So straight white science fiction author dude John Scalzi has created a bit of a hubbub amongst straight white dudes on the interwebs with a blog post called Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is. The post, later reposted on Kotaku, is basically an attempt to talk to fellow dudes in their own language about the concept of privilege “without invoking the dreaded word ‘privilege,’ to which they react like vampires being fed a garlic tart at high noon.” (And they do.)
Scalzi’s thesis:
Dudes. Imagine life here in the US – or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world – is a massive role playing game, like World of Warcraft except appallingly mundane, where most quests involve the acquisition of money, cell phones and donuts, although not always at the same time. Let’s call it The Real World. You have installed The Real World on your computer and are about to start playing, but first you go to the settings tab to bind your keys, fiddle with your defaults, and choose the difficulty setting for the game. Got it?
Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.
This means that the default behaviors for almost all the non-player characters in the game are easier on you than they would be otherwise. The default barriers for completions of quests are lower. Your leveling-up thresholds come more quickly. You automatically gain entry to some parts of the map that others have to work for. The game is easier to play, automatically, and when you need help, by default it’s easier to get.
Scalzi should have added “cis” to “straight white male,” but otherwise I’d say that’s fairly spot-on.
Of course, as Scalzi himself points out, life for straight white (cis) dudes is not always peaches and cream. They may have any of a number of disadvantages in life that make things difficult for them. They may have been born poor, or in a war zone; they may have been abused as children or the victim of crime or violence as an adult. Or faced any number of other problems and conditions and disadvantages.
Scalzi deals with this issue a little more obliquely than he could have, noting that some people begin the grand game of “The Real World” with more points than others, and that this can make a good deal of difference.
But do straight white cis males face disadvantages stemming from being straight white cis men? I honestly can’t think of any that have affected my life in any serious way, and these small disadvantages pale in comparison to the many advantages. Yeah, I had to register for the draft when I turned 18. Of course, when I registered there was no draft, and there still isn’t one, and the draft has virtually no chance of being resurrected in the foreseeable future, so I can’t say this requirement has affected my life in any tangible way.
As Scalzi puts it:
If you start with fewer points and fewer of them in critical stat categories, or choose poorly regarding the skills you decide to level up on, then the game will still be difficult for you. But because you’re playing on the “Straight White Male” setting, gaining points and leveling up will still by default be easier, all other things being equal, than for another player using a higher difficulty setting.
Anyway, Scalzi got a lot of responses to his post, many of them from straight white dudes outraged by his assertions. So he wrote a followup taking some of these critics to task. He was particularly amused by the criticism that by “picking on” straight white males he was being racist and sexist.
This particular comment was lobbed at me primarily from aggrieved straight white males. Leaving aside entirely that the piece was neither, let me just say that I think it’s delightful that these straight white males are now engaged on issues of racism and sexism. It would be additionally delightful if they were engaged on issues of racism and sexism even when they did not feel it was being applied to them — say, for example,when it’s regarding people who historically have most often had to deal with racism and sexism (i.e., not white males). Keep at it, straight white males! You’re on the path now!
I am sure there are many gems of obtuseosity in the comments, and in the Reddit thread on his original post. But it’s Friday night, and I have a migraine — which sucks, but it’s not because I’m a straight white cis dude — so I’m going to let you guys find them for me.
EDITED TO ADD: Thinking a bit more about Scalzi’s central metaphor here, and I don’t think it completely works: he assumes that obstacles other than racism, sexism, and homophobia can be explained as the equivalent of having started the game with fewer points. But it you have, for example, a disability, that’s something that makes you life harder every day; it’s more akin to raising the difficulty level than to starting off with fewer points. (Not to mention that you’re likely to face bigotry because of it as well.) This doesn’t erase the privileges a straight white male with disabilities gets from being straight, white, and male, of course, but it does ratchet up the difficulty.
Oh gods, no more MRA anthems, they’re all SO BAD.
Cassandra — nearly, but not quite, you left out the mind boggling contradiction of how he was skeptical while already hating us. (They were even in the same comment, for extra dumbness)
“You’re a prop, nobody cares about a prop’s opinion.” — having done stage crew, this is TRUFAX — as long as the props are where they need to be, and in the appropriate number of pieces, no one cares.
super bloop is beginning to remind me of a certain flower pot that would never shatter properly though and repeatedly tried sending shards into the pit at death speeds…I’m still not sure how that show’s worst injury was in the realm of “need a band aid but I’ll be fine, and it was my own stupidity anyways”
I nominate Tom Martin to write the lyrics for The Power Of Butthurt.
What should we have done, kowtowed? (But srsly, there was nothing we could have done to “convince” you, was there?)
