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Comment by dopamean | Hacker News Reader

What do you mean by saying that it is hilarious? My come from a family that has multiple homes, mostly for vacationing purposes, and it's a nice thing. Sure you have to have some amount of privilege to afford it but I'm not sure what's funny about it.

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The parent commenter finds it hilarious because, in their words, "land shouldn't be owned by anyone." Your family owning multiple plots of land is diametrically opposed to that world view. I foresee a very unproductive ideological argument about capitalism and property rights ensuing.

Definitions matter too. "Privilege" has lost much of its meaning [0] if "living in multiple places" is acceptable criteria.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege_(social_inequality)

Why link to the Wikipedia page and not to an actual definition?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/privilege

  Why link to the Wikipedia page and not to an actual definition?

Your claim is provably false.

The Wikipedia entry offers "an actual definition." Also, the Wikipedia entry is based on numerous references and published literature supporting the definition.

That's not the definition of the word. It's a description of the word's use as a term of art in a very specific sociological and political theory which its adherents would like very much for everyone to assume is the only one which correctly describes reality.

You don't consider yourself privileged?

Did you even read the comment you're replying to?

many people with lots of privileges to not see themselves as privileged, simply because they know nothing else.

> simply because they know nothing else.

So lemme get this straight, if my ancestors worked hard to provide for their families and I, down the line, inherit some land or money I should feel bad about this? Why?

That's a false dichotomy; you can recognize that you're privileged without simultaneously feeling bad about it.

Except all rhetoric I see involving privilege is ultimately about me having to keep my mouth shut about real issues or concede benefit to another, all because I'm a white guy. In fact I didn't inherit wealth or any "privilege", but I'm meant to feel as though I did something wrong by virtue of my skin color. You may not say "feel bad" but the type to use that word sure are.

> if my ancestors worked hard to provide for their families and I, down the line, inherit some land or money I should feel bad about this? Why?

You don't have to feel BAD about it; just recognize it. People inherit vastly different conditions by sheer accident of birth.

So what is the point? I have "privilege", now what?

Now you're supposed to feel bad about it, because the word connotes injustice by virtue of denoting a concept of "private law" - one rule for me, another for thee. But people who want you to feel bad about it don't want to be seen to be saying they want that, so they ignore the denotation and the connotation in their rhetoric, whose every deployment demonstrates further that it is enormously unhelpful toward its stated purpose, but which persists nonetheless. One wonders why.

why so defensive about being privileged? it almost illustrates the concept for us... you claim to be privileged but also claim to not understand how it might make you different.

I am not one of those people. I said nothing to suggest that I might be either.

> "Sure you have to have some amount of privilege to afford it"

Uh, don't you know that money is evil and being rich is (like, uh, basically) a crime? REPENT CAPITALIST SCUM /s

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