[cantastoria]

Great, another guilt ridden diatribe against John Scalzi from John Scalzi. I've never read someone who is more obsessed about being a "privileged white male" than he is. I wish he would take his own advice or at least the first part of it. I'm not going bother arguing with him because really what's the point, this self-flagellation obviously gets him off and as usual it's all about him. Is "self-hating narcissist" a thing?

[scotch_drinker]

Self-flagellation? I went back to make sure I didn't miss anything but it looks like a post about understanding your privilege and how your success relates to it. It's a post about understanding the depth of experience that other people live with, experiences he has not had because of that privilege.

[resu_nimda]

It seems that a trend is developing of labeling earnest introspection as "self-flagellation." See my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5375270 for an identical situation on a different subject. I don't want to make assumptions, but are people really that hostile to the idea of openly questioning oneself?

(I'm speaking specifically of the HN community, obviously the answer for the general public is a resounding "yes")

[unalone]

Acknowledging that you were born with certain advantages, and that said advantages make you blind to the difficulties that people who are not like you face, is a weird thing to call "self-flagellation". Or narcissism for that matter. Like it is literally the opposite of narcissism.

I forget which awesome person said it, but the correct response to realizing you have privilege is not to feel guilty or self-hating. It's to feel responsible. You've been given immense advantages; you should use them to help others who have been less fortunate. So no, I doubt John Scalzi hates himself very much.

[mistercow]

If you think that recognizing one's own privilege is about self-flagellation, you really, really don't understand the concept.

[rooshdi]

No, but introspective human being might be.

[kalkin]

There's nothing self-flagellating about Scalzi's post. And I say this as somebody who is not particularly fond of the language of privilege. But also, if you've never read anyone more obsessed with privilege than Scalzi, you've managed to live in a pretty politics-free bubble.

[gadders]

Hear hear! He needs to stick to making up stuff.