War Handwavium

From a recent conversation about what it would be like for a Straight White Male to move to a place where he didn’t have any privilege:

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/04/24/the-lowest-difficulty-setting-as-teaching-tool/#comment-468653

if you live somewhere your SWM privilege doesn’t exist you would be less likely to be promoted over a woman or minority as compared to IRL. … As an actor, you’d be less likely to receive the higher paying roles if they were equally open to women and minorities. If you’re a writer writing in SF, you’d have a lesser chance of being published if men and women were equally represented. What this means in terms of real life is that there’d be a greater chance you would lose out on the opportunities you enjoy now as a result of privilege. That is power and that is a meaningful difference.

And what jumped out at me was just how much the conversation about “privilege” frames the issues of equality as a zero-sum-game. In this frame, for women to gain any victory in gender equality, all men have to lose some power. To gain any victory in racial equality, all whites have to lose power. To gain any victory in GLBT equality, all straights have to lose power.

These were comments in a recent discussion about privilege, but they propagate a framing that goes all the way back to Peggy McIntosh’s original paper about privilege, “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. McIntosh frames all advances in equality as if it were an equation of power, of Newtonian mechanics. For every action there must be an equal and opposite reaction.

http://www.nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf

McIntosh starts out portraying women’s studies as asking men to give up some of their power so women can have it instead:

we in Women’s Studies work to reveal male privilege and ask men to give up some of their power

She talks about men’s advantages as coming directly from women’s disadantages:

advantages, which men gain from women’s disadvantages

I think there are many, many issues of discrimination where equality can be gained without anyone having to lose something. A simple, present day example is gay marriage. For gays to gain the power of gay marriage, straight people do not have to lose any power whatsoever. For blacks to gain a victory in the area of ending racial profiling by cops, white people have nothing to lose. An example of the contrary disproves the framing.

Therefore, equality is NOT a zero-sum-game.

But McIntosh introduces the idea of “privilege” and frames the entire conversation in terms of a zero-sum-game. And that framing is brought to every conversation about privilege even now.

So why frame equality in terms of a zero-sum-game? What advantage is there to invoke this framing if the framing is inaccurate? What’s the payoff? Well, “guilt” might be one payoff. I gain nothing from a racist cop pulling over a black driver, so most people will not associate me with being culpable for that racism. But if I get $100 every time a racist cop pulls over a black man? Suddenly, I have motive.

In a criminal trial, the prosecution must show the accused had means, motive, and opportunity before guilt can be determined. In cases of systemic discrimination, the means and opportunity are easy. Someone else does the discrimination and I do nothing. But motive? To enact gay marriage across the country would force me to sacrifice nothing. There is no payoff for me to oppose gay marriage. I get nothing out of gays being denied the right to marry. Therefore, I have no motive to deny gays the right to marry.

But if the problem is reframed from an issue of “discrimination” to an issue of “privilege”, if the issue is reframed such that there is always something the majority has to sacrifice in order for the minority to gain equality, then that automatically assumes a payoff for discrimination, it automatically creates motive, it automatically creates an air of guilt.

Even if I don’t actively discriminate against people, if I get some kind of payoff from other people committing discrimination, then I have motive, and my inaction to oppose the discrimination that benefits me become the means and method.

When I started to see how much the “privilege” conversation wants to misrepresent equality and reframe all issues of discrimination into the idea of a zero-sum-game, at first, I couldn’t understand why. Why would anyone so horrendously misrepresent reality? Why would anyone say equality is a zero-sum-game when there are many examples of large scale equality that could be achieved with no one sacrificing anything? If gay marriage could be achieved with no sacrifice from straight people, why would people misrepresent that into a zero-sum-game? Why would people take something that would cost nothing and present it as if it requires sacrifice?

And the answer seems obvious once you look at it: framing equality as a zero-sum-game renders inaction into guilt.

If a white person gains something from a racist cop pulling over a black driver (say a hundred dollar bill), then if that white person does nothing to stop racial profiling by police, his inaction renders him guilty of complicity. He is allowing racial profiling because he is getting a payoff. Never mind that the payoff doesn’t exist as anything but smoke and mirrors.

If I were suffering from some form of discrimination, and I saw a swath of the population indifferent to my problem, I might attempt to reframe their inaction into proof of their complicity of my disadvantage. If they do nothing, they become part of the problem, they become active participants in the discrimination. At which point, the only way they can demonstrate their innocence is by actively opposing the discrimination and doing whatever possible to appear to surrender any benefit they might have gotten from my disadvantage.

