Is it possible to falsify Privilege?

Matthew Bailey wrote:I am criticizing both the concept and the label.

Let's see if that's true . . .

Matthew Bailey wrote:You just said "Male Privilege means that there is discrimination against women."

Two things then.

1) What did men do to earn that privilege?

Nothing. But so what? You have contended that the word privilege always refers to earned advantages. But this is not, and has never been, the case. Privilege has been used to describe class differences for several centuries and it has never described something that is earned, but something that simply is.

Matthew Bailey wrote:2) Why are you calling it privilege if you are talking about discrimination?

That's a misstatement on my part. Male privilege would be the circumstance of more and greater advantages accruing to men.

Matthew Bailey wrote:I am not the one who is claiming a causal relationship. Everyone else is.

Privilege describes the state of affairs (effects, not cause). If your looking for the feminist term for the causes of this systematic advantages, the concept you want to discuss is patriarchy (the set of cultural ideas that create advantages for men).

Matthew Bailey wrote:And, if Privilege isn't causal, then it is just semantic rhetoric to begin with.

This is just plain false. For example, the state of having a high body temperature is called a fever. But fevers don't cause high body temperature, fever is defined by high body temperature. But I guess fevers are just semantic rhetoric.

I think this discussion is in danger of disappearing up it's own rectum.

According to the Atheism Plus Safe forum:

Privilege - an unfair advantage or power that is not earned through an individual's own actions or merit, but rather is given and reinforced systemically due to a personal characteristic.

I think this is a good basic description of the concept but doesn't have much depth to it - it doesn't talk about the axes of privilege (one might be privileged in one respect, such as race, but not privileged in another respect such as gender) or discuss the impact of this upon discussion.

Logically it is perfectly possible for privilege to be a legitimate term inspite of the earlier use of the term by identity politics. Invalidation of a conclusion does not invalidate all the premises upon which the discredited conclusion relies. (For example, I can criticise the TAG argument for the existence of god, but that doesn't mean that ALL the premises upon which TAG is based are false too - only some of them.) The Identity politics issue is basically a red herring.

The existence of privilege in society is demonstrable and it affects how people view the world. When it comes to discussion, in essence what they are talking about is BIAS. Someone who grows up white will have a different bias in their views than someone who grows up black. Some of these biases are considered to be valid based upon the zeitgeist of the time (Cultural Hegemony). Thus some people will have their views marginalised, even if their views are valid and relevant. This is a problem.

Unfortunately people often use the term privilege as a shorthand explanation for why someone's view will not be listened to. The Safe forum is aiming to give preference to views that are commonly marginalised in the normal course of affairs. They see this as a positive thing. The constant danger is that you accept or reject arguments based on who is making the argument rather than evaluating the argument itself. This is essentially an irrational position and it's why I've abandoned that site. However, examining your own bias can lead you to making better arguments.

I'd like to propose that in place of privilege, we use the term bias. Everyone has a bias that they should consider before assuming that they are correct. Everyone should consider how their argument would be viewed by others before speaking it aloud or writing it down. It's a good exercise in critical thinking.

That sounds like a good summary to me.

rEvolutionist wrote:That sounds like a good summary to me.

bias a good thing.

none wrote:
bias a good thing.

What do you mean?

nullnvoid wrote:

none wrote:
bias a good thing.

What do you mean?

is defining bias as bias a good thing? are you biased in your opinion of defining bias as bias? and is your bias beneficial?
I say bias can be a good thing.

I think it being good or bad is not at issue.

Having a bias is not useful at identifying truth. If you allow bias (we all have bias) to affect your argument then you can wind up in a potentially fallacious position. I submit this is a bad thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biases_in_judgment_and_decision_making

You can read about the hundreds of issues with biases affecting judgement in this wiki article.

nullnvoid wrote:I think it being good or bad is not at issue.

