"Privilege" is a weaponised term used to target people
"Study finds upper-class people attribute achievements to hard work when faced with evidence of class privilege"
The above research paper made a total balls-up of understanding the issue regarding the concept of "privilege" in the classes, and I want to discuss the obvious errors here.
TL;DR
In the above linked study, "Privilege" is assumed to be something the Upper-Classes have by default and enjoy, while the Lower Classes lack any privilege and suffer accordingly. This is simply not true, in fact, I suspect the opposite is the truth in most instances, and I will explain in this article why.
What the study completely misses
What the study completely fails to point out, is that there are privileges found from being in the Lower-Classes too.
While being in the Upper-Class - and therefore assumed to be "privileged" by default - this actually makes you fearful, incorrectly labelled as assumed "rich", and lumped into the social bracket that gets targeted by the mob, (which is made up of people claiming to be lower-class but often are not, as I will get to shortly).
In short - To be in the lower classes is acceptable (privileged), while being born to the upper classes will get you hated & envied often incorrectly because they are not always rich (good luck telling that to the mob).
And this is why their study really showed that anyone will do anything to avoid being labelled privileged (not just upper classes, but anyone). There are exceptions and I will discuss them shortly.
"Privilege" is a derogatory class of it's own
The study has made huge errors of bias and assumption, while missing half the facts.
The word "privilege" today is loaded with implication. It actually defines as a class of its own, and is a derogatory term when applied. Today it is used to line a person up for targeted attack by the mob. Being labelled "privileged", is nothing short of a curse.
Calling someone "Privileged", is about lining them up for attack by the mob
If you are labelled "privileged", people then feel entitled to hate on you. It's an efficient buzzword used today for targeting a person with impunity.
Stick the "Privileged" label on a person, blow on the dog-whistle, and then the social-media mob can attack them without another thought.
For example, if you can label someone white-privileged, you immediately get granted the "privilege" of being able to accuse them of racism, monetary advantages, social advantages, and cultural advantages, all rolled into one convenient Generalisation-Buzzword that has nothing to do with the individuals experience, monetary value, class level, or even culture necessarily. I go into this buzzword fallacy in more detail in a post here - "The Anatomy of White Privilege".
Lower-Classes have many more social "privileges"
The study completely fails to note that being in a lower-class has it's own privileges, and quite a few too. Most are not only appealing, but could qualify as addictive.
Privileges of the lower classes
- Social acceptance
- Access to support systems
- Automatic pity and concern
- Community care and admiration
- Positive public attention
- Access to free stuff
- You get to hate on the perceived rich (upper classes, 1%)
- You can blame them for everything, and relinquish all personal responsibility
- Power of inclusivity & numbers - the mob
- Power of the ability to dog-whistle a social media mob attack
- The right to become rich (rags to riches kudos)
Align with the lower-classes to protect your wealth (rags to riches)
You can see this play-it-down narrative in action every time you imply someone needs to explain their position in order to prove they are NOT one of the privileged.
Peoples anecdotal explanations will often be an attempt to justify their life-journey as lower-class, in terms of personal monetary value gained, and to show that is was through hard-graft not privilege.
It is a very common rags to riches story-arc that people love to engage in when explaining away any value they hold. It has to be a rags to riches story to earn the respect of the mob, and of course, to avoid being targeted as privileged.
- Claim you came from nothing but hard times & poverty (or fell there)
- Claim you made good through hard-graft and sufferance, and pulling yourself up through the monetary ranks, bleeding as you went.
- Validate that your $$ success was earned through 1 & 2, and not through being "born with a silver spoon in the mouth".
- If in doubt, throw some cancer stories in there. Maybe a dying aunt who needed you to become rich to help pay for her three-legged, blind dog's vet fees. That kind of thing.
- If all else fails, take a charity post in Africa for 3 months.
The above is literally a way to claim the "privilege" of the lower classes. The only privilege the upper-classes really have, is to be a target.
Exceptions to the rule
There are two exceptions to this rule.
