I'll try to paraphrase my final sentence here: Discussions between members of what I'm calling the Intelligentsia (folks who have the cultural exposure necessary to understand what privilege is) may succeed in increasing awareness within the Intelligentsia, but I don't think it does very much to improve society as a whole. The problem in my mind is that large sectors of the people who hold problematic opinions (problematic in the eyes of progressives) are excluded from these conversations entirely.
Another piece of this (which I didn't quite explicitly state) is that I think a lot of progressives have a strong tendency to sneer at conservative opinions without putting a lot of thought into where the conservatives might be coming from. We can say "he holds that belief because he is unaware of his privilege," and that's often the case, but I think we often fail to recognize the flip side "I am able to make this type of observation as a result of my own privilege."
I can try to clarify further, but I'm really not sure what the source of confusion is.
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2010-02-22 21:51 (UTC)Discussions between members of what I'm calling the Intelligentsia (folks who have the cultural exposure necessary to understand what privilege is) may succeed in increasing awareness within the Intelligentsia, but I don't think it does very much to improve society as a whole. The problem in my mind is that large sectors of the people who hold problematic opinions (problematic in the eyes of progressives) are excluded from these conversations entirely.
Another piece of this (which I didn't quite explicitly state) is that I think a lot of progressives have a strong tendency to sneer at conservative opinions without putting a lot of thought into where the conservatives might be coming from. We can say "he holds that belief because he is unaware of his privilege," and that's often the case, but I think we often fail to recognize the flip side "I am able to make this type of observation as a result of my own privilege."
I can try to clarify further, but I'm really not sure what the source of confusion is.