You know Rawls and the veil of ignorance?
John Scalzi offers the same metaphor but in a different vocabulary.
Dudes. Imagine life here in the US — or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world — is a massive role playing game, like World of Warcraft except appallingly mundane, where most quests involve the acquisition of money, cell phones and donuts, although not always at the same time. Let’s call it The Real World. You have installed The Real World on your computer and are about to start playing, but first you go to the settings tab to bind your keys, fiddle with your defaults, and choose the difficulty setting for the game. Got it?
Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.
Commenters point out that there are other variables – money, class, ability/disability, etc. True. Straight White Male doesn’t name all the ways there are to be better off than other people, for sure. But the metaphor itself is useful. Especially when you’re reminded of a couple of things.
And maybe at this point you say, hey, I like a challenge, I want to change my difficulty setting! Well, here’s the thing: In The Real World, you don’t unlock any rewards or receive any benefit for playing on higher difficulty settings. The game is just harder, and potentially a lot less fun. And you say, okay, but what if I want to replay the game later on a higher difficulty setting, just to see what it’s like? Well, here’s the other thing about The Real World: You only get to play it once. So why make it more difficult than it has to be? Your goal is to win the game, not make it difficult.
Oh, and one other thing. Remember when I said that you could choose your difficulty setting in The Real World? Well, I lied. In fact, the computer chooses the difficulty setting for you. You don’t get a choice; you just get what gets given to you at the start of the game, and then you have to deal with it.
Your quest for donuts starts…now.
I win the quest for donuts! I just walk out the door to my work, go across the street and presto!!
Oh wait, they’re out of donuts until tomorrow morning, crap!
I though that Baby Jesus chose the difficulty setting for me! 🙂
Logged on to send you that link!
But I think the author is preachin’ to the choir; the people who need to hear this, won’t.
Ha – but I sent it to you first!
Sure, but it seems to be going viral, so some people who need to hear it will.
Yes life a game I suck at and now I learn I’m playing on easy … how depressing.
Commenters point out that there are other variables – money, class, ability/disability, etc. True. Straight White Male doesn’t name all the ways there are to be better off than other people, for sure.
Didn’t read more than the first couple of dozen, but some of his commenters seemed to miss that he already covered that. The computer might deal you good or bad initial stats, you might be a good or lousy player but *all else being equal* the SWM level is easier. You’ve got a better chance of overcoming your starting handicaps, and capitalizing in a big way on your starting strengths, than the harder levels.
The comments are about 50/50. There’s plenty of Whiny White Dudes Who Deliberately Refuse To Get It and there’s plenty of other people trying to reason with them.
And of course there’s a few MRAs for whom the source of all the bad things that happen to them is, of course, women (or feminism).
Scalzi does a good job of moderating the obvious trolls so that the cluelessly bigotted can be dealt with.
So what am I, as a straight white male, supposed to take from this?
Should I be actively discriminated against, or others actively chosen over me based on race, sex, and sexual orientation, if other capabilities are equal?
Are my achievements less meaningful? Should I not be as proud of what I’ve accomplished in life so far as I am?
As the article alludes to, I didn’t make the rules of the game, and I didn’t chose my “difficulty setting”.
I understand life isn’t fair. As a professional, I make a conscious effort to judge others (on a professional level) based solely on their performance, and not on any other factor.
What else should I do? In fact, what else could I do that wouldn’t be denigrating to others?
John…hmm…you could start by not assuming that the whole thing is an attack on you.
John, this is discussed ad nauseum on Scalzi’s thread – the answer is BE AWARE THAT OTHER PEOPLE PLAY AT DIFFERENT DIFFICULTY LEVELS. Also, OFFER THOSE OTHER PEOPLE A HAND ON THEIR QUEST.
Sweet dead Jew on a stick, is there something about being assigned the SWM level difficulty ranking that makes people totally stupid, in addition to fortunate?
Sorry for the caps, I’m just tired of clueless white guys today. Probably time to get of Teh Internetz…
Heh.
I’m not primarily taking it as an attack. I in fact agree with much of what is stated in the article.
There are probably tons of things in life that have happened that I benefited from being a straight white male, and I didn’t even notice it.
So what do I do?
I already attempt to do all I can to judge others (when I have to make a judgement) based on the content of their character or performance (as warranted), not by other factors.
There are tons of other conclusions that can be drawn from this. What should be?
John – I guess one thing I would suggest is learning more (unless you already have, but then “more” is always possible) about stereotype threat and priming and implicit associations. I’ve been learning a bit more via prodding from commenters here (such as Salty Current and Stacy). It’s very disheartening stuff, because one can’t fight it even by fighting it – but one can try to change the conditions that create the stereotypes in the first place.
Ophelia beat me to it.