Having a bias is not useful at identifying truth. If you allow bias (we all have bias) to affect your argument then you can wind up in a potentially fallacious position. I submit this is a bad thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biases_in_judgment_and_decision_making

You can read about the hundreds of issues with biases affecting judgement in this wiki article.

Is the application of logic biased?

none wrote:
Is the application of logic biased?

I'm assuming you didn't read those hundreds of links in those 30 seconds...

I don't think application of logic is biased. However, a bias can blind you to the flaws in your logical argument. Having a bias doesn't help you to get to the truth of a claim. At best a bias is irrelevant to the truth of a claim. At worst it will prevent you from identifying the truth of a claim.

Can you give me an example of how a bias is good?

nullnvoid wrote:

none wrote:
Is the application of logic biased?

I'm assuming you didn't read those hundreds of links in those 30 seconds...

I don't think application of logic is biased. ...

Nope, not one did I read or acknowledge as anything other than supplementary until now.
I don't think application of logic is biased either, but that is my biased opinion.

nullnvoid wrote:I think this discussion is in danger of disappearing up it's own rectum.

According to the Atheism Plus Safe forum:

Privilege - an unfair advantage or power that is not earned through an individual's own actions or merit, but rather is given and reinforced systemically due to a personal characteristic.

This is really the only thing that needs to be addressed (these points I am making are not necessarily mutually exclusive (exclusive disjunctive) nor are they necessarily conjunctive.

1) The above quote may be re-written as the following:

Privilege is an unfair advantage or power that is not earned through an individual's own actions or merit, but rather is given and reinforced systemically due to a personal characteristic.

this means:

Privilege = Unfair Advantage, blah, blah, blah.

If it is an advantage, then why not simply call it that, since this definition directly contradicts the dictionary definitions of Privilege.

2) Unfair to whom? By what metric are we measuring "fair?"

3) Not earned according to whom? Who is the arbiter of this judgment? How have they operationalized the "unearned?" Has the person making this judgment established either the authority, or the right to make such a judgment?

4) Reinforced systemically? How was this measured? What metric was used to measure the reinforcement, or the system that is causally linked to the reinforcement? Where is the testable evidence of this reinforcement? Where is the evidence to support the existence of the system, and the Systems characteristics that are used to model this system? What are the nodes of the System? What are the linkages between nodes? What sort of topology does this system have?

I think that I mentioned this Causal Systemic Link earlier.

5) How do "Personal Characteristics" create a Systemic Reinforcement? Who determines exactly which personal characteristics are those systemically reinforcing? What are the measures of these characteristics that support the System? How do these personal characteristics reinforce the system? How do these personal characteristic give privilege? What mechanism conveys privilege through this system via these personal characteristics? By what means were the personal characteristics discovered? Who was it who operationalized these characteristics?

6) How is an individual responsible for creating the nodes and linkages of a System? This would indicate that an individual is responsible for a systemic characteristics, which is the exact opposite of a "System" (One person is not a system, yet a personal characteristic is by definition dealing with one person). One node (personal - indicating one person) cannot create a system.

If there are multiple nodes, then who measured and quantified those nodes, and the personal characteristics of each node in the system, and then measured the linkages between the nodes (understand that this is freakishly complex math involved in System's Theory dealing with graph theory and Linear Algebra along many dimensions)? If there are multiple nodes in this system's topology, then how is it that all of the nodes have an identical characteristic to support this "privilege?"

7) If it is not a system of identical nodes, then how does a grouping of divergent characteristics generate a coherent privilege?

Oh... And I could keep on going here...

It just goes deeper and deeper and deeper.

Yet, if we were to back up, and just call it an "Advantage" (which the definition itself mistakenly equates to Privilege), then most of these problems evaporate. Because then we are talking about something that is not systemic, that is not causal, yet which carries some weight in being able to describe individual differences.