Narcissistic superiority complex
These people will not give a rats ass about the mob, they do not fear them, they do not care what anyone thinks. They may be born rich, privileged or not, but they wont care. They despise the mob, hate the lower classes, even if they are in them. They will likely be the very thing that the mob claim is the problem. Of course, some of these types exist.
Virtue-signalling to the lower classes
More common is the virtue-signalling approach.
They are vaguely privileged, maybe or maybe not, but they fit the category enough that they feel they need to diffuse the anger of the mob, and hope to join their ranks, by using the one thing that might achieve it, subservience.
They will often work freely for the mob as a hunters, and call-out other "privileged" people around them, doing so will help them to prove their worth.
The best example of this human trait, comes from the most horrorific circumstances, described in Viktor Frankl's book "Mans Search for Meaning". The most dangerous people in the Nazi Camps were the Jews that took positions of power and chose to work for the Nazis. They were cruel, capricious, murderous, and hated their fellow Jews, but loved to serve at the feet of their Nazi masters, throw Jews to their deaths, and by doing so, feel like they belonged.
Virtue-signalling is heinous, and not just regarding "privilege", but because it lacks integrity and acceptance for what you are, while invariably throwing all those around you to the dogs.
You know the rules!
We all know the rules, the top-class is the target, the lower-class is the down to earth, honest to goodness, completely justified, pitch-fork brandishing mob!
Only the stupid, or egoistically deranged would dare not claim lower social status before becoming rich, it would be financial suicide to do so today given the witch-hunt on social media for the 1%.
The lower classes want to be rich, the upper classes want to be left alone
The lower-class actually envy and desire the perceived benefits of the upper-class, it is a self-perpetuated hallucination, but they do not question this.
What the lower class do not want, is the label or the so-called "privilege" of being upper-class. Why? Because the label immediately makes you fair game in the press, the public, the mob, and you become an acceptable target.
If you can become rich and are from the lower-class, then you will be left alone, you earned it.
But if you are poor and upper-class you will still be targeted as if you were rich, simply because you are upper-class. It is a dubious privilege in this day and age, and ridiculous for the study to claim it is due to being upper class, any one would avoid it if they could.
Being the upper-class obviously sucks.
The study missed by a mile
This means the conclusions the research piece has come to are wrong.
All people will avoid the "privilege" label, to avoid being a target for the mob, not just the upper-classes.
The study is faulty by its failure to realise that the lower classes have a social privilege that far outweighs the lonely solitary world of the upper classes, "social unification and bonding, and the sense of belonging" are powerful privileges and the study did not even consider their existence.
The upper-classes are notoriously solitary, and all the more ripe for socially acceptable targeting that is done by the public and the press. There will be cheers from the mob whenever it happens.
Beware The Mob
The mob still love a good public execution, nothing has changed, they want to see blood. They want that same blood seen in the Roman Colloseum, and at the hangings, or a bloody dismemberment of someone they that all (usually wrongly) qualified as guilty by "privilege". Upper-class is just a useful additional tool for the excuse.
Lower classes are the mob, and when the mob is looking for someone to blame, it is not rational perception that leads them, but vengeance reaped upon the so-called "privileged". This word alone can get you in trouble today. Therefore it is a dangerous word to make use of. Anyone would run a mile the moment they are accused of it. The study should have tested lower class rich to see if they felt privileged or tried to explain their riches away.
Conclusion
The study is missing lots of the nuances of privilege. It possibly even set out from a place of bias due to assuming only one form of privilege exists - the upper class form - and ignoring the fact lower-class status has its own privileges too.
I did not look into the background researchers because I had no interest to, but I did wonder if this had Marxist leanings and bias self-justifications written all over it.
Everyone will claim to be a member of the lower-class and do their best to avoid to be associated to the upper-class, despite actually wanting everything they think the upper-class have got. Everything, except the label, of course.
It is not a privilege to be upper-class at all, it is a curse. There are far more privileges to be had by claiming you had it tough, worked to the bone, and are a fully-fledged member of the lower-class.
Posted from my blog at The Temple Space : https://www.thetemplespace.com/2020/privilege-is-used-to-target-people/