Also, John, regarding affirmative action: Assuming equal capability, experience, and interview skills, a straight white male is far more likely to get a given job than a black lesbian with macular dystrophy, and this is a problem. The point of affirmative action is to try to bring this situation to a more even keel. This is not to discriminate against you, but rather, to stop the ongoing discrimination against everyone else.
How about you engage in some serious handwringing about what to do, instead of, say, giving money to advocacy groups, voting as if difficulty levels matter, speaking up, especially to express disapproval of “jokes” directed at folks with different difficulty levels, mentoring of and advocating for other players, and expressing some damn modesty and gratitude for your luck? After all, it’s not really possible to imagine what sorts of things might help other people play the damn game and level up.
You seem a whole lot better at handwringing than imagination or empathy, so yeah, stick to that.
You know what I find most fascinating about this topic – how SWMs, upon being on the receiving end of what they assume is the same treatment they have ALWAYS dolled out on others, IMMEDIATELY cry foul. In a way, it reminds me of how homophobes react to the thought of being hit on by a gay man. The mere thought of being treated the way they have always treated women makes them crumble.
Its fascinating because it shows that Scazli is 100% correct. If you look at the comments on Scalzi’s piece – If the mere mention of the fact that they are privileged over others sends them in to testerical crying fits about how unfair the world is to them, how in the world could they survive as anything but SWMs?
Or perhaps this is republican-style doublethink. SWMs are discriminated against in the same way its democrats who are waging the war on women.
Christ on a crutch…now I’m stupid, and have perpetuated discrimination, in addition to being a straight white male.
If you hadn’t grasped it from my previous post, I do recognize that other people are disadvantaged, and society should try to help them.
I actually do believe that if all things are equal between two candidates, and an organization has got a whole lotta “straight white dudes”, then picking the non-SWD because they want diversity in the workplace IS a valid choice to make, it would bring a new perspective.
What I’m not for is explicitly trying to hire people, or do business with people based solely on demographics, largely ignoring other factors. I have seen that, and I don’t think it works out well, nor even achieves the goal. If you all would like, I can provide an example.
What I am really for, over everything else, is judging people based on their character and their abilities. I’ve got enough experience as a professional to know that both genius and stupidity know no racial, economic, gender, or sexual-orientation boundaries.
What I already do, is vote for the parties that try to provide a helping hand to disadvantaged groups. Hell, politically, I advocate that taxes on people in my income bracket should go up. I do donate to causes that help the poor. I have mentored other people, professionally, and when I was in college.
What I don’t like in the article is the analogy. I don’t primarily take it as an attack, because the article is stating that a problem exists.
This doesn’t change the fact that through my life, I have worked my ass off to achieve certain things, and then to be told that “you’re a SWD, you’re playing on easy”, does send a message to me that my accomplishments don’t mean as much. When I hear that kind of thing, it does immediately make me hostile, even when I agree with the message.
I’ll write up the example, because I want to put out there why I wrote what I did in my first post.
I work for a rather large engineering corporation, and we do business with the gov’t – so that does mean that tax dollars do eventually come back to pay for things that we do. I only note that because it’ll be important later.
I’m an engineer, and I’ve got to specify a lot of hardware for various jobs. Since we’re a really large org, I don’t get to go make purchases, we’ve got a department for that. I spec equipment, and get a rough estimate on its costs based on list prices. Program folks handle the actual buying.
The gov’t has got a rule where we are supposed to favor doing business with small businesses, preferably female or minority owned. So when parts are ordered, we go through a reseller that is female or minority owned.
On hearing the policy, I can accept why it was done, especially in favoring the small business part. Favoring demographics, did strike me as a bit off at first, I’m not going to lie. I’d like to think we’d compare local vendors and do the whole market thing. The market doesn’t solve every problem, but this is one where it theoretically should.
Being that I spec and do a lot of hands-on work, I get to see the equipment coming in, and I did get to see the invoices – the costs were significantly higher than what they would have been if I were to pick random IT supply place and place an order.
OK, pumping some money into local small businesses – even if this means ultimately there’s some waste of tax dollars, it’s not all bad.
Then I had heard that apparently one of the resellers we use is actually run by a SWD, but the business is registered under his wife’s name, so that they could take advantage of the fact that our company would do business with female owned companies.
That pretty much is where I started to think that implementing policies like this is misguided, and that the has to be another way. I accepted that the policy was in place, and though it seemed off to me, I figured that giving a helping hand was a decent thing to do; but it doesn’t even seem to work.
This is very familiar
I have to wonder if there isn’t an achievement some people are after called “I can miss the point and force everyone to talk about me!”
You too, man? I thought I was the only one who ever finished that game 100k in the hole.
