"I vividly recall the reaction, decades ago, when I was among the workers, projecting disdain for privileges I had the benefit of, and it was not pretty. Disdain for one's own privilege is conspicuous consumption. It's offensive."
Yes, true. But today what those privileges add up to is enormous debt and no employment.
Yes, the writing was sophomoric. How could it not be? It was a pastiche... as the writing of any college student is bound to be.
But as for the privileges, this was my favorite bit:
"In the university we prostrate ourselves before a value of separation, which in reality translates to a value of domination. We ...convince ourselves we're brighter than everyone else. Somehow, we think, we possess some trait that means we deserve more than everyone else. We have measured ourselves and we have measured others. It should never feel terrible ordering others around, right? It should never feel terrible to diagnose people as an expert, manage them as a bureaucrat, test them as a professor, extract value from them ...as a businessman. It should feel good, gratifying, completing. It is our private wet dream for the future; everywhere, in everyone this same dream of domination. After all, we are intelligent, studious, young. We worked hard to be here, we deserve this."
This was not addressed to factory workers; it was addressed to other university students, who are intimately acquainted with the promise and quicksand of privilege.
Joanna