I keep misspelling the damned word…
Privilege
It’s never something I thought I should have. I thought we all shared in this.
I had a high school counsellor tell me once I wasn’t like all the others. “You’re special.” He said. I almost puked.
I loved my teammates, my classmates. Sure, Ronnie only got in the 300’s on his SAT’s, but he could hit the goal post with a spiral from 30 yards out 4 out of five times. He had gifts I did not. We all have gifts.
But not all of us have privilege. Some have it because we give it to them.
We shouldn’t.
Then I got into college.
I got into two, Stanford and Berkeley. Yeah, I was a Californian. Come spit at me. That would be your privilege.
I did the math. With the scholarships, Stanford was cheaper. That was the wrong way to make that choice.
For I entered the world of the privileged. And I hated it.
But I did not squander my opportunity. I found a few folks of similar ilk. I learned to cook and mechanic and play volleyball. My grades sucked.
I would hitch hike home for holidays since I didn’t have a car. The driver always asked what I did. I was in college. Where? I gritted my teeth and told them “Stanford”. Things often changed in the conversation then. Did they hate me for this elite private school privilege, or did they sense my resentment? I am not sure. I still have that privilege chip on my shoulder. I don’t deserve it. Nobody does. Not even those we elect. They should be like us.
Some argue these elite colleges are the breeding grounds for this cancer of privilege.
And we, the people of this wonderful country have given this cancer our bodies. It is growing within us.
I never answered the phone, “This is Doctor Schmidt.” I didn’t think the doctor thing should be used for any special privilege.
I did not want to be addressed as “Senator”.
Sure, these are things I have done, gotten a medical degree, and gotten elected. But we are all just people, aren’t we?
I am not saying everybody’s ideas have equal merit. Some ideas are just stupid. And it is not my position of privilege that allows me to make that judgement. It is my experience, my education, my life perspective. I’m willing to listen to yours.
Just because you’re the richest man in the world, that doesn’t make you right all the time. We should be careful when we grant anybody privilege. For it is ours to grant.
Maybe the fact that I don’t feel privileged allows me to accept that I can be wrong.
Do you appreciate that you could be wrong? We should all have that humility.
That is the test we should be applying to those we elect. It is the standard we should hold ourselves to. Admitting wrongness is in fact a sign of strength.
Politicians don’t know this. Politicians spend most of their time saying one thing and meaning another.
You should embrace the humility and truth of being wrong. We all should.
For if we cannot, then I would argue, we consider ourselves privileged. That is, special, above scrutiny, beyond criticism. And that was what our founders tried to build against. They designed a government system that was so ponderous, so intricate, so broad based that the hubris, the stupidity of the privileged would come under scrutiny.
I hope we are still working that way. Back when they scribbled the Constitution onto parchment there weren’t 2 million Americans. Now we are over 300 million. Times have changed. The principles haven’t.
Privilege is power. We should not grant it without careful scrutiny.
The privileged can be wrong. We are wrong to give them a free ride. They should know our judgement of their flawed ideas.