@John: I hate repeating myself but apparently I wasn’t clear enough the first time: Affirmative action is not about giving people who don’t deserve it a hand out. It’s about making sure people who do deserve it get a bite at the apple. This blog, Sincerely, Natalie Reed, Black Skeptics and The Crommunist Manifesto all have many examples – with cited studies – of how unconsious prejudice and discrimination affect anyone who isn’t a straight white male in Western society.
Let me ask: What would your answer be? To trust the market to fix it? We tried that. It didn’t work. Unless forced to change, those in power tend to empower those like them, on the backs of everyone else. When those in power are straight white men… you get the idea.
The game doesn’t tell you whether the particular forms of discrimination it’s concerned with are the ones that hold people back, or if economic and class distinctions, or perhaps other ones (religion?)play a part so important that it leads to the absurd conclusion that persons that are highly advantaged are having a more difficult life than a poor white male. This isn’t a small flaw IMO, because in the present circumstances there are a large number of poor white males experiencing the same life crushing prospects that other classes are experiencing.
How are they to treat the news that they have advantages? Will you patiently explain to them that their suffering doesn’t count because the game doesn’t pick it up? I don’t think this is a recoverable error, either. It comes from a founding assumption that certain types of discrimination outweigh the ignored ones, a dubious thesis when you state it. Fundamentally the idea that a poor white male has an advantage over a rich black female might in a few situations be true, but as a generality it’s wrong and pernicious. Furthermore, the nasty implication that John is deliberately “not getting it” follows directly from the simplistic nature of the game model, where the game designer designs a rule that seriously distorts the comparative effects of discrimination and other life circumstances.
The takeaway from this is that well motivated people with real and serious concerns, often springing from their own life histories, have cast themselves as arbiters and then done a bad job of it. Once again we learn that being discriminated against doesn’t make you an expert, and it sometimes leads to smug and lazy games like this.
@21: Does the term “average” convey anything to you? Once you’ve mastered that, try “variance”, then work your way up to “normal distribution”.
?? Either I misread the number or something weird happened with the commenting software. In my #23 above, @21 should read @22.
groan
John @ 17 – that’s just…stale. It’s also tangential to the post. You’re also making it all about you, for some reason. So all in all, not great.
To put it another way – the post wasn’t about “affirmative action” or “quotas” or any of the other boring overfamiliar formulas.
Eamon, thank you for providing an example. Of course, if we are talking about “variance” and and “normal distribution” than the point of the game is vitiated to a great degree. If only a general point is being made about how discrimination operates over populations, there’s no reason to be nasty and treat people as malefactors for questioning the specific applicability to a skeptical person like me. But then, it’s my point that you’re not justified in treating people like that anyway.
Huh?
Ernie, did you miss the part where I said there are other variables? Here it is again –
Commenters point out that there are other variables – money, class, ability/disability, etc. True. Straight White Male doesn’t name all the ways there are to be better off than other people, for sure.
John (#17)
Well, then, you’re looking at it wrong. The point is that you (in general) can’t just compare accomplishments like, say, “graduated from college” and assume that your effort was equal to the effort of every other college graduate. There are going to be a lot of people who had to put in way more effort to accomplish the same thing. There will also be people who put in the same effort you did who never graduated because they had more things holding them back. If you (specifically) take that to mean that your success in graduating from college is diminished then that’s because of the way you break down the worth of an accomplishment.
“Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, ‘Straight White Male’ is the lowest difficulty setting there is.”
Is that so?
The differences in human fortune provide a big and complex field of investigation, as the variety of responses on this thread shows. So far and on the face of it, we have all been commenting from a difficulty level somewhere above the sub-basement, which I assume to be nonstraight (of whatever variety), nonwhite …. [insert preferred colour here], nonmale [which does not necessarily mean ‘female’], nondisabled and of nationality Z [definitely not amongst the members of the UN Security Council.]
Reminds me a bit of the problem faced by the journalist and author John Howard Griffin, whose book was written as an attempt by an American white (male) to get inside the black experience and report from there as an artificial ‘black’.
His book brought a wide response, not all of it approving. And he was not commenting from the top deck either.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42603.Black_like_Me
It’s interesting how some people take posts like this so personally. If Ophelia posts about how some particular argument for God is nonsense, she doesn’t get a bunch of comments about “Geez, I’m already an atheist! What do you want me to do about this?” But any post pointing out privilege is met with exactly those kinds of responses.
If a post doesn’t apply to you, or is saying things you already know or agree with, then nobody’s saying you need to do anything.
So I tried this new game called Reality. The graphics are great, but the game-play sucks.
Now that I’ve got that joke out of my system,
twoONE slight quibble, here.“SWM” should be “Straight, White, Ablebodied Male”. I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate on just why that needs to be included, it’s pretty obvious that disabilities can and do hold people back, regardless of any other perks or resources they may have either had at character-gen (like race or class adjustments) or earned through game-play.
