grounding experience. :)