[smokeyj]

> And simply saying that privilege is "unfairly reserved"

I meant the promotion of empathy is being unfairly reserved. Empathy is a universally virtuous principle. To preach it at cis white males excludes others from the joys of this enlightenment.

> To them (and I'm in this group)

This is what confuses me. Why is privilege seen as a membership of a group rather than a behavioral fact about human existence? If you took someone you considered "under privileged" and gave them "excess privilege", surely they too would employ "hedonic adaption". Point being, it seems privilege can be reasoned about in principle without employing group mentality.

> To illustrate: How often do people hear heterosexuality applied as a pejorative label?

On the surface we can reason that pejoratives are bad. Beneath that we can reason that some people are victimized for being different. And beneath that we can reason that empathizing with others helps us act in more caring ways.

I think the promotion of kind language is valid and good, but I feel like it's less useful than the promotion of empathy, because the result of empathizing most likely encompasses the benefits of kind language and much more.