How it starts
Gosh, really?
The Rationaliser @TheRationaliser 8 hours ago
@RichardDawkins Out of curiosity, do you think your gender/colour/class has given you privilege in your life?Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins 8 hours ago
@TheRationaliser I don’t know, but my first class education probably has.
Really? He doesn’t know? At all?
I get that the word “privilege” gets thrown around too much, and has become both stale and belligerent, but none of that means that there is nothing to it at all. How can Dawkins simply not know if his being male and white and upper middle class has given him any privilege?
How, for instance, does he think he came by his first class education? The very label – first class – acknowledges that it’s not universal, so how does he think it happened that he got it when others didn’t?
The things are all joined up. Class privilege has a massive impact on what sort of education one gets, in many ways. It means growing up with literate parents who value education, for instance. It means having parents who know how to work the system. It means money to pay for books and private schools. It means having connections. White privilege and male privilege are pervasive in the same way.
It seems strange to be wholly in the dark about all that.
IF the good dr speaks the truth here (given the limitation of brevity) it seems this bulb is dimming somewhat.
Also sad – he must have once been much better at logic.
Sic transit, etc.
Have a happy New Year!
He attended a boarding school for boys. That probably cost no little in tuition.
The illusion of meritocracy must be maintained at all times. If he admits that systemic biases exist that favor white males over others, it would mean his success isn’t pure.
In the U.S. Asians (mostly Japanese and Chinese) tend to have higher levels of education, higher incomes and are way over- represented in the science and technology fields when compared with Whites. Yet none are ever said to enjoy “Yellow Privilege”
To boot, both the Japanese and Chinese communities in America have been subjected to many vicious forms of discrimination and racism over the years.
Similarly the Jews, a community that has suffered no small degree of discrimination, are way over-represented in the professions when compared to Whites, but who could ever claim that such success was due to “Hebrew Privilege”.
It isn’t about privilege at all, but rather it’s more a question of ‘culture’.
Jewish and Asian Americans tend to be raised in a climate that puts a great deal of emphasis on education and the drive to succeed. It is that ‘climate’ or culture that allows both of these groups to out-perform everyone else… including those of us benefiting from White Privilege.
That said, there is MOST CERTAINLY something called “Male Privilege” and it appears to transcend all or most ethnic, racial and religious differences
an interesting question raised here:
https://thenodster.wordpress.com/2014/09/21/does-richard-dawkins-have-aspergers-syndrome/
though as my school teachers repeatedly told me, a reason is not an excuse
Dawkins is aging badly. He seems clearly fuddled in recent clips, even when he isn’t giving bumbling offence. I think fans have a hard time accepting this, just as Hitchens’ enthusiasts didn’t want to notice how often he was too soused to make good sense.
@John
There are quite definitely assumptions people make that an Asian youth must be naturally good at math, and a dedicated scholar, and such assumptions do affect how others deal with this person. There are also assumptions about Jewish people. Whether those characteristics are attributed to genetic traits or to culture, they are still stereotypes. There may not be enough of such characteristics to warrant lumping it into “Asian privilege” or “Jewish privilege”, but it exists. What is privilege anyway, if not a set of positive treatments based on positive stereotypes?
“Class privilege has a massive impact on what sort of education one gets, in many ways. It means growing up with literate parents who value education, for instance”
There are many working class parents who value education (like mine) and the impact really depends on the country in which people live, some allow more upward social mobility than others. That said, Dawkins, as a scion of the British East African settler culture probably had somewhat more advantages in the class conscious Britain of the 1960s than the average factory worker’s son or daughter.
@4John,
“Similarly the Jews, a community that has suffered no small degree of discrimination, are way over-represented in the professions when compared to Whites”
“..compared to Whites”, what do you mean?
RJW, the child of a middle (and up) parent who values education is at an advantage over the child of a working class parent who values education, as the middle class parent has more flexibility to get their child into better schools (by whatever criterion) – whether by choosing where to buy a home or by sending the child into a private school. The middle class parent has more access to outside resources – tutors, extra-curricular activities, any support for special needs the child might have, more time to research the education system and find out how it can be levereged to their child’s benefit.
John, immigrants from the eastern and south-eastern parts of Asia come from divers communities with many different cultures.
Also, that immigrants from functional communities manage to overcome discrimination (itself a mixed bag due to ‘model minority’ stereotyping, as Sackbut mentioned) does not mean that black students, coming from survivors of generations of various forms of structural racism, from slavery through Jim Crow, redlining and so forth, would be in similar position.
Anat,
Of course, however my point was that lower income disadvantage is mitigated by social democratic policies, for example, children of lower income parents in Scandinavia or most other Western countries would have a much better chance of upward social mobility than their equivalents in the US. Regrettably social democracy is under attack, particularly in the so-called Anglophone countries.
@8 As opposed to White Gentiles.
@10 I specifically cited America’s Chinese and Japanese communities because both have been subjected to many forms of discrimination over the years. I cited American Jews for much the same reason.
These three groups, the Jewish, the Chinese and the Japanese Americans, perform well above the average, ie better than Whites, even though none can be said to enjoy special privileges.
@7 The traditional stereotypes of Chinese, Japanese and Jewish Americans circulated over the years were anything but positive.
I worked my way through university. The upside is that I learned to weld and pull pints. The downside is that I was always tired. Few of my peers had to worry much about money. And these were in the days (here in the UK) when there were no university fees and there was even a government grant for living. I have no idea how students from poorer backgrounds survive these days.
We’ve managed to create a society in which a degree is more or less essential but is denied to people who can’t afford it.
latsot @ 13
Yes, and probably most of those conservative politicians who are currently transforming education into just another commodity had the benefit of free educations. Even degrees such as law or business, don’t guarantee a job these days, all they guarantee is debt.