Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is a very well reasoned argument that makes sense within your logical and philosophical framework. What it doesn't take into account is different meanings to the term "fair" or the morality of a system based on staunch individualism. > Ostensibly, this is "fair", since you use the same rule to fund everyone, but clearly it isn't actually. I actually find the situation you outlined extremely fair and woul…
>I actually find the situation you outlined extremely fair and would find it quite unfair to apply different funding principals to different schools based on demographics. But that "fair" method isn't independent of demographic. And that's what privilege tries to highlight. It's almost always possible to dress up policies that are de-facto prejudicial as independent of the thing that they're supposedly prejudiced aga…
I favor a flat tax if we must pay tax at all.
> The crux of this is that while you may disagree, its possible, and even perhaps likely, that your success is less "yours" than you believe, and that your mind is rewriting history, so to speak, to make you feel more in control of your outcomes than you actually were. This is by no means your fault or anything, and there are probably good evolutionary reasons for our brains doing this (I say probably only because I'm not an evolutionary psychologist, I can make some pretty good arguments for why this would be evolutionarily good). And there are times when it's probably a good idea to ignore that fact and feel like you're to blame for your outcomes, but there are also times where it isn't.
This is the crux of why I think the concept of privilege is extremely dangerous. You have no idea who I am and I've already stated that I fit some of the demographics that you deem underprivileged. Yet instead of listening to what I had to say (which is a quite simple explanation -- work smart/hard == do good) you fit a very elaborate psychological explanation over my experiences (of which you know nothing about).
Do you believe that poor people cannot succeed without help? If the answer is yes, then why would you question someone telling you that's what happened? If the answer is no, then I think you need to reexamine your philosophy as it's fairly dehumanizing to be told that you're not capable of success.
I also find it somewhat amusing that I've seen this pattern repeated over and over. Poor people claim to know what's hold them back. Rich people claim to know what's holding poor people back. Poor people who became wealthy are told they're experience is invalid, an outlier, not useful. Really shouldn't they (we) be the ones that have the most valuable opinion since we've proven it can work?
I'm not just talking about this exchange or my own experiences. You'll see this conversation happen over and over when someone who is self-made tries to discuss how they did it.