People are trying to take a "kind" (as described by Quine) and label it something else. The obsession with "Privilege" is akin to wanting to call "water" something like "gloerboik." You can come up with all kinds of fancy definitions for "gloerboik," but it is much easier, and more useful to just call it "water," or even better H₂O. Trying to insist that water is really a thing called gloerboik just digs deeper and deeper holes in the actual knowledge that you have about water, and creates confusion and opacity when you have people hearing about gloerboik for the first time, and people insisting "Oh! gloerboik isn't water, but it has the word "water" in its definition.

A definition that says:

Gloerboik is identical to water, but it is water that has been unfairly allowed into pools, and occasionally, it seeks to create a systemic reinforcement of personal characteristics with other puddles of gloerboik to keep Kool-Aid, and Gatoraid as oppressed fluids.

Matthew Bailey

hahaha go get 'em, or not...

nullnvoid wrote:I think it being good or bad is not at issue.

Having a bias is not useful at identifying truth. If you allow bias (we all have bias) to affect your argument then you can wind up in a potentially fallacious position. I submit this is a bad thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biases_in_judgment_and_decision_making

You can read about the hundreds of issues with biases affecting judgement in this wiki article.

I think people need to define what the hell they are talking about when they say "Bias."

There are a couple of different definitions among different fields.

When we are talking about Audio Engineering, a Bias can be a good thing, if you are trying to affect a waveform.

But in Science, and Logic, and Critical Thinking: Bias is BAD.

We work to control the bias in our work, not eliminate it (most people will mistakenly think that Science seeks to eliminate bias - in a naive and perfect world, yes, Science would like to eliminate bias. But we can't do that. The best we can do is to quantify and control for bias).

And, I don't need to read the hundreds of biases. I teach them (I have several volumes of books that just cover different types of bias, logical fallacies, and possible errors).

It should be pointed out that bias≠logical fallacy. A bias might be due to a perfectly logical outcome or conclusion. It is just arrived at due to incomplete or faulty data.

Matthew Bailey

none wrote:

nullnvoid wrote:I think it being good or bad is not at issue.

Having a bias is not useful at identifying truth. If you allow bias (we all have bias) to affect your argument then you can wind up in a potentially fallacious position. I submit this is a bad thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biases_in_judgment_and_decision_making

You can read about the hundreds of issues with biases affecting judgement in this wiki article.

Is the application of logic biased?

To throw this into this mess.

The Application of Logic cannot be "biased" if one is following the rules.

However, there can be errors of various types that enter into a proof. And some of these errors can be the product of bias.

For instance:

• The choice of axioms might be biased.
• The choice of evidence to use to support an inductive step might be biased.
• The choice of Logical Tools might be biased (for instance, beware of anyone who is doing a proof, and suddenly introduces ANY Modal Logic into a proof that was otherwise devoid of it - this is usually done to hide a bias by an agent into a proof)

And... So on.

But if you are just talking about the application of rules... Then no... The rules dictate what must be done at any given point in a proof (given a range of options that are "allowed" by the rules).

As I have said, though, sometimes there are choices to be made that allow for bias to enter a proof via sneaky means.

Matthew Bailey

Matthew Bailey wrote:

none wrote:

nullnvoid wrote:I think it being good or bad is not at issue.

Having a bias is not useful at identifying truth. If you allow bias (we all have bias) to affect your argument then you can wind up in a potentially fallacious position. I submit this is a bad thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biases_in_judgment_and_decision_making

You can read about the hundreds of issues with biases affecting judgement in this wiki article.

Is the application of logic biased?

To throw this into this mess.

The Application of Logic cannot be "biased" if one is following the rules.
....

I don't have to do anything.
Rules are biased they bring order or destruction.
That premise alone is biased by the inclusion of ambiguity.
Every thing that is expressed is opinion, it is when opinion is recognized as doctrine that bias is obvious.

MB - I agree with most of what you said - particularly about logic. I'm not a lecturer in logic but have studied it. I think you were right on all counts there and you don't need me to tell you that.

