I quite liked Ta-Nehisi Coates’s essay on learning French (and intend to write long on it soon), and I don’t agree at all with Rod Dreher’s take on it. So I appreciate Phoebe Malz-Bovy’s defense of Coates’s essay. But in an oddly underwritten ending, Bovy goes badly wrong.
Taking Dreher to task for pointing out that Coates is, in material and social terms, a winner, Bovy writes
Dreher remains committed to calling out Coates’ “privilege”… when what he’s actually calling out are achievements Coates has earned.
From his initial response:
He is part of the Establishment now. He writes for a well-respected national magazine, about things he enjoys. He takes summers to go to language camp to learn French. That’s great! Why is he such a sore winner? Feeling guilty about one’s privilege doesn’t mitigate it.
And the second:
He’s a senior editor at one of the most respected magazines in the richest and most powerful nation on the planet, he writes for top publications … and he has the luxury of spending his summer studying French at Middlebury. And is embittered because of circumstances in his youth, circumstances he attributes to white supremacy, he’s probably not going to ever master French, at least not to his satisfaction.
We should all be fortunate enough to have such problems.
I suppose Coates is privileged in the it’s-been-a-privilege sense. Unearned advantage, though, is a tough case to make.
That’s not much of an argument. And it’s also plainly untrue. Of course Coates has been the beneficiary of unearned advantage. It’s an unearned advantage to be born without crippling medical ailments. It’s an unearned advantage to be born male. It’s an unearned advantage to be born in the United States rather than in Afghanistan or Somalia. And so on. Is that what most people mean when they talk about privilege? Maybe not, but then another of the central points of privilege theory is that the privileges that are most profound tend to be those we don’t acknowledge. Besides: Coates has written at length about the benefits he had growing up thanks to his parents, and to being politicized by his father, a former Black Panther. That’s a classic kind of privilege, parental privilege, and one that absolutely matters.
Such talk will inevitably piss some people off, but it shouldn’t. The fact that Coates has been the recipient of great advantages compared to many people in the world doesn’t change the fact that he has also been faced, his whole life, with the disadvantage of living in a structurally racist society, or the relative disadvantage of his own economic circumstances compared to some others. The point is that “privileged” is not a binary category, and in fact essentially all people are some combination of advantaged and disadvantaged. And a lot of these things manifest themselves in ways that we can’t understand from the outside, unearned, material advantages or disadvantages that do not represent themselves as neatly as race, gender, sexual orientation, or similar. Indeed, in the context of an American progressivism that has gotten caught up in simplistic black-and-white moralism, one of the aspects of Coates’s writing I like best is the way in which he troubles such simplicity.
Bovy has articulated sound critiques of privilege talk in the past, and seems inclined to do so again in this post. But she appears guilty of talking about privilege in the worst way, both theoretically and politically: to think of privilege as some sort of tally system, where you can add up marks for every bit of advantage and disadvantage and come up with a list of those on one side or the other of the ledger. This tendency is politically disastrous, as voiced clumsily, it asks people to define themselves by their advantages without acknowledging the hardships that everyone endures. That will never result in political victory, and in a majoritarian democracy like ours, convincing the masses is the only way we will ever achieve a more socially and economically just society. Whether we like it or not. Whether we think that’s “fair” or not.
Instead, the point should be to ask people to see the ways in which all of our lives are conditioned by vast forces we cannot control, that these forces in general work to the benefit and hindrance of certain broad groups of people in a way that conflicts with our conceptions of justice, and that we can build a more just, more equitable world if we acknowledge that no one’s life is the product only of their work ethic and intelligence.
The long-term project of those who decry the role of unearned advantage in human society should not be to try and parse who is most and least privileged. The project should be to deny the salience of “merit” as a moral arbiter of material security and comfort. The very notion of just deserts– the notion that some people have legitimate accomplishments that we must celebrate because they represent “merit,” whatever that is, distinct from their privileges– is what has to die. There is no space where privilege ends and legitimate accomplishment begins. There is, instead, a world of such multivariate complexity that we can never know whose accomplishments are earned and whose aren’t. Instead, we should recognize the folly of tying material security and comfort to our flawed perceptions of other people’s value, and instead institute an economic system based on the absolute right of all people to food, shelter, clothing, health care, and education.
