Privelige - are we Guilty?

White Male privilege.

Here is another area in which people's minds are being messed with: the attempt is to make them ashamed – or rather to shame them in regard to things over which they have no control.

Recently (white) nurses in Australia were told by their (left wing) union that they should apologise for their “white privilege” before treating aboriginal patients.

As for “white, male, heterosexual” well that is “privilege” cubed! And if one's parents have worked hard and become well-to-do that probably makes things worse still.

For those of us old enough to remember the Cultural Revolution in China, and the news snippets and pictures that leaked out of people being shamed in “speaking bitterness” sessions and paraded with signs round their necks proclaiming in what way they failed the Communist ideal, this new campaign re-awakens those memories. Yes this is another thing out of the Marxist play-book! Yes this is another social engineering plot to pave the way to turn our liberal democracies into illiberal collectivist states.

If we value freedom; if we value justice; if we value the truth; we must fight back.

One may object “but surely privilege is not just” My answer is: “In itself it is neither just nor unjust, it merely is”.

It is the things which are in themselves unjust which we must fight, not “privilege”.

Let me illustrate: In Australia being born into a remote Aboriginal community statistically goes hand in hand with much worse child abuse, health, employment, and lifespan, than in the rest of the population. But not just “white” population. The mainstream population includes immigrants from India, China, Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia and many other places, and even Aboriginals who blended into modern culture. It is a cultural phenomenon. If one chooses to try to maintain a 40,000 year old tradition in the face of modernity then “meaning of life” problems are going to tear you apart. If you live in a close and closed community where sexual child abuse has been the norm, how do you change that behaviour. If your role was hunter-gatherer near starvation because of lack of natural resources and you now get welfare cheques and alcohol is available, how can you avoid lethargy, lack of purpose and rampant alcohol and substance abuse?

It is not that “whites” have some privilege aboriginals are denied. Indeed refugees have come to Australia with nothing and made good. It is perhaps the perennial “do-gooders” selling them the “victim-hood” lie. It is certainly lifestyle choice. It is clinging to “land” and “culture” when the world has changed. Reality, not lack of privilege is their enemy.

Of course in the 1950's to be “black” in the Southern United States definitely involved lack of equality before the Law, and lack of opportunity in many other areas. These were injustices. The whole “civil rights” campaign aimed at rectifying this.

This is what I meant when I said that it was the things that were themselves unjust which had to be tackled, not mere “privilege. Equality before the law is absolutely fundamental. Voting rights, access to education, employment and so forth.

Now to put that all in perspective. Life is not fair. We just are born with varying levels of privilege.

Forget the white male heterosexual. How about the really big ones: born in the 20^th or 21^st century. Born in a first world country. Born in a democracy.

Think about living before modern medicine. No immunisation – so you probably died in childhood. No antibiotics, no surgery – so even if you survived childhood you still died young. For women , one-in-ten died in childbirth.

Think about living before modern agriculture – always on the brink of starvation. Think about living before modern engineering – muscle and perhaps horse power was it. No “living electrically” maybe you couldn't even afford candles for night time. No central heating! Maybe no piped (or clean) water.

And this is just in good countries. Serfdom or tyranny just added to ones woes.

Even today think about third world countries. No, its not idyllic! Living in squalor, children dying of gastroenteritis, malaria, or one of the countless other unchecked diseases. Starvation. Overwork and child labour. Cruel rapacious leaders – think of the Somali warlords. Daily threat of gruesome death or abduction of children – think Sudan and parts of Nigeria.

If you want to talk about privilege: being born here and now is it!

But we had no choice in it. It was a “just is” of life. We have no attached guilt about things over which we had no control. …. BUT

Jesus said “to whom much is given, much is expected, and to whom much more is given much more is expected.”

What we do with all the privilege and opportunities life bestows on us is something for which one day we will all be judged.