The argument that discrimination against "privileged" people is ok

AManAlone · 2013-07-17T14:16:57+00:00

Was speaking with friends about the Zimmerman case; got told 'you don't get to talk you live your privileged white life you don't get to have an opinion'.

It was lovely.

iii0 · 2013-07-17T15:13:29+00:00

http://www.genderratic.com/p/3002/male-disposability-empathy-apartheid-part-ii-deflections-and-dismissals/

Empathy apartheid takes maintenance. If it isn’t maintained and policed, people’s basic humanity will lead them to show empathy for the people their society has deemed undeserving of it and the system will collapse. So these same people, sadly, use various deflections and dismissals – silencing mechanisms and minimizing tactics to maintain the system. These include:

Anti-male shaming tactics

Trivialization of injuries to men

Victim blaming

Erasure by false equivalence

Feminism is the answer to men’s problems

Dehumanization, reducing men to emotionless lumps that can be hurt with impunity because it doesn’t really hurt.

Fungibility – ... inability to distingush between “doing it to each other” and “doing it to themsleves” because “they” are all just one undifferentiated mass.

Anomalization – claim that every instance of harm to men is a one-off; it’s not real discrimination or oppression or whatever term you prefer because it’s not “systemic” or “institutional”.

The Woozle Effect – This is simple; you just fiddle the actual numbers to make male victims look genderless, then you conflate “victims” with “women.”

saint2e · 2013-07-17T14:23:45+00:00

The whole notion of privilege completely invalidating one's opinion on something is a convenient thought/discussion-terminating trick that SJW'ers use.

People have this thing built into them. It's called empathy. It allows us to have sympathy and feelings for people who do are not in our gender/race/sexual orientation.

It's basically a non-sexist/non-racist/non-bigoted way of being sexist/racist/bigoted. Essentially when you invoke privilege you are saying that "I don't value your gender/race/sexual orientation/whatever enough to trust you to be able to emphasize with <insert group of people having a problem>"

So whenever someone brings up privilege in an argument, I treat them as would if they had just made a racist slur.

NiceIce · 2013-07-17T14:43:08+00:00

To most, if not all "feminists", people with "privilege" are immune to all forms of oppression. The "oppressors" can't be oppressed, in turn oppressing those who have privilege who can't be oppressed. So they're oppressing the people who oppressing makes them invulnerable to being oppressed.

I need to sit down.

Klang_Klang · 2013-07-17T15:27:39+00:00

Saying you can't understand due to privilege blinding you is an appeal to hidden knowledge.

You can't argue theology against divine revelation and you can't argue social justice against privilege. The only way to proceed forward would be to throw the whole concept out.

Imthere · 2013-07-17T17:36:49+00:00

Didn't you know, Germans are privileged, and Jews have been oppressed. Therefore Jews can't discriminate against Germans! So when roving gangs of Jews kill Germans and smash their shop windows, that's just peachy! /s

The solution to inequality is equality. Not more inequality.

M4Strings · 2013-07-17T14:28:44+00:00

Haven't you ever been told to "check your privilege"? I have, and it's always by people who say they're for equality. You should know by now that if you're white your opinion or facts you say are invalid, and if you're a man then you're inherently evil. Get with the times, man.

ZimbaZumba · 2013-07-17T16:05:23+00:00

With rare exceptions the Law applies to you as an individual not as member of a group. Being a member of a 'privileged' group does not deny you protection against discrimination. The Third Appellate District with the DV Services for Men case in California made this very clear in its ruling, see here

Protection of the individual from the 'tyranny of the majority' is a fundamental principle in Western Law.

Also group properties do not transfer to its individual members, members of a 'privileged' group can be very oppressed, eg the homeless. This is the Fallacy of Division, eg elephants are very big, elephants are made of atoms, hence atoms are very big.

cypher197 · 2013-07-17T18:29:43+00:00

Some people simply aren't rational or mature enough to safely handle the concept of privilege.

That's when it gets turned from grabbing your buddy by the arm and saying "dude you just said something really ignorant", into a weapon for extracting concessions.

ILoveHate · 2013-07-18T01:40:34+00:00

How the hell did this ridiculous logical fallacy garner so much support and legitimacy?

Stupid people who are running out of false statistics and have no ability to form any thoughts, cite any sources or argue in any reasonable fashion.

Just, for a moment, let's use another example. Would it be okay for people to call Kayne West, Will Smith or Morgan Freeman a nigger? It's okay guys, they're privileged black men, they don't deserve an opinion, just keep calling them niggers! And then call every black person that because you know, some are doing very well for themselves, not to mention the second largest continent on earth belongs to black people.

I've got a good feeling that shit isn't going to fly, yet people keep repeating this CIS white male privilege crap while somehow completely ignoring both their own and white women. And the reason I say their own is because they're living in the top 10% of the richest people in the world, and out of that, possibly the top 10% who get to go to college and afford other luxuries.

It's pretty much retarded and I ignore the whole privilege talk altogether. That shit won't shut me up, and I just ignore it without letting it derail the conversation (which is the purpose of it anyway).

