Privilege

One of the hot topics of the day is white privilege, with male privilege close alongside it. Having grown up with an undeniable level of privilege, I recognise the significance of both, and a few more from which I have benefitted. The net result is that I am, relatively speaking, strong (most importantly in socio-economic terms, but incidentally (though to a lesser degree) physically). By virtue of being strong I am able to help others in various ways and my natural inclination is to do so; furthermore, I have little respect for those who do not use such strength as they have to make the world a better place, including a willingness to bear reasonable burdens (at least those well within what they can bear) in order to make the world a better place for others.

How well folk do in life is substantially influenced by circumstances over which they had no control: the economic circumstances and ethnicity of the family that raised them, their assorted (other) inherited traits – most obviously race – and the relationship between these and the the socioeconomic and political circumstances in which they find themselves living. The last may be, to some degree, within their power to change – by moving elsewhere or campaigning for change – but typically there are significant costs to doing so, that limit the amount of difference they can practically realise thereby, to how well they do in life. It is an insult to those who suffer by it to deny the very significant contributions such circumstances make to folk's life outcomes. To the extent that some of us benefit from such factors, justice demands that we look for ways to help those who suffer by them; and the first and simplest step towards doing so is to recognise such benefit, in so far as we we unfairly gain thereby, and wake others up, who gain similarly or more, to the injustice from which they benefit. Those who benefit from privilege owe it to those who do not to recognise that privilege and to use their relative strength to end the systematic injustices in our society that deprive folk of control over how well their lives work out.

Things for which I am grateful

I was born into a prosperous family in a prosperous country in a time when that country could mostly rely on a peaceful future (for all that the month before I was born saw the world as close as it ever has been to nuclear armageddon). I was born a boy (and have, as is the usual consequence, grown to be a man) in a racial and ethnic group that is taken as the norm in that country and which is widely treated relatively well even in countries where it is far from the norm; and the nation-state within which that country is dominant is (by the standards of comparable-sized nations with comparable-sized economies) relatively influential in the world. The combination of my genetics (most of my adult male relatives are over 1.8 metres tall and physically robust) and being well fed while growing up have lead to me being relatively tall (close to 1.9 metres) and tolerably (physically) strong. Growing up after my civilisation had learned enough about biology to make medical practice mostly competent, in a nation that provided (mostly for free) an excellent health service (the UK's NHS) left me in general good health, reinforced by a regime of physical exercise imposed on me while at school. I was raised by well-educated parents, who gave me a head-start in education and paid to send me to schools they believed would serve me better than those provided by the state (which, I believe, were respectably good by any historical standard, or when compared to other contemporary nations). They and those schools have raised me to speak a high-status dialect and accent of a language spoken around the world, the lingua franca of business and tourism.

These diverse factors, taken together, make it natural for me to trust that I can go where I will and speak my mind freely, without fear of significant harm, and that I shall have the means to survive and the support to stay healthy. Those same factors gave me a good start at learning to be articulate and enabled me to get started in a profession in which I have had ample opportunity to make the most of (and thereby reinforce) most of the foregoing advantages, particularly honing my ability to be articulate. The very existence of that profession – a software engineer, predominantly in the software as such industry, which did not exist when I was born – is a circumstance beyond my control, from which I have benefitted immensely.

Some of those benefits I enhanced or maintained by my own choice and efforts, beyond the extent to which I consider them unearned. Then again, it is all too easy to see my own contribution to how I earned them; but an honest appraisal compells me to admit that even the extent to which I have earned some of the advantages I have enjoyed in life, the advantages I had made it easier to do so.