By framing equality as a zero-sum-game, anyone in the majority group automatically has motive for discrimination to continue, and if they do nothing, they can be portrayed as encouraging the discrimination for the personal benefit it generates for them. And therefore the only way they can attempt to avoid appearance of guilt is to vigorously and actively oppose the discrimination.

By reframing the issue of discrimination into something it is not, by reframing it into a zero-sum-game, every person in the majority group is forced to either actively oppose the discrimination or do nothing and be guilty of allowing the discrimination to continue because it gives them some personal benefit.

The payoff of reframing discrimination as a zero sum game is it drafts the inactive members of the majority to oppose the discrimination.

This would seem a noble cause, and one could attempt to argue that the ends justify the means, that equality justifies reframing the issue into something it isn’t.

Except that the reframing has a major negative side effect: it reframes all progress in equality to be operating in scarcity, it requires that all advances in equality require sacrifices, it polarizes a group because of an untruth, and it creates an antagonistic relationship between the minority group and all members of the majority group.

It occurred to me that I have been relating to people who preach the idea of “privilege” as one monolithic religion, but then I realized every religion has denominations within it. Taking it a step further, even if I am not a subscriber to a particular religion, even if I don’t believe it, I get that others might get value from that particular religion, and that I might even get some value from that religion, without believing every doctrine that every denomination preaches.

One can get value from the words attributed to Jesus Christ even if one is not Christian.

The religion that is “privilege”, like any other religion, contains fundamentalists, moderates, and folks who only go to church because its a great place to gossip. There are followers of “privilege” who use the teachings of privilege to try and better themselves while allowing others to find their own, possibly completely different (i.e. nonbeliever), path. There are those who preach “privilege” as the one true god and that everyone must forsake all other gods and worship at the alter of “privilege”.

There are those who use the religion that is “privilege” as a way to go on a witchunt to find sinners and burn them at the stake. There are the “fire and brimstone” (pillar of salt) preachers of privilege. And there are also the “New Testament” (love thy neighbor) advocates of understanding “privilege”.

I am not a follower of the religion that is “privilege”. I can see potential value in the discussion, but in the end, the language, the tone, the etymological baggage, the approach, and everything that is wrapped up in the term “privilege” seems to me to create more problems that it solves.

I support equality. And I think that equality can be achieved through looking at one group being at a disadvantage relative to another group, or through looking at one group being at an advantage over another group. But I think the term “privilege” is loaded with emotional baggage of wrong doing.

More importantly, I think anyone who is a follower of the church of privilege is a fool to ignore the denominations within their church who use the term “privilege” as a guilt bat and as a gag. I think witchunting, guilt batting, gagging, and burning at the stake, are far more common than many members would admit.

The thing of it is this: Does the term “privilege” create more problems than it solves?

No doubt, the moderates and the folks who use “privilege” to improve themselves likely assume that all followers of privilege are just like them. It was a mistake I was making myself, thinking that all members of the church of “privilege” were the same, that if one person used privilege as a bat, they all did.

As far as I can see, the notion of “Privilege” points to an idea that might be useful in the fight for equality, but the word is packed with such baggage of guilt and wrong doing that it seems nearly impossible to have even a single conversatino about privilege without someone usign it as a guiltbat. And it seems that privilege is a young enough religion that followers don’t distinguish themselves as different denominations even though they are completely different.

There are other ways to discuss the issue that “privilege” tries to highlight without the baggage that the word “privilege” evokes. A simple example woudl be the word “advantage”. Advantage refers to a difference between two people or groups, without assigning guilt or blame or implying which one is “right” and which is “wrong”. THe word “privilege” assigns guilt and blame and implies that privilege is “wrong” and unprivilege is “right”.

That creates issues when you have privilege just by virtue of beign straight, white, and male. It carries along with it the baggage that you are wrong and guilty for being straight, white, and male.

And more than one member of the church of privilege uses the term exactly that way. The more moderate members seem to be unable to correct their more fundamentalist, fire and brimstone, members.

I could just as easily say that I am at an *advantage* over others by virtue of being straight, white, and male, instead of saying I have *privilege* as a result of the same.

Both point to a difference in power between straights and gays, whites and blacks, men and women. But “advantage” doesn’t carry with it the association of guilt and wrong doing. Nor does it carry with it the implication of how to correct privilege. There are rights and there are privileges. Rights are things that everyone deserves. Privileges are advantages extended to a small group, and that privilege can be taken away if the group misbehaves.

