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V_V comments on Open Thread, April 27-May 4, 2014 - Less Wrong
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To the extent that privilege claims are about ignorance, I think they're likely to have a point. To the extent that they're a claim that some people are guaranteed to be wrong, they're ad hominem.
Of course it is quite possible that people from certain backgrounds may tend to be ignorant about certain facts, but then when they say something factually incorrect in a public discussion, the correct answer is to just correct their errors with evidence and plausible arguments.
Saying "you are privileged" at best adds no information and sets a hostile tone, at worst, if you can't support your point with communicable evidence or plausible arguments, is an ad hominem.
As I understand it, a problem the privilege model is designed to address is people who ignorant about important difficulties, and are unwilling to listen. "Privilege" raises the temperature enough to get some people to bend. Of course, psycho-chemistry being what it is, it gets other people to become more rigid, to melt down, or to explode.
In a way that has no reason to correlate with the truth of the issue under discussion.
None of the typical reactions to "privilege" are reliably related to the truth of the matter.
That's another problem with overuse of the "priviledge" concept: the more people throw it around, the less punch it packs.