A spate of newspaper articles and corresponding twitter storms have appeared in the last few weeks around the phrase ‘check your privilege’ (now CYP on twitter).
Basically, a white middle class person says that the state school system is just as good as the private school system, or that anyone can ‘make it’ if they work hard, or something like that, and someone from a poorer background says ‘check your privilege’, meaning '“consider how your privilege affects what you have just said or done.” (Laura Penny).
Some might say it was a very simple example of argumentum ad hominem. Well, mainly it’s me that would say that. It’s a bad argument, pure and simple. Someones background bears no relation to the truth of the argument that they are making.
As philosophers, I think we should all agree to scoff at the people who are using ‘CYP’ on Twitter. Agreed?
A rather famous Marie said “Let them eat cake”
It meant something at one point. Overused and abused it lost alot. CYP is one that will fall the same way. It holds truth but, not for all.
i’m not so sure - i don’t follow twitter and this is the first i’ve heard of the phrase “CYP” - but it seems to me it’s not an attempt at a proper argument so much as a simple reminder to the speaker to question their premises before they make an ignorant statement like “anyone can make it” (or whathaveyou).
I don’t agree at all, brevel. In fact, I’d emphasise the exact opposite. All too often you see the guy from the ghetto who “got out”, made good, and then acts all haughty, saying “I got out so that proves that anybody can”, as if his particular family situation, genes, whatever have nothing to do with anything. “Check your privilege” is one of those annoying phrases, but actually doing it is important. It’s pretty asshole-ish not to.
I would say that ‘check your privilege’ could, in a world of complete intellectual honesty, be a useful phrase. However we live in a world in which people aren’t completely intellectually honest. It does seem to be more like, ‘I’m a woman, you’re a man, therefore my opinion trumps yours’.
I agree - that’s largely what makes it annoying. It should be internalized as part of your basic attitude, rather than used as a weapon - which would be kind of asshole-ish.
Surely a better way to deal with this person would be to point out the problems with his argument, rather than discussing his personal background?
With the ‘CYP’ meme, his opinion would trump yours is you are not from the ghetto and he is. You would be told by him to CYP, if you were arguing against him. The CYP meme empowers this kind of idiot, that’s exactly the problem with it.
Generally, if you try to argue against a point by discussing the person that made the argument, that’s argumentum ad-hominem. It’s a logical fallacy if the truth of the argument they are advancing is independent of the person making the argument, e.g. if it is an argument about general society.
Equally, to argue that your position is correct simply because of your own background is an appeal to authority. In many cases, the CYP meme seems guilty of both logical fallacies simultaneously.
Circumstances matter when you can show how they matter. If, instead of saying ‘check your privilege’, someone gave a reasoned argument about why someone’s circumstances are potentially resulting in them being ignorant of certain facets of the issue, that would be fine. That would serve the entire purpose of the ‘CYP’ phrase, while being more specific and less prone to abuse. Maybe the reason people prefer ‘CYP’ over a reasoned argument about why circumstances blind people from facets of issues is laziness – it’s much easier to say ‘check your privilege’ than it is to demonstrate why someone’s privilege is making it harder for them to see something objectively.
Maybe this is just coming from a position of privilege, but I’m not interested in condescension rooted in laziness.
No, circumstances always matter. What you can’t show is exactly which circumstances were most important. Which is why it’s good practice to be cautious about judging people.
Maybe I misunderstood the OP. Isn’t the argument that you can’t say what someone else could have accomplished, based on some generic fact like they went to a certain kind of school? If so, that is unquestionably, 100% correct.
No, that was just an example of how ‘CYP’ could be used. It is basically used any time somebody makes a comment about society (e.g. about racism, about feminism, about poverty) etc, but they aren’t ‘victims’ of that thing.
For example, there was a newspaper report which referred to the Woolwhich murderers as ‘black savages’ in the spectator. A blogger (Laurie Penny) commented that black people shouldn’t rise to what she called ‘race baiting’ and should ignore the comment, rather than giving the original author what he (in her opinion) wanted (an argument over potentially racist terms, maybe just for more recognition). She was told to ‘check her privilege’, meaning that she should listen to what black people think rather than making comments from her own opinions. She immediately backed down, as most people seem to with ‘CYP’ comments. ‘CYP’ is all over Twitter at the minute.
That’s what ‘check your privilege’ means. Substituing actual arguments with an argumentum ad hominem.
I still don’t think it’s an ad hom. In the example you gave, she offered her opinion to a group of people, some of whom don’t consider her part of their group and find her response suspect for a particular reason. Whether or not I agree with them (I really don’t know, to be honest), it’s not some kind of “wrong” response. It’s pretty reasonable, especially if you put yourself in their shoes - even if this blogger’s heart was in the right place. Again, on the other hand, having this little pocket response doesn’t seem especially thoughtful - it seems more like a weapon to me. But its meaning is straightforward in essence, and is really just saying something similar to “appreciate what you have and what got you there - you aren’t inherently superior and you didn’t act from a vacuum.”
It sounds like a leftist, liberal, anti-racist slogan, check yo privilege!
Basically if you’re a white person, then you don’t have to work hard in life, and everything is given to you on a silver platter. So white people deserve to suffer.
Sure. Or, “don’t tell me not to say anything about this shit - that’s what “nice” white people used to say when they thought slavery was just fine as long as everyone was quiet and humble and Christian and got along nice and went to church together on Sunday”.
Is there something wrong with everybody getting along fine and peaceably??? Hm, didn’t know there was a problem with that.
You’re right, anon, sorry. We should have white people become the slaves, and black people the masters, to justify this great error. And not just Southern whites and blacks, but the whole human race, all over the globe.
Since all white people are to blame for Southern white slaveholders, especially Europeans like Scandinavians who hadn’t ever had any contact with black people until the 20th Century???
Her argument was that responding angrily to the comments and creating a media frenzy hurts the long term progress of the equal rights movement.
Whether you or other people agree with the argument or not is irrelevant. It is a simple fact that the life and background of the author who proposed the argument bears absolutely no relation to the truth of the argument she is making. The two things (her background, and the truth of her argument) are logically independent of each other. Whether the argument came from her, or from a black person, it would still have the same truth value. It is therefore a logical fallacy to argue that the argument is untrue because of anything to do with the authors situation. It’s an argument ad hominem. A fallacy. Pure and simple.
Strawman. Anon didn’t argue anything that implied he thought this.
Is it an international ‘make a sloppy argument’ week or something?
