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"Check your Privilege"

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Dormin111

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Have other people been encountering this phrase? At first I thought it was just something that cropped up on uber-leftist college campuses like my own, but I've been seeing it more and more from media source.

 

What's your take on it? It's an absurd demeaning, hateful phrase based on intellectually bankrupt post-modern self-hatred, but what are its implications and basis? I think it could be considered a modern form of original sin, repackaged in skepticism and relativism. Or is it simply more race bating and white guilt?

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Check out this thread from a year ago.

 

Here is the original video from the OP

 

Pure racism though it seems even more insidious. 

 

Edit:

 

Depending on what has actually been said, the proper reply to "check you privilege" is probably "check your racism".

Edited by Marc K.
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I've never heard it, but here's a summary. At a psychological/ethical level it does sound like guilt-inducing original sin. At an epidemiological level it sounds like a justification for class-determined logic.

 

Of course, it is a good to be introspective enough to question how your "environment" has impacted you. It is also good to have the intellectual empathy in understanding the same in others. Rational people try to monitor themselves for such biases. So, I guess there could be a context where it is appropriate, but I doubt people would choose those words to caution a friend against bias.

Edited by softwareNerd
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I've heard this phrase a lot over the past year. It's basically a way to inject identity politics into the conversation and shut someone up who has an opposing viewpoint. They will say the person making the pro-freedom argument is  privileged ie white, wealthy, male, healthy, heterosexual, etc. Eg if the person is male and is arguing against gender quotas because of XYZ reason, then the other person will say "check your privilege". Which means, you are a male with privilege so you would think that, you cannot have a proper viewpoint because you are a privileged male, see it from the less privileged point of view ie the female view. Which is absurd (not all females will support gender quotas) and hasn't addressed the XYZ reason that the person gave. It's also absurd because it implies that only people with personal experience of an injustice can make valid comments on it. ie that only minorities can voice proper opinions on racism etc.

 

In summary, this is a super irritating phrase.

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Never heard of it until now.

Is it just me or does it sound absurdly similar to "check your premises"?

I smell conceptual thieves.

Some people need to have their stoopid slapped out.

I doubt its conceptual theft.

But the reason it sounds similar is that (see my other post), the notion of privilige is more reasonable then people who dismiss it want to admit.  The notion that people are often uninformed on an issue via lack of personal experience with it is pretty obviously a reflection of reality.  The problem comes when people overreach the information aspect of privilige and start claiming that tribal membership grants tribal knowledge.

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I've heard this phrase a lot over the past year. It's basically a way to inject identity politics into the conversation and shut someone up who has an opposing viewpoint. They will say the person making the pro-freedom argument is  privileged ie white, wealthy, male, healthy, heterosexual, etc. Eg if the person is male and is arguing against gender quotas because of XYZ reason, then the other person will say "check your privilege". Which means, you are a male with privilege so you would think that, you cannot have a proper viewpoint because you are a privileged male, see it from the less privileged point of view ie the female view. Which is absurd (not all females will support gender quotas) and hasn't addressed the XYZ reason that the person gave. It's also absurd because it implies that only people with personal experience of an injustice can make valid comments on it. ie that only minorities can voice proper opinions on racism etc.

 

In summary, this is a super irritating phrase.

Can't believe I'm saying this, but exactly. 

 

Damn it. I was really expecting a much more hilarious response than this from you. Oh well, there's still CrowEpistemologist. Hopefully he'll stop by and provide the chuckles.

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Read mikees article.

The claim that fallibility invalidates is not a new one; this is Hume with modern packaging.

The further insinuation, that this fallibility is caused my the accidental conditions of your birth, is blatant collectivism.

They may as well throw "check your privilege" at those born under a different zodiac; it would have equal validity.

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