Re Privilege: First - there's no need to prove the existence of a definition. Defining a word like dragon does not require that you produce an existing dragon. I tend to think that privilege is a loaded term and has significant problems. But you're demanding all sorts of evidence to support a definition - and that's a problem. There's no reason that multiple words can't have similar but slightly different meanings. It's the main purpose of a thesaurus and provides colour to discussion.

Re Advantage: In reference to an argument or discussion I don't feel that advantage is any better than privilege. If one viewpoint is seen as being distorted by an advantage and the other is not...then we're back to the same loaded problem. I prefer the term bias as it can be owned by all participants in a discussion. So I hope it's clear that I was talking about the type of bias considered by scientists, logicians and critical thinkers (not by Audio engineers or lawn bowlers).


none - are you on drugs?

nullnvoid wrote:MB - I agree with most of what you said - particularly about logic. I'm not a lecturer in logic but have studied it. I think you were right on all counts there and you don't need me to tell you that.

Re Privilege: First - there's no need to prove the existence of a definition. Defining a word like dragon does not require that you produce an existing dragon. I tend to think that privilege is a loaded term and has significant problems. But you're demanding all sorts of evidence to support a definition - and that's a problem. There's no reason that multiple words can't have similar but slightly different meanings. It's the main purpose of a thesaurus and provides colour to discussion.

Re Advantage: In reference to an argument or discussion I don't feel that advantage is any better than privilege. If one viewpoint is seen as being distorted by an advantage and the other is not...then we're back to the same loaded problem. I prefer the term bias as it can be owned by all participants in a discussion. So I hope it's clear that I was talking about the type of bias considered by scientists, logicians and critical thinkers (not by Audio engineers or lawn bowlers).


none - are you on drugs?

yeah, and lots of them.
I like them too, they help me respond to people like you.
However, I wouldn't want to colour our discussion the wrong colour and please continue talking about dragons I love it.

none wrote:
yeah, and lots of them.
I like them too, they help me respond to people like you.
However, I wouldn't want to colour our discussion the wrong colour and please continue talking about dragons I love it.

Hey...just checking. No need to get all "people like you" on me.

The dragon lay on the cherry trees
a-simmering and a-dreaming:
Green was he, and the blossom white,
and the yellow sun gleaming.
He came from the land of Finis-Terre,
where dragons live, and the moon shines
on high white fountains.

nullnvoid wrote:

none wrote:
yeah, and lots of them.
I like them too, they help me respond to people like you.
However, I wouldn't want to colour our discussion the wrong colour and please continue talking about dragons I love it.

Hey...just checking. No need to get all "people like you" on me.

The dragon lay on the cherry trees
a-simmering and a-dreaming:
Green was he, and the blossom white,
and the yellow sun gleaming.
He came from the land of Finis-Terre,
where dragons live, and the moon shines
on high white fountains.

adragon sterility, like atheist.

none wrote:

Matthew Bailey wrote:

none wrote:

nullnvoid wrote:I think it being good or bad is not at issue.

Having a bias is not useful at identifying truth. If you allow bias (we all have bias) to affect your argument then you can wind up in a potentially fallacious position. I submit this is a bad thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biases_in_judgment_and_decision_making

You can read about the hundreds of issues with biases affecting judgement in this wiki article.

Is the application of logic biased?

To throw this into this mess.

The Application of Logic cannot be "biased" if one is following the rules.
....

I don't have to do anything.
Rules are biased they bring order or destruction.
That premise alone is biased by the inclusion of ambiguity.
Every thing that is expressed is opinion, it is when opinion is recognized as doctrine that bias is obvious.

Uuh... No!

Everything is not "opinion."

There are these things called "facts." Those things are not "opinion."

They happen to correspond to real-world objects.

The very foundations of science rest upon this pillar.