The Game isn’t necessarily friendly to the disabled. Parts have been patched to make them accessible (often haphazardly and to varying degrees), there are crude hacks and mods available (artificial limbs, wheelchairs, crutches, etc.), and more advanced hacks and mods in development (“bionic” parts, adaptive equipment that responds to brain-waves), but those take time and resources. And once we have these things, players will need resources to purchase (and occasionally maintain) them, placing them out of reach for those who have few resources.
The Game is also particularly cruel to anyone who isn’t within “acceptable” parameters for mental health. Programmer help you if you’ve got both a physical disability and a mental illness.
Whoever came up with this thing called Life needs to be beaten soundly with soft pillows and stretched on the rack.
Money/class/connections are 10x more important than race/gender/orientation nowadays. I’d rather be a multimillionaire black female lesbian than a penniless SWM, hands down. Money is freedom, money is self-determination, money is power. Money buys you a ticket to a place that recognizes gay marriage if your home state doesn’t. Money buys the luxury of not needing to give a shit about discrimination in employment. Money buys political influence. Money more than compensates for race/gender/orientation in one’s overall social status. Having millions of dollars nowadays makes one far more privileged than a 1850s slave owner for all practical purposes. Money is mostly hereditary. You have a good chance of being rich if and only if your parents are.
If you’re an SWM you’re much more likely to be wealhy or become wealthy than if you’re some other combination. It’s not like these things aren’t connected. The people having those millions (and the political influence that comes with them) are overwhelmingly straight white men.
QFT, my emphasis. In addition to which, Skepgineer, you’re missing the point. It’s not about “SWM but poor” vs “black lesbian but rich” (as if that even were a meaningful comparison in rl, ffs): what this is about is simply realising that other things being equal a SWM is fighting significantly fewer barriers than a non-SWM. Of course in real life a vast number of variables intersect; this is just pointing out that for two people of, let’s say, equal ability and equal economic status the bloke has an advantage over the woman, the white person over the non-white person, the cis het person over the gay or trans person. A poor and disabled white man is extremely badly off; a poor and disabled black woman is even worse off.
OB: “You’re also making it all about you, for some reason.”
As a straight white guy it’s *always* about me, so I don’t see why this should be any different.
What?
Skepgineer: “Money/class/connections are 10x more important than race/gender/orientation nowadays.”
Now correlate the former with the latter.
I think you’ll find something that might amuse you.
“If you’re an SWM you’re much more likely to be wealhy or become wealthy than if you’re some other combination.”
Actually there is some evidence that you have a greater advantage (depending on how you define winning) by being a Gay White Male, but it isn’t totally clear yet.
The trouble with this analogy is that it suffers from the same flaws that Rawls’ original original position is usually held to suffer from: it doesn’t work on its own terms. In the conditions quoted I don’t think that most people would choose to play on the easy setting. I wouldn’t. How many people ever choose the easiest setting on a game? If the game is otherwise tedious, then the motivation for game players to up the difficulty rate would increase, not decrease, because added difficulty in games makes them less boring, to game-players at least. It turns out that life is not like the ‘game of life’ at all in this and so the analogy isn’t very helpful. And if the ‘purpose of the game is to win’, then we should know what constitutes a winning position, like in life.
After sleeping on it. Fuck the analogy.
If you want to make a point about discrimination, use the facts and figures. They’re on your side. It doesn’t take a genius to identify that poverty is a cycle that leads to more poverty, and that wealth is much the same in the opposite direction.
It also doesn’t take much to notice that minority groups have been discriminated against, and are disproportionately effected by poverty and the reduced opportunities that come from that.
I’ve got no problems with some forms of affirmative action. Equal applicants, picking one that brings more diversity to the workplace is a valid choice, because diversity brings value.
I do have problems with other forms of affirmative action (my example above), but these are largely specific cases, and arguably don’t represent what AA is supposed to be. On the whole, I support the idea.
I think society should strive to provide equal opportunity to all people, period. No delineations based on race, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, or anything else.
To get there, we’ve got to give a whole lot of help to a whole lot of people, most of which don’t fall into the SWG category. I’m in support of this cause and act accordingly.
But when you tell me that as a SWG, “I’m playing on easy mode” – my initial reaction is “fuck you”. It’s certainly true in some ways, but it’s also a gross simplification and is demeaning. I get what the analogy is trying to convey, I even agree with the ideas behind the analogy. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bad analogy and probably does more harm than good to the cause.
I’m fortunate being a SWG, born into a middle class US family, the same way ANY person born in the US is fortunate compared to an equivalent person born in say, Somalia.
Awwww, it’s “demeaning”. But crying foul as a way to completely ignore how you still have it better than others is totally NOT demeaning to those others.
Its alllllllll about YOU.
Its a perfect analogy, as evidenced by the SWM reaction to it, as I illustrated above.