THE POWER OF BUTTHURT COMPELS YOU
It’d have to be techno. I’m thinking a Prodigy beat, and Tom droning out “Whooorreess”
Also, I’m loving the LOTRCHAT. But does anyone else get intimidated when zie walks into a group of people talking about something awesome that zie used to be into, but isn’t so into any more, for fear that zie will never know as much about the cool thing as anyone else / as zie used to / as zie should? Fandoms intimidate me so much.
To be fair though, everything intimidates me.
With the chorus being “where’s your (soft) chairs at”?
@CassandraSays
I say we leave the MRM should have a contest.
1985: UK top 40 charts include 3 different songs titled “The Power of Love” – Jennifer Rush’s, Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s, and Huey Lewis and The News’.
2013: UK top 40 charts include 3 different songs titled “The Power of Butthurt” – Tom Martin’s, Slumberwall’s, and Jade Michaels and The Fuck Shit Up’s crew.
VoIP — I only know so much about LoTR because I spent my Saturday rewatching the movies.
*Fuck Shit Up Crew’s
It’d be The Fuck Your Shit Up Crew’s though no?
Not that fuck shit up isn’t wtf they actually do…
I’m going to bed, goodnight all, and good luck with the troll if he returns.
*sigh* I’m getting kind of annoyed at some of the privilege denial going on in this thread. I have no words for the stupidity of the person who commented that someone could be a black trans woman and have an “easy life” if they just had money (NO NO THEY WOULDN’T, and that’s a testament to one’s privilege as a cis white hetero male to think that it would be).
So I propose a new analogy. Cars.
When you are born, you are given a car. Your car is one that represents you in its entirety. Some people get shitty little cars like the ones you see in India- it runs and it has an air conditioner but pretty much nothing else. Other people get a Ferrari. You don’t get to choose your car, and you can’t switch cars unless you’re in the top 1%, and even then, you have to keep the entire inner workings of the vehicle and can only replace the outer shell, which often ends up making you look like you own a Frankencar.
If you’re born with a 70’s model VW bug, there’s nothing in the world that’s going to turn it into a Ferrari, money or not. If you’re born with a Ferrari, you aren’t assured greatness. If you do nothing but abuse the shit out of it and it breaks down, then them’s the breaks. You were still given a Ferrari to work with, which automatically gives you a leg-up in the freeway of life.
Most people have mid level cars- your Hondas, your Toyotas- they run for a fairly long time as long as you provide basic regular maintenance, but they’ll never be glamorous or hot rods or custom made sports cars that are shown on TVs. Yet every car product out there is sold with the implication that using said products will turn your Honda into a Porche, and it’s YOUR fault if your Honda doesn’t miraculously turn into a Porche after buying and using said product.
But you don’t get to choose when your car breaks down or even becomes inoperable. You don’t get to choose how much money you’re going to end up paying just to keep your car moving or to keep it in good shape, etc. And even if you keep your 70’s VW bug working like clockwork, the chances of that VW bug getting you into a World Racing Cup is slim to none just because it’s a freaking VW bug.
Privilege isn’t just a question of what you can add to a car (bells, whistles, horns, etc). It’s a question of what your car inherently *IS* underneath it all. You can talk all you want about how money changes things, but it only levels the playing field in so much as what you can PAY to get. The underlying assumptions and prejudices about people who drive VW bugs or Ferraris won’t change just because you have more money or less to spend. The underlying popular opinion of “your kind of car owner” once you walk out the door won’t change either. And regardless of what someone wants to think about money being the ultimate equalizer, the truth of the matter is that money only gives you a veneer of civility because people want your money. No one in the service industry thinks that an asshole is charming because he has money- they endure his assholery to GET HIS MONEY. No one immediately overlooks someone’s hideous physical appearance just because they have money to spend- the money just turns into a deterrent to negative DIRECT INTERACTION, but does NOT stop or change the way that others FEEL inherently about said person’s unattractiveness.
The truth of the matter is that a lot of people seem to think that if they take their VW bug selves and place a Ferrari outer body over it that they’ve fixed the problem. The problem is that the body of a Ferrari is ill-fitting over the nuts-and bolts of a VW bug, and nothing you can do will change that fact.
The problem isn’t that gay people are “bad” for making people hate and kill them, it’s that it’s BAD for people to be so angry and homophobic that they feel COMPELLED TO KILL GAY PEOPLE. Yet this is often framed as something that gay people “do” to homophobes. You can do the same for race, sex, etc. Every time some violent asshat does something criminal towards a minority group, you always have some person clutching their pearls and going on about how they PROVOKED the criminal whose rage was so incensed by that minority person DARING to be black/female/gay/trans in public that they just HAD to beat/rape/murder that person, and that if said minority person had just “played along” with what society wanted, that the crime would not have been committed.
