Scrappiness one-upmanship

I'd been meaning to post on the concept of 'your privilege is showing' - what this phrase is for, who's using it, and why. Brief, sleepy hypothesis - those using this phrase are themselves doing just fine. If they're young, they  think it's square to be rich and are rag-wearing hipsters. If they're much post-college, they're meritocrats who'd like to believe themselves to be self-made, who kinda-sorta know they're not, but who feel better about themselves if they can convince themselves that their (online, often) interlocutors were born with platinum spoons in their mouths. If I believed that the phrase was being thrown at haves by have-nots, I'd be more sympathetic. However, I suspect that 99% of the time, that's not how it's being used at all.*

I was reminded to post on this by Charles Murray's article about the "New Elites." At a certain point (Britta's second comment to the post below was the catalyst), it occurred to me that the set Murray was describing was, contrary to the impressions one might have from, say, reading the piece, identifiable. The New Elites are those against whom a 'your privilege is showing' would sting. Those who'd even be in that kind of discussion in the first place. For this set, whose actual privilege (measured by $ or marketable skills) is quite variable, the shame is so great that an entire system of disclaimers exists to preempt such accusations. If you're going to complain that Whole Foods was out of your favorite goat cheese, remember to use the phrase "First World Problems." And so on.

(This does not address the other issue with privilege-talk - the overuse of the word when what's really needed is a simpler one: luck. The difference between those of us who went through an awkward phase as teens and those who did not is one of luck, not privilege, assuming the awkwardness did not lead to serious bullying. Being pretty or amazing at math - these might be 'privilege' if the comparison is someone with severe facial deformities or someone who can't add. But in day-to-day life, there's always someone better and worse off than yourself, in every arena. The word "privilege" evokes a certain magnitude of advantage, and it's appealing to connect whatever ways you feel screwed over in life to the kind of systematic edge of, say, a rich person over a poor one, a WASP over a visible minority.)

*To give an off-line example - I have met many people who've presented themselves as having hardscrabble backgrounds, to the point where I was starting to think that being a doctor's daughter from Manhattan was basically a capital offense... only to either see their homes or find out their parents' professions and realize that, wait a moment, this person is in fact from a more privileged background than I am. People I've met from significantly less privileged ones tend not to advertise this fact in casual conversation.

The difference online is that socioeconomic privilege is seemingly easier to hide, what with pseudonyms and the unlikelihood that anyone will end up visiting anyone else's family manse in Brooklyn Heights. This is why privilege-talk online tends to manifest itself as witch-hunts - someone will mention having eaten arugula as a toddler and whoosh, they've revealed their ignorance of food deserts, their ignorance of everything outside their posh bubble, they probably don't even know that 99% of Americans haven't even heard of lettuce, they're so sheltered. And so on. The thing is, I'm not convinced privilege-talk makes the privileged any less sheltered - it just necessitates disclaimers.