Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Playing with "Privilege"

Pete Mac points us to this in comments.
   I'm not a huge fan, for reasons I sketch in comments. But I thought I'd post it anyway, since I'm often wrong.
   For the record (and times being what they are), I should say that I don't disagree that people are treated badly for all sorts of reasons, and one big reason people get treated badly by some is that they're female. But I think that this list milks a few points past the point that would be reasonable. For one thing, I think the repeated use of the "because of their gender" qualifier illicitly conceals the fact that dudes get harassed, too, just not for the same kinds of reasons girls do. I also think that (and this is a general problem with the whole BS "privilege" conception--which, tbf, PM asks us to ignore) there's a presupposition here that I gain if you are abused. Which is nonsense. Women being harassed has little real effect on me personally. It barely effects me negatively, and probably has basically no positive effect on me at all. It outrages me, and makes my life worse in a more abstract and indirect sense by making the world a worse place and pissing me off... But it's extremely implausible to say that it's somehow a net, non-trivial benefit to me and/or most other guys. I bend over backwards not to gain any illicit advantage from being male. Consequently, I get few benefits, and I pay the cost of having to repeatedly hear false accusations that I gain illicitly. I don't think that matters much, but if we got seriously about adding up all these ephemeral costs and benefits, we'd have to think about all that stuff more carefully. In short: life is not a zero-sum game. A disadvantage to women is not automatically an advantage to men. (And that's part of my objection to the "privilege" crap. Instead of focusing on the harm to the harmed groups, the SJWs/neo-PCs are way more interested in trying to score points against the group they really hate--the evil and reviled straightwhitemales. Screw that crap. I think it's stupid. I'm more interested in mitigating harm against harmed groups than making moves in some ridiculous game of victimhood chess.)
   As always, I could be wrong, and almost certainly am on at least some points.)

[This wasn't supposed to turn into a criticism, much less such a shoot-from-the-hip one...]

1 Comments:

Blogger Pete Mack said...

Here's an alternative view, from vox day.

#GamerGate has them on the run. They can't take the heat. What they call "harassment" and "abuse" is seldom anything more than free speech answering free speech. They have a right to speak their piece, and we have a right to speak right back. We have a right to speak back with all of the contempt, disdain, and loathing that we feel for their insane and societally suicidal ideas.

Open up your hate and let it pour over them. Don't think for even one nanosecond that they don't deserve it every bit of the criticism, of the contempt, of the disdainful dismissal that overwhelms them. They are trying to destroy Western civilization. They are trying to destroy marriage and civil society. They are advocates of child murder. They are advocates of a philosophy that makes National Socialism look merciful and Communism practical and Fascism coherent by comparison. Do not hold back. Speak back twice as hard. Speak back until they fall silent.

Women are particularly susceptible to shame. So shame them relentlessly. Shame those who agree with them. Mock their white knights who rush in to save them. Above all, dignify their views and voices with all the respect you would show to a particularly noxious fart in an elevator

12:52 AM  

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