YetAnotherCommenter · 2013-07-18T03:59:23+00:00

How the hell did this ridiculous logical fallacy garner so much support and legitimacy?

Methodological collectivism in the social sciences.

Because if groups/collectives are "more real" than individual people, then in situations where one group is culturally favored relative to another group, attacking members of the favored group on the grounds of being in the favored group is a noble act of heroic resistance.

DrunkNFunky · 2013-07-17T17:00:32+00:00

The real dilemma is one of social reciprocity.

I'm not justifying white people being discriminated against, but you can't sit there asking "why" it's ok.

It's not.. never will be.. but people don't forget and the underlying issue has been one swept under the rug.

The oppressed (men, women, young, old, etc) will never forget and the more ignorant of the groups will retaliate when they have more leverage.

Then we start the whole thing over from the other end.

It's a never ending cycle of ignorance and violence birthing more ignorance.

(but someone lit the fire... you can't be "too" angry when someone decides to keep it burning. )

hierophage · 2013-07-18T00:40:27+00:00

In the future, we will all have to fill out checklists to find where we lie on the scale of privilege before we can express an opinion.

Perpetual_dissident · 2013-07-17T23:04:36+00:00

Sigh.

That's plain old political activism.

That's what you guys don't understand.

ThePigman · 2013-07-18T02:30:15+00:00

It's easy to flip this one on the feminists. Outline the ways in which women are privileged, then tell them that discrimination against women is cool because they are already swimming in privilege. Alternatively, you could also start screaming "Check you privilege! Check your privilege!" every time they open their lying mouths.

PS

The quote sounds very much like a scene from Yes Minister...

Punos_Rey · 2013-07-18T02:34:45+00:00

Also funny when you consider that taking "aim" at the privileged group is also a way to attack those outside of the "privileged" group covertly(Attacks on white men directly are attacks on men as a whole, but that's ignored because of their "privilege"). If men won't stand up when other men are being bashed and ignore the screams of privilege, then they don't stand a chance.

mikesteane · 2013-07-18T07:49:30+00:00

"So, I am incapable of understanding something because of my situation. Now either this can be changed by someone else explaining things to me, in which case you cannot assume that my privilege invalidates my point of view or it cannot, in which case you might as well be quiet."

Womby314 · 2013-07-18T08:22:08+00:00

http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/1hzo5m/this_ones_for_the_ladies/caznlad?context=3

Reminds me of this argument I recently got into. We went back and forth for some time until I got the "double standards are ok because the oppressed group (which is to be decided by me, apparently) has more leeway in what they can do/say" argument. Total bullshit.

Disorderly-Conduct · 2013-07-18T10:47:34+00:00

PoN has done some excellent write-ups on this topic.

http://permutationofninjas.org/post/21541767270/sexism-prejudice

http://permutationofninjas.org/post/21541991470/anonymous-asked-am-i-the-only-person-who-thinks-the

http://permutationofninjas.org/post/37658174203/white-people-are-not-capable-of-experiencing-racism

It's all hoops designed by people who need to reconcile advocating for social justice with being a shitty person. They like mistreating others, but they're not allowed to do it if they claim they're fighting for tolerance and equality, so they create these ridiculous arguments to justify it.

Steampunk_Moustache · 2013-07-17T15:36:15+00:00

It's a ridiculous and disgusting argument to say the least, designed to deprive any white male of a voice. The best course of action, in my experience is to call bullshit and then continue saying exactly what you were going to say anyway.

Hammer your shit forward. Don't let this ridiculous fallacy, this vile suppression tactic, silence you.

rightsbot · 2013-07-17T13:34:21+00:00

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avantvernacular · 2013-07-17T21:05:27+00:00

These double standards you mention, they are in a sense bigotry in pretty package. Racism and sexism, wrapped in lace.

2013-07-18T00:42:50+00:00

It's little kid logic. "It's not faaaaiiirrr!"

People who have done nothing wrong but being born a certain way get discriminated against because someone else was born a certain way and gets discriminated against. Thus it turns into a cycle of discrimination and perpetual hate against each other as the scale tips in favor of the current oppressor.

CMOS222 · 2013-07-18T01:08:56+00:00

They weren't part of the 'in' group in middle and high school, so they're subconsciously getting their revenge by labeling a certain crowd 'privileged'. Honestly, the vocabulary is so infantile.

Samurai007_ · 2013-07-18T02:44:33+00:00

Affirmative Action is that concept in action. "We'll purposely discriminate against the privileged white males in order to promote women and minorities, and that discrimination is good, just, and proper." When it was women and minorities that were discriminated against, oh, that was a terrible thing! But Affirmative Action, which is nothing more than legalized discrimination based on race and sex, well, that's great because it hurts white men!

Title	The argument that discrimination against "privileged" people is ok
Author	Pete580
Upvotes	55
Comments	68
Date	July 17, 2013 1:33 PM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1ihg18/the_argument_that_discrimination_against/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/the-argument-that-discrimination-against.1168557 https://theredarchive.com/post/1168557

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