I did my homework in my school years – to a large degree, this was compelled, so not earned; but in truth I can claim to have been more diligent than most of my peers – albeit even that owes a significant amount to their unfriendliness to me leaving me with little else to do with my time. My well-educated parents certainly encouraged and supported my studies (and it's plausible I have an inherited (so unearned) talent for the subjects I chose to study), which further limits the extent to which I can claim credit for doing my homework. I also neglected my home-work once, as a student, I ceased being compelled to it and found social contexts in which I felt welcome.
I sustained, for a good decade after schools compelled me to it, a regime of physical exercise which kept me in good shape; even now, after a few decades of mostly neglecting physical exercise, I have habits that keep me at least somewhat physically active, although I hover on the brink of obesity. (Then again, the fact that those habits were inculcated in me in my youth limits the extend to which I can claim credit for them.)
Whether or not we accept that I earned it, I did manage to find employment in the software industry, and can fairly be said to have worked diligently and thereby earned a handsomely-paid job with a humane employer in which I principally interact with folk who treat me with respect. Albeit I would have been unlikely to get my foot on the first rung of that ladder without the advantages sketched before, I can fairly claim to have earned the rest of my progress up that ladder. (All the same, my unearned advantages most likely did help along the way.)

I am grateful to my parents and teachers for the uncommonly advantageous head start they gave me in life. I do my best to make the most of what they have given me; in various (all too few and modest) ways I try to make the world a better place for others, though I do also take care to look out for my own future. I respect the folk of Norway's choice to improve the lives of most by levying taxes that take roughly a third of what my employer sets aside to keep me on the staff. It alarms me to see the obstacles others must overcome to have any chance of gaining a decent place in the world or giving their children a decent start to life. I may selfishly keep most of what I earn (after tax) for myself, but I will not deny that I owe the opportunity to earn it to the privileges I have been granted throughout my life; nor do I have any patience with those who, enjoying similar privileges, deny the advantages that confers on them. I am glad that I live in a land where most folk can look forward to a tolerably good life, if they are willing to earn it, and that the tax I pay helps to make that possible.

Unearned advantages

Some privileges in this world are conferred on folk, (by no means all, but at least) some of them at least somewhat justly, in recognition of things they have done, for the consequences of the choices they have made. For present purposes, I leave those aside; some of them (like banks giving a higher interest rates to, and imposing fewer transaction charges on, those who have more money) at least reinforce injustices arising from other causes (and I would call many of them, including the example just given, unjust in their own right); but I leave that for another day or another author. I am here concerned with privileges that one gains due to circumstances outside one's control, including existing injustices in society and the economy that confer advantage (or spare one disadvantages) for circumstances that cannot fairly be called earned.

Of course, those who wish to justify their privileges widen the meaning of earn to include more, but I do not consider an advantage earned unless it arose from a meaningful choice the beneficiary of it made and went out of their way to put into effort; nor do I consider any disadvantage earned (or deserved) when it is suffered by someone who had no better choice meaningfully open to them than the one they did make. Those are, furthermore, lower bound constraints: I do tie the extent to which consequences of a choice can be said to be earned to the extent to which the choice was meaningful and its supposed alternatives were meaningfully accessible. Chosing to do what one's circumstances largely compel or strongly encourage is far less meaningful than making a choice to depart from such norms, for example; likewise, the more daunting obstacles a person must overcome, to have any hope of benefiting from a choice, the less meaningfully available that choice is.

One of the pernicious effects of privilege is that it is often invisible to those who have it. Privilege removes obstacles to choices, that those without privilege must overcome; those choices may thus be meaningfully available only to those with privilege; and it is hard to see an obstacle that was not there for you. Likewise, the path of least resistance for those with privilege, the path they are encouraged to pursue by all around them, the path they'll follow without meaningfully chosing to do so, is all too often a path those without privilege are steered away from, that they must fight to even be allowed to attempt. For example, If you can persuade a bank to lend you the funds to pursue some project that shall better your life, it is all too easy to forget that the bank's willingness to lend to you may depend on things they never mentioned in the course of your discussions with them. None the less, many others live with the practical knowledge that the bank would not even begin such discussions with them, all too often for reasons the bank would likewise take care not to mention out loud.