@Illuminata #39
I can just as easily state that the US as a whole is playing on Easy Mode.
The entire article is just playing the “Oppression Olympics”, and does nothing but foster divisions.
Far better to realize that oppression and denial of opportunity exists, and that we should work to rectify it.
Oh my. The derailers and point-missers have come out in full force for this one, haven’t they.
It’s not “Oppression Olympics,” John, because straight white males are not oppressed for being straight white males. They might be oppressed for other reasons–class, perhaps, or religion, or disability–but a poor or disabled black woman is oppressed for class and disability, plus for race and gender on top of that.
“Oppression Olympics” occurs when people try to compare two very severe and prevalent forms of oppression to see which is worse–for instance, race vs. gender. That’s generally a futile endeavor.
But saying that there is no oppression of straight white males isn’t setting up a competition of any kind. It’s denying the existence of a type of oppression, and rightfully, because it doesn’t exist.
I call it Oppression Olympics because it is differentiating between how bad it is or isn’t for a group of people on a limited number of factors, when there are dozens of factors that go into each individual.
How much less oppressed am I as a SWM than a Straight Asian Male?
Straight Latino Male? Straight White Female?
Once you start making distinctions based on 3 criteria for an individual, you start setting up the competition.
Compare and contrast the difference:
Pointing out that discrimination exists based on sexual orientation, race, and gender – and that it should be eliminated.
Vs.
Pointing at a huge swath of people and saying “You’ve got it easy”.
@John
I think you are making more out of this then it is. The analogy is just that, an analogy, a way of thinking about or explaining something. It is not perfect and it has limits like any other analogy and it is not targeted at you. If the things you have been saying are true then you already grasp the concept. John Scalzi is trying to find a way to explain the privileges SWMs are granted to those who don’t understand that SWMs have privileges, without using the word privilege. The analogy does not attempt to cheapen your accomplishments and I suspect that your accomplishments are well rewarded. If you don’t like the analogy don’t use it, or better yet come up with a better one. We seem to be on the same team.
I think that this, here, is the reason the SWM WAAHmbulance fleet has been unleashed over this piece. They read this piece and take away from it that everyone who isn’t an SWM thinks they haven’t worked hard, haven’t earned anything, never have problems. Etc. Which, is not at all what the analogy says. The analogy is trying to explain that, for all their hard work, for all that they’ve earned, for the problems that they’ve had, they likely had less of a hard time then someone who isn’t a SWM.
And, instead of having a shred of empathy with that realization – instead of that giving them pause to reflect on what being someone else might be like – they pout.
They simply could not survive as anything BUT Straight White Able-Bodied Males.
I suspect that deep down they know that, and that’s why we’re getting these point-missing, strawman assaulting whiny posts as on the Scalzi piece.
“Less of a hard time” is ambiguous.
You can say I largely wouldn’t be discriminated against based on my status for those three criteria, and you’d be right.
But saying that things are “easy” or “easier” because of those three ignores the vast majority of other criteria that are far more important. That the article acknowledges this, but goes on to make sweeping generalizations based on just three criteria doesn’t make it ok.
It’s not hard to show that discrimination exists on those three criteria. Show the data, and most reasonable people will see it and empathize. I’ve seen the data. I do empathize.
What the article does is be needlessly insulting. A blog post from someone in some random 3rd world country talking about how “Americans are on Easy Mode in Life” would be about as useful as this is.
People have as much control over being born SWM as they do over being born in a first vs. third world country.
This is where you start stereotyping and being insulting.
There’s always some “better” criteria that one could be born into. Everyone makes what they can of life.
Those of us that succeed should help out those who aren’t as fortunate. At a minimum this should entail providing equal opportunity to all, and eliminating discrimination, especially based on things an individual cannot control.
Getting into some attitude of “Those SWM’s have it so easy, they’d never be able to survive if they were born into my orientation/race/sex” is the same kind of bullshit that we’re supposed to be against.
John (#38)
The quote above is contradicted by the quote below.
(#42)
The analogy can get it’s point across, especially to someone already aware of the issue.
It’s also needlessly insulting, and IMO, does more harm than good. Especially when read by people who aren’t already aware of the issue.
I’m sympathetic to it’s point, and I was offended. This just gives fodder to the “Men’s Rights” folks.
Hey John?
Go fuck yourself. You’re a solipsistic whiner. Get used to spending a lot more time being pissed off, because people aren’t going to stop calling you on your shit. Clearly you’ve gone through life not being challenged to think about how opportunities open up for you, all other things being equal, more frequently than for some others. So you feel entitled to rage and indignation when anyone suggests you didn’t bootstrap yourself to greatness by sheer force of personality. For some reason you think this belittles any actual skills you might have, which is baffling.
Shorter me: you’re an asshole.