If you wish to pick at that pillar, and play philosophical games with the underlying and foundational assumptions of science, then I suspect that you need to appeal to some very basic principles.

One of those principles is that words have meanings that refer to real-world objects.

Without this principle, you have no basis to make the claim that there are no facts.

This leaves you with a bit of a problem:

1) If you claim that there are no "facts" (i.e. things that are not just opinion), then upon what basis do you make this claim?

• For this claim to be true to begin with, this statement would just be "opinion" (by it's own claim: That all claims are just opinions), and thus not a fact.
• Yet for this statement to be true, the statement would have to be more than mere opinion. The statement would have to be true in all cases, making it a fact. It would have to apply to itself as well.
• That this statement is a fact negates its own claim (that all claims are just "opinion").
• If it negates it's own claim, then that means that there are facts, and that all claims are not just opinion.

Therefore, there are facts, QED.

Matthew Bailey

nullnvoid wrote:MB - I agree with most of what you said - particularly about logic. I'm not a lecturer in logic but have studied it. I think you were right on all counts there and you don't need me to tell you that.

Re Privilege: First - there's no need to prove the existence of a definition. Defining a word like dragon does not require that you produce an existing dragon. I tend to think that privilege is a loaded term and has significant problems. But you're demanding all sorts of evidence to support a definition - and that's a problem. There's no reason that multiple words can't have similar but slightly different meanings. It's the main purpose of a thesaurus and provides colour to discussion.

Re Advantage: In reference to an argument or discussion I don't feel that advantage is any better than privilege. If one viewpoint is seen as being distorted by an advantage and the other is not...then we're back to the same loaded problem. I prefer the term bias as it can be owned by all participants in a discussion. So I hope it's clear that I was talking about the type of bias considered by scientists, logicians and critical thinkers (not by Audio engineers or lawn bowlers).


none - are you on drugs?

I asked for evidence to support the CLAIMS of the definition. This is essentially asking for evidence to support the definition.

ALL definitions must be supported by evidence of some sort.

Example:

Water = H₂O

That is the definition of water. It must be supported by evidence for it to be accepted. It is claiming that water is two-parts hydrogen, and one part oxygen at the molecular level.

The discipline of Chemistry exists to provide evidence for such claims.

So, for the definition of privilege, you must provide the answers to all of the questions I asked (or the vast majority of them), in order to provide evidence that the definition is true.

A false (or meaningless) definition is meaningless (to state the obvious).

So, for the central claim that is being made:

By what metric is privilege measured (or by what metric are any of the other points measured)?

There are countless real-world metric by which advantage can be measured (I do not want to bias the possible metrics you might think of to support "Privilege," so I am going to withhold these metrics for the time being - but I will get to them eventually).

But you gave a definition with an identity (privilege = advantage + other stuff).

That "+" indicates a conjunction, meaning "This other stuff must be true as well, for the definition to be true."

That means that you need to provide "evidence" to support those claims. The evidence is also supporting the entire definition.

So... Yes, you do need to provide evidence for these things to be "true."

Just as if I said:

Suukpetaer - the effect of banging two rocks together produces a soapy byproduct that systemically reinforces personal characteristics.

Would require that I then define what I mean by "rocks," "banging together," "soapy byproduct," "systemically reinforces," "personal characteristics," "what metric is used to measure all of these things," "How these things are measured," "evidence to show that there is indeed a causal link between these things," and so on.

ANY claim (which is what a definition is. It is a claim that A=B) must be supported by evidence.

Otherwise, I could go around making claims about strange words that I insist have meaning, yet which correspond to no real-world thing.

Matthew Bailey

Matthew Bailey wrote:Suukpetaer - the effect of banging two rocks together produces a soapy byproduct that systemically reinforces personal characteristics.

Here let me fix your definition so that it looks more like the privilege definition (nice deck-stacking, btw):

Suukpetaer - the effect of banging two rocks together to produce a soapy byproduct that systemically reinforces personal characteristics.

