[jvdizzle]

It's interesting. Every time the topic of privilege is brought up, usually the first thing someone who disagrees with the concept of privilege does is talk about themselves. Understanding privilege is not about talking about yourself. Privilege is about recognizing that there are people are who not you, and who did not have your story.

Well, I'm going to break the bad news to you... You were lucky. You're lucky you yourself aren't disabled. You're lucky you aren't black, or LGBT. You're lucky you had two parents, and both of them were healthy enough to work. Et cetera. Maybe you are privileged in some ways, but underprivileged in others.

Privilege is about recognizing that there are many others whose identities reduce their ability to take the same risks in a society that is not free of biases or oppression. Privilege is relative.

Privilege is not about disqualifying your experience or story. Privilege is about equity. And I'm not talking about shares or options. I'm talking about recognizing that others may need a bit of uplifting to get to the same place as you.

Your family was able to take risks, and profit from it. I hope you can stand in someone else's shoes who did not have the same fortune as you, and reflect so that yourself are not becoming a vehicle that reinforces privilege.

[mindslight]

"Privilege" is about creating a race to the bottom pity party, whether the "discussion" is about rights being directly oppressed, economic power, or standing in one's communities. It's a sure-fire way to divide the plebs, which is a sure-fire way to sell sensationalist rags (among other goals).

We used to consider home ownership a universal idea to strive for. Ignoring the intrinsic negative practicalities of ownership, and ignoring the imperfection of traditional "everybody" not actually meaning everybody - it was still a constructive goal to work towards! Yet witness upthread, someone is getting shamed because their parents happen to own a house! Good luck getting that person to understand your cause - why should they bother empathizing at all when the inevitable outcome is to still be picked on for having the material and intellectual means to put a sheet of plastic over the top of one's cardboard box when it rains?

This article frames risk taking as a "privilege", rather than a core result of the technology called civilization. If you want to talk about perpetuated systemic inequality and oppression, I'm right there with you. If you want to talk about the downside from risks being externalized, I'm right there with you. But focusing on what luckier people have, especially as some form of original sin, is a zero sum game and a sure path to ruin.

[dvt]

You not only misunderstand what privilege is, but you also misunderstand what the article is about. First, let me quote @mindslight who makes a great point:

This article frames risk taking as a "privilege", rather than a core result of the technology called civilization. If you want to talk about perpetuated systemic inequality and oppression, I'm right there with you. If you want to talk about the downside from risks being externalized, I'm right there with you. But focusing on what luckier people have, especially as some form of original sin, is a zero sum game and a sure path to ruin.

As he says, the article frames risk taking as privilege. In fact, this is 100% absolutely provably not true. People of all socioeconomic strata take risks habitually. That was the point of my post.

Second of all, you misunderstand what privilege is. You say "Privilege is about recognizing that there are people are who not you, and who did not have your story." -- I submit that this makes no sense. Privilege is not recognizing that there are people who are not you (that's simply not being a sollipsist). Further, you're obviously not talking about Bill Gates' kids -- although they, like me, and like those born in the slums of Rio, have their own stories.

You're talking, from what I gather, about those with less than, say average, "original conditions" -- someone that's an orphan, a widow, a handicapped person, a disenfranchised person, and so on. Privilege is also not about equity, it's about charity. (which is by all accounts, a virtue). It's about helping those that are less well off. Equity is about egalitarianism, a discussion about privilege is decidedly not.

Finally, you make the oddly accusatory claim: "I hope you can stand in someone else's shoes who did not have the same fortune as you, and reflect so that yourself are not becoming a vehicle that reinforces privilege." I hope that all your passion about privilege yields a bit more than reflection. I'm a Christian and as you can imagine, prayer is quite important to me, and yet I still volunteer in LA's Skid Row and donate money whenever I can: because that is the fruit of this labor of privilege, not merely reflecting so you don't "become a vehicle that reinforces privilege" (whatever that means).