Wish I had something substantive to say besides, “bravo.”
OK, I’ll try… it’s interesting that in some sense lots of people can and do accept the idea of advantage/disadvantage as it applies to others but have a difficult time looking in the mirror and recognizing it within their own circumstances. How can leftists properly advance the argument against “meritocracy” without making people defensive about their own perceived self-worth?
Instead, we should recognize the folly of tying material security and comfort to our flawed perceptions of other people’s value, and instead institute an economic system based on the absolute right of all people to food, shelter, clothing, health care, and education…by threatening the privileged with force, right?
You think the privileged got that way without the threat (or use) of force?
Can we identify who the “privileged” are? And are you saying two wrongs make a right?
I’m saying that the existing distribution of property and capital ate always founded on prior acts of violence and defended with current threats of violence, so it’s odd to protest potential future threats of violence selectively.
Again, would you mind being more specific about who you identify as “privileged”? Also, can you be any more specific about what “prior acts of violence” are that would justify taking from the privileged to provide the “equal” world that you desire?
This line of questioning can only have emerged from you not actually having read the post, because it’s entire point is that I don’t believe in a line between the privileged and the not privileged. You’re interrogating this piece based on what you’ve invented in your mind, not on what I’m actually arguing. Please go back and try actually reading before you try to engage. Then we can get to your unexamined assumptions about property.
Fred,
A. “I’m saying that the existing distribution of property and capital are always founded on prior acts of violence and defended with current threats of violence, ”
True.
B. “so it’s odd to protest potential future threats of violence selectively.”
False.
You first sentence states some very clear facts. This is how things are. WHY? Because we (the hegemony, the top 40%+, the A/B students, the folks who own everything) say so. With Force.
And then IN THE FACE OF THAT FACT, you pretend what your opposition is “protesting.”
We aren’t protesting. We are listening very carefully and deciding if 1. we can make some changes that don’t bug us too much that will appease you. or 2. we have to smash you into the ground.
Smash you into the ground! Holy cow that’s a threat of force! Yep, we do that all the time. See your A.
—–
I’m glad you are a rhetoric guy, bc this gets deep into Argumentative Ethics. And show you how staying on right side of the line, makes you better at making policy.
You are a speaker, you are speaking to your peeps, the folks who you believe are being harmed by the hegemony.
You can either tell them:
1. Look guys, we aren’t the hegemony, and we aren’t going to smash their state, and topple their system of privilege, and take their “property” – SO, let’s figure out the things they care about and don’t care about (that’s always changing), and present them with a constant stream of ideas, while we explain the injustice, MINDFUL, that if we start in on telling them that in future we might take their stuff, and they might not be hegemony, they are going to clam up and start getting ready to smash us.
2. WAR! And then here you then go #fullnopropertypsycho and wait for the blood to flow in the streets, and please make sure you fire the first shot, you slit the first throat, AND feel at least hopeful your team will win.
What you don’t want to do rhetorically is preach the hellfire and bang the drums of war, and then sit and watch as the hegemony clams up, and your side stops thinking they are going to have to find a policy that hegemony will accept.
Finally, as a rhetoric guy you are aware the rhetoric is violence. You are smarter and carry more firepower at it than most of the people you will ever deal with, and you wield it like a cudgel against others all day long. You quite rightfully refuse to concern yourself with others and their crazy *ss trigger warnings.
As such, you are agreeing to the violence in our shared reality, and have no moral high ground to claim as the leader of those outside the hegemony.
In order to “institute an economic system based on the absolute right of all people to food, shelter, clothing, health care, and education”, someone would need to make subjective value judgments about these things, no?
Of course. That’s what democracy is– the people making subjective value judgments.
That’s why I asked what your personal definition of “privilege” was.
But I don’t understand why that figures into the question at all. At no point did I say “we’ll take from the privileged and give to the unprivileged,” so I’m not sure why you’re fixated on that definition.
You didn’t say that, you are right. I fail to see how you will achieve the equality you desire otherwise.
You take from people who have more and you give to people who have less while setting up distributional structures that more equitably share the world’s resources among a wider swathe of the world’s people (public ownership all publicly traded firms, for example).
“Privilege” has nothing to do with making this determination.