THAT is the problem with privilege. It’s an idea that people who are inherently a certain way are inherently deserving of less violent treatment by others simply for LOOKING A CERTAIN WAY. It’s why walking down the street as a woman puts a target on your head to CERTAIN PEOPLE because there is still a large percentage of the population who believe a woman “deserves” rape for wearing anything that shows any skin whatsoever.
When we in society tell people who should and should not be acceptable as targets for hate crimes, the people who COMMIT HATE CRIMES ARE LISTENING. If there was a widespread belief that people who wear orange get beaten, would any of us be surprised if people wearing orange were beaten on a more regular basis? If we created a worldview where blond haired people were seen as better then everyone else, would we really be surprised when tons of people started dyeing their hair blonde and were therefore treated “better”?
Privilege is a problem because those who have it can CHOOSE to remain largely ignorant of the underlying factors that go into why certain people get attacked for falling outside of what society considers “the acceptable norms”. And the bottom line is- NO ONE should be made to feel unsafe or be at higher risk of being the target of a serious crime SIMPLY FOR LOOKING A CERTAIN WAY. When you can walk through a neighborhood at night and know for sure that cops won’t stop you and possibly kill you just because you look “suspicious” that is privilege. When you know to a fairly certain degree that if someone does commit a crime against you, that chances are no one will tell you how you were “asking for it,” that’s privilege. When you can wake up in the morning and go about your daily routine in public without once thinking about how you will have to alter your appearance and behavior in order to be treated favorably by strangers who you have to interact with at the store, bank, or work, that is privilege.
Privilege isn’t something MORE that you get. It’s something LESS that you have to deal with.
Oh noes you guys, we hurt the feefees of the ass who thinks affermitive action and being able to blame the system for one’s problems are, like, totally advantages that african americans have. Now the guy who didn’t even read what anyone wrote on this topic and came in asserting things that would have been very simple to disprove based on a small amount of humility and respect for external reality isn’t going to take us seriously.
The loss of this person as an ally is truly incalculable.
I’ve noticed that whenever I hear a white, cis, heterosexual male say things like “I treat everyone fairly”- it actually often translates to mean “I will treat everyone in ways that it makes *ME* feel the most comfortable, because GOD KNOWS that I *deserve* to be comfortable at ALL TIMES and if I’m not comfortable that means there’s something wrong with THEM.”
*barf*
Well, superloops is bisexual, so in your head just imagine him saying that in English and Spanish.
OMG those who claim that women, for example, WANT to be victims. They completely overlook the huge aspect of feminism which is trying to prevent women from becoming victims. JFC.
“I’ve noticed that whenever I hear a white, cis, heterosexual male say things like “I treat everyone fairly”- it actually often translates to mean “I will treat everyone in ways that it makes *ME* feel the most comfortable, because GOD KNOWS that I *deserve* to be comfortable at ALL TIMES and if I’m not comfortable that means there’s something wrong with THEM.”
Why do people feel uncomfortable?
No, the shock was not that it happened in Europe but that members of a privileged group were killed, namely white men. Even Roméo Dallaire thinks this.
From a European perspective, I think the biggest shock about Srebrenica was that it happened in Europe at a time when such things were supposed to be decades behind us. Whereas with Rwanda and Darfur there was a general assumption (whether conscious or otherwise) that it’s the kind of thing that just happens in Africa and there’s nothing we can do about it.
“No, the shock was not that it happened in Europe but that members of a privileged group were killed, namely white men. Even Roméo Dallaire thinks this.”
Historically ,Aren’t Privileged white men the first to be killed when things go pear shaped?
The reason that Europe was so shocked was because a lot of people couldn’t wrap their heads around the concept that in a conflict between Christians and Muslims, the Muslims might not be the bad guys. It took a shamefully long time for the rest of Europe to acknowledge what was being done to the Bosnian Muslims, and it was because of religious prejudice.
>>Historically ,Aren’t Privileged white men the first to be killed when things go pear shaped?
Usually for the same reasons that nobility or whatever current oppressive ruling class are the first to get their heads chopped off.
You know guys, I think you’re being too harsh on that one. *Obviously*, in the alternate universe in which gay ‘transvestite’ black women get rich and access to good education and health care, then life would be a breeze, since that would be some universe in which there is no longer racism, homophobia and misogyny.
We have racism, homophobia and misogyny, because straight males in whatever society are the ‘norm’ ?
Why is this?