Discussion - Privileged Position

Me Thinks has provided the following discussion on the mutating nature of political debate. Me First! is desperate to be relevant and so must keep up-to-date with shifting trends. A big one is the ever-changing definitions of 'privilege'.

Originally the word evoked images of the landed gentry and clergy. But for a long time the ranks of those deemed privileged has been growing and diversifying. The list soon grew to include successful merchants and examination-tested civil servants and professional military officers. Then there was the 'fourth estate' of the media and the inclusion of elected politicians. The list of the privileged has grown in part because power has been better shared in modern times.

But there are other additions to the list that result from a recognition of how prejudice impacts on life and livelihood. What combination of chromosomes you have or how absent melanin is from your body started a long and growing list of demographic factors that affect power relations. And it is power that defines any kind of privilege worth identifying. But the list has gotten so big lately that anybody can be more privileged than you as long as you slice the issues in a particular way. Debate (online at any rate) is becoming dominated by the call and response of "you are too" and "I so am not". The ability to annoy another is a sort of power we guess.

With that in mind Me First! wish to muddy the waters further by introducing a long-overlooked but key form of privilege - we shall call it Personality Privilege. Imagine a group of friends of identical demographics. Observe how they interact in a room and soon you will notice some have more prestige than others. This can happen in a room full of the privileged (however defined) and in a room full of those lacking privilege (however defined). Some hitherto overlooked factors are at play and chances are they are the same factors in both rooms. Those factors are ones of personality.

Characteristics like charisma, determination, expansiveness, cunning, manipulation all play into who in a group has power. And it is the groups we choose to move in that define the foreground of our lives and push culture and economics into the background. We all know a 'big fish in a small pond' who has the power to give and take favour as they put each of us in the good or bad books of their own private fiefdoms.

Can we ever address the problems of Personality Privilege? Why would we want to? As egoists Me First! has zero intention of legislating this issue away. Rather we want to make our party a seedbed of Personality Privilege. You can be sacred or profane, cultured or crass, rich or poor, known or unknown, pink or brown, male or female, cis-gendered or trans-gendered, old or young, urban or rural, able or disabled, sane or insane, smart or dumb, lucky or unlucky. None of these differences will matter to us as long as you are a domineering boor or a scheming cur. Arseholes of the world unite!

There is one challenge with this strategy - the observed tendency of arseholes to despise other arseholes. How can they possibly work together? The solution is the Internet! Those who cannot get along in person can just about manage it online and thus all kinds of 'community' can now exist that in the past would have simply torn themselves apart. With this revelation it will be our privilege to remake society in our own image!

Hold on... looks like everybody got there sooner than us... what a mess...