Notice that suukpetaer may not actually exist, but it is defined. Similarly, one can define words like "ghost" or "unicorn" which refer to non-existent things, yet are defined.

Kurt H wrote:

Matthew Bailey wrote:Suukpetaer - the effect of banging two rocks together produces a soapy byproduct that systemically reinforces personal characteristics.

Here let me fix your definition so that it looks more like the privilege definition (nice deck-stacking, btw):

Suukpetaer - the effect of banging two rocks together to produce a soapy byproduct that systemically reinforces personal characteristics.

Notice that suukpetaer may not actually exist, but it is defined. Similarly, one can define words like "ghost" or "unicorn" which refer to non-existent things, yet are defined.

oh here we go, is that which imagined non-existent?

"ANY claim (which is what a definition is. It is a claim that A=B)"

Incorrect. A definition of a word is merely the explanation of a label. NOT a proof that such a thing exists and NOT a truth claim. I can define any label as I desire. The label won't be useful unless others agree to use the label as well...but there is no requirement to prove the accuracy of a label for it to be useful because it is not a truth claim. A label does not have a property of true/false.

Your chemistry analogy was poor. H₂O is a combination of two labels which already mean something. By combining them in this arrangement and then equating them to water you HAVE made a truth claim. In this instance you've claimed that a water molecule has a chemical composition of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen.

Edit: If you are someone who teaches logic it might be a good idea to read up on some of the philosophy of language. Wittgenstein might be a good place to start.

Matthew Bailey wrote:

Privilege is an unfair advantage or power that is not earned through an individual's own actions or merit, but rather is given and reinforced systemically due to a personal characteristic.

this means:

Privilege = Unfair Advantage, blah, blah, blah.

The not earned part is rather crucial, despite your condescension. I actually think the "unfair" part is what is not crucial.

Matthew Bailey wrote:If it is an advantage, then why not simply call it that, since this definition directly contradicts the dictionary definitions of Privilege.

As pointed out above, the word privilege has never required that the benefit be earned and has specifically referred to some unearned benefits (like the privileges of nobility) for centuries. You are simply wrong.

Matthew Bailey wrote:3) Not earned according to whom? Who is the arbiter of this judgment? How have they operationalized the "unearned?" Has the person making this judgment established either the authority, or the right to make such a judgment?

This is where the "blah, blah, blah" that you dismissed comes in handy. By unearned, it is meant that the beneficiary of privilege can passively benefit. Men have privilege, and not need to do anything other than continue being male in order to benefit.

Matthew Bailey wrote:4) Reinforced systemically? How was this measured? {blah, blah, blah}

Try describing how to measure "health" in just a few sentences without referring back to the concept itself. Some concepts are hard to measure in a simple and concise manner and you need to just deal with that.

Matthew Bailey wrote:5) How do "Personal Characteristics" create a Systemic Reinforcement?

They don't. You have parsed the sentence wrong. The personal characteristic is the "axis" of privilege (race, gender, sexuality, etc.). The systemic reinforcement is not caused by the personal characteristic. That would be like saying that black people cause racism by being black. Your sixth and seventh criticisms fall to this same critique.

Matthew Bailey wrote:It just goes deeper and deeper and deeper.

Your pile of nonsense? Yes, I agree, it is quite large at this point.

Matthew Bailey wrote:Yet, if we were to back up, and just call it an "Advantage" (which the definition itself mistakenly equates to Privilege), then most of these problems evaporate.

Relabeling a concept should not make the concept more or less coherent. Do I need to explain the difference between substantive and semantic arguments? It seems like you're really unclear on this.

Matthew Bailey wrote:"Oh! gloerboik isn't water, but it has the word "water" in its definition."

You defined gloerboik as a specific kind of water. Thus, not all water is gloerboik, but all gloerboik is water.

Have you considered the possibility that all privilege is advantage, but not all advantages are privileges?