Not that I disagree with the bulk of your sentiment, but not all privilege is about wealth. There are plenty of wealthy Westerners with very unfortunate lives.

I guess my point is that our sympathies can be widely spread and askew from class perspectives, though I would guess that latter part is part of the point you and many capitalists [aside from either of us] would make given more than a few paragraphs to write about it.

I recently got into an argument related to this, a spinoff from the ron paul @ google video. One guy asks about education, and how he feels 'everyone' should have access to education, and how that is going to happen without the federal government.

But the US federal has never done any such thing as providing education for 'everyone'. Everyone in the US perhaps, but as for the question as to how the people will manage who now rely on the fed, my answer was: a whole lot better than those in africa probably. That is by no means suggesting that the condition in africa should form some sort of benchmark, but it illustrates how arbitrary such programs are. Why should people in new york pay for the education of people in hawaii? Africa is probably geographically closer. It shows that as far as such programs have anything to do with solidarity or socialism, it must be national-socialism. But the more likely explaination is that it had nothing to do with solidarity to begin with, but it is just the dictatorial proleteriat milking the cows they have penned within their national borders for their own interest.

That is not intended to be a moral statement by the way. It is going to happen on some level given the current system, and even if ron paul will succeed in that level not being the fed, it will shift to state level. Sometime i think the reason the US is (slightly) less redistributative than europe, is because the people who are pushing for it dont even realize they are hurting their own cause by bringing it to an even more abstract and less effective layer of government.

That said, perhaps the penning of the cows is the only deciding factor. In a few years, borders between east and west europe will vanish, and east eurpoeans will be able to claim social security benefits in other countries if they live there. If thats not a recipy for an overarching european welfare state, i dont know what is. Similarly, the current open-border structure of the US is pretty much unthinkable if welfare programs will be organized at a state level.

If you are in a wealthy country, it's going to cost you much more to eat/live at the same level of people in a poor country. Relatively poor people generally don't have the option to relocate to another poorer country/region, so they are stuck in the situation of being poor.

I don't think you have an accurate understanding of privilege. My understanding of privilege is that it has more to do with how one is treated as a member of society and the education type assets one has access to, as opposed to wealth. And the concept of "privilege" isn't necessarily race based, though most white people come from a more privileged background.

A good example of privileged vs. unprivileged is when I taught in a summer program for first generation college students. I'd been raised with parents who went to college and steered me towards college and grew up with the expectation that I would attend college, and were supportive of me while in college. The majority of the first generation college students were not only overwhelmed by the unexpected environment so different from high school, but were fighting to stay in school against parents who didn't understand the value of college education and wanted them to work full time and help support the family instead. The concept is that you and I were "privileged" because we didn't have to fight so much to get an education.

The key privilege definition from the meme was "If the people in the media who dress and talk like you were portrayed positively." Yes, people globally live far worse than the unprivileged in the U.S., but that doesn't mean they aren't portrayed positively within their society. And it doesn't cost us anything or take away from third world countries to be aware that some people in the U.S. face more difficult obstacles than others.

what little sympathy I have is reserved for the truly poor of the world

Ok, but why are you criticizing people who have more sympathy than you? Why does it offend you if some of us have sympathy for both the truly poor and the lower classes? If there was a finite amount of sympathy, I'd see your point.

Edited at 2008-01-03 11:26 pm (UTC)

I'm curious what it means for someone in the US to be making 1000 times as much as someone in Africa. Does that represent local purchasing power? Is it adjusted for things like weather (which changes what is required for adequate shelter & clothing)? What about the existence of / necessity for land ownership to grow one's own food?

Any details would be appreciated!

Everyone in the US is not privileged. Not everyone has indoor plumbing or access to clean, running water. Not everyone has enough food on the table. Not everyone lives in safe areas where they don't have to worry about literal daily survival.

Additionally, IMHO it is asinine to assert that if US residents can be privileged by comparison to other countries than no US resident can ever lack privilege in ways that are significant and worth discussing, understanding, and working to address. Unless you'd be willing to move to an inner city, raise your kids on salaries where you can't afford nannies, and enroll them in the public school system (or a rural area in a poor county), then you know damn well how privilege can be advantageous (and thus disadvantageous) and it's disingenuous of you to pretend otherwise.

Finally, nothing in the original lesson plan was about complaining about privilege. It was about raising awareness of it within a US college setting. There is no way to know what the creators know/feel about global inequity because that was simply not the point. Also, acknowledging the head starts some of us have in life does not diminish the talents or hard work that we also have.

You seem to be assuming that memes about white upper/middle-class privilege in the US are largely started by non-white non-upper/middle-class US residents (who are nonetheless still better off than much of the rest of the world, hence your call of hypocrisy). In my experience, such memes seem to be more often started and propagated by the privileged (or at least marginally privileged) class itself, which sometimes feels guilty about its privilege. You might find that to be an unhealthy or distasteful state of mind, but I don't think it's particularly hypocritical.

I wrote a somewhat related post on luck a while ago. Obviously people who are born in this country are privileged (or lucky) compared to the world, even if they are not doing well here.

On the other hand, people do tend to compare themselves to their peers, not to the world. If someone gets an undeserved promotion at work that you wanted, you are unlikely to think, "At least I'm not a dirt farmer in Ghana!"

I think that's pretty rational. Just because there are even worse off people somewhere doesn't mean that you should be content with a lot that is worse than people you see, especially if it's because of discrimination or bias.

White people, men, etc., are treated differently than people of different ethnicity. Often in ways that are beneficial to them.

I don't know about the meme, but I do think that it is worthwhile to consider ways in which we are treated differently in society from others and how that shapes their and our experiences.

I just want to say that I found noamikritzer's response much more thought provoking. It doesn't have the bitter sarcastic tone though, so you might not enjoy it as much (given that this post also has a bitter tone to my ear.)