If privilege has nothing to do with the determination, then what is the point? You are saying this person has 4, this person has 2… We will take 1 from the person with 4 and give it to the person with 2 and they both have 3? That’s it? So forced redistribution. Perhaps I am off-base but I believe that the point of the article was to say that since nothing is truly merit-based, we can’t complain if stuff is taken for us in the name of equality. It’s a moral justification for taking stuff from others in the name of equality. However, Mr. deBoer doesn’t say that nothing is merit-based, just that it is in possible to tell what was truly earned and what was gained by privilege. So merit does exist in the abstract, it’s just too hard to make that determination, so why bother?
You’re inserting all of these mental constructs into what I wrote, and I’m finding it difficult to respond because you keep inventing stuff I haven’t indicated. I would like to build a society that recognizes that “merit” is inextricable from structural advantage and chance, and that since the notion of merit is the mythology on which the protection of current distribution of wealth is built, we should no longer consider that sacrosanct. I have also pointed out to you that the current distribution of capital is itself based on prior violence and defended with violence or threat of violence, and you have not responded at all to that point.
Nonsense. The current distribution of capital owes almost nothing to violence (except the ongoing violence of seizing income and giving to it “green energy” companies or NFL stadiums or food stamp recipients). It’s almost entirely the result of free exchange.
This is fairly trivial to prove — >90% of the wealth that exists today did not exist in 1950. It was created.
It’s also nonsense to claim “merit” has so little to do with outcomes that we should ignore it. The top earners in our society generally work the most hours and create the most value. If you don’t think LeBron James putting a ball in a hoop is worth $100M a year you’re totally free to not contribute to his income, that’s the magic of free exchange.
Also, TNC is kind of dumb. I can’t think of anything he’s ever written that wasn’t some kind of identity-politics rant.
I asked: “Also, can you be any more specific about what “prior acts of violence” are that would justify taking from the privileged to provide the “equal” world that you desire?”
I was attempting to inquire about the practical implications of the institution of your desired economic system.
You omitted the ultimate Ta-Nehisian privilege: having the entirety of the online left fall into a reverent hush every time you publish a word.
In my decade-long memory of American political discourse, I can not recall any writer gifted this level of deadly seriousness. Certainly not Ta-Nehisi three years ago.
I’ve written in the best about how some people write about Coates with a reverence that, while it comes from a well-meaning place, can become a form of disrespect, turning his writing into a way to go to church.
If you want to come down from that “reverent high” with a bang, just check out the fever swamp in Dreher’s comments thread, which seems to have been written by white conservatives determined to prove all of Coates’ points. Some “highlights”:
“From where TNC is sitting, the Blue Black Man theme is a bankable path to a Pulitzer — or to a bestseller-length protest over not getting one.”
“I pass by art galleries and foodie hot spots knowing that they’re not for me – and in face they’re for people like TNC.”
“he can probably prosper all his life playing that one-string violin. I’m not listening. I don’t care. I’m sick of the whole thing.”
I’m not listening. I don’t care.
Could you ask for a better summary than that?
Oh, Freddie.
*deep breath*
OK, I’ll put aside the fact that being born male comes with a very distinct and measurable pile of disprivileges, as well as privileges. (That’s a long-winded digression I hope we can have some day.) And I’ll even put aside the fact that you just misused “it’s.” (AM I THE ONLY WRITER LEFT ON THE PLANET WHO … oh never mind.)
*starts breathing into a paper bag*
But this … this … is unforgivable:
THAT is a moral cul-de-sac from which the left could never emerge triumphant. THAT is an electoral super majority all wrapped up in a nice pretty package not just for gutless, corporatist Democrats, but for the most rancid Republicans.
Let me be clear. I ABSOLUTELY agree that “all people [have a right] to food, shelter, clothing, health care, and education.” (I might even add Internet access. We can quibble about the details on the different items on the list.) But the notion that there are a large range economic goods beyond that which should be distributed based on what has been earned (through some combination of skill, hard work, and talent) is an essential moral plank in an economy that expects those who participate in it to put forth good faith effort … that is, any economy that seeks to avoid collapsing under the weight of its own corruption.
You’re a great writer, Freddie (apostrophic impairment notwithstanding). I’ve never seen you be so flagrantly wrong as you are here with this post, and I hope you come to your senses.
