Privilege sounds wrong. It is viewed as unfair and unearned. The term has actually been weaponized in such a way that he or she who is privileged should feel ashamed.
The definition of ‘privilege’ is the following : a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group. The word in itself has no negative inference.
The word has been repeated, again and again, up to a point where our brain systematically comes up with this equation :
Privilege = Illegitimate Advantage.
If you ask the average person about privileged, they would more or less directly argue that in a perfect world, the privileged would have no privilege. Everyone would be equal, and that would be perfect, just.
Would it ?
Some Hindsight
Take a look around yourself. Look at the four walls surrounding you. Take a stroll, contemplate the roads, the buildings, the fields, the monuments… None of what is around you, you have built yourself.
The land you inhabit has been inhabited by men for centuries. You did not appear out of the bloom, by magic. Yet, we are completely uncapable of seeing ourselves as something different from individuals. We are in fact much more than that.
We are lineage. We are chains, and you — the individual reading these lines — are the last link of your chain. The most recent link of a chain of men who have lived sequentially since the dawn of times.
That chain is like a wave in the ocean. An impulse of energy that materializes itself through a myriad of molecules of water. Each molecule is part of the wave, but the wave is greater than all the molecules. Likewise, you are not your brain. You are not your heart, either. And not your eyes. You are all of them at once. I believe each person embodies the present moment of a lineage.
That perspective has changed everything for me. My presence on earth is the consequence of all the choices of my predecessors. Everything has led to… me being here and now. A very unlikely turn of event.
The word “predecessors” can have a broad sense. Obviously it may refer to your bloodline, your forefathers and ancestors. But it could also be the people who built your country. Or even those who lived in your house, and took good care of it before you. All the people who made, as best as possible, the place you are a liveable place.
The lineage’s direction
If you see yourself as an individual. You are an isolated point on the map. Where should this individual go ? What is his direction ? It could be any direction.
Now consider yourself as part of lineage (Whichever lineage is meaningful to you). Your direction is incredibly easier to find. What would that direction be ?
Passing on.
A poor occidental today has more comfort than a king in 500 AD. Our predecessors have worked relentlessly to solve the problems they would encounter, for themselves, and for their successors. To bring more comfort, more security, more wealth to us. There is no reason my direction should be different from theirs : honor what I have received, and make sure I can pass on something even better to my successors. Giving back more than I have received.
Back to your privileges
I believe we — successors — are indebted to our predecessors. This debt we owe, is the compensation for the privilege we have. If France has higher standards of living today than Taiwan, it is not because the French work harder than the Taiwanese. It is thanks to economic progresses made centuries ago.
Privilege is another word for heritage. Those who want to erase privilege from this world want to get liquidate heritage. A world with no privilege is an anti-lineage world. It is an ungrateful world, that considers it owes nothing to its predecessors.
Not only do I suspect this to be an expression of Slave mentality (read the article below to know more about it), but I also think this vision is terribly detrimental, as it prevents us from “team working” with our predecessors. It makes us only interested in working for our little selves, and forgetting about our successors.
My advice is what follows.
Pay no attention to the so-called privilege others have. Acknowledge amply all that you have received from your predecessors, whether you liked them or not. And look to the future : be sure not to be a liability to your lineage. Do not let your predecessors’ efforts go to waste. Build and establish something more valuable than what you initially received. So that your successors may have, in due time, their privilege.
Paul