I allow that there is surely scope for differences in how strict one is in allowing whether any given advantage or disadvantate may fairly be said to be earned, but I have no time for claims that what one is born with is ever earned. I allow that parents have the right to do the best they can by their children (within the same limits as are generally recognised on their pursuit of their own interests), but I consider that the children of those for whom that best is better do thereby gain a privilege, that the child has not earned (though their parent may have). So, as a child of privilege (sketched, incompletely, above), I shall examine various privileges from which I have personally benefitted and which I do not claim to have (entirely) earned.

Paleface

There is something pernicious about the fact that I can be described as white – the colour of my skin, were it anything but skin, would be described as a (slightly blotchy) pale brown, with pinkish overtones, particularly on the paler parts – and yet, there it is, I am so described. Behind that description lurk connocations of purity, virtue, cleanliness and general goodness that are associated with the colour white, for reasons that might make a whole topic of discussion all their own, even without the racist associations arising from this use of white to describe pale brown, with pinkish overtones, when it happens to be the colour of skin.

I am also – and this is really a significant part of what's meant by white in this context, though folk tend to be shy of mentioning it – of overwhelmingly caucasian descent. I have tolerably good grounds to suppose an ancestor, in my mother's patrilineal line, back in the 1300s or possibly earlier, was a Jewish convert to Christianity; I probably have other ancestors of other races, too, but my knowledge of my ancestry (though, thanks to one great-uncle's research into his patrilineage, it reaches further back than most can answer to) is fairly sparse. In any case, I fit easily into the range of skull-shapes and skin pigmentations that is described as caucasian. I am quite sure plenty of my ancestors crossed into England from Scandinavia or Germany.

It is notable that folk with essentially the same skin-colour as mine, but different head-shapes, are (or have been) described as yellow or red-skins, both equally as inaccurate as calling me white. Furthermore, some parts of the world distinguish among the white folk, treating hispanic as a separate race despite the lack of any material difference in physiognomy or skin colour. Likewise, the differences between the folk characterised as semitic and pale-skinned caucasians would hardly be noticed, if it were not for the folk who so distinguish them bending over backwards (and typically looking at things other than the body) to do so. Those who favour folk for being white go to great lengths to invent fine distinctions, that are mostly in the eye of the beholder, to limit that classification to the folk they want to limit it to.

That I am a pale-skinned caucasian is neither a bad thing nor a good thing; it is just a happenstance of my ancestry, which I would sooner have the world around me ignore, if only it would; and yet it is one which I know has made a significant difference to the shape of my life. It is hard to point to how it made a difference, because the way that it made a difference has predominantly been by the lack of obstacles I would have had to overcome, were my skull shape perceptibly different or my skin colour appreciably darker. Things that might have been denied to someone of a different race came to me without effort, without the obstacles they would have faced being visible to me, much less something I needed to overcome. It's hard to point to any one advantage I have enjoyed by virtue of being white, given how much the advantages below have contributed, but I see quite plainly that this world does discriminate in my favour, without even thinking about it, and indeed I have participated in a study which showed me that I, too, am susceptible to unconscious biasses in favour of white folk.

Black lives matter as much as mine, yet mine is far better protected. The world needs to wake up and pay more attention, to the fact that black lives matter, than to the fact that mine matters – because the fact that mine matters is already pretty well taken care of and the same quite plainly is not true – as it should be – of the fact that black lives matter. If a business's diverse divisions – design, production, marketing, sales and whatever else it may have – were working just fine, except for one of them, the CEO would demand a focus on sorting out the problem with that one; if some mealy-mouthed underling piped up to say that all departments matter, he'd get short shrift from any sane CEO. Just as the managers who have made the other divisions work will steer the efforts to fix the broken division away from damaging that success, so can we safely trust that the institutional habits that protect most folks' lives will steer our efforts to reduce the black death-toll away from putting other folks' lives at risk. So the thing to focus on, the thing we need to fix because neglect of it has been institutionalized for so long, is that Black Lives Matter.

