a short philosophy on privilege - having, building, sharing

+ charity/donation & larger ethics of lifestyle choices

perspectives on privilege

i think the conversation on privilege must go way beyond where it often currently goes. not to blame, judge, or drown in desperation, but to make visible what actually sustains each of us in each of our contexts of possibilities and limitations in life - and how we might make better use of them, for ourselves and for the sake of all others.

by recognizing the breadth and depth of our privileges - and where we're actually not privileged at all - we can honor it and create spaces that give us more conditions to grow, meet our needs and help us deal with whatever we're going through, considering more accurately where we are when it comes to our developmental journeys.

ps: it is very important to note too that privilege can mean various different things. the way i'm using here isn't simply as "something that made your life easier". although yes, privilege often does that, it can also mean the transcendental aspect of privilege - we have an enormous, overwhelming privilege to be born in a universe filled with such abundance of love, life, value. even though it might often not feel like it.

privilege can also be something that gets in the way. even though it might help you (or your ego) in some way - provide security, comfort, etc - it can also be precisely what holds you back from living certain experiences that would lead to profound growth/transformation.

the perspectives i pose here therefore aim to consider all of these - when privilege leads to fulfillment, realization, when it doesn't, and how we might become better 1) perceivers, and then 2) stewards of the profound privilege, honor, dignity - and sacred duty - of precisely having our own unique set of privileges.

let me share a few examples.

a(n) (emerging) useful taxonomy of privilege (in the works)

level 1: acknowledging basic conditions about growing up in the context you did.

like everyone else - each with their own distinct set - growing up, i had several privileges:

1) privileges somewhat under my parents' control:

• having my own room during 95% of my childhood/teenage years
• pretty liberal parents (not dogmatic, mostly allowed me to explore my interests)
• access to electronics from an early age
• incentive and support to practice sports/develop myself athletically
• allowed time/freedom to self-educate through screens (anime, PC) and games
• lots of HQs available at home
• a lot of time alone
• education at reasonably good, standard modern private/middle class schools
• a lot of arguments and emotional trauma at home

2) privileges coming from my family:

• a grandparent's home with a huge mango tree
• 4 alive, caring grandparents

3) privileges coming from my socioeconomic class:

xxx

4) privileges coming from my race:

yyy

interestingly, we could notice many of these things are double-edged swords.

i listed them under privileges because i feel they were mostly positive for my formation. but some of them (like access to electronics for example) have had deep effects on my attention span, neuronal/reward systems, to the degree that up to today, i still don't know how much of an impact this had on my brain formation, neurological pathways, and even some influence on a possible degree of neurodiversity.

like much of the youth today, i feel that these deep attunements and attachments with/to technological systems were very ingrained in me and a source of many challenges with mental/emotional health in the process of "adulting".

yet i'm also glad i had access to it. i'd particularly add one element (the first in the list below) that also helped shift this experience (of growing up with electronics) towards the "positive" side.

5) privileges outside of my parents' control, about the time i grew up in:

• access to an early internet which wasn't so monetized/predatory
• access to cheap one-time use energy in the forms of billions of years of sun stored into hydrocarbons [z% oil & gas]
• access to cheap rebuildable energy in the form of [x% hydro, y% solar]
  — hundreds of years of western science for extraction
• access to cheap materials built on globalized supply chains externalizing harm to congo, etc
• access to X number of non-native foods

outside of the in-person social settings which were often awkward for me, i had the opportunity to engage, learn and transform by interacting with strangers behind the screens.

i remember exactly a handful moments that were transformative for me in this digital context, that had no possibility of being acted out in my physical, local, known surroundings.

6) privileges coming from the digital/electronic culture i grew up in:

• guilds that allowed me to lead, follow, explode, be banned, be held/supported and mature
• RPGs that increased my love for writing, world-building, mythology, character development and strategy
• (...)

at the same time, reflecting back, i see a lot of things i felt lacked/hindered my development as a person:

hindrances: elements that hindered my development

• parents with very low emotional maturity
• very little intellectual stimulation outside of getting good grades
• no role models growing up
• no connection to art
• not much emotional connection with anyone
• lots of small talk and conversations reflecting unprocessed attachment - at home and in culture at large
• almost no access to native foods, lands and ways of being [decrease in X% of native foods, rise of Y% in prices of native foods]

we could go on and on. the goal here isn't to become a martyr, but to evidence the learnings, the pains that come and ask to be integrated as part of our entangled lives, as part of our set of beautiful and challenging gifts we receive from intergenerational transmission.

level 2: true wealth building/privileges sharing/reparation/reciprocity game

an initial, simplified taxonomy of privilege - i.e. the conditions that allow us to grow/unfold.

ecostructure:

• physical health
• emotional health
• mental health
  • capacities training
• spiritual health
• multispecies/ecosystems health

social structure:

1st-person perspective:

• supportive family
• support network
• free time
• access to caring people
• access to caring communities
• access to diverse worldviews
• access to diverse experiences