As a white person in a country that has racial profiling by the police, I am at an *advantage* over people of color when it comes to how I relate to the police. But the way the police treat me is not a PRIVILEGE, it is a RIGHT. It is a right that has been taken away from people of color. No one should fear the police will treat them poorly just because of their skin color. If you call that a PRIVILEGE, then that word carries with it the implication that you want to TAKE AWAY the way the police relate to me and make me worry that maybe the cops will treat me badly because I am WHITE.

Being treated fairly by the cops is a RIGHT. It is not a PRIVILEGE.

Calling it a privilege carries along with it a whole bunch of baggage that doesn’t fit the facts of that scenario.

But followers of the religion of “privilege”, especially the witchunters, the fire and brimstone preachers, and the folks looking for a religion to hide their guilt-battery behaviour behind, those people don’t care that the word doesn’t fit the facts. They aren’t using the term for its accuracy of description. They’re using it for its accuracy as a weapon. They can swing “privilege” in a room and hit someone nearly everytime.

The fire and brimstone preachers aren’t going to change the term “privilege” because it is inaccurate or because it makes the fight for Equality and Equal RIGHTS harder. They aren’t focused on equality. THey are focused on the witchhunt.

The thing is that the moderates of the religion, they actually ARE motivated for equal rights. The question I’m wondering at the moment is whether they can see that the way many of the members of their church are actually on a witchunt and that the use of the term “privilege” is making it harder to attain equal rights than some more accurate, less baggaged, terminology.

At the moment, I don’t think they do.

CK Louis has a funny bit about loading his dishwasher.

This story could have easily been about some random person Louis ran into on the bus. They’re both on the bus. Loius is standing. The bus lurches. Louis is thrown a bit and ends up stepping on some guy’s toes. The guy gets furious at Louis and says he did it on purpose. Louis tries to apologize. And it ends with the guy demanding the police show up so he can press charges for assault.

The humor is someone taking an unintentional nonmalicious event and trying to convert it into a completely intentional, malicious, totally ‘wanted to mess with someone else’, event.

I realized that this sounded almost exactly like some of the conversations I have about privilege.

Privilege-blamers will try to use privilege to shame or blame or guiltbat someone. They sometimes do this by taking something unintentional and unmalicious and converting it into intentional malice.

A privileged person is by definition at an advantage over someone in a minority class. But the privileged person may have not done anything intentional to cause this. They may be valiant fighters of the equality for all cause. But they still have advantages that they enjoy until equality is achieved. A privilege-dishwasher will use basically accuse the person of privilege of gaining those advantages intentionally, maliciously. That they did it on purpose.

Another example of this the “Offended On Purpose”. A person of privilege says something and the person they are saying it to gets offended. The offended person then turns the offense into something that could only have been done intentionally and maliciously by the speaker.

I saw a person with an incurable disease get angry at a person who had said to them “I hope they find a cure.” And then the offended person twisted it so the person must have intentionally maliciously wanted to offend them. And how dare they.

This is a priviledged-dishwasher incident.

Ascribing intentional malicious intent to an unintentional nonmalicious incident.

AN interesting comment about privilege and the marginalized POV here:

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2011/09/06/shut-up-and-listen/#comment-274020

every time you post a comment along the lines of “But both points of view are valid” you inevitably shift the focus away from the more marginalized POV

Why is the marginalized POV marginalized?

Is it because they haven’t gotten enough “air time”? Is it because privileged people have run the united states for 200 years while the marginized people had to shut up? And now to fix it, marginalized people get to talk for the next 200 years and privileged people ahve to shut up?

No.

The marginalized POV is marginalized because the majority class of the population doesn’t acknowlege it.

Why? Well, for a lot of people in whatever majority group you talk about, its because the people in the majority group simply have no clue that other people are dealing with stuff that they don’t have to deal with.

So how do you balance the focus of the privileged point of view with the marginalized poitn of view?

You get the privileged people to understand the marginalized people have different POV’s then them, have different experiences of life, often much worse.

In a discussion between majority and minority classes, a balanced focus of POV’s would be to find that both sides POV are valid.

people from both sides can report their experience of life adn both can be valid.

Woman: I experience sexism.
Man: I don’t experience sexism.

Both are speaking to their own individual, personal experience. ANd neither one is trying to say the other person’s experience is wrong.

