Reply to Stop calling yourself blessed when what you are is privileged

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I find “blessed” language annoying because a blessing is a gift from God. Do you really think God gave you a nice house and loving partner and good teeth, but decided NOT to give those nice things to the rest of us? No. You probably think some of it is dumb luck (the teeth) and the rest of it is a combination of your own hard work and smarts. But saying you are “blessed” seems to make people feel better about saying “I have nice things! I’m happy and grateful!” Like they aren’t bragging. But God doesn’t withhold nice houses from undeserving folk and give them to the deserving, so I don’t see your nice house as a blessing. I see it as a result of our socio-economic system that rewards some kinds of labor and doesn’t compensate others as well. I don’t think God is a capitalist.[/quote]

Winning post in my book.

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This thread is deranged. The people flipping out about being called privileged (guess what, if you are posting on DCUM on a Sunday and have access to internet and some kind of device... you're privileged!) are embarrassing themselves. If having someone call you out on your privilege, or point out that there is some uncomfortable arrogance in using a term like "blessed" to describe your material wealth or good fortune, makes you this angry, you should be asking yourself why.

I'm a privilege person and people call me out on it and while it never feels great in the moment and sometimes I'm defensive, in the end I'm always okay with it because I can see, logically, that it's true. I don't find being called privileged insulting. It helps me understand the world better and have greater empathy for others, and it helps me understand my own life better. I don't find it upsetting or like an insult. I think it's a way for people with less inherent power to balance the scales a little bit, and that can only be a good thing. I don't want to exploit people, and I don't want to live a beautiful life if it means my neighbor is suffering.

It's basically the same stuff my 4 yo learns in preschool. A lot of people in this thread are less mature than preschoolers with the fits they are having.[/quote]

So are you giving up everything so that others can have better lives?[/quote]

That's not the automatic result of admitting you're privileged. But yeah, part of being aware of privilege is being willing to say "you know what, I don't need exclusive access to this thing -- let's set up society so that anyone can have access to it."

No idea what that would be seen as a bad thing. I've always had access to quality healthcare, for instance, through good insurance that just happened to come with my life (from my parents or from good jobs that offered decent benefits). But when I learned that this is actually something that's really hard for a lot of people to access because of poverty, or because of how many employers don't offer insurance or only offer terrible insurance, or because people have gaps in employment or other issues, it seemed obvious to me that I should support a healthcare system that offers what I have to everyone else, even if it means that my healthcare might slightly decline in quality. I'm better off in a society of people with access to adequate healthcare, than in a society where I'm among an elite that has good healthcare and everyone else just has to figure it out.

These are basic things that most other democracies figured out a long time ago (sharing risk to spread rewards in order to better all of society and live in healthier, better educated, safer world) but we are weirdly resistant to, in part because we think things are better if we have them and our neighbors don't, which is a weird asocial attitude.[/quote]

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