God you are an egotistical little baby! Seriously—do you listen to yourself? Your reaction is so wildly disproportionate you’d instantly recognize the absurdity if someone else were doing it.
Oh spare me your bullshit lies and this bullshit whining about imaginary stereotyping and insults. I never said SWMs ‘have it so easy’ – I specifically said the opposite, which you quoted *before* lying.
As I already said, IF THE MERE MENTION OF THE FACT THAT YOU HAVE IT LESS HARD THEN SOMEONE ELSE SENDS YOU INTO SELF-INDULGENT POUTING FITS ABOUT HOW HORRIBLE THE WORLD IS TO YOU, YOU ARE BASICALLY SCREAMING TO THE ENTIRE WORLD THAT YOU COULD NOT MAKE IT WITHOUT THOSE UNEARNED ADVANTAGES. You’ll also not that I’m talking specifically about the comments on the Scalzi piece. However, the road you’re traveling on seems like its about to lead to the same place.
This is not stereotyping. Its not even an insult – it’s the fucking truth. If this is all it takes to send SWMS into crying fits of rage, they really could not survive as anything else. Because the shit others get is relentless. It’s everyday. Its something you can never escape from. If one blog post causes this much navel-gazing pouting from white dudes, its clear they couldn’t handle the onslaught.
And I really don’t give a fuck if that hurts white boy fee-fees.
You know what ACTUALLY gives fodder to male supremacists – having fauxgressives participate in the constant whining that no one has it worse than them.
Precisely. And let me be clear: I don’t believe you when you describe yourself as an ally. You’re an entitled whiner whose image of himself is more important than any other consideration. You stopped just short of claiming you, personally, were going over to the MRAs (your passive-aggressive coyness is obvious) because you were “insulted.”
Go then. It’s a net plus to flush out people who aren’t actually empathetic and compassionate as it allows us to know who our real friends are.
Here’s the way I view it:
Life is hard for everybody. Life requires effort for everybody.
Life is much harder and requires much more effort for some groups of people than for others.
John (#47)
You’re not sympathetic to the point; you don’t get the point. How many people have to try to correct you before you figure out that you’re missing something? I’d like to think you mean well and that you really are an ally against oppression but it’s impossible when you spend several posts derailing and strawmanning and whining about how terribly offended you are.
And you know what? Even if your interpretation was spot on (which it ain’t) and the analogy is demeaning to straight white dudes, it’s laughable you’d think that your hurt feelings fall anywhere on the scale of “inequities we should give a fuck about.” It’s like you’re saying, “Well, yes, that gut wound is bad and all, but look, I’ve got a papercut. It really hurts, you know!” Just stop it.
Well, GH, that’s because you’ve not been raised on an exclusive diet of It’s All About Me.
At what point have I stated that no one has it worse than SWM’s?
I have stated that I’m quite fortunate to have been born in the US, especially to a middle class family. This doesn’t mean that I’ve got “life on easy”, and saying as much does
I do like how I’m a fauxgressive now. My votes, donations, advocacy, and attempts at being as non-discriminatory as possible mean shit. I took offense at a hyperbolic article: Fuck me! Right?
I will admit one thing. You didn’t say “SWM’s have it so easy”. You just said:
Which is stereotyping and insulting all on its lonesome.
Feel free to rage in all caps some more.
You don’t take criticism at all, do you John?
LOL didn’t take too long to trout out the sexist dogwhistles.
Clearly, CAPS means i’m ANGRY – not trying to get through to a self-indulgent pouter, nono! because i’m a GIRL, I’m so EMOTIONAL!! LO
LOL obviously.
I’ve already explained how its not stereotyping or insulting, but its clear you have no actual argument, no interest in talking about anything but your pwecious hurt fee-fees and have fallen in the ‘i’ll just keep repeating myself til they get bored’ trap.
Josh is def right about you. But thank you for demonstrating exactly what Scazli is talking about. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled yet another SWM can’t see the forest through his self-obsession.
LOL perfection. He won’t get it though. He’ll just post another 10,000 word post about how its insulting for you not to care about his paper cut.
Oy.
Sexist dogwhistle?
Because I can tell you’re anything with a name like that? And all caps does imply rage fits, irrespective of gender, or anything.
The point can be gotten across in far better ways, like citing actual statistics about discrimination.
The article has become fodder for the “Men’s Rights” folks. And at no point have I insinuated I’ve “gone over there”.
You folks obviously want to get self righteous and find your “real friends”, and fuck anyone who doesn’t agree to with being denigrated to make a point.
Here’s some ointment for your boo-boo.
John – really – as I said yesterday, this post isn’t about you. I don’t even know you. I don’t think you’d ever commented here before this post.
It also isn’t about affirmative action. I told you that yesterday yet you still started with it first thing today.
Not about you. Not about affirmative action. Please note. Please stay on topic.