Both POV’s are valid.

You have now achieved balance between both POV’s as far as those two individuals are concerned. Lather, rinse, repeat for the rest of the population.

yeah.

So you want to discuss privilege.

OK. I’m interested in equality and why we’re not there yet.

But before we go any further, I have a few questions for you, just to make sure we’re on the same page as far as basic vocabulary goes.

If by privilege, do you mean some specific benefit resulting from discrimination that the dominant class receives that raises them above the equality waterline?

If not, (or if you don’t know what ‘equality waterline’ means) please read this:

http://www.warhw.com/2010/11/26/privilege-means-all-things-to-all-people/

If by privilege, do you mean “lack of awareness”?

If yes, please read the above links, then read this:

http://www.warhw.com/2010/11/24/privilege-or-awareness/

Do you agree with the idea that “one privilege is not knowing how privileged you are”?

If yes, please read the above links and then also read this:

http://www.warhw.com/2010/11/26/privileged-if-you-do-privileged-if-you-dont/

Do you agree that there is some forms of discrimination that is NOT privilege?

If not, please read the above links and then read this:

http://www.warhw.com/2010/11/26/privilege-is-a-subset-of-all-discrimination/

Is privilege something that I DO or I HAVE?

If you said “HAVE”, then read the above links and then read this:

http://www.warhw.com/2010/11/26/privilege-and-the-dicto-simpliciter-fallacy/

Can individual members of the dominant class renounce their privilege?

If you say “no”, then read the above links as well, because that’s the same as saying “HAVE” privilege.

Do you agree that the existence of systemic discrimination does not mean that all members of the dominant class are discriminating?

If you think all members of the dominant class are discriminatory to one degree or another, see the last link above, because you just committed a dicto simpliciter fallacy.

Do you understand the difference between systemic and individual?

If not read the dicto simpliciter link above.

Are you preparing to award me a space on some “bingo” card for making sure you’re not playing Humpty Dumpty with your teminonology?

Then read this link:

http://www.warhw.com/2010/11/18/humpty-dumpty-privilege/

If you read all the above and still want to award me a space on your bingo card, then go waste someone else’s time.

If you’re talking about privilege, then lets talk about privilege. But if you’re talking about awareness, call it awareness. If you’re talking about discrimination in general, call it discrimination. If you’re talking about discrimination deniers, call it that. If you’re talking about apathy, call it apathy. If you think you can humpty dumpty your way through a conversation about a minefield topic like discrimination, then you’re planting mines, not solving the problem.

If you don’t know whether you’re talking about systemic or individual issues, educate yourself. If you commit a dicto simpliciter fallacy, I’m not being homophobic, racist, or sexist pointing it out.

And if you think me pointing out your humpty dumpty approach or your failure to distinguish systemic/individual is indicative of how “privileged” I am, please, go waste someone else’s time.

In 1 Corinthians, Chapter 9, Verse 19-23, Paul talks about how he transforms himself so as to identify with the people he is preaching to, to become like them so as to understand them, to be able to relate to them so as to connect with them. He summarizes: “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.”

That is one meaning of the phrase “all things to all people”. Another meaning is a meaning often attributed to politicians. A famous example is the “If by whiskey” speech a politician gave in response to a question as to whether he supported prohibition against whiskey or not. His reply could be summarized as this: “If by whiskey you mean the drink that tears families apart, then I oppose that. If by whiskey you mean the drink that lightens a man’s burdens and lifts his heart, then I support that.”

Still another meaning of the phrase “all things to all people” would be something like the term “privilege” and all the different meanings all the different people will give it when asked. The most recent and blatant example of this was the “Privilege Denying Dude” meme. Anyone could create a caption to go with the privilege denying dude. But since each person wrote their own caption, they demonstrated their own personal definition of the word “privilege”. And of the 217 captions I read before PDD was taken down, I saw at least 6 different definitions of the word “privilege”.

(1) Detrimental discrimination (discrimination yes, but it wasn’t privileged)

(2) apathy or lack of awareness

(3) denial of the existence of discrimination

(4) hypocricy of some kind

(5) non-sequitors (for example: global warming???)

(6) instances of reverse discrimination against the dominant group

And the one definition I did NOT see???

(7) discrimination that lifts a class above the equality waterline.

And of all 217 captions for the Privilege Denying Dude, I didn’t see a single example of a caption that pointed to a specific example that actually met a strict definition of “privilege” of a benefit that raised the dominant group above the equality waterline due to discrimination.