2nd/3rd-person perspective:

• family health
• family members' development
• community health
• information ecology health
• governance system health

superstructure:

• access to wise people
• access to knowledge/information
• access to developmental opportunities
• access to inspiration
• access to wisdom lineage(s)

infrastructure:

1st-person perspective:

• available money/resources
  • inheritance
  • land
  • housing
  • safety net
• available tools/objects
• technological literacy
• access to physical beauty
• access to nature
• access to technology

2nd/3rd-person perspective:

• economic system health
• workers' health

(ps: this is a partial, initial list based on my own explorations. in the next stage, this will integrate other elements from: buckminster fuller's world game + world's resources inventory, GTDF's house of modernity's floors (north of north/south of south) & other social cartographies, COLLAPSE game, etc)

my point is: if we can actually have a kind of inventory, and get a sense of how much of these is available to each person in their own world,

1. it will already give us a lot more understanding and empathy towards them, but
2. it can tell us a lot about how might we be able to support each other, not only in terms of immediate mutual aid, philanthropy or social/climate justice, but actual deep, long-term trust-based collaboration and coordination towards the conditions for the flourishing of each particular individual, place and/or communities.

it should be noted that our objective with this isn't simply reparation for the sake of enabling the dignity of a person's life. yes to that! definitely! everyone should live in dignity.

and, we need to not only give people (or help them develop) the conditions for their flourishing, but we have to entrust people with ever-more power and resources to extend these conditions to everyone else.

i.e. we don't want to simply give people "better/dignified work conditions", if that work is still causing harm to other beings in some invisibilized part of the supply chain, or as part of an extractive system. that's unfortunately the problem with a lot of action in social change sectors.

we need to support people to grow - but to clarify what they're growing towards, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th order effects of their actions - to increase their circle of care/concern and the degree of their commitment/vows.

we need to align our actions with greater value - not just for themselves, but for all life.

a short philosophy on privilege:

1. on sharing/extending privilege

if it's obvious, easy, low (or no) cost, why not do it?

the challenge here is trust. who should we share our resources with? how are we sure they won't be "misused"? and what does "misusing" mean, for different people and contexts?
(this implies a deep discussion about power, control, rights, value & values, which we'll hold for some other time)

the sharing/extension of privilege is what a facilitator often does. they try to scaffold the group and support the individuals by bringing in tools/frameworks/resources to enable others. these are often times temporary interventions that don't go as deep as needed in terms of eco, social, super and infrastructure to affect long-term, transformational change, but it works as specific interventions here and there.

if we're to build a cooperative economy, gift economy or anything of the like, this mode of being, which entails constantly trying to enable, support other people with what's low-cost for us, should be way more of our base mode of existing/relating (and designed into our systems).

a few examples:

• sharing learnings/resources/references as open data with our (ever-expanding) trust networks
• MdC: the conductor is often lending techniques to the group, by introducing them in often times subtle, subconscious ways. they're scaffolding the group, sharing their knowledge/skill/privilege, which elevates people and allow them to express themselves on a higher/deeper level.
• language:
  • "the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible" -> sets the frame/context that unites and elevates the conversation ("what is that world constituted by?").
  • FPFV: what people/cultures/religions across time and space tend to agree on.
  • people at the opposite sides of the political spectrum agreeing on some very fundamental things:

    1. "Progressives and conservatives, when you strip away the slogans, want more or less the same things. A healthy place to raise children. The freedom to express who you are. The ability to earn a living wage doing something dignified. The means to support the people you love and to show up for your community. That’s the whole of it. That’s what nearly everyone wants. And it’s precisely what the emerging order cannot provide." — benjamin life on The Solarpunk Revolution Is Inevitable
    2. meaning alignment institute's work on agreements across the spectrum of values (see also: joe edelman on Rebuilding Society on Meaning)

2. on honoring/concentrating/distributing privilege

to the degree that each of us has:

a) one (or multiple) social class(es) that we inevitably grow up in and are born into, and
b) natural, holistic hierarchies/degrees of attainment (in different domains),

we have to consider how to best extend that - the positive impact/influence we're able to cause, as result of our whole developmental process and conditions we're embedded in - by putting it in service of the unique potential/flourishing of each being.

3. the more complicated one: on raising people's aspirations and ethical commitments/ambition

https://www.moralambition.org/

bodhicitta / bodhisattva vow

GTDF's:
settler responsibilities, climate justice & 4Rs: regeneration, reparation, restitution, redistribution.

DSS:
reconciliation, restoration, resilience, regeneration, re-enchantment

more thoughts on it:

sharing privilege -> mapping privileges, clarifying shareability (anti-rivalrous, no cost to break/extend glass ceilings -> what it takes to break ppl, de-addict them, etc)

hanzi's well-being/state framework vs high/low-intensity struggle + hedonic engineering protocols...

see more:

• GTDF's understanding privileges/positionality: https://decolonialfutures.net/locating-ourselves-in-relation-to-empire/