John-
You are too hung up on the “life on easy” bit. Scalzi did not say your life is easy Ophelia did not say your life is easy only that you have some remarkable advantages over people who don’t share your sex, gender and skin color.
I hadn’t commented before.
I shouldn’t have said anything about affirmative action in my OP. I’ve recently seen some things on AA I didn’t like, and I projected. The distinction I was trying to make was a poor one, on a specific case, where the article was general.
As far as getting hung up on “life on easy”, well yeah. It’s generalizing on 3 factors when there are tons that go into it for every individual.
It frames discrimination issues into SWM vs. Every Other Minority. It frankly strikes me as some kind of guilt trip that I should be on because I was born.
The fact that the article blew up all over the internet, and the fact that there’s backlash is indicative of this.
If the real point of the article is that “discrimination is bad, and people are discriminated against based on orientation, race, and gender”, then I agree with the point behind it.
But if I’m not cool with the presentation or getting a guilt trip because I was born as the least discriminated combo on 3 categories, and I dare to say anything I’m:
A fake progressive.
A sexist.
Weak enough as an individual that I couldn’t survive as anything other than what I am.
John, stop it.
Whatever helps you continue to avoid making a point you clearly don’t have.
Been there, done that. If you actually believe that male supremacists and self-obsessed SWMs are ever convinced by “actual statistics”, go back to church. There, they’ll be very accepting of mind-boggling credulity.
EVERYTHING (uh-oh capital letters! Run for cover!!) that suggests men are anything but poor hapless victims of a misandrist matriarchy is fodder for male supremacists. Anything that doesn’t explictly state that women are the root of all evil is fodder for male surpremacists.
So, to recap: You’ve learned nothing, you’ve absorbed nothing, you’ve ignored everything everyone has said to you, AND you’re still viciously beating that strawman.
I didnt’ call you a sexist, I said you used a sexist dogwhistle. I didn’t call you a fake progressive, I’m trying to get through to you that the ridiculous fluff you’re posting is making you come off like a fauxgressive. I also didn’t say that YOU couldn’t survive as anything than what you are – I made it very and repeatedly clear I was referring to the comments on Scalzi’s piece.
Can we stop talking about poor John now? is your ego sufficiently sated?
If some people, unnamed to avoid them having another fit, are getting caught up on “easy mode”, here’s a suggestion for them: the game of life is like playing the later Halo games on Legendary, which is the hardest difficulty. If you’re NOT a SWM, it’s like playing the game on Legendary… with skulls on*. Get it now?
*”Skulls” were an item in a multiplayer gametype for Halo 1. In Halo 2, the devs hid a skull which could be picked up, upon which the game would be modified in some way, usually making it more difficult (or in a few instances, funny). In Halo 3 and Reach skulls could be activated from a menu once you’d unlocked them without having to find them on a level. The LASO (Legendary All Skulls On) runs are the most difficult way to play the games and, from experience, results in some of the single, hardest gameplay in any game.
Look, I don’t like the ‘privilege’ argument, because I find it too blunt and too blind to the thing that really matters in Britain (social class), but I like this. I like it because it does Rawls (and to a lesser extent Hayek) so very well.
If nothing else, it forces people of all backgrounds to consider institutional design and why we are the way we are, now, in the 21st century. That’s why I developed this tutorial exercise:
http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2011/04/27/crowdsourcing-bleg-getting-lawyers-to-think-creatively/
John (#64)
Which isn’t something the analogy, Scalzi, or anyone favoring the analogy is failing to acknowledge. The whole fucking point is that all other things being equal, those factors give a serious advantage to anyone lucky enough to be born with them. It’s a simplistic model, yes, but what it demonstrates remains true even when you add in all the other factors that make real life more complicated. It’s drawing attention to those particular factors because of the massive and real impact they have and because of the way straights, whites and males have a habit of overlooking or denying they systematically and significantly benefit from being straight, white and male.
It’s not. As Scalzi explains in the very first paragraph, it’s about privilege, and privilege isn’t “discrimination is bad.” So stop making whiny comments on the basis of your misunderstanding.
John, it is a metaphor. An imperfect metaphor but still a metaphor. It is not meant to accurately describe every possible area. It’s a broad breakdown meant to help a beginner approach the subject. If it helps, don’t think of it as EASY->CASUAL->NORMAL. Think of it in terms of NPC behavior and initial wealth distribution. SWM would start is the most positive NPC attitudes and (on average) easier and more reliable access to money.
I maintain that the ‘men intrinsically/ love to/ habitually/ can’t help from / oppressing women’ theory of sex roles has certain deficiencies. I see sex roles as originating in a co-conspiracy of both sexes.
Problems arise for both sexes when history moves on. Then readjustments are made, and by both sexes. We are living in a major phase of (post WW2) readjustment in the West right now, and one appears to be in its opening phase in the Islamic world.