Man

I was born with some lumpy bits between my legs and declared, on that basis, to be a boy, thereby distinguishing me from girls. This has made a significant difference, to how the world treats me, ever since. I don't mean the (really quite limited) differences that the biological fact necessarily implies; this is about differences in how the world has chosen to treat me, where it could treat me the way it treats women or (better in most cases) it could treat women the way it treats me. I describe elsewhere how differently girls and boys are treated, and how that feeds into how men and women are paid differently. I do not have concrete statistics on how well women who do comparable work to mine for comparable employers are paid, but the established statistics show men generally being paid better than women, for equally valuable work, and men finding it easier to get recruited into jobs than women, with equal talent and qualifications. That is an economic privilege, that I most likely do benefit from; and there are so many other ways that being a man plays to my advantage.

When I go out into the world, I go without fear of being raped. That owes a fair bit to some of the other headings below (then again, being a man reinforces them, too), but crucially far fewer men than women get raped and the consequences for me, though still terrible, would not include potentially getting pregnant. A close companion to that is that, if I were raped and reported this to the police, I am fairly confident (perhaps misguidedly) that it would not simply be assumed that it was somehow my fault, or that I maybe lead the rapist on or consented and then changed my mind or any of the other appalling assumptions that women commonly face when reporting rape. Being able to go out without fear has an immense impact on one's life, that I only know partially and indirectly, because I have never lived with that fear. It remains pretty obvious, though, that the risk of rape does constrain women's freedom.

While my physical size and strength apear below as a separate topic, and the distributions of height and strength among men and women overlap significantly, statistically men tend to be bigger and stronger than women; some women are bigger and stronger than some men, but most men are bigger and stronger than most women. That's one of the factors in why women are more often raped than men, but it also makes any other form of threat a man may pose to a woman more significant. This has complex implications for the way society works and how men and women interact; but it's an ever-present factor at the foundation of the various ways that men wield power over women, however unwittingly that power may be wielded or unaware men may be of the violence inherent in the system that lets us wield that power.

Our upbringing burdens girls (and thus women) with more expectations, that impose more burdensome restrictions, while teaching boys (and thus men) that we can get away with failing to live up to such expectations or with ignoring restrictions. The legacy of our upgringing makes some behaviours come more readily, that influence (both directly and indirectly) how successful we are at getting what we want and how dependent we feel on getting permission from others. The power-structures of our govenments and businesses tend to grant positions of power more readilly to men than to women, even when of equal competence to wield that power – and all too often gives power to men who wield it clumsily, where there are surely women who could wield it with skill and grace to advance the common good.

English

I'm English. A remarkable diversity of folk have treated me well simply because of that. I remain mildly perplexed whenever that happens (given that I know a little of our colonial past), but I have seen it happen enough times to be quite sure it's real. Being posh, educated and prosperous has surely contributed to that (see below), as has my fluency in a language that many want an opportunity to practice, but the simple fact of being English has had me treated more kindly, politely and amiably than I would be inclined to expect, given how folk from other lands (even the USA) are treated. To be sure, I also know of contexts where being English is not such a blessing, where folk hold grudges due to (very real) historical wrongs; but I have either managed to avoid those places or been spared for one reason or another. I do, after all, have several other privileges protecting me, that might overcome the rare case of one working against me.

In some cases this has been because the UK government still retains a reach and prestige in the world out of proportion to the present size and practical power of the country or its economy. When travelling in Jordan, our guide had occasion to visit the police, to tell his side in a dispute with his father; he asked me to go with him, which I naïvely did thinking he just needed the reassurance of company. Later I understood that his reason was far more practical: my presence significantly reduced the risk that they would simply beat him up and stuff him in a cell until (if ever) they felt like letting him out, without listening to a word he might say. He knew that they knew that: if I witnessed something bad happening to him and reported it to relevant authorities, there was far more likelihood that I would be listened to than that he would (if he ever got out of the cell to tell his tale), and that: if any ill befell me, there was a very real possibility of UK diplomats, with funds for lawyers and contacts in the press and in their own government, taking a lively interest in my case. I unwittingly wielded a power that protects me from all manner of perils (whether or not I notice them), simply by existing, hovering over me as it were; those restrained by it are far more aware of it than I am. Everyone should live free of those perils – yet, in a world where most do not, it is a privilege to have what all should have.

