|
We should all have privileges like not being followed around a store while shopping. We should have proportional representation in civic decision-making positions, people who look like/live like us as everything from teachers to Congress. We should all have adequate health care, access to education, and opportunities to earn a living wage doing meaningful, fulfilling work. Privileges none of us should have are those that are unsustainable to the earth--like buying so much stuff and driving gas-guzzling SUVs, or privileges that come at the direct expense of others not getting what they need or want--like getting a great apartment as a single, white professional because you're more appealing than the potential tenants who saw it before you because they had kids or were people of color or were poor or working class.
None of us should have the "privilege" of exploiting others or the earth. That means paying low wages to people, mining the earth unresponsibly, knocking down perfectly good buildings to build new ones. We all should have the option to get a good education, have housing, decent medical care, be able to provide childcare for our children and be able to get some training that would lead to decent work.
WE DO NOT come into this world entitled to anything. If we are exceptionally lucky, we are born where the sun can keep us warm, the water supply is clean, the earth can still yield crops and there are surplus trees to be cut for firewood if we need extra warmth. Everything else is a luxury. excerpted from the book ""Forgiveness and Other Acts of Love"" by Stephanie Dowrick
The notion of privilege feels to me antithetical to the hope for sustainable community, because it is so disruptive of trust. I'd suggest that an agreement to primacy of 'the common good' - or more deeply, to 'common fate' - preclude exercize of privilege. By 'common fate' I imply that no one will pursue survival at the expense of another person's survival. tom maclean
Free high quality, properly funded education, K through a first degree, or apprenticeship. Free health care. A state pension that is liveable. Age, open for discussion, 60 - 65 preferably. However, I don't consider the above to be priveleges; in a civilized society, they should be rights.
Education should be a right, not a privilege. Of course everyone deserves to live in a safe, healthy environment, go to a good school and have adequate health care. I think it's immoral for these things to be dictated by economics.
Should: Freedom from discrimination. Living wage. Affordable health care / housing / healthy food. Should not: Power to oppress others. The right to dominate or oppress others. The right to abuse others. The right to threaten home land security.
There are no privileges that we should all have, but there are rights that we are all entitled to: 1. Right to life -- no one should be hungry or homeless 2. Right to create -- all should be able to freely create without fear of economic insecurity 3. Right to knowledge -- all should be able to acquire the knowledge (education if you will) 4. Right to democratic participation -- that is participation, not representation 5. Right to speak and write -- all should be able to speak and write freely without fear of government or other institutional suppression 6. All of the rights outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Privilege means that some have while others have not. Some people must be excluded so that others may be included. The problem arises when "special status" is granted without consideration of who might MOST benefit, or who ELSE might benefit from privilege. Health care, education, etc. are basic rights. But privileges are things like revolutionary new cancer treatments and expensive private educations. Everyone should have access to these privileges (i.e. know about them, and have a chance at taking advantage of them) even if not everyone can have them. There are no privileges that no one should have, because privilege usually comes with a price tag, and there will always be people that can afford to pay the price.
I believe nobody should have the power to dominate anyone else economically, politically, or in any other way. The only privilege somebody should have should come through ""natural"" privilege; i.e., knowledge, experience, and so on. This should not be construed so as to give institutional rights to such people. Everyone should have power over the decisions that affect their own lives, in the workplace, the community, and every other part of their lives. Therefore the institutions of society should then be restructured so as to enable people to absolutely control the decisions that affect them.
Fair treatment, hiring/promotion based upon background, experience, training and merit. No hiring due to diversity quota-filling of people who know they can't be fired - EVERYONE should be fired if the cause is just; no one should be given more than equal rights.
The right to bear arms.
Read earlier survey responses:
December 2005 Survey Question:
How do class issues come up for you during the end-of-year "consumer" holidays?
November 2005 Survey Question: Please tell us about your experiences of class, class differences, and classism in your education/school.
October 2005: Tell us about a time you've either been an ally to someone or had someone be an ally to you around issues of class.
September 2005: What are the ways you see the race and class divisions exposed by Katrina?
August 2005: What class did you grow up in? What was good or bad about your class experience growing up?
July 2005: What are your strongest memories connecting race and class?
June 2005: The New York Times and Wall Street Journal each ran their own series on class. What is your response to the recent press on class?
May 2005: The good, the bad, and the ugly of cross-class relating
|