For a deeper discussion of the “Privilege Denying Dude” meme, see this:

http://www.warhw.com/2010/11/18/humpty-dumpty-privilege/

The term “privilege” has come to mean all things to all people.

And that’s not a good thing.

Here’s an exercise for you: Find any thread on the internet about privilege that has a large number of public comments. Read through the comments. Figure out how many different definitions people are working from. Assign to each person a working definition of privilege that is reflected by their comments (possibly one of the 6 definitions above). Put each person into a “team” of all the other people who use the same definition of privilge.

Then look at how many “teams” disagree with each other over the definition of privilege.

What I have seen thus far is people on team 1 through 6 operate with completely different definitions, yet, none of the members of those teams correct each other for having a different definition. People using privilge to mean (2) apathy generally don’t get into arguments with people who use privilge to mean (3) denial of the existence of discrimination.

It seems that privilege really does mean all things to all people. At least for anyone using definition 1 through 6, they all seem to allow every other definition of privilege without argument.

The only disagreements between “teams” I have seen on public forums discussing privilege can be broken down into three categories: First, someone with definition 1 through 6 of privilege arguing with someone demonstrating that definition. Second, people arguing over, usually without distinguishing, individual versus systemic issues. And third, people looking for a workable definition of privilege (i.e. definition 7) arguing with someone holding another definition.

The first category are people who hold one definition of privilege arguing with someone who is demonstrating that definition. For example, someone with definition (3) of privilege might be disagreeing with someone who is denying that discrimination exists in whatever area that the first person says it exists. Someone denies discrimination is the root cause of a problem ends up arguing with someone who defines “privilge” as “denying the existence of discrimination”.

The second category is something I see often in discussions of discrimination. It basically comes down to people disagreeing over the differences between systemic versus individual discrimination. An example of this would be someone saying that all men are privileged, you’r ea man, you must be privileged, getting into an argument with someone pointing out that that’s a dicto simpliciter fallacy. Another example of this is when an individual police officer makes the news for arresting a black man, and some people immediately condemn him as committing racial profiling, while others say it hasn’t been proven for this particular case yet. The existence of systemic racial profiling doesn’t mean every white cop arresting a black man is profiling.

The third category would be people who are groping around for definition for actual privilege (a benefit that raises a group above the equality waterline) arguing with people using definition 1 through 6 or some other definition.

Category 1 arguments are valid debates other than the fact that they use “privilege” when they mean something else.

Category 2 and 3 debates end up being problematic because someone trying to distinguish the difference between systemic and individual discrimination is usually dismissed as one of the 1 through 6 definitions of ‘privilege’. i.e. 1: they are really racist, sexist, homophobic, and are trying to DERAIL the conversation. 2: THey’re just not AWARE of how privileged they are and this is just another example of their privilege coming through. 3: They’re DENYING that this is discrimination and that’s just privilege. 4: They are being HYPOCRITES in some way. ALternatively, the person trying to make the distinction between individual versus systemic discrimination might be accused of making the “TONE” argument. Or of being a “concern troll”. Or of winning another space on some “privilege bingo” card:

http://lakarune.tumblr.com/post/1090286813/white-privilege-bingo-card-considering-printing

Because, you know, no one who disagrees with any of the “all things to all people” definitions of privilege could possibly be anything but a homophobic, racist, sexist, asshole in need of a bingo card.

So, here’s the conversation I’m interested in having: What definition of “privilege” are you using? I’ve got 7 definitions to choose from above. You can make up your own if none of them satisfy you. If you’re using any other definition other than “a benefit created from discrimination that lifts a class above the equality waterline”, then I would say that what you’re talking about isn’t “privilege” and you should call it whatever it really is.

If the definition you’re working to is “a benefit from discrimination that lifts a class of people above the equality waterline”, then I’d say we agree and can move on to discuss whatever you wanted to talk about.

There have been numerous threads and flamewars and posts about privilege on the internet. If you read through any of them that have any length to them, odds are in favor that you will find someone making this assertion:

One privilege is not knowing how privileged you are

If I don’t know how privileged I am, then I am privileged because of my ignorance.

However, knowing my ignorance, I might go out and try to educate myself, make myself more aware, make myself more empathic to those who feel the effects of discrimination.

And once I’m aware of the effects others feel due to discrimination, does that mean I’m no longer privileged?