That I am English is also evidenced in my name – a forename shared with eight past kings of England, a surname taken from a village in Lincolnshire – and this, too, brings me advantages. When bureaucracies, from tax authorities to the recruitment processes of potential employers, get an application from me, they already have some preconceived notions (usually in my favour) by virtue of that name – where someone with a less English name does not (even if they were born and raised in England, just as I was, by families just as prosperous as mine, at schools as fancy as mine, and so on) – that tend to mean the bureaucracy trusts what I've claimed on their form and gives me what I wanted more readily.

Posh

My dialect and, particularly, accent are (with just cause) associated in the common mind with the rich and the powerful within England. While there are significant differences in what we chose to say, I gather Jacob Reese-Mogg and I sound very much alike, to at least some of my colleagues. While I do not delight in that similarity, and disapprove of anyone favouring those who speak one accent or dialect over those who speak another, I am compelled to accept the plain truth that I have received preferrential, even deferrential, treatment on account of mine. I did not go out of my way to acquire it: it is just what I picked up from my educated parents and my fellow-pupils at the posh school they sent me to and, to some degree, fellow-students in Cambridge.

In much of the world, the way I speak English is recognised as being English (although USAish speakers persist in misdescribing it as British). The greater part of my fellow-citizens, even specifically of England, are not so recognised: one friend from Leicestershire, visiting New York, was presumed to be Australian because they didn't recognise his accent: yet his is at least as English as mine, as are all the diverse other local dialects and accents of the nation. None the less, mine is what folk think of as English; and it is associated with high status, authority and respectability.

Those associations bring with them privileges. If people think you are rich, or have powerful connections, they treat you better. Maybe it is just in little ways, but they treat you with more respect, listen to you and take care to not give you any just cause for complaint against them.

I remember, once, on a protest, being manhandled over a barrier by some police officers, in the course of which my glasses fell off. When I mentioned this (a little sharply), they all rather abruptly stopped handling me roughly; they were suddenly on their best behaviour, helping me to retrieve my fallen glasses (albeit still not letting me go). I had, unwittingly, spoken in an accent they are used to obeying; I sounded like An Officer.

Another time, in my youth, approaching a pub one evening somewhat ahead of the friends we were out with, a friend and I – both barefoot, long-haired and eccentrically dressed – noticed the doorman adopt the recognisable stance of one preparing to refuse entry. We walked up to him bold as brass and said Good Evening. At the sound of our posh voices, his posture and attitude shifted; he allowed us in without challenge or objection. Neither of us thought highly of him on account of the prejudice he showed in the course of that; but we still were the beneficiaries of it.

Healthy

Although my upper respiratory tract is anomalously sensitive to fine hydrocarbon particulates (leaving it routinely inflamed, which makes it easier for infections to get in), and I am now starting to run into the early signs of old age, I have mostly enjoyed robust good (physical) health. I have also lived in jurisdictions where basic healthcare is treated as a right, so I have not had to live in fear of sickness: if I fall sick, I tell my employer, make an appointment with my doctor and take time off until the latter is satisfied I am ready to return to work, at which point I am given the needed paperwork to tell my employer how to reclaim, from the state, (most of) the cost of losing my work during my absence, while still paying me. The biological good fortune of a mostly healthy body and the institutional blessing of state health care are not things I earned: and they have been a great advantage in life.

Of course, I have also taken tolerably good care of myself, and that has contributed to my good health; so it is, at least in part, earned. None the less, my genetics and the good fortune of living with universal healthcare are not things I made happen (aside from voting to keep the latter, once it was already established): they are blessings life has kindly bestowed on me.

