The year 2014 has been a big one for critical theories and modern social justice movements — feminism, LGBT rights, etc. — at least in terms of gaining Internet traction, and a big part of that has been the ‘check your privilege’ campaign.
Don’t be fooled by the name, however. “Privilege” is just another type of political correctness, no less absurd, and with the aim of shutting you up.
Weeks ago, Buzzfeed created the flawed but interesting “How Privileged Are You” quiz, a serious version of Gawker’s bracketed “Privilege Tournament” parody last year. Just last week, there was an op-ed in The New Republic about the misuse of the term “Check Your Privilege” — and people are talking.
Regardless of who you are or what you think, there’s a target on your back and you will eventually be hit with the assertion that you have privilege – that your life bears certain social advantages you take for granted but have also contributed to your outlook and social standing.
On the surface, CYP sounds more obvious and banal than revelatory, like little more than a plea for greater empathy towards people who have had a tougher life than you. To be fair, that’s probably what the most frequent users believe it to mean. However, that’s not the case.
Here’s a slightly simplified version of how “privilege” supposedly works.
Take the four most commonly discussed identity factors – race, sex, orientation, and socioeconomic status. If you’re a white heterosexual man in wealthy family, you’re considered highly privileged. The privileged are favored and enabled by an oppressive institution. Thus, your opinions (especially those contrary to ideas promoted by the person who told you to CYP) are not really a product of what you came to think. Furthermore, what you accomplished with your life didn’t result from your agency, drive and/or skill. Instead, you came upon them both because of the comforts and hierarchical advantages you had access to while the less allegedly privileged did not. Circumstances gave you a head start.
Meanwhile, to the others – those that embody the identities of the traditionally marginalized: women, ethnic minorities, homosexuals, the poor and various combinations among them (without regard to how intersectionality complicates the exercise) – their struggles predate their birth and thus irrevocably shaped it. The racism, sexism, homophobia and social inequity of the patriarchal social order allegedly denied equal opportunity to many, making anyone who successfully rose above their standing an exemplary triumphant underdog. They overcame social barriers on their individual spirit – the same social barriers that guided you to the same place more easily. Thus because of their lack of privilege, their opinions and perspectives are worth more than yours. So shut up.
If this sounds like circular reasoning to you, it is. If it also sounds like discrimination or prejudice, the dictionary would agree.
The privilege paradigm collapses under the weight of its hypocrisy because it calculates people’s individual autonomy by putting them through an identity matrix based on factors that they had no control over, and then purports to treat and view them differently based on whom it determines has more privilege.
Identity traits tell us nothing about who you really are, yet the paradigm presumes to know everything needed to determine if your privileges shape you. Putting aside the fact that it doesn’t account for non-identity variables that shaped how you turned out (like this guy), and that being told your accomplishments are less impressive and meaningful because you come from a place of arbitrarily determined privilege isn’t a positive way to get someone to listen, CYP is conceptual lunacy.
In execution, the folly of CYP is even more apparent. Here’s a brief history of the term. The initial idea was to invite discussion, not close it. It’s a carrot that became a stick once people realized they could silence others just by saying “Check your privilege!” Conservatives in particular hear that all the time. It’s no coincidence that the Left benefits the most from citizens elevating or denigrating their own value based on circumstance. “Privilege” is just the new strand of the same agenda they’ve been promoting for decades.
None of this is to say we should be blind and deaf to real inequality or that we shouldn’t address it. “Privilege,” however, as it is understood today, is a childish attempt at political theatrics mostly by the Left that undermines itself without the support of logic.
Don’t let it silence you.