Everyone except the poor blind black crippled woman street beggar in some God-forsaken Islamistan, whose aunt (yes, a co-conspirator aunt) subjected her to FGM at age 5, is above the lowest level of ‘privilege’. And is Joe Whatshisname from Hicksville Oklahoma more ‘privileged’ than Oprah Winfrey?
Some might say so. But I find it hard to see how.
Lyanna @ #41 has hit the nail right on the head, sort of:
“’Oppression Olympics’ occurs when people try to compare two very severe and prevalent forms of oppression to see which is worse–for instance, race vs. gender. That’s generally a futile endeavor. [Is it?]
“But saying that there is no oppression of straight white males isn’t setting up a competition of any kind. It’s denying the existence of a type of oppression, and rightfully, because it doesn’t exist.” [Is that so?]
Before WW2, the co-conspiracy drafted the main western sex roles as husband-breadwinner and wife-homemaker-mother. Post WW2, both sexes realised that with such things as modern contraception and household appliances, their combined disposable income could be increased if both wife and husband were in the paid workforce. And that started other snowballs rolling, leading to such things as this Internet conversation.
Without all of the above, there would be no conversation, and probably no Internet as well.
If certain people (looking sideways at you, John) had actually read what Scalzi wrote with some attention to care, then you would be aware that he doesn’t use the word “easy” anywhere in the blog comment* – he uses the superlatives of “easiest” and “lowest”, or the comparatives “easier” or “lower” (and their opposites). He does not use the word “easy” – get it? And his message is that the lowest or easiest difficulty setting is still a difficulty setting. For fucks sake, respond to that, rather than making a strawman out of Scalzi’s metaphor.
* Maybe these people are fixated on the computer game illustration, which shows a typical difficulty rating, “Easy” – “Medium” – “Hard” – rather than actually focussing on you know, what the article actually said.
Whoops, I said ‘comment’ when I meant ‘article’ just before. Whatever.
John Scalzi has a new
commentarticle up to deal with the backlash, which is well worth reading, seeing as he addresses most of the issues that were raised in the epic comments thread on the original post:“Lowest Difficulty Setting” Follow-Up
Oh hai, this one’s tailor made for you, John!
Yes, that is so. White men are not oppressed for being white men. Gay white men, disabled white men, poor white men, incarcerated white men – yes. because they are white? No.
Unless you know of a long history in the US of lynching white dudes, that everyone else is unaware of, for example.
” White men are not oppressed for being white men.”
Well no, but since ‘white’ in this sense has no scientific or anthropological value – it is just a conventional category with shifting margins – that doesn’t tell us very much. It is dangerous to mistake the model for the reality. Whatever the variations there are between categories, there is likely to be a much wider variation within the category, which is why this discussion has got so daft.
I’m not clear on what you’re getting at. Would the word “caucasian” narrow the field?
There is no systematic, institutional racism against Caucasian people. This doesn’t mean that no Caucasian person never gets called “cracker”, or wev. However, on the scale of offense, “cracker” hardly compares to other racial insults, because there is no systematic, institutaionalized racism against them.
Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottle says @ #74::
“White men are not oppressed for being white men. Gay white men, disabled white men, poor white men, incarcerated white men – yes. because they are white? No.”
So one can still be white and oppressed. A poor white disabled gay male prisoner would probably find little comfort in the fact that his oppression did not arise out of racial caste, or that nonpoor, nonwhite, nondisabled nonprisoners were arguably enjoying better lives.
A key observation has been made (I think it was by Marx) that when one man oppresses another, both are reduced by that fact. This was not just rhetoric. (His stated aim was to eliminate all oppression by anyone of anyone, but to what extent he succeeded is of course, highly debateable.)
But as I have pointed out elsewhere on other B&W threads re the oppression of females via genital mutilation, trying to shift all blame for all oppression onto one perceived oppressor caste has got a few problems.
But when you tell me that as a SWG, “I’m playing on easy mode” – my initial reaction is “fuck you”. It’s certainly true in some ways, but it’s also a gross simplification and is demeaning. I get what the analogy is trying to convey, I even agree with the ideas behind the analogy. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bad analogy and probably does more harm than good to the cause.
So in other words, John, you pretty much admit the original statement was true, and you understand and respect what was being said, but you’re throwing a tantrum about it anyway. I really don’t see much point in trying to have a grownup discussion with someone who’s reacting like this.
“Well, here’s the other thing about The Real World: You only get to play it once. So why make it more difficult than it has to be? Your goal is to win the game, not make it difficult.”
What?
“Eh? SERIOUSLY? EASY MODO?” “How gross! The only ones that should be caught playing Easy Mode are elementary school students, right?” “HAHAHAHA!”
http://www.easymodo.net/