From what I have heard of folk in the USA who have to rely on health insurance – with its perennial propensity for finding every excuse it can to not pay – and pay inflated prices thanks to health insurers, who usually pay them, having deep pockets, it is clear that freedom from the fear of (economic ruin brought on by) ill health is a vast advantage in life. Having lived with good medical care whenever I have needed it has helped me to stay healthy and need it less often than I otherwise would. Being healthy makes it easier for me to plan ahead and less likely my plans shall be disrupted by health issues.

Tall and robust

Until my mid-teens I was quite small by comparison to my classmates. This did let me see the advantages of being larger; or, at least, the disadvantages of being smaller. In due course, however, I caught up (quite abruptly) with my heritage and grew to nearly 1.9 metres tall (6ft 2in): I was, all of a sudden, a big lad. I had also been required to engage in vigorous physical exercise throughout my time in schoo, so I was reasonably fit and size brought strength with it. Being physically large, strong and robust brings with it diverse advantages.

There are simple and innocent advantages, most obviously those that come from being able to lift and carry moderately heavy things, whether those be shopping, my luggage on a trip away from home or pieces of furniture in my home. This makes me more self-sufficient; there are so many contexts in which, were I not so strong, I would need help. There are less direct benefits, too.

The simple fact of being big mostly discourages folk from attempts to threaten or intimidate me, much less physically attack me. There are exceptions, where someone treats my size as a challenge to rise to, but those have been rare. As a result, I don't generally worry about physical violence against my person; that is a worry that clearly is an impediment in the lives of some smaller and weaker people – in particular, many women. Being mostly free of that worry has been liberating.

Of course, being pysically fit is at least partly something I earned, by getting exercise suitably; and being strong and robust depends on that. But being large and much of being strong are inherited genetically; and most of why I was fit in my youth was bestowed on my by schools that compelled me to take exercise. So the benefits of pysical vigour are not entirely unearned, but nor are they entirely earned.

Educated

Growing up in the United Kingdom in the late 1960s through early 1980s, I had a right to free education by default. That, in itself, is a privilege when compared, even then, to the vast majority of my contemporaries around the world, and indeed throughout history up to that time. In addition to that right, I had parents with a keen interest in Education, who consequently significantly contributed, in their own right, to my education. They had doubts about a revolution in teaching practice then on-going in the UK's education system and opted to pay for my siblings and I to be privately educated, rather than in the state education system that was ours by right. I cannot comment on whether their misgivings were justified, or on which system of education works better, but the paid-for schools did have more robust funding than the state schools, making it easier for them to do the best their teachers could within their system, where I must suspect teachers in the state sector had a harder time finding the funds to give their pupils a good start in life. So that paid-for education is a privilege (or, arguably, a whole slew of them) that I did not earn, for all that my parents forewent various luxuries they might have enjoyed if they had not opted to pay for it – my brothers and I were pretty much the Weasley family of our boarding school.

At the end of my time at school I won a scholarship to Trinity College Cambridge, where my education continued and I made various friends who have been central to my life ever since. Back then, the UK ensured funding for university education for all oung citizens who could persuade a university (subject, of course, to its own bugetary constraints, which limited how many students it could accept each year) to take them. The state paid tuition fees and ensured the student received an income, called the student grant, to cover living expenses while at university: if the student's parents could afford the pay that, the state required them to do so; if not the state paid it; and there was a boundary zone in which the cost was covered jointly by state and parets, in a proportion dependent on the parents' ability to afford to contribute. This meant that I found myself among students from a much wider range of backgrounds than I had endured in my school years; and I am quite certain that this broader cultural experience greatly enriched my understanding both of people and of the subjects I studied – principally algebra and theoretical physics. This also meant that I emerged from university with no debts hanging over me: compared to later cohorts of students, this may be counted a privilege, though I rather regard the debt with which they are saddled as a crime against humanity, that I was spared (and protested against government plans to commit). The lively intellectual life I found around me greatly improved my understanding of both my chosen subjects of study and the broader world around me.