If one privilege is not having to know how privileged you are, is it possible to become aware enough that I’m no longer privileged? Or does all my awareness give me is the knowlege of my inescapable privilege?

Because if “awareness” really has nothing to do with privilege, then why do someone nearly always say that one privilege I have is not being aware?

Assetion:

Privilege is a subset of all discrimination.

If privilege is NOT a subset of all dicrimination, but rather the ENTIRE set of all discrimination, then instead of saying “privilege”, you could just say “discrimination”.

For privilege to be present, discrimination must be occurring somewhere. If there is no discrimination, there is no privilege. The recipients of privilege do NOT have to be the same people who are committing the discrimination.

But how to distinguish the subset of Privilege from the whole set of Discrimination?

Privilege is some “over power” that the dominant group receives above and beyond the equality waterline as a result of discrimination against some minority group. When the discrimination is removed and equality is achieved, the dominant group must surrender that overpower.

One example of privilege is the pay discrepancy currently existing between men and women for the same job. If the workforce of a company is split fifty-fifty between men and women, but the women are consistently paid less than men for the same job, then for equality to be achieved, men and women would have to be paid the same. If you assume that the budget at that company is a zero sum game, then to raise the pay of women, the pay for men would have to drop.

For example, if men got paid $12 an hour and women got paid $8 an hour, if the workforce was split 50-50 between men and women, and if the budget at the company for salaries is fixed, then to bring women up to a pay scale equal with men, women would have to get a raise to $10 an hour and men would have to take a pay cut to $10 an hour.

Non-privileged discrimination has the dominant group operating at the equality waterline while discrimination is occurring. The discrimination “sinks” the minority group below the equality waterline, but it doesn’t lift the dominant group above it. When equality is achieved, the minority group is brought up to the same level that the dominant group was already operating at.

One example of non-privileged discrimination is systemic racial profiling by police. A police force with sufficient numbers of individual racist police officers will demonstrate systemic racial profiling by the police force as a whole. People of color have some percent chance of being stopped by a police officer for no reason other than their skin color. White people have a zero percent chance of being stopped only because of their skin color.

For equality to be achieved in this situation, the racist police officers would be retrained or removed from the force, and then everyone would have a zero percent chance of being stopped for no reason other than their skin color.

With this distinction in place, discrimination could be defined as the existence of a DIFFERENCE in the treatment of two classes. Whether it is privileged or detrimental discrimination would depend on where the dominant group is operating at compared to the equality waterline.

Is “privilege” something you do or something you are?

Do I have privilege simply because I am a straight, white male and I can never reject my privileged status?

Or is privilege a function of something I do or FAIL to do? Is it a function of some power or advantage I recieve and refuse to reject? And if so, someone please explain to me WHY I can’t reject that power and advantages?

Peggy McIntosh, in her paper “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” was the first to use the term “privilege” in discussing issues of discrimination. And in the opening paragraph of her paper, it would seem that “privilege” to her is a function of “being” rather than “doing”, when she says:

(men) can’t or won’t support the idea of lessening men’s power.

It would appear that “privilege” is something that applies to the entire class of all men. It would also appear that McIntosh is saying that individual males cannot, are unable to, surrender their privilege. She implies that it is impossible for individual males to be different from the class of all men. And that is the dicto simpliciter fallacy, which is explained perfectly well right here:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/logic.html#accident

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Dicto simpliciter / Fallacy of accident / Sweeping generalization

A sweeping generalization occurs when a general rule is applied to a particular situation, but the features of that particular situation mean the rule is inapplicable. It’s the error made when you go from the general to the specific. For example:

“Christians generally dislike atheists. You are a Christian, so you must dislike atheists.”

This fallacy is often committed by people who try to decide moral and legal questions by mechanically applying general rules.

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Reformatting that example to “privilege”: men as a class generally get paid more than women as a class for the same job, men as a class have pay privilege over women. You are a male. Therefore you must have pay privilege over women.

And what I want to know is this: Am I privileged because I BELONG to the class of straight, white, and male? Because if so, that seems to be nothing more than saying the class of men have privilege, therefore any individual male must have privilege, which is the dicto simpliciter fallacy.

And if I am NOT privileged merely because I am straight, white, male, if people using “privilege” claim they are NOT committing the dicto simpliciter fallacy, then HOW do they know I have privilege if they know nothing about my own, personal, individual, not-a-carbon-copy-of-the-class-of-all straight-white-males life?