A few thoughts about disadvantage & privilege

[David]

I wrote this in response to a discussion about feminism and men's rights activism — specifically, a recent study that showed a disproportionately high amount of stress and depression in heterosexual men — but I think it can be reasonably applied to any area. What do you think?

1) The first principle of political activism is to make society a better place.
2) If you're some sort of utilitarian — and, whatever they might say, most people are — that means making the lives of its constituents better (making them, in the broadest sense of the word, happier).
3) Part of that process may consist of addressing problems that affect social groups specifically.
4) Much of the unhappiness felt within social groups often originates from inequality, particularly being on the wrong end of it.
5) These are not the only victims of inequality, however. We are social creatures, and much of our identity is shaped by those around us. It is entirely possible that a position of social privilege can have negative consequences for the person who experiences it.
6) Furthermore, inequality is not a single spectrum. It's entirely plausible that one social group is disadvantaged in certain ways whilst another is disadvantaged in other ways. That doesn't necessarily make their disadvantage equivalent — in fact, it's highly unlikely that it would be so — but it does mean that the supposed privileged group may have an entirely reasonable claim to unfair treatment in certain areas.
7) That fact ought to make us rethink a lot about the way we see political progress in general. If we move on from thinking about social groups as competitors, we might be able to see that, say, a kind of men's rights activism (if it is needed) can be perfectly compatible with feminism (feel free to insert other possible examples here). If the end goal is the betterment of society, then why not?

[Bruno]

I think you put too much emphasis in boxing people into a social groupings.

[David]

I wouldn't have thought so. See the start of point 3:

[stui magpie]

Who defines what "A better place" is?

It's totally subjective based on individual morals and ideals.

[David]

I don't think that's true. People will disagree with the methodology, of course — hence political ideology — but the end goal remains roughly the same: a society in which all of its members are as happy as possible. That's the utilitarian principle, and I can't think of a single modern day political system — social democracy, capitalism, communism, fascism, theocracy, anarcho-syndicalism, national socialism, primitivism — that doesn't at least claim to be working towards that goal. Even if you can think of some exceptions to that rule, the fact is that most sensible people would agree that they should. Everything else is just a means to that end. The question is simply how best to achieve it.

Once we've got that out of the way, the only thing left dividing you from me from you or Tannin from Bruno or pietillidie from Keith Windschuttle or Noam Chomsky from Tony Abbott is a) what are the biggest obstacles to our collective happiness; b) what are the best ways of resolving them; and c) what can be done to make that happen.

Of course, there will be many people who care about an issue or issues so deeply that they begin to pursue it for its own sake, beyond any rational utilitarian purposes. And then there are people who are primarily motivated by greed or narcissism. But, in both cases, those people have just taken their eye off the ball, and we need to call them out on it.

[think positive]

OMFG now we have to have straight men's rights!!

shut up, get back in the kitchen, go to work early, and leave me with Doctor Phil!

and put the $£$%^%%$ seat down!

reminds me of that song, "put another log on the fire"

[HAL]

Do you wish to stop talking with me?

[pietillidie]

Logically, the end of morality is the greatest good for the greatest number, but unfortunately we have varying primitive drives (and surface expressions thereof) which cause us to defy that formula and invent all sorts of nonsense to convince people that our own personal good is actually the greatest good.

Hence again why the best markers of progress are access and competition.

[David]

^ Although you're probably right, it could be claimed that 'access and competition' is merely one more doctrine. Once again, they're simply means to an end (although quite high up the tree, obviously).

Recognising that the vast majority of us are ostensibly working towards a common goal won't do much to get rid of political/ideological divisions, but I think it does act as a powerful rebuke to fundamentalism. It won't hurt the cause of injecting some empathy and respect back into debate, either. I challenge anyone to argue that we don't need more of those qualities.

[Bruno]

[David]

I found this comment interesting:

[Nick - Pie Man]

That's a curious statistic. I wonder why that is.

Certainly when we imagine criminals - burglars, thieves, whatever, they're usually men.

[MattyD]

[David]

Good find, Matty. Thanks! As the bulletin board code doesn't like parentheses in URLs, here's a shorter link:

http://tinyurl.com/q6sn4tc

[HAL]

Reductionism.