That education has brought me benefits in many ways. I have already alluded to the lasting benefits of being obliged to get regular physical exercise at school: those were compounded by the ease of access, at university, to facilities to continue the habit of exercise. The qualifications I gained at school paved the way for my place at university and (along with the scholarship to university) for my first paid employment. The depth of understanding my education has given me about various subjects that interest me has also enabled me to explore those subjects (and those I have learned about through later jobs) for myself, albeit only as an amateur, which has been one of the more fulfilling uses of my time since, rendering me largely immune to boredom and safe from the temptation to waste my time on social media.

The lively discourses on a wide range of topics, that became so familiar to me as a student, have also equipped me to think critically about a wide range of subjects, understand diverse things others have sought to explain to me. While the benefits of that may not be wildly obvious, I am quite sure it has enriched my life.

Articulate

Software Engineer

Going to university in Cambridge, with its long history of scientific research, also placed me at the heart of a thriving nexus of the software industry. Many former graduates, especially those who had earned PhDs, had gone on to found software companies. While not all of these flourished, even the ones that lasted just a few years provided, thereby, employment to bright folk (mostly young) who would then go on to apply lessons learned in those jobs to later jobs. The presence of employers in the field attracted those with programming skills (or aspirations) to the area and the presence of an ample supply of programmers and other tech-enthusiasts attracted businesses to chose the area as a place to set up and seek recruits. That feed-back loop had meant, by the time I graduated, that the software industry around Cambridge was thriving, so there were jobs looking for programmers and I could program, so the biggest obstacles to me finding a job were my own limitations: I am no salesman, but job-hunting amounts to trying to sell one's services. So it was not long before a friend told me which company to apply to and I promptly had a job. Indeed, even in my time as a student, I had had a job one summer working for a local company.

Prior to that, even, I had also had a job with a company close to where I was born, on the strength of having learned the basics of computer programming while at school. I had worked five months there between school and university, then returned for two or three months between my first two years at university. This illustrates one of the main advantages I have gained from education: it got my foot in the door, as it were, and the experience I got in each job made it easier to get the next. While I may have earned much of my ascent up the ladder, I owe my ability to get my foot on the first rung to a privilege that came before; and the ease of access of the next few steps I owe to the privilege of going to one of the most prestigious universities available. But thus far I have only told you how privilege made me a programmer, not the ways in which that has brought privileges of its own.

The software industry has, in the time that I have worked within it, grown from an obscure corner of a backwater of the economy to one of the largest forces within the economy. That rapid growth has always meant that it needs new recruits: but the technical demands of the work itself limits recruitment to a minority of the population (I've seen estimates of 5% to 10%) capable of contributing usefully. (There is a perennial hope that we can make the field more accessible, to lessen the resulting shortage, but no-one has yet really cracked that problem. The latest Great Hope is that LLMs and their kin shall solve it, but I have my doubts.) As a result, the software industry has learned to accept those competent to do the work with far less concern for conforming to social norms. While, to be sure, there are parts of the industry where suits and starting work at 9am are expected, I have never had trouble finding a job in which I could not relax and be myself, surrounded by a joyous diversity of others doing likewise. Management has, for the most part, been glad of what I do and allowed me ample lee-way in chosing what to do next and how to go about it; and I have been comfortably well paid for doing it. All things considered, the software industry has given me an easy path to prosperity, with stimulating work to keep my mind working and a relaxed balance between work and life, all while treating me humanely. In a decent world, I would hope that all could enjoy such congenial employment: but the harsh reality of the world is that many folk are subjected to abusive management, resulting in a litany of various woes such as stressful working conditions, poor pay or long hours. It is a privilege to be spared those woes, when so many others are not, though it should be a human right.

The software industry is, indeed, still desperate for those who can actually do the work it needs done. That has always meant that, if I had fallen afoul of abusive management, I have always known I had the option of seeking employment elsewhere, confident in the knowledge that I would find somewhere more congenial. (Of course, the competitive pressure on employers – to be the one folk are moving to, not from, in such cases – is why it is so easy for me to find a congenial one.) Not only has this been true: I have also known it, which has enabled me to be simply trust that it is true. That, in its own right, is at least a blessing: whether it counts as a privilege depends on how much you credit me with having selectively found the jobs where it is true.

