"You missed your calling!"

[iris lilies]

What about preparation meets opportunity? I know I sent out hundreds of resumes and went on MANY MANY interviews. Then, when I got a good job, I was told I was lucky. Sometimes you make your own luck and it is NOT privilege but hard work! Granted there are sometimes things out of your control but many times it is easier for someone to take the easy road and attribute success of others to luck or privilege.

I think there’s a difference between luck and privilege. Did we actually talk about the word lucky?


Does it bother you to be called privileged? If so, why?

[catherine]

The first is the attitude you bring, or endurance, to circumstances not of your choosing.

The second is being able to alter circumstances because you possess power. I see self-actualization as largely something privileged people get to pursue. Yes, I get some pockets of agency, but not the whole trajectory of my life. Though privileged people can also have wrenches thrown in their paths like a fatal illness that keep them from achieving self-actualization.

Well, I can see your point, given that Maslow himself said that survival needs have to be addressed first before you can start self-actualizing. When I had 4 kids and was in the crapper constantly and our house was forceclosed on and the first thing I did when I walked in the door after retiring every night from my low-paying job was to flick the light switch to see if the the power was still on... I admit, self-actualization was the furthest thing from my mind. My "bliss" was getting 5 minutes by myself in the bathroom.

But I was just waiting for those bad times to pass by so that I could pursue whatever I was meant to do. Self-actualization was always an aspiration.

[LDAHL]

I think there’s a difference between luck and privilege. Did we actually talk about the word lucky?


Does it bother you to be called privileged? If so, why?

I was born in Chicago instead of Chongqing. That was luck. I can say whatever I please in public. That is privilege. I don’t especially object to either term, although when people use “privilege”, they seem to be either trying to minimize some accomplishment, seek to create some level of guilt-fueled obligation, or excuse some difference in performance.

I think privilege does exist in the Chelsea Clinton or Hunter Biden sense; but I think it is too often used as some sort of race/class argument. Usually by more affluent white people to demand something from less affluent white people.

[JaneV2.0]

I think privilege does exist in the Chelsea Clinton or Hunter Biden sense; but I think it is too often used as some sort of race/class argument. Usually by more affluent white people to demand something from less affluent white people.

So privilege is only a Democratic attribute? Got it.
(If ever there were a useless clot of privileged protoplasm, it's Trump's offspring, plus Jared, IMO.)

[LDAHL]

I think privilege does exist in the Chelsea Clinton or Hunter Biden sense; but I think it is too often used as some sort of race/class argument. Usually by more affluent white people to demand something from less affluent white people.

So privilege is only a Democratic attribute? Got it.
(If ever there were a useless clot of privileged protoplasm, it's Trump's offspring, plus Jared, IMO.)

Fine. In the Ivanka Trump sense as well. I don’t think privilege is a political leaning thing, except perhaps in the sense that one political sensibility is more inclined to invoke it as an argument.

[Alan]

I think privilege is real but it exists primarily among the very affluent or famous, I think it's silly to attribute it to anything else such as race or gender. It's probably appropriate to use national origin in discussions of privilege since some countries are obviously more affluent than others and every one of us here were lucky enough to be born in one of them. I think LDAHL is right in suggesting that the idea of privilege is mostly used in the United States by affluent white people although I'd add that it may be a coping mechanism used to highlight their feelings of guilt for those less fortunate than themselves, but to me it just comes off as seeing everyone else as victims, incapable of reaching the same level of privilege they enjoy. I think it's a bit demeaning to those they think they're helping.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I think privilege is real but it exists primarily among the very affluent or famous

I think that's what yeppej meant, the ability to entirely set ones course indifferent to economic necessity depends on $$$$$$$, affluence. Not just non-poverty but affluence. And that's what often is pitched as self-actualization. But I don't know that I believe that self-actualization EVEN MATTERS THAT MUCH. Would I take a long lost rich uncle who donated their fortune to me or a winning lottery ticket? well of course. There are probably attributes that come merely from being upper middle class, but not that type of total freedom, I'm not sure freedom is really how it would even be described just more less stress. I'm only ever middle middle class.

I think LDAHL is right in suggesting that the idea of privilege is mostly used in the United States by affluent white people although I'd add that it may be a coping mechanism used to highlight their feelings of guilt for those less fortunate than themselves

to the subset of affluent white people who think about such (and believe me it is a subset because broad social consciousness isn't necessarily their focus) it doesn't necessarily have to have anything to do with guilt, it doesn't have to be all that much of a feeling at all, just an acknowledgement of reality, that they may have been born with or have certain advantages in life.

[LDAHL]

In the current Atlantic, there is a piece on an interesting issue of privilege. Apparently there is an ongoing fight to make English girls eligible for certain hereditary tItles of nobility currently only open to descendants in the male line. Sort of a privilege debate within a privileged caste.

[frugal-one]

I think there’s a difference between luck and privilege. Did we actually talk about the word lucky?


Does it bother you to be called privileged? If so, why?

Reread what I wrote.

[frugal-one]

I, although when people use “privilege”, they seem to be either trying to minimize some accomplishment, seek to create some level of guilt-fueled obligation, or excuse some difference in performance.

That's it exactly. The rest of what you wrote.. not necessarily.