But the notion that there are a large range economic goods beyond that which should be distributed based on what has been earned (through some combination of skill, hard work, and talent) is an essential moral plank in an economy that expects those who participate in it to put forth good faith effort … that is, any economy that seeks to avoid collapsing under the weight of its own corruption. (emphasis mine)
For someone who was born after 2008, you compose sentences remarkably well!
Anyhow, if the host wants to engage further, he can, but I’ll throw my hat in: there’s no definition of “hard work”, as a source of economic reward, that’s not at least a little troublesome. To say nothing of “skill” or “talent.”
Also, if you posit a society in which everyone has a right to food, shelter, clothing, health care, education, and Internet access, the obvious follow-on is “well, then, why ‘work’ in the conventional sense at all?” And I don’t mean that as a conservative, screw-you-hippie sneer; I mean that as a sincere challenge to your notion of the necessity of the corporatist economic structure. I agree with your conclusion; I just can’t tell if you agree with it.
It sounds like you’re saying two crazy things:
1) there is no luck, only privilege.
I think I’m lucky that my daughter inherited her mother’s eyes, that my wife loves me, and that I found a dirt cheap turntable at the thrift store. But not privileged! (since there was nothing unfair in these unearned advantages)
2) nothing is earned.
A friend of mine taught himself Sanskrit. He can read it now, not by luck, and not by unfair advantage, I don’t think.
What do you think?
I have to admit, you kind of lost me with this, Professor Coldheart. I would think my passion for keeping the whole its/it’s thing straight would mark me as more likely having been born in 1908 than 2008, but, whatever.
I don’t find these concepts troubling, PC, though they may be a challenge to measure in different contexts. My point was simply this: If I make 5 widgets, and you make 3, I deserve to get more back from society than you. Maybe I don’t deserve to get 40% more, but I certainly deserve to get more.
First of all, I totally missed the inclusion of “clothing” in Freddie’s list. Seriously, it just simply did not register. FTR, while I don’t think people should want for the ability to comply with culture’s nudity strictures, I would not list “clothing” as an entitlement, as it sounds too much like I think everyone should be issued, gratis, all the North Face accoutrements their little hearts desire. My bad for leaving that in.
There are a huge number of things that people want that aren’t on the list: music systems, fancy motorcycles, trips to Aruba, fancy clothes, larger-than-average and more luxurious houses, black light paintings of Elvis, etc. Many people will work just to get these things; others will work to have these things in order to show off to others (particularly men who want to be seen as desirable mates). Moreover, an astonishing number of people will actually want to work because they will want to do something useful for, and be valued by, society.
Finally, I never said that the “corporatist” economic structure was a necessity, and I balk at that descriptor given its oodles of unsavory connotations.
I was being cuter than I needed to be with the 2008 jibe, so thank you for being patient with me regardless. My point: an economy that meets your ostensible criteria (one in which “what has been earned” is distributed “through some combination of hard work, skill and talent”) very nearly “collaps[ed] under the weight of its own corruption” between 2007 and 2008. The reason is that “hard work” and “skill” are not self-evident.
I don’t find these concepts troubling, PC, though they may be a challenge to measure in different contexts. My point was simply this: If I make 5 widgets, and you make 3, I deserve to get more back from society than you. Maybe I don’t deserve to get 40% more, but I certainly deserve to get more.
To elaborate on what I meant by hard work being a troublesome concept: what constitutes “hard work”? In an office environment, is the “hard worker” the one who stays later (no matter how little they get done) or the one who produces more reports (no matter their quality)? On an assembly line, is the “hard worker” the one who generates the highest quantity of finished parts or the highest quality? If the latter, how is quality judged?
To use your example: how did you produce 5 widgets to my 3? Am I a goof-off who chats with his neighbors instead of keeping my nose to the grindstone? Did you produce 5 mediocre widgets to my 3 artisanal gems? Did you go to a trade school that was unavailable to me? Each of those results in a different answer to the question of who “deserves” what.
As soon as we start thinking about real people in a real environment, instead of abstract examples, we can not escape questions of privilege. We may think that a pure meritocracy will quarantine us from these differences, but meritocracy just means rule by those who define “merit.”