Prosperous

One other beneficial consequence of being a well-educated software engineer – and of living in countries with decent social security arrangements in the intervals between jobs, when my lack of sales skills has delayed finding the next – has been that prosperity has pretty much fallen into my lap. It may also be argued that at least the respectably good pay I've received for my work is honestly earned; and the fact that I have not simply squandered the result derives from the virtue of frugality; so the consequent prosperity is at least substantially earned, for all that diverse privileges contributed to my being in a position to begin the process of earning it. Still, in so far as privilege has contributed to how I come to be prosperous, that belongs under earlier headings as a consequence of them.

While I believe the economy can never be called just unless (at least) every youth can see a viable path towards eventual prosperity, ideally while still young enough to raise a family, it remains that I live in a world where the vast majority of folk can see, all too vividly, that they shall struggle to make ends meet until they die of failing to do so. So while it should at least be a human right to have a fair shot at it, as long as even that is a far cry from reality, actually having prosperity is a privilege (though it should not be, since anyone should be able to earn it).

In many ways, prosperity delivers the same benefits as various other blessings I count above and below. It frees me from various worries that are a permanent source of stress for many others. It empowers me to chose my own fate, to plan my future, to do what I consider right rather than merely what someone else wants and to stand up and say what I believe needs to be heard. Though I have it at least partly thanks to a lack of interest in many of the things others spend their money on, it does let me simply buy the things I do want, rather than having to scrimp, save and plan to be able to afford them. (Well, OK, aside from my flat: that I had to plan and borrow for; and moving on to another, in due course, shall need similar.)

Secure

Confident

All of the above have made it easier to be confident. Of course, that confidence may not always work out: I may one day run afoul of some situation where it misleads me. All the same, that confidence routinely makes it easier for me to do what I consider right, or to pursue an opportunity, where those with less confidence would find it harder: and this gains me advantages.

I go about life confident that malice will not derail my plans and, if it tries to, I shall be justly supported in my opposition to it. Even when malice does manage to harm me, I remain confident of my ability to escape its clutches and recover. For many others in this world, such confidence against malice is hard to come by, typically because they have experienced harm caused by malice, received no help in protecting themselves from it and been left to struggle with the consequences. Naturally those with such experiences feel obliged to remain ever vigilant against malice and ready to defend themselves, escape or mitigate the harms it causes them; all of which comes at a cost. They are obliged to be more cautious, missing opportunities I could have afforded to take, and they live with more stress than I do, quite apart from the more obvious costs they have to be ready to endure when they are bitten by malice.

I have the slack to be able to plan things so that, where misfortune derails the plan, I shall be able to recover; and, again, I am generally able to trust that folk from whom I need assistance in that recovery shall cooperate in good faith. If I present an idea to my colleagues, I am confident they shall respond to it constructively: even if they disagree with me, they shall trust I can listen to reason and engage in a dialogue to resolve the matter. If I have some criticism of management, I trust that I can voice that criticism, without fear of reprisals: rather, management shall listen, weigh my words and may even decide to heed them.

That confidence, in turn, feeds back into several of the above. The more practice I get at making the case for positions I hold, the more articulate I get; the more my colleagues teach me the error of my ways, the better I get at my job; the more my colleagues heed my advice, the more benefit I bring my employers, the more they are willing to help me prosper and the more secure I am in my position. Every plan that goes without hitch gains me benefits of one form or another: and it is considerably easier to make such plans when I can be confident of my ability to recover when one goes awry.

Again, to at least some degree, my confidence is something I have earned, by the proper exercise of my talents – including that confidence. All the same, to the extent that privilege contributed to various things above, that have made it easier to be confident, it has indirectly contributed to my confidence. Had I lived under the yoke of injustice, for example, I would have found it considerably harder to be confident.