Phoebe Maltz Bovy

I will second what some reviews have said, namely that the thread of the argument, the narrative, is not always clear here (especially in the middle third or the 3rd quarter or so). The section on "Jewish privilege" and "Asian privilege" doesn't quite connect to the previous section on feminism's travails with privilege, so that the sections themselves seem to be... more lined up than actually a cohesive whole.

That said, I do get it, at the end. And it is a fairly strong indictment of "privilege" as pop-culture callout, strategy, framework, etc. while acknowledging the basic truth and e.g. academic usefulness of the concept.

It remains to be seen, as Ms. Bovy herself wonders, if "privilege" will remain as culturally powerful as it now is. I dunno. To an extent that may be generational, especially as online culture changes (generationally) so fast, which gives me hope that the concept will be moderated. But the concept does seem to have leaped all fences and is firmly a part of e.g. right-wing populism... well, all populism, but most dangerously right-wing populism. That scares me. We'll see.

Finally, stars... I want to give this 5, but it is a little too clunky in places. So five stars for the ideas, maybe 4 for the argument, minus a penalty for the clunkiness... so 4.… (mer)

The Perils of "Privilege": Why Injustice Can't Be Solved by Accusing Others of Advantage by Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a very highly recommended, blunt and well-documented discussion of the current social justice phenomena of accusing people of "Privilege" and the ever present insult to people "Your privilege is showing" or YPIS.

Author Maltz Bovy states that The Perils of "Privilege" is an argument against using the concept of privilege to understand and fight against injustice. "It is an attempt at taking a step back and asking whether the privilege-awareness project is a valuable one. And it’s my sense - with some caveats - that it’s been a disaster." "This is the biggest theoretical challenge to the privilege turn: An approach that’s ostensibly about achieving social justice winds up suggesting, or seeming to suggest, that everyone should be miserable. A further flaw: "Privilege" is based on an analogy, namely that other forms of unearned advantage are similar to, and as important as, wealth." It is all about sensitivities and tends to make far too much of minor problems and far too little of big ones.

Chapter 1 covers the online privilege conversation, a tangled accusatory atmosphere where it is easy to call out someone for YPIS, as I'm sure many people have observed. Chapter 2 looks at American high schools and universities who now regularly host privilege-awareness workshops and now Privilege Studies is an academic field." I know from personal experience that these workshops are presented in a wide variety of careers, including all public school employees and expanding to health care fields. Chapter 3 shows the "impact privilege theory has had on the arts and on cultural criticism. Books, movies, and TV shows are now evaluated in terms of privilege, to the exclusion of all other observations or reactions." Chapter 4 examines the effect and the presence of privilege on politics. Chapter 5 examines the use of privilege by the far right and the plight of the straight, white, middle-class male, among others.

This is an excellent, thought-provoking well-written look at privilege. Phoebe Maltz Bovy makes a plethora of thoughtful comments and provides well-documented examples. In many ways this book is over whelming because there is so much information and so many examples. It is information-dense. According to her calling out someone for YPIS harms more than it helps. It has become a way to bully people online, which has caused irreparable damage to its original use. As she succinctly states: "There is, of course, the even stronger case for checking the privilege of privilege checkers, namely that the people making these accusations tend to be fairly privileged themselves." I really agree with her that all of these accusations of YPIS terrify people that they’re losing the basic right to express themselves, their freedom of speech.

The first time I saw the accusation or thinly veiled insult of "your privilege is showing" was in a comment on a book review. I was rather taken aback that in order to disagree with what I assumed was a white male book reviewer based on his picture, the female commenting had to tell him YPIS. This was for a review on a novel, fiction. So, rather than saying you disagree and envisioned the characters another way, it made more sense to attack the reviewer's privileged status, which is really just a kind of trolling. Goodness.

Then there are the encounters with privilege-awareness-raising exercises. The questions require participants to disclose information, private information, that, perhaps, you don't really want made public to co-workers. However, if you chose to hide certain information then you are higher on the privileged scale. It becomes a dilemma. You certainly don't want to be near the front of the room with the well-educated, cis, white male, but how much do you really want to reveal about yourself or your background?

A couple of quotes - and I had pages of them saved - that I'm including without comment:
"[P]olitical commentator Andrew Sullivan.... spelled out the Trump-and-privilege connection in a New York magazine piece that, while highly critical of Trump, sought to understand where his supporters were coming from: A struggling white man in the heartland is now told to 'check his privilege' by students at Ivy League colleges. Even if you agree that the privilege exists, it’s hard not to empathize with the object of this disdain."

"Thanks to the privilege framework, it’s possible - no matter who you are, or why you’re doing so - to bash women and be given the benefit of the doubt. Well done, privilege framework. Well played."

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of St. Martin's Press.
on 3/17/17: http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1942822762… (mer)

The successor and spawn of political correctness seems to be “privilege”. Phoebe Maltz Bovy sees it everywhere. She says her book is about dismissing the concept, because it makes no sense and solves nothing. She proves it repeatedly, even creating arguments where none are necessary. It is a flat, straight line, and goes on far too long.

The accusation of privilege means your vision is clouded by your heritage and/or circumstances. So if you criticize hiring policies as reverse discrimination, you have to “check your privilege”, because your criticism is almost certainly tainted by your not being black or Asian or native or anything beyond white. This is an entire book on the online hysteria over privilege.

It seems that anything a writer can put a “non” before is potential privilege. Non handicapped, non cisgendered, non female, non educated, non employed, non poor, non colored, non subsidized, non elderly, non-divorced, … can taint anything uttered by its author. Troll attacks have increased, inspired by this tactic, and pile-on to authors who may or may not deserve it. The accusations flow freely, adding nothing to the argument, and of course, nothing to the solution. It’s a license to glibly invalidate anything, and if these examples aren’t enough, trolls can attack the privilege of the tall (non short), the beautiful (non attractive) and the slim (non fat), for example. Anyone fitting these descriptions apparently has no right to make any claims at all. Welcome to “community”, 2016-style.

To summarize, you can find a way to criticize anyone by pointing out their privileged status. You can criticize any work as coming from privilege. You can criticize any work for not considering privilege. You can criticize any criticism for not weighing privilege, and for weighing it, too.

The Perils of Privilege is a very longwinded polemic. Bovy interviews no one and sought no validation. The book ends up being a pop culture critique of critiques and the public comments to them. This is skimming rather than digging. What digging Bovy does is in semantics, hardly the strong point of commenting. She awards credibility where none is due, allowing her to argue rationally against nonsense and bigotry. There is an enormously long argument mid book as to whether Jews are privileged. If the concept is worthless, why accord it dozens of pages as it applies to Jews?

Bovy claims obliviousness is a normal human trait. We will never erase it. Calling it out constantly is at best an eyeroller. She says that her sentiment is to never see the word privilege again. After slogging through this book, where she seems to have searched for every silly instance of it, it is mine too.

David Wineberg… (mer)