![]() And so you’re signalling your virtue by accusing people of privilege in that way. ![]() Well, if you constantly speak about people in that way, you are signalling your own virtue by indicating that you are alert to the privilege that people enjoy, with the implication, of course, that all of the privilege they enjoy is unearned-even if these privileges that you’re speaking about are, in fact, earned, or earned by people who have worked hard, people who have spent many years in educational institutions to get where they are. What’s the connection between that and virtue? ![]() Not all white people have the same backgrounds and experiences, and to think of white people in this sort of indiscriminate way and to invoke the term “privilege” to talk about what they enjoy is to be completely misleading about the lives of white people. Not all white people enjoy the same privileges. The problem with that, and I think it’s fairly obvious, is that not all white people are the same. So that when a person is making a comment that you don’t like, you raise your hand and you say something like, “Oh, do you realize that you’re exercising a privilege in speaking this way?”Īnd, of course, when certain epithets are attached to the word “privilege,” like “white privilege” for example, or “male privilege,” they exacerbate or intensify the charge, so that, in many cases, “white privilege” is a term that now is used to signify something that all white people enjoy in the same way, simply because it can’t be enjoyed by anyone who is not white. What’s happened is that the term “privilege” has come to be used promiscuously, so that it has become something of a noise word which is invoked to prevent conversations from heading in directions that people would rather they not go in. The advantage can be earned or unearned, but certainly there is such a thing as earned or unearned advantage. Privilege is a term that has come more and more to be sounded in the culture, and there is no question that it has a meaning we all know-that there is such a thing as privilege, which has to do with advantage. Can you explain how you think the two are connected? Your book begins by connecting the increasing focus on the concept of privilege with the idea of virtue. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed the difference between political correctness and virtue signalling, why he thinks that we are too focussed on the idea of “privilege,” and whether we are becoming more or less mature in judging works of art. In his new book, “ The Tyranny of Virtue: Identity, the Academy, and the Hunt For Political Heresies,” he reflects on “trying to square your liberal principles with your sense that people who are with you on most things-on the obligation to move the world as it is closer to the world as it should be-are increasingly suspicious of dissent.” Boyers comes to the conclusion that an unwillingness to hear non-progressive points of view, an obsessive focus on “privilege” (a term he thinks is being used indiscriminately), and an unwarranted concern about the idea of cultural appropriation are occurring across the country and posing a danger to the ideals of the academy. ![]() Robert Boyers, the editor of the literary journal Salmagundi and a professor of English at Skidmore College, fits neatly, although not reflexively, within the liberal camp. But over the past several years, especially online and in academia, a parallel conflict has been taking place between liberals and progressives. The American culture war continues apace, with increasingly high stakes, between the right and left. ![]()
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