{"id":4452,"date":"2010-10-12T11:48:40","date_gmt":"2010-10-12T11:48:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.transversalmedia.eu\/a-thought-on-language-use-vis-a-vis-privilege\/"},"modified":"2010-10-12T11:48:40","modified_gmt":"2010-10-12T11:48:40","slug":"a-thought-on-language-use-vis-a-vis-privilege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theresearchpapers.org\/archive\/a-thought-on-language-use-vis-a-vis-privilege\/","title":{"rendered":"A thought on language use vis-\u00e0-vis \u201cprivilege\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

I often think of the rhetoric used to describe people in challenging socioeconomic situations (i.e. \u201cthe poor<\/em>\u201d, \u201cthe homeless<\/em>\u201d, etc.). The one thing that always bugged me is the collective praise of those who make it and how media tells their stories. If media (say, a journalist) asks someone like Steve Jobs (or any other successful person) how he made it to the top and he answers \u201cI was lucky<\/em>\u201d, this \u201cluck\u201d is hardly ever examined. The statement that the person did indeed meet a set of \u201clucky\u201d circumstances is socially accepted. However, if media interrogates a homeless person or an addict and the person says \u201cI was\/ am unlucky<\/em>\u201d, the statement is generally met with derision, contempt, the implication being that poverty or homelessness are the result of bad choices, poor judgment, individual blame.<\/p>\n

In my previous post about my love of language and dictionaries<\/a>, I almost wrote \u201cI was lucky that my parents gave me unlimited access to books<\/em>\u201d. I think it is my responsibility to re-think my use of language in this regard. I wasn\u2019t lucky; I was privileged<\/em>. If we learn to dissociate circumstances that have been almost always portrayed as a result of \u201cluck\u201d, perhaps we can also question the noxious and generally accepted paradigm that being poor is just an act of individual responsibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I often think of the rhetoric used to describe people in challenging socioeconomic situations (i.e. \u201cthe poor\u201d, \u201cthe homeless\u201d, etc.). The one thing that always bugged me is the collective praise of those who make it and how media tells their stories. If media (say, a journalist) asks someone like Steve Jobs (or any other …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"loftocean_post_format_gallery":"","loftocean_post_format_gallery_ids":"","loftocean_post_format_gallery_urls":"","loftocean_post_format_video_id":0,"loftocean_post_format_video_url":"","loftocean_post_format_video_type":"","loftocean_post_format_video":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_type":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_url":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_id":0,"loftocean_post_format_audio":"","loftocean-featured-post":"","loftocean-like-count":0,"loftocean-view-count":1039,"loftocean_coauthors":"","alpaca_post_content_reading_setting":"","alpaca_reading_speed_per_minute":0,"alpaca_reading_speed_unit":"","alpaca_single_post_template_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1229,1678,1779],"class_list":["post-4452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-language-matters","tag-privilege","tag-rhetoric"],"yoast_head":"\nA thought on language use vis-\u00e0-vis \u201cprivilege\u201d - The Research Papers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/theresearchpapers.org\/archive\/a-thought-on-language-use-vis-a-vis-privilege\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A thought on language use vis-\u00e0-vis \u201cprivilege\u201d - The Research Papers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I often think of the rhetoric used to describe people in challenging socioeconomic situations (i.e. \u201cthe poor\u201d, \u201cthe homeless\u201d, etc.). The one thing that always bugged me is the collective praise of those who make it and how media tells their stories. 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