The Fierce Competition To Make Others Feel Guilty For Their "Privilege"
Frankly, if you aren't born in a mud hut in Pakistan but instead live in the West in a country with some form of democracy, and if you aren't in ill health, you are "privileged."

Personally, I feel privileged that I have a roof over my head, a car to drive (nine years old and still going fine!), and food in my refrigerator.

My landlord came to the USA from someplace unfancy in the UK, worked construction and bought up a bunch of houses in then-questionable areas and rented them out. Well, maybe 20 years later, the houses are now in a hot area and I'm guessing he's doing very well. And I admire the hell out of him for how he built a life and a business here. Sure, some people have it harder than others but if you have a rage to succeed, chances are you can have at least a comfortable life here and maybe a very comfortable one.

This veered off a bit from the new meaning of "privilege," but we'll get right back to that with the blog item I'm linking to.

Julie Burchill writes in the Spectator about how today's left is a competition in shouting one another down. An excerpt from the piece, "Don't you dare tell me to check my privilege":

Intersectionality may well sound like some unfortunate bowel complaint resulting in copious use of a colostomy bag, and indeed it does contain a large amount of ordure. Wikipedia defines it as 'the study of intersections between different disenfranchised groups or groups of minorities; specifically, the study of the interactions of multiple systems of oppression or discrimination', which seems rather mature and dignified. In reality, it seeks to make a manifesto out of the nastiest bits of Mean Girls, wherein non-white feminists especially are encouraged to bypass the obvious task of tackling the patriarchy's power in favour of bitching about white women's perceived privilege in terms of hair texture and body shape. Think of all those episodes of Jerry Springer where two women who look like Victoria's Secret models -- one black, one white -- bitch-fight over a man who resembles a Jerusalem artichoke, sitting smugly in the middle, and you have the end result of intersectionality made all too foul flesh. It may have been intended as a way for disabled women of colour to address such allegedly white-ableist-feminist-specific issues as equal pay, but it's ended up as a screaming, squawking, grievance-hawking shambles.

The supreme irony of intersectionality is that it both barracks 'traditional' feminists for ignoring the issues of differently abled and differently ethnic women while at the same time telling them they have no right to discuss them because they don't understand them -- a veritable Pushmi-Pullyu of a political movement. Entering the crazy world of intersectionality is quite like being locked in a hall of mirrors with a borderline personality disorder coach party. 'Stop looking at me funny! Why are you ignoring me? Go away, I hate you! Come back, how dare you reject me!' It's politics, Jim, but certainly not as my dear old dad knew it.

Suzanne is a life-long left-winger and a feminist -- why, I wondered, were fellow travellers threatening her in so rabid a manner? But this, I was to learn, was par for the crotchety course.

Suzanne's crime, it transpired, was to be 'cis-gendered' as opposed to transgendered (that is, she was born female) and not to have 'checked her privilege' -- what passes for a battle cry in certain ever-decreasing circles these dog days. It's hardly 'No pasarán!' -- rather, it declares an intention that it is better to be nagged to death on one's knees rather than stand by one's principles on one's feet. Consider how lucky you are, born women, before you raise your voice above that of a trans-sister! -- that veritable cornucopian horn of plenty which we lucky breed fortunate enough to be born to a sensory smorgasbord of periods, PMT, the menopause, HRT and being bothered ceaselessly for sex by random male strangers since puberty take such flagrant delight in revelling in, shameless hussies that we are. Add to this that Suzanne was, like myself, born into the English working class, and therefore marginally less likely to have beaten the odds than a dancing dog or busker's cat to have become a public figure, and I was buggered (not being homophobic, there) if I was going to put up with a bunch of middle-class seat-sniffers, educated beyond all instinct and honesty, laying into my girl.

But it wasn't just that. It was an instinctive desire to defend the socialism of my dead father. Because intersectionality is actually the opposite of socialism! Intersectionality believes that there is 'no such thing as society' -- just various special interests.

In my opinion, we only become truly brave, truly above self-interest, when fighting for people different from ourselves. My hero as a kid was Jack Ashley -- a deaf MP who became the champion of rape victims. These days, the likes of those who went after Suzanne would probably dismiss him as a self-loathing cis-ableist. Intersectionality, like identity politics before it, is pure narcissism.

...The insistence of intersectional feminists on the right of transsexuals not to be offended -- tells you all you need to know about the essential stupidity of the movement.