PC, I adamantly disagree with your premise here:
The economy nearly collapsed because wealth was not being distributed according to work, skill and talent, but because wealth was being concentrated through political corruption, gaming the system, and exploitation. I should probably add here that the original assertion — that the 5 widget maker deserves more than the 3 widget maker — is based on the presumption that the widgets in question have actual (and roughly equal) social utility.
The rest of your question would require an extensive treatise on market economy basics; additional explorations of how price incorporates use value, exchange value, and status value; and doubtless a great deal more.
[Double posting because of the formatting error in the first version. Freddie, if you could delete the original I’d be much obliged. —ballgame]
PC, I adamantly disagree with your premise here:
The economy nearly collapsed because wealth was not being distributed according to work, skill and talent, but because wealth was being concentrated through political corruption, gaming the system, and exploitation. I should probably add here that the original assertion — that the 5 widget maker deserves more than the 3 widget maker — is based on the presumption that the widgets in question have actual (and roughly equal) social utility.
The rest of your question would require an extensive treatise on market economy basics; additional explorations of how price incorporates use value, exchange value, and status value; and doubtless a great deal more.
No, it doesn’t, actually. That’s exactly my point.
I certainly believe in the fair distribution of economic opportunities (including education and training), but my basic point stands: if Pat produces 5 widgets, and Dylan produces 3, Pat deserves to get more than Dylan. How much more can be argued, and remember I stipulated that both Pat and Dylan deserve the basics: food, shelter, education, health care, etc. But beyond that, Pat did more for society. Pat deserves a greater reward. Period.
Just because we can’t formulate perfect mathematical formulae with which to evaluate all of the hidden factors which may have gone into Pat’s superior productivity doesn’t negate this basic fact. We can’t really formulate the perfect mathematical formulae with which to attain justice, either, but we all know it’s a vital (albeit murky) concept that we’re forced to encode in specific ways (i.e. 5 years for assault, 10-15 years for manslaughter, etc.). We do this because there is AFAICT no viable alternative in a mass society.
As a socialist, I reject your claim (and Freddie’s) that this basic economic tenet — those that produce more deserve to get more — can be abandoned.
The economy nearly collapsed because wealth was not being distributed according to work, skill and talent, but because wealth was being concentrated through political corruption, gaming the system, and exploitation.
And my contention is that much of what passes for “hard work” or “skill” in a modern economy is, in fact, gaming the system and exploitation. An incentive to create an effect is, also and always, an incentive to create the appearance of an effect.
If you’re proposing a system in which genuine effort and useful skill get rewards, as opposed to the appearance of genuine effort / skill, then I find that as laudable as you do. But you’re proposing as utopian a society as (I think you think) Freddie is.
Just because we can’t formulate perfect mathematical formulae with which to evaluate all of the hidden factors which may have gone into Pat’s superior productivity doesn’t negate this basic fact.
If your point is that there’s a limit past which we can’t calculate for extraneous factors, and we have to reward people for their contributions from that limit forward, okay. But then you’re vesting all power in the people who decide what that limit is.
We may be butting up against the limits of our respective paradigms, so I don’t know how much fruitful further discussion will be. But this has been good!
“And my contention is that much of what passes for “hard work” or “skill” in a modern economy is, in fact, gaming the system and exploitation.”
This is manifestly true – the last thirty years have been all about that – but we have to remember that really remunerative thievery takes a lot of skill and hard work. And that doesn’t make it any less thieving.
So how do we decide who gets what? Level of difficulty? And who decides that? Since someone already broached the Sanskrit example, here’s one of mine:
Let’s stipulate that it takes about the same level of effort -enormous and long-term – to become highly proficient at either Irish harpistry or Chinese calligraphy. Both are quite difficult, and both have centuries of tradition. Which practitioner is going to get paid more?
I think the answer is obvious. There is huge and quite wealthy market for Chinese calligraphy and a tiny market for even the very best Irish harpists. And that is what is going decide who gets paid the most, the same way someone on the level of Justin Bieber when it comes to talent and effort is going to make gigantic money. Demand. And that demand can be as tone-deaf, tasteless and clueless as it wants to be.
Nota bene: this is absolutely not the same as gaming the system – getting laws written to advantage you and then buying elections to keep them in place, building a few elite schools into gates for economic power and privilege or any of that kind of thing. What I am saying is “trust the masses” when it comes to deciding.
I don’t think Freddie’s proposal is utopian. I think it’s dystopian.
I’m not sure I understand your point here. I can’t quite get whether my basic point is registering with you or not. I’ll try one more time.
The concept of justice is an ideal that can never be perfectly realized. But that unattainable ideal provides the conceptual underpinning for our imperfect efforts to realize that ideal. People who do bad things should receive some level of punishment; people who do worse things should get more severe levels of punishment. (I am well aware of the enormous and appalling structural problems in what passes for a justice system in the US. I trust I can make my point without our being sidetracked onto those problems.)
Similarly, economically, the principle is simply: people who produce things should be rewarded; people who produce more things should get a greater reward. (“Things” here refer of course to items or services which society finds useful.) All the talk about hard work and talent is, in some sense, somewhat besides this particular point, which Freddie (and you, AFAICT) appear to be rejecting.
Someone who kills 5 people will not necessarily be punished more than someone who killed 3. It all depends on the nature of the killing, extenuating circumstances, etc.
Anyway, some degree of private property is necessary even under socialism for the sake of freedom, not because some deserve more than others. Some people want to build or modify their own home. Some people want to defer consumption today so they can consume more tomorrow, or work harder so they can have nicer things. They want their income to be dependent on their own talent and luck. An absolutely planned economy guaranteeing perfect equality (which I don’t think Freddie or anyone else is advocating) would be unjust not because it would be equal, but because it be unfree.
The intuition that the person who makes more widgets is more ‘deserving’ might result from the realization that “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”, not only produces bad incentives but also deprives people of the freedom to choose how much they produce based on how much they want to consume.
In Ursula Le Guin’s novel The Dispossessed, the anarchist philosopher Odo, spiritual founder of an impossibly successful anarchist society, has this to say about merit:
“For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think.”
Andrew Sprung, Ian Welsh said something similar. I personally find it bewildering (and a bit chilling) that this notion you, Freddie, Ian, and Ursula appear to be endorsing — which, AFAICT, is completely fallacious, economically unsustainable, and utterly without moral foundation — has such an attraction for so many otherwise astute members of the left.
None of us deserve “everything” but all of us are morally entitled to getting our basic needs met. (As we’ve seen, Freddie’s own economic plan is partially founded on the latter notion.) Murderers don’t deserve to be punished? The scientist who cures cancer won’t deserve (at a minimum) accolades?
Odo’s assertions are intellectual gibberish.
@andrew, thanks for that fantastic LeGuin quote. As resonant as I find it today, its wisdom apparently made absolutely no impression on me when I first read the book — nor when I enthusiastically RE-read it several years later. Those both happened 15+ years ago, which isn’t really THAT long ago, but it’s still a little bit disorienting to realize how much my perspective has changed in the interim.
And now I’m looking forward to re-discovering it all over again – thanks for that!
“There is no space where privilege ends and legitimate accomplishment begins. There is, instead, a world of such multivariate complexity that we can never know whose accomplishments are earned and whose aren’t.”
This is really well articulated. The same applies for any time someone uses a structural abstraction and tries to recklessly impose it on to the complexity of concrete existence – like ‘trying to fit square pegs into round holes’, as a friend put it to me the other night. Good abstractions that legitimately arise from real phenomena can be abused for the sake of particular ends, most egregiously when it comes to the issue of their application to cases of the character of individuals. Male privilege, white privilege, etc. are useful abstractions for understanding real social phenomenon, but obfuscate more than they illuminate – and really become no more than epithets used to score cheap political points at the expense of some designated enemy – at the point where they’re able to be used as a priori explanations for some disapproved of behaviour. And in concrete existence rather than the abstract world of concepts, the causes for this disapproval can be as ‘multivariate’ as the causes for the particular act that occasioned it. The most we can really say is structural factors point to certain tendencies in the way that human beings interact with one another, but a verdict must be withheld until it can be determined whether or not the concept and evidence align. But in many leftist circles these days, the invocation of social structure is accompanied by a structural determinism that obliterates this process and reduces structural analysis to a tool by which those who say the ‘